Maxims (Old English poems)
Its original date of composition is unknown, though Leonard Neidorf has recently adduced lexical, metrical, and cultural reasons to believe that the poem was first composed in either the seventh or the eighth century.
"In the man, martial warlike arts must burgeon; and the woman must excel as one cherished among her people, and be buoyant of mood, keep confidences, be open-heartedly generous with horses and with treasures..."[3] These maxims are also called gnomes.
[4] Since the material in "Maxims I" is sententious in its character, it is regarded as gnomic poetry as opposed to a collection of proverbs or merely wise sayings.
The opening section begins with a dialogue in which the writer espouses a wisdom contest found in other Old English texts.
The middle section discusses natural phenomena such as frost and the seasons, as well as containing a passage about a man's wife welcoming him home from a long journey.
For example, Henk Aertsen and Rolf Bremmer, in their Companion to Old English Poetry, state, "lack of unity characterizes these lines".
For example, Paul Cavill writes that the argument of the apparent disjointedness of the poem is important because the poet pits Christ and Fate against each other, thus illustrating the traditional nature and remains of pagan belief in the poetry.
(M. Nelson, ' "Is" and "Ought" in the Exeter Book Maxims', Southern Folklore Quarterly 45 (1981), 109-21) The poem combines observations about the world with small stories and moral statements.
These poems are part of the genre known as wisdom literature, found in many different cultures, and can also be compared to the method used by Christ by using everyday situations to explain deeper truths.
[14] The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger suggests that the form of the "Maxims" poems influenced a verse recited by the Ent Treebeard in Book III, chapter iv of The Two Towers.
First name the four, the free peoples: Eldest of all, the elf-children; Dwarf the delver, dark are his houses; Ent the earthborn, old as mountains; Man the mortal, master of horses:
