『영국민의 교회사』를 통해 본 이야기꾼으로서 비드

Abstract

While Bede’s narrative style in the Ecclesiastical History of the English People and Church reveals his personality, biases, and interests, it shows how the spiritual and the literary intersect, and how this intersection contributes to the overall effectiveness of the narrative. Bede is the accomplished storyteller, mindful of his audience, and his work can be read as a literary one, in which various narrative techniques and styles are imbedded. Caedmon’s episode is an example for a discussion of Anglo-Saxon concepts of poetic inspiration and, in particular, of the dream-vision as a trope. The characteristic pattern of Caedmon’s episode is similar to that of romance that combines the genres of comedy and tragedy for literary effect. Like the suffering and voiceless Caedmon, Edwin finds himself oppressed by literal and figurative darkness. Bede’s narrative style, requiring the audience’s subjective and critical judgment in ferreting out his intention, is also employed in Dryhthelm’s episode. It is because of the inadequacy of Dryhthelm’s faculties to comprehend and interpret his experience in the other world that his dream narrative remains an unresolved text which requires the audience’s acts of interpretation.