The Dream of the Rood

The poem contains several figurative expressions for nouns, a literary device known as a “kenning.” Often expressed as compound words, these expressions include “the wielder’s tree” (Line 17), referring to the rood, and “the first free-born” (Line 33 a), referring to Christ. Kennings were a popular figure of speech in poetry in Old English and Old German. In “Dream of the Rood,” the kennings lend depth to the poem’s subtext, evoking multiple meanings and associations linked with an entity. For instance, “the wielder’s tree” refers not just to the rood, but also establishes its link with God, the wielder. Similarly, the “first free-born” sets up the idea of Christ as the first among the chosen, as well as a free warrior.

Personification or prosopopoeia is the central figure of speech in the poem, with the rood (an otherwise inanimate object) taking on human qualities and talking to the poem’s speaker. The personification of the rood is doubly important in the poem’s Christian context, since the cross is considered Christianity’s most important symbol. The rood suffers and rises with Christ, witnesses Christ’s agony and shares it, and stays on Earth to tell its tale. The personification of the rood is also marked by the rood’s description of its feelings: It says the events of the crucifixion seem like yesterday, with “memories yet fresh” (Line 28), and describes its bewildered emotions during the crucifixion when it “hardly dare[d] to heel or halter” (Line 45). In telling the tale of Christ’s Passion through a personified cross, the poem presents the story of Christ’s death and resurrection as though it were a first-person testimony, experienced by the rood as though it were human itself.

The poem contains some key paradoxes, in which seeming opposites are united: suffering and bliss, death and eternal life. To highlight the doctrine that suffering is an essential step toward salvation, the poet presents the rood and Christ’s agony during the Crucifixion as a means of spiritual transformation and victory. There is also a mingling of Christian and pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon influences to illuminate this paradox: While the Christian story of Christ’s passion involves his suffering and seeming defeat before he is resurrected, the tradition of Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry emphasizes the triumphant warrior. Therefore, the poet creates a narrative in which suffering itself is presented as triumph.

For instance, Christ’s journey to the rood is described as a willing race toward battle, much like that of a charging warrior. The rood says Christ “mount[s] [. . .] up merrily” (Line 38), “mounted upwards on gallows” (Line 40), and is “heightened and humiliated” (Line 40). Note that there is an inherent paradox in the image of “mounting” the rood, since in reality the punished were nailed to the supine cross, and the cross then raised. Similarly, the phrasing of “heightened and humiliated” (Line 40) emphasizes that the act of humiliation paradoxically leads to a “heightening,” or the ascension of Christ, symbolizing his ultimate victory as the savior of humanity.

In Line 149, the poet refers to the fires of purgatory and the garden of the afterlife in the same expression, again heightening the paradox that the soul must survive the trial of purgatory before being granted everlasting life. The rood itself embodies a paradox: It is both the gallows steeped in blood, and a victory tree bright with gems (See: Symbols & Motifs).