Power and Gender in The Dream of the Rood

From what I have read and learned in lectures, early British culture and economy were often centered on power--that is, upon maintaining it and using it to overcome all opposition and impose one's will upon those around him. The Dream of the Rood is very much concerned with power and change in the status of power figures, namely Christ, since the Rood is the cross upon which He was crucified. I noticed in my reading how much of Christ's triumph over death was framed in very gendered terms. For example, prior to his death, Christ is assigned somewhat feminine attributes associated with weakness, cowardice, passivity, etc, while after his death and resurrection he takes on much more masculine characteristics associated with bravery, power, aggression. That suggests to me that the author's concept of Christ and his goodness are clearly masculine, while the feminine qualities he apparently had at one time were traits to be overcome and conquered.

As I begin my first post, I am realizing that this project will likely lead me away from the narratives and intended messages of the texts I'll be reading. Often I will be digging into what the literature I am reading says about the authors' sensibilities and his (or her) culture's contributions to that. This is the case with my reading of "the dream of the rood," in that what I take away from it in terms of gender, has less to do with the energy of the narrative than its implications for women in early British society.


This raises all sorts of interesting questions about how God is depicted in scripture, which I see as a pretty close relative to literature, and how much of his qualities and powers and inclinations and laws are shaped by the culturally inscribed values of the people writing about him. I mean, I certainly don't think of God as aggressive or weak or passive or necessarily brave, but the author of the Dream of the Rood used the language he had inherited from his culture to describe the ideal, in God. It seems that the only reason a heavenly mother hasn't been conceptualized much in the world because it would mean that people believed women to be just as capable of power and victory as men. And that would likely mean a complete retooling of what people want victory over in the first place.