"The Dream of the Rood" is one of the most admired examples of Old English poetry and, because of its central Christian theme, it remains a poem which, for many people, still carries a message of salvation as relevant as when it was written. It is a poem of subtle structure and conception, approachable on many different levels and from many different aspects. Its genesis remains debated. Does it precede the Ruthwell Cross (which then quotes from it) or does the poem which we have gain its inspiration from the runic lines inscribed on the Cross? Its context in the Vercelli Manuscript would suggest that its natural milieu is the monastery, that its message is one of the hope of salvation for those who have committed themselves to the Cross and Christ. It has been seen as fundamentally related to and influenced by the liturgy of its day.
It is certainly deeply embedded in its own culture and this program attempts to offer some of the visual and written material which may help the reader to gain a sense of that context. So much has been written on the poem that it is pointless to attempt in an introduction of this type to offer anything that might be considered an adequate study of the poem. The interested reader is directed to the bibliography to follow up the various interpretative approaches to the poem. Attention is drawn to one or two major themes or motifs: firstly the overall structure of the poem. The poem is a dream vision (vision is surely truer than dream as a description) and the development is centred in the dreamer. The cosmic and universal pattern of salvation and judgement becomes a message of individual faith and hope of that salvation for the dreamer. The poem's ambiguous and riddle-like opening symbol to which the dreamer can only respond with a feeling of awe and sinfulness is expounded to him in such a way that the meaning of both the suffering and the glory is understood as a message of intense personal hope for him and hence for all other readers.
Although the dreamer is from one perception the "centre", from another the symbol of the cross is clearly central. For the period the Cross existed both as probably the most universal Christian symbol - one that not even the iconoclasts wished to reject - and as a real and powerful material relic. The timeline indicates known instances of relics of the true cross coming to England and the poem "Elene" which follows. "The Dream of the Rood" in The Vercelli Book tells of the finding of the true cross by the mother of the Emperor Constantine (who also experienced a vision of the triumphant cross). The cross within the poem will remind readers of real crosses which existed in their churches and brings its explanation to revitalise their symbolism. Examples have been offered in Analogues and Images of the many ways in which the symbol of the cross was used. Through its intimate relationship with Christ the poet is able to negotiate the theological and emotional minefield of the dual nature of Christ (orthodoxly two natures separate and yet indivisibly united - a paradox of the same type as the nature of the Trinity). Exploring the multiple symbolism of the cross is, perhaps, one of the most interesting approaches to the poem for the beginner.
The nature of Christ complements that of the Cross. It has been suggested that the Cross represents Christ's humanity but that is too crude a division. The Cross represents the sacrificial aspect of Christ. It is the Cross (reflecting Christ in the garden of Gethsemane) which refuses to use its power to destroy its enemies and prevent the crucifixion. It is the Cross's pain and suffering of which we are aware. Christ is not just divine but is also the heroic warrior, battling on man's behalf. It is worth looking at the nomenclature which is applied to Christ. Crâst occurs only twice, HÔlend once and se Sunu once. Most of the titles applied to Christ are those which would apply equally (or even, more normally) to God the Father. Just as the opening vision is of the triumphant cross, the "sigebeam", so one is very aware of Christ as powerful Lord and Judge.
The aristocratic culture which possibly found the interpretation of the crucifixion as Christ the heroic warrior battling Satan for mankind in tune with its social and literary norms would also no doubt respond strongly and emotionally to the concept of the Cross as Christ's retainer, forced by its master to commit the retainer's ultimate crime of betraying and killing that master. The emotional identification of the reader with the cross as "bana" has, of course, a very real point. Each reader, as a sinner, does indeed "crucify" Christ continuously. The immediacy which the vision form gives to the historical event of the crucifixion as well as the fact the the cross's speech spans the past and future of the dreamer/reader makes this emotional involvement in the guilt to the cross an integral part of the movement to salvation.
The idea that this is a disjointed poem (see, for example, Alexander's translation) is obviously not accepted here. While I would not deny that it is possible that an earlier poem existed (possibly consisting of a speech by the cross which somewhat resembled a riddle), the poem we have, I would argue, is a closely structured whole which spans the history of the world from Adam's fall to the final judgment and relates it to the movement of the individual soul from sin to the hope of salvation. The didactic conclusion is integral to the meaing of the poem, not an aesthetically less worthy addendum added to an aesthetically pleasing vision. Like the crucifixion itself, the vision becomes meaningless unless the dreamer (and the poem becomes meaningless unless the reader) is drawn to bear "in breostum" "beacna selest" for
.... ðurh ða rode sceal rice gesecan
of eorðwege aghwylc sawl
seoþe mid wealdende wunian þenceð.
Ann Squires
June 1994