Gerard O'Daly
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199263950
- eISBN:
- 9780191741364
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263950.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses the poem's presentation of appropriate Christian diet, moderate, avoiding the meat of quadrupeds, with meals preceded by prayer. Praise of food as the divine creator's gift is ...
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This chapter discusses the poem's presentation of appropriate Christian diet, moderate, avoiding the meat of quadrupeds, with meals preceded by prayer. Praise of food as the divine creator's gift is combined with the narrative of paradise and the fall of Adam and Eve, and subsequent human degeneration, until Christ, the gentle saviour, brings victory over the serpent Satan: the Christian hope is heavenly immortality of soul and resurrected body. The poem stresses the Adam-Christ and Eve-Mary contrasts. The appropriation of themes from Virgil and Ovid is discussed.Less
This chapter discusses the poem's presentation of appropriate Christian diet, moderate, avoiding the meat of quadrupeds, with meals preceded by prayer. Praise of food as the divine creator's gift is combined with the narrative of paradise and the fall of Adam and Eve, and subsequent human degeneration, until Christ, the gentle saviour, brings victory over the serpent Satan: the Christian hope is heavenly immortality of soul and resurrected body. The poem stresses the Adam-Christ and Eve-Mary contrasts. The appropriation of themes from Virgil and Ovid is discussed.
