Speech and Translation in Patience

Although most scholars characterize the anonymous Middle English Patience as sustained biblical translation or paraphrase, few have examined the work in relation to ongoing concerns about the nature and status of vernacular religious writing in later medieval England. This essay argues that the poem evidences and responds to such concerns through its complex treatment of the commonplace association of vernacular writing with speech. Like a number of other, more explicit vernacular prologues, the opening of Patience uses references to speech to position vernacular writing between the authority of scriptural texts and the immediacy and broad reach of the liturgy and storytelling. The poet further explores the relation between authority and immediacy in his subsequent retelling of the story of Jonah, the disobedient but ultimately effective prophet to the Gentiles. By underscoring qualitative differences between divine and human speech, and between Jonah as penitential witness and inspired prophet, the poet presents vernacular religious writing as foremost hortatory and affective–a means of moving–rather than a medium for theological speculation. Jonah's varied roles as speaker, and his juxtaposition with the prophet Daniel in Cleanness, reveal a poet exploring, rather than narrowly defining, the work and nature of vernacular religious writing.