The aesthetics of time and the ideology of eternity in Old English Christian poetry

In late Anglo-Saxon monastic culture, time was not a linear experience of discrete, sequential historic moments; it was Christocentric and circular. Monastic practices such as meditation and liturgical observances allowed individual and community to connect with events and realities outside their immediate temporal setting. Many texts circulating at this time were meant to bring one to a state of mind that actualized (at least imaginatively) nearness to God and/or the possibility of salvation. Living in such an environment would influence how late Anglo-Saxon monks read vernacular poetry. I begin by placing a variety of Anglo-Saxon poems which are clearly rooted in liturgical texts, such as The Menologium and Christ I, within the context of their reader\u27s liturgical lives. Such historicization allows us to understand the rhetorical structures, theological basis, and emotive power of these poems. I then show how the liturgical orientation of these monastic readers and the experience of time it produced would have affected their readings of poems which are not so clearly based on the liturgy, such as Exodus, Judgment Day I, and The Order of the World. In the process, I touch on the genres of biblical narrative, allegory, and meditation