A Study of Body-and-Soul Poetry in Old and Middle English - Page

In this paper I will examine the sources for the tradition of the address of the soul to the body or the dialogue between, the two. I will consider the Old and Middle English poetic expressions of the body-and-soul legend in terms of the criticism of the ten poems which specifically belong to that tradition and the elements which constitute that genre. I will also deal with those poems written at the same time which exhibit one or more of those elements, with the body-and-soul tradition in English morality plays, with the Ars Moriendi, and with the Dance of Death. I will demonstrate that a shift occurs in the consideration of death from a concern for the soul to a preoccupation with the grotesque and gruesome aspects of death. The address and dialogue forms fall into disuse as a vehicle for theological argument concerning the responsibility for sin, and the view of death reflected by the popular pictorial representations of the Dance of Death becomes prominent.

Middle English Texts, Medieval Institute Publications

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