1. George Philip Krapp, ed. The Vercelli Book (New York, 1932). All
citations are from Krapp; except where noted, all translations are the author's.
2. Allen J. Frantzen, "Writing the Unreadable Beowulf: 'Writan' and
'Forwritan,' The Pen and the Sword," Exemplaria 3.2 (1991), 327-57. I am
indebted to Frantzen for this apropos reading of "endestæf," p. 346.
3. Though I certainly find it significant that the poet utilizes "writan" and "awriten"
in a parallel manner in order to emphasize the diametrically opposed ends of these two writing
practices, it may also be significant (in the context of my discussion of "sceoran" below) that a
primary meaning of both forms is to inscribe, carve or cut. See Frantzen's discussion of the
"sylleptical" nature of "writan" and "forwritan" in "Writing the Unreadable Beowulf," p.
333, and my discussion of syllepsis below. See also Lerer's discussion of the implication of
incision (specifically runic) of "writan" in Seth Lerer, Literacy and Power in Anglo-Saxon
Literature (Lincoln, Neb., 1991), pp. 142, 167, 232, and 234.
4. Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 17: " . . . runes stand for all forms of an
alien or ancient form of communication." See also p. 54: "Whether it be through rune ond
rimcræft or through drycræftum and scingelacum, magic practice or the credence in its
spells are associated with the antitypes of Christian heroism."
5. Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 53: "From its initial presentation of
Matthew as the writer of the Gospel, Andreas shapes its heroes and its villains through the kinds
of literacy they practice."
6. Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 53.
7. All statistical and textual references to appearances of terms in the Old English
Corpus are from A Microfiche Concordance to Old English, ed. Antonette DiPaolo Healy
and Richard L. Venezky (Toronto, 1985).
8. The form "sceoran" is only attested to in this single instance, so we must look to
other forms of the verb for information. "Sceran" is attested three times, always in reference to
the cutting or shaving of one's hair; "scere," however, is used at least once in regards to sheep:
"ic scere scep oððe hors" (ÆGram., 157.9). Further, there are several examples
under "scyran." In any case, it is clear that the primary meaning has to do with the shaving or
cutting of hair, and a secondary meaning invokes an image of the shearing of sheep. "Sceoran" in
a destructive sense seems something of an anomaly, therefore, and I do not think it is too radical
to assert that its use here might simultaneously conjure a sense of its more common meanings.
9. Shearing sheep, of course, is not the same as skinning them; in its primary sense,
however, sceran implies a shaving of hair from the skin, and I would argue that here it
evokes a sense of the shaving and scraping clean of the flesh of an animal being rendered into
parchment. Such an animal need not be a sheep, of course, but knowing that the term could be
used in reference to
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sheep and shearing serves, in this
context, to reinforce the image of Andreas as the page upon which his passion will be written.
10. See Frantzen, "Writing the Unreadable Beowulf", pp. 332-335.
11. Frantzen, "Writing the Unreadable Beowulf," p. 333: "Syllepsis is
created when a word is understood in two ways at once and when those interpretations are
opposite."
12. Frantzen, "Writing the Unreadable Beowulf," p.333.
13. See Frantzen, "Writing the Unreadable Beowulf," p. 332. See also
Frantzen's extensive notes and references concerning intertextuality and the role played by
syllepsis, pp. 330-35.
14. Carolyn Dinshaw, Chaucer's Sexual Poetics (Madison, 1989), pp. 15,
17.
15. Carolyn Dinshaw, Chaucer's Sexual Poetics, p. 4. This particular
citation resonates nicely with my discussion of the dualistic (productive/destructive) nature of
writing: the "rubbing and scraping" extends from the reduction of sheep to parchment, through
the production of parchment into text, and through Andreas's inscription within that text.
16. See Frederick M. Biggs, "The Passion of Andreas: Andreas 1398-1491,"
Studies in Philology 84.4 (1988), 413-27. Biggs discusses the passion sequence in the
poem in order to demonstrate that the poet purposefully modified his sources in order to facilitate
a typological reading of the poem; according to Biggs, "the poet preserves the narrative sequence
of the legend Andreas endures three days of torture, witnesses a miracle, and is restored to
bodily health before he invokes the flood that leads to the conversion of his captors but he
explicitly develops the idea, which is latent in his source, that Andreas's suffering is an imitation of
Christ's passion."
17. See Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 146. In his discussion of authorial
elaboration of the source texts in the Old English Daniel, Lerer notes that: "The poem
reworks its source to call attention to the immediacy of the prophetic utterance, and in so doing, it
illuminates the possibility of its own written poetry to vivify the presence of the prophet or the
immanence of the divine hand in the conveyance of God's word."
18. Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the
World (Oxford, 1985), p. 29. Scarry's first chapter, "The Structure of Torture: The
Conversion of Real Pain into the Fiction of Power" deals with "the world-destroying structure of
torture," while the balance of the book deals with "the creative, world-making activities of human
labor and imagination, where pain's transforming powers take a kinder shape." See David B.
Morris, "How to Read The Body in Pain," Literature and Medicine 6 (1987),
139-55, at p. 142.
19. Morris, "How to Read The Body in Pain." Once again, my use of the phrase
"unmaking of the world" (p. 141) is somewhat broader than the original application, but I feel is a
logical extension of that application in this context. Morris discusses the radical change since
1960 in the medical community's conception of the nature of pain; he is primarily interested in
what this
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change means to literary theorists, and, as his title
suggests, he uses Scarry's book as a foil.
20. For a discussion of the relationship of applied pain to political power, see
Morris, "How to Read The Body in Pain," p. 141: ". . . torture, in its structure, converts
bodily pain into disembodied, political power. The prisoner's pain, that is, serves through its
unquestionable and all-absorbing physical reality to confer a corresponding reality and objective
existence upon whatever political group or regime or state authorizes the torture."
21. In a way, then, divine pain is "perfect" due to its self-referential nature, in much
the same way that Eugene Vance suggests that Christ, as the "perfect sign," is the only sign which
refers to itself. Vance, Mervelous Signals (Lincoln, 1986), pp. x, 24.
22. Dinshaw, Chaucer's Sexual Poetics, p. 9.
23. Morris, "How to Read The Body in Pain," pp. 142-43.
24. Scarry, The Body in Pain, pp. 48-49.
25. Biggs, "The Passion of Andreas," p. 419: "The most dramatic change that the
poet has made is to have Andreas follow his acknowledged quotation of Christ's words on the
cross (1412-13) with a second quotation (1415-17) of Christ's final words: 'Pater in manus tuas
commendo spiritum meum.' None of the other versions of the legend includes this second allusion
although the idea is suggested . . . ."
26. See Biggs, "The Passion of Andreas," p. 420. The language which the poet
uses to describe the destruction of Andreas's body helps to make clear that typological
connection. As Biggs has pointed out, Andreas's lament to God on the third day of his torment
not only echoes Christ's speech on the cross, but, "moreover, in this speech, the Andreas-poet stresses the effect of the torture, the shedding of the saint's blood, rather than the means of
the torture, which differs from a crucifixion. He varies three phrases 'banhus blodfag,' 'benne
weallað,' and 'seonodolg swatige' (1405-06) that call attention to the saint's blood . . . ." By
focusing on Andreas's blood, the poet is clearly inviting comparison to the blood Christ shed on
the cross, and therefore, by extension, he is implying a parallel between Andreas and Christ.
Hence we see, in the very terms used in Andreas's description of his own bodily destruction, the
poet's inscription of Andreas's spiritual identity.
27. See Lerer, Literacy and Power, p. 195. Lerer discusses literacy as a
creative and transformative power in his conclusion; he is discussing the power of Anglo-Saxon
authors, a power which they wield by drawing on the "social practice" and "cultural mythology"
that comprise writing in Anglo-Saxon England in order to "represent the past to their readers"
through their depiction of scenes of reading and writing. In my final paragraph I am exploring
twin levels of this power, both in the literal sense of the poet's authorial emendation (the poet's
writing of the text), and in the metaphorical sense of the acts of "writing" which the poet inscribes
within the text.
