Immagini classiche nel Seafarer e nelle culture del Nord

• Main Author: CUCINA, Carla
• Other Authors: Cucina, Carla
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Italian; English
• Published: Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II - CAB Piattaforma SeReNa 2012
• Subjects: Anglo-Saxon poetry; Old Icelandic literature; Classical poetry; Christian allegorie; homiletic literature; Viking-Age rune-stones; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11393/74255; http://www.classiconorroena.unina.it/

This paper is the text of a lecture held on February 6th, 2009, at the Istituto Svedese di Sudi Classici in Rome, during the annual meeting of the Società Culturale Classiconorroena. A rich selection of images and topics with symbolical or allegorical implications has long been investigated within the Anglo-Saxon poetical corpus. A recent thorough study – and new edition – of the text of The Seafarer by the Author has proved that themes like sea journeying, ship and winter cold were widely spread and accepted by scopas in a metaphorical sense, mainly as Christian symbols for man’s life, Church (or Christian faith, or soul) and sin, respectively. Germanic ethos or ideals may stand in the background, of course, and sometimes they have proved indeed decisive in giving poetry that realistic power and liveliness so peculiar to the Old English tradition. But a great part of the Anglo-Saxon poetical production – written down in steady Christian times and in a monastic milieu – shows undisputable evidence of being drawn from Christian sources, ultimately from Latin patristic literature. The works of the Fathers, in their turn, filter not only the Scripture, but also classical imagery and rethorical models; so that, in the end, all these tracks are left clean and clear-cut on the Anglo-Saxon ground as well. The aim of this paper is to investigate to what extent images like the winter cold and the sea sailing ship may act as symbols also in the medieval Scandinavian tradition, i.e. in Old Icelandic literature and on Viking Age rune stones. The Author’s first concern is about ice and cold imagery, as it results in Old English and Old Icelandic poetry, down to the Swedish Renaissance tradition of Olaus Magnus’ Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus and drawing for comparison back to the poetical stock of Latin literature possibly known to litterate men in medieval England and Iceland (see § 2). Recurrent ideas and phrases result common to both Latin and Germanic authors, for instance regarding winter cold binding or closing ...