Abstrakt
The article analyses the portrayal of communal feasting in Old English poetry, paying special attention to drinking and ceremonies related to it. The literary material is not viewed as offering documentary evidence of contemporary social practices; instead, the analysis investigates the functioning of the image of the feast in Old English poetics as well as its capacity to serve as a commentary on the values and self-perceptions of the lay aristocratic community at the time when the texts were recorded.
Both cursory references to feasting and drinking as well as the composition of extended feast scenes in secular poems suggest the existence of two complementary feast topoi, the first focusing on the ceremonial drinking as a social institution, the recognition of a }}contract(( based on formal pledge; the second stressing the more inclusive aspect of conviviality, bearing a strong emotional appeal. It is the tension between the two functions of the feast that is often explored in the more spiritually oriented texts, where it provides an indictment of the failings of secular society.