La natura ‘poetica’ e retorica degli incantesimi metrici antico-inglesi

The twelve Old English Metrical Charms, transmitted in various manuscripts, represent an unusual textual typology, in which performative aspects and non-verbal components mix with poetic and rhetorical elements. Often considered ‘practical poetry’, the actual poetic nature of these texts, and the motivation for their existence, have not yet been thoroughly investigated. An interesting aspect of Old English Metrical Charms is the use of figures and stylistic features that seem to refer to the knowledge of a learned tradition, that of classical rhetoric. This essay focuses on the analysis of the rhetorical elements of these texts, especially those of classical origin. The Old English Metrical Charms appear as a learned product with a strong connection with a written tradition, in which orality may play a lesser role than previously thought.