• Replies 23 replies
  • Subscribers 83 subscribers
  • Views 800 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

An Easter poem

TheCatWoman

I'd love it if anyone fancied reading and discussing the Anglo-Saxon poem, The Dream of the Rood.

You can find it online both in written form and a you-tube video, I'd C&P it, but as many of you know, I don't know how to do that.

But it would be lovely to share this with you and your thoughts?

  • in reply to Alice-nice-Alice

    Many Anglo-Saxon poems were meant to be chanted around a fire so they do scan differently and as you say being translated they do lose something.

    It's a shame for me that people find this poem to long and triggering, as I would loved the chance to explore some of the themes involved.

    I don't get most poetry, for me the images don't flow and I'm left with a load of words that don't mean anything.

  • in reply to Lotus

    Thanks Lotus, I was wondering about finding it, I do read a lot of poetry and am aware of some Anglo-Saxon examples and also about their myths, but I cannot enjoy poems of great length. For me the beauty of poetry, well one of its beauties, is the condensing of huge and important concepts into small amounts of words, ideally no more than one page of A5.

    Also, and just my personal experience, but anything to do with christianity is off my reading list having been emotionally and financially abused on two occasions by organised churches. One was short but of deadly insensitivity, the other was insidious and lasting a few years. C-PTSD is the consequence for me

    AnA

  • I found it - as it's a very long poem I decided not to copy & paste the text, but to copy the link instead:

    https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/159129/dream-of-the-rood-translation

    It's appropriate for Easter, but it's not my cup of tea I'm afraid, it doesn't seem to flow well - although that's maybe because it's been translated - and I'm not keen on Christian themes. But it is interesting that a poem from that long ago has survived.