Aesthetic Pleasure and Negative Aesthetic Experience in the Old English Martyrology

Abstract Drawing on recent research on aesthetic emotions and folk aesthetics, the purpose of this paper is to look into the way aesthetic pleasure and negative aesthetic experience are described and rendered in the Old English Martyrology (OEM). Using different Old English lexical tools and an edition of the OEM with a translation, this paper analyses these two aesthetic responses taking into consideration the context of the composition of the text and the possibility that it was aimed towards the emotional education of a particular religious community. It argues that, to a certain extent, the author of the OEM standardises the aesthetic experiences that they narrate, both positive and negative, and associates them with particular religious and doctrinal messages that are aimed at providing sensory inputs through which the conceptualisation of abstract and religious experiences is facilitated.