Vainglory (poem)

"Vainglory" is the title given to an Old English gnomic or homiletic poem of eighty-four lines, preserved in the Exeter Book.^[1][2] The precise date of composition is unknown, but the fact of its preservation in a late tenth-century manuscript gives us an approximate terminus ante quem.

The poem is structured around a comparison of two basic opposites of human conduct; on the one hand, the proud man, who “is the devil's child, enwreathed in flesh” (biþ feondes bearn / flæsce bifongen), and, on the other hand, the virtuous man, characterised as "God’s own son" (godes agen bearn).

References

1. Poole, Russell Gilbert (1998). Old English Wisdom Poetry. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. pp. 372–373. ISBN 978-0-85991-530-4.
2. Drout, M. (17 July 2013). Tradition and Influence in Anglo-Saxon Literature: An Evolutionary, Cognitivist Approach. Springer. pp. 151–169. ISBN 978-1-137-32460-3.

Editions

• Vainglory is edited, along with digital images of its manuscript pages, in the Old English Poetry in Facsimile Project, eds. Foys, Martin et al. (University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2019-)

External links

• Old English text, The Labyrinth. Resources for Medieval Studies.
• Sacred Texts - Vainglory, Sacred Texts - The Exeter Book
• The Literary Encyclopedia