Vainglory (poem)

Vainglory is the title given to an Old English gnomic or homiletic poem of eighty-four lines, preserved in the Exeter Book. The precise date of composition is unknown, but the fact of its preservation in a late tenth-century manuscript gives us an approximate terminus ante quem.

The poem is structured around a comparison of two basic opposites of human conduct; on the one hand, the proud man, who “is the devil's child, enwreathed in flesh” (biþ feondes bearn / flæsce bifongen), and, on the other hand, the virtuous man, characterised as "God’s own son" (godes agen bearn).

External links

• Old English text, The Labyrinth. Resources for Medieval Studies.
• Sacred Texts - Vainglory, Sacred Texts - The Exeter Book
• The Literary Encyclopedia