"Vainglory" is the title given to an
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
gnomic or homiletic poem of eighty-four lines, preserved in the
Exeter Book
The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis or Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, is a large codex of Old English poetry, believed to have been produced in the late tenth century AD. It is one of the four major manuscripts of Old Englis ...
. The precise date of composition is unknown, but the fact of its preservation in a late tenth-century manuscript gives us an approximate
terminus ante quem
''Terminus post quem'' ("limit after which", sometimes abbreviated to TPQ) and ''terminus ante quem'' ("limit before which", abbreviated to TAQ) specify the known limits of dating for events or items..
A ''terminus post quem'' is the earliest da ...
.
The poem is structured around a comparison of two basic opposites of human conduct; on the one hand, the proud man, who “is the devil's child, enwreathed in flesh” (''biþ feondes bearn / flæsce bifongen''), and, on the other hand, the virtuous man, characterised as "God’s own son" (''godes agen bearn'').
External links
Old English text ''The Labyrinth. Resources for Medieval Studies''.
''Sacred Texts - The Exeter Book''
''The Literary Encyclopedia''
Old English poems
{{poem-stub