Work

The Phoenix and the Rebirth of Old English Verse

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Patterns of shared diction link several of the longer poems that open the Exeter Book. This paper suggests that The Phoenix, long associated with the signed poems of Cynewulf, also has important links with the Guthlac-poems that appear before The Phoenix in the same manuscript. In particular, the second part of The Phoenix, when it departs from its primary Latin poetic source, seems mainly to rely on echoes from Guthlac B, while the first part of the poem, drawn primarily from Latin verse, supplements that material with shared phrasing mainly from Guthlac A, and, in its opening lines, also from Guthlac B. The association of Guthlac with Christ on the one hand and The Phoenix on the other has implications for other poems in the Exeter Book, not least Cynewulf’s Juliana and The Wanderer, both of which immediately follow The Phoenix in that manuscript.

Source: SELIM Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature

DOI: 10.17811/selim.31.2026.33-61

Author: Andy Orchard

Institution: University of Oxford

Language: English

Topic: Medieval Literature and History

Subfield: Classics

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: U.S. Department of Energy, Yale University, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, University of Cambridge, University of Exeter, University of Oxford, University of Toronto

OpenAlex ID: W7168895085

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