Student Name
E-mail address
Mr. Filardo
English 120/ Section Number
17 September 2001
The Silence of Heroism: "A Dream of the Rood"
Displacing the expected hero, the Almighty Jesus Christ, with an unexpected one is
consciously done by an unknown poet who views heroism as not the courageous, bold
concreteness of the human but as the courageous, bold spirituality within the human. In
our history's most notable event, the spiritual heroism of the material crucifix is revealed
by a skillful poet's use of imagery and symbolism to present his divergent view. With his
paralleling and contrasting of the human and the cross and with deliberateness, the poet
liberates the thoughts and emotions of an otherwise lifeless inanimate hero--a static,
blind, and silent bulk of fallen wood--wood simply called the Rood.
The poet plays out his ideal of heroism in a dream vision. allowing himself to reveal
freely and uninhibitedly his thoughts and emotions. Choosing the most well-known story
to express his beliefs makes it difficult for the poet; he knows that the concrete image of
the conventional hero is what people associate heroism with. In order to get the reader's
attention and cause him to think twice of the consciousness of heroism (as opposed to its
physicality), the poet approaches the conventional story from a different view: he gives
thought, voice, and passion to an unconventional speaker, the unfeeling lifeless fallen
wood.
The poet emphatically praises the upright Rood, the spiritual ideal of heroism,
and is careful not to praise the concrete Christ in his (the poet's) voice but to do it through
the Rood's voice, endearing the Rood to the reader. The Rood's first sight of Christ is
expressed with the respectful praise of "'Men I saw the King of all mankind"' (3). When
the poet's dream unveils the Rood, the poet brilliantly, symbolically, and metaphorically
praises the cross--that bright "beacon ... gilded with gold." That "'Most shining of crosses
compassed with fight" (6, 5). The entry of Christ is purposefully less dramatic and
detailed in its imagery; it is the image of the wood's symbolic heroic guidance that the
poet is building up. It is only at the end of the poem, when the poet (and the Rood) are
sure that the reader understands heroism in the spiritual sense, that the poet allowsthe
heroic Christ to be glorified in the poet's sermonic speech.
The poet consistently compares the experiences of the disinclined cross with those of
Christ, revealing the sacrifice the Rood make for the hallowed hero. Christ was taken
down from the cross and buried. The cross is also taken "Down to earth. / Men hacked
and felled [it], a grievous fate' / They dug a pit and buried [it] deep"' (76-78). The Rood
does nothing to his inhuman foes, yet it is shamefully used as an instrument in the hero's
death and suffers the same fate as Christ. This device serves the poet well in molding his
reader's thoughts of the lesser Rood being equal in courage to the ultra human Christ.
The poet repeatedly parallels the human emotions of the courageous cross with those
of Christ; he reveals the human pain and emotional suffering the Rood endures at the
hands of Christ's inhuman foes, and when the foe drives the nails in Christ, the foe drives
the nails in the Rood. The lifeless cross feels the physical pain, "'With black nails
driven,'" and the intenseness of humiliation and anguish when, as stated by the Rood,
"Those sinners pierced me. . . . [and] I dared injure none; / They mocked us both; I was
wet with blood!" (49-52). The poet stresses that this great heavy, bulk of wood could fell
the enemy at any time, but it boldly endurs the pain and stands in support of the dying
Christ, thus, proving the wooden hero's strength and devotion.
The poet unrelentingly drives the images of the courage of the Rood into his reader's
mind. The Rood endures, without complaint, being "'hewed!" and "'severed,"' "'Pierced!"
and bound, "'hacked"' and "Telled,"' and "'buried ... deep... (31, 32, 550, 77, 78).
Humiliated, it allows the foe to use it as "'a gallows" and to be "'mocked!" and
"'bespattered with blood7" (33, 52, 65). Through all, it bravely "'stood fast.."' "Upraised,`
and "held the high King;` and it "'dared not bow,"' "'nor break,'" "'nor bend to earth,'"
except to "'meek[ly]'" relinquish the body "'to the hands of men"' (40, 47, 48, 49, 38, 46,
62, 63). The poet's persuasive, alliterative imagery reveals that the non-human cross
suffers as deeply as the all human Christ does as it "'trembled in terror" and "'stood /
sorrowfull:y weeping"' (45, 74).
The arduous task of giving consciousness to the wood trapped in a non-human frame,
giving passion to the cross tortured by inhuman foes, and giving life to the Rood
sacrificed for its all human superior is overcome by an unknown poet whose skill and
awareness liberate the deeper meaning of heroism--the frame Christ mounted to suffer his
pain, the support Christ needed to endure his fate, the courage Christ possessed to be a
hero. Heroism--this mere bulk of fallen wood--is neither static, nor blind, nor silent. It is
the deep and underlying meaning of all heroes.