Context - Stage 3
STAGE 3 - The Modern Refiguration of the Exeter Book
After its “rediscovery” in the 19th century, the influence of the Exeter Book has been extremely prevalent in culture, literature, art, and technology.
Cultural
The Exeter Book has been officially acknowledged as an artifact of important cultural heritage. This occurred in 2016 when UNESCO added it to the Memory of the World Registrar.
Literature
J.R.R. Tolkien, best known as the author of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, incorporated phrases from “The Wanderer” into Aragorn's lament, which is preformed when he beholds the tombs of the fallen Rohan lords. Through this refiguration of the Exeter Book, its contents are rearranged and indirectly preserved and have now engaged readers for decades.
Similarly, author Philip Reeves wrote a novel called “The Exeter Riddles”, inspired by the riddles found in the Exeter Book. Like Tolkein, he is also preserving the Exeter Book indirectly though his novel. Furthermore, this work is considered a children’s novel, so he is also informing the younger generations of its contents.
Art
The Exeter Book has also had an influence on modern art. The first example is a watercolour painting made by an artists named S.S. Longley in 1940. The Exeter Book resides in the Bishop’s Palace, which is featured in this painting. This building is obscured by some trees in the foreground, with the Exeter Cathedral protruding out from behind it. According to the V&A Museum website, it was made when the British Ministry of Labour and National Service’s Committee for the Employment of Artists in Wartime commissioned a group of artists to capture scenes that represented Britain’ national identity. This also speaks to the cultural importance of Exeter and the Exeter Cathedral in general, as it was deemed a place culturally important enough to record in a time of war, fear, and destruction as a marker of British culture.
Work inspired by the Exeter Book has also been featured as a cover for the catalog “The Open and Closed Book” in the fall of 1979. This second image shows a “colour line block print” made by the artist Eileen Hogan. It features Riddle 26 from the Exeter Book in both old and modern English. It presents a lovely combination of orange, green, red, and brown shades on a cream-shade paper, with the size of the font decreasing as the page progresses. This demonstrates that the Exeter Book can not only be appreciated in a deeply cultural way through art, but also in more of a “pop culture” sense.
Technology and Digitization
Throughout the 20th and 21st century, the Exeter Book has also had many run-ins with technology and digitization. In 2006, the Exeter Book was uploaded to a CD, accompanied by audio recordings of individuals reading the text.
However, in the 21st century, more accessible methods of technology allow for the Exeter Book to be shared digitally. These include digitization projects and archives. In particular, there is a website called “The Exeter Book”, which is an online archival project executed by the University of Exeter and Exeter Cathedral. Completed in 2021, this project contains clear, digitised images of the Exeter Book in full. According to the home page of this online archive, they undertook this project to share England’s cultural heritage with a greater amount of people. It is open-access, extremely easy to navigate, and the images are extremely high resolution. I have pictured some here to provide an idea of the quality and appearance.
While this main DH project contains images from every page of the Exeter Book, there is also a “mini” and even more accessible version of this archive on the Exeter Cathedral website. Pictured is a specific page that I selected which provides an image and encoded text description of the damage done to a specific page of the book. There is also a tool box with features that allow you to zoom in on specific details to get a closer look. It’s very easy to use, and thus creates an extremely appealing and accessible education of the Exeter Book to the general public.