Sight and sound in St Erkenwald: On theodicy and the senses.(Critical essay)

... yea, this is now believed, afterward it shall be seen. (Augustine, The City of God, XVII.17)

Bur such a vision is not of the present life. (Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs, 31.2)

For we walk by faith, and not by sight. (II Corinthians v.7)

Faith ... cometh by hearing. (Romans x.17) (1)

In the 352 lines of the Middle English St Erkenwald, there is but one lengthy example of close visual description: the eighteen lines given (lines 75-92) to the clothing and flesh of an incorrupt body found in a mysterious tomb under St Paul's Cathedral. (2) This remarkable passage stands out not only because it occupies one-twentieth of the length of a very tightly crafted poem, but especially because the poet passes by so many other likely opportunities for dwelling on the visual. We hear of grand pagan temples (lines 27-32)and Christian churches (lines 19-22), and particularly of the 'noble note' of the New Werke at St Paul's (line 38); of the 'grete prece' of high and low estate who come to see the unearthed wonder (lines 59-64, 141); of a bishop's palace (line 115) and his stately vestments (line 130); and of the great concluding procession to the sound of bells (lines 351f.). Yet the author gives no more than a passing glance to any of these potential feasts for the reader's eye. On the other hand, sounds seem to get more than their usual share of emphasis: there are (perhaps fortunately) no eighteen-line descriptions of particular noises, but the raw number of sound-words and brief descriptions of sonic phenomena will be quite striking to the reader with pricked ears. Thus the bishop's initial actions leading up to the reanimation of the mysterious corpse are described in a series of words of singing, saying, and asking, ending with a rather unexplained sigh (line 189). We are told much about the noise of the populace (e.g. line 110) and told again when they finally pipe down (lines 217-20). And the lamented himself, of course, produces a remarkable amount of sonic disturbance for one so long dead. Not only his speech is recorded, but also his sighs (lines 189, 305), his 'drery dreme' on beginning to speak (line 191), and his moaning and groaning at the dolorous part of his tale (lines 281f.).

When we add to this remarkable contrast the further detail that the only set of objects given close visual attention is derided as 'vainglorious' and suddenly obliterated at the poem's end, we may begin to suspect that there is something substantive behind the poem's treatment of sight and sound. Following the question closely will lead us, rather unexpectedly, to adjust what has become the standard theological reading of the poem, in the direction of questions of suffering, justice, and human and divine power. Caveat lector: the two themes, the opposition of sight to sound and the theological reading, are not entirely easy to disentangle. It is to be hoped that a certain oscillation between the two in what follows will prove illuminating to both rather than befuddling to all.

Sight and sound: the poem's first half