To See, to Feel, to Believe: The Dreamer’s Transformation in The Dream of the Rood
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63313/LLCS.9202Keywords:
The Dream of the Rood, The Dreamer, Dream Vision, Spiritual TransformationAbstract
The Dream of the Rood is one of the most significant surviving works of Old English religious poetry. Through close reading, this article reinterprets the poem by shifting attention from the Cross to the Dreamer’s transformation. The Dreamer undergoes a staged process: silence and solitude establish receptivity; paradoxical visions of glory and suffering unsettle perception; and the Cross’s voice leads him from fear toward devotion and testimony. His subsequent prayer and longing express his changed belief and relation to the Cross. The article concludes that the dream-vision form represents spiritual transformation as a movement from visionary reception through devotional response to witness, clarifying the poem’s theological and literary design.
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