A meeting of minds: how the conceptualization of the mod shaped interpersonal relationships in Old English poetry.

Abstract

The surviving corpus of Old English poetry presents the mind (Old English mod) as a corporeal entity, a part of the self in and of the body. In contrast, Modern English more often conceptualizes the mind as an isolated entity—a piece of the self, tethered to the body, sometimes ephemeral, sometimes eternal, but largely insulated from the direct influence of other minds and bodies. Most modern studies of early medieval English mentality and mental states focus on the mind in isolation. Very few approaches deal with more than one mind at a time or how minds might interact with one another. This dissertation explores how the early medieval English conceptualization of the mod shaped literary depictions of the mental aspect of interpersonal relationships in Old English poetry. The corporeal mod offered opportunities for forming deep connections but also posed a danger to an individual’s interior self and, by extension, the individual’s community. I hypothesize the mod-meeting scenario to describe a cognitive process that encompasses both physical and mental interactions and is unavailable to the dualistic mind-body discourse of speakers of Modern English. Its representation in texts presents us with situations and responses that are unfamiliar to our own cognitive processes but which were intrinsic and generative in the poetry of early medieval England. Chapter One explores how the nature of the mod affects interpersonal relationships and social interactions. Chapter Two explores the tensions of the mod-meeting scenario in the Old English recasting of the foundational Christian narrative in Genesis B, where Eve provides a focal point for deeper exploration of the nature of the mod and exemplifies the positive and negative ramifications of mod-meetings. Chapter Three applies the mod-meeting framework to the interactions between an English saint and his companion servant as presented in Guthlac B to explore the intersection of Christian and vernacular psychologies and the role of the physical body in ameliorating grief.