Old English emotion is temperature: Cultural influences on a universal experience

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1. Introduction

It is nowadays widely admitted that, just like other linguistic units, figurative expressions are not universal and, in consequence, they are subject to linguistic variation and change (Grondelaers & Geeraerts 2003, Kövecses 2007). In fact, there exists an extraordinary variety of metaphorical conceptualizations across human languages and, very frequently, the resulting patterns of variation are highly illustrative of cultural differences (Ibarretxe-Antunaño 2013); this is especially true in the case of variation in emotional expressions (Kövecses 2015, Díaz-Vera & Caballero 2013). Within this framework, various researchers have studied the relation between socio-cultural change and metaphor change in historical stages of language. For example, in their studies on shame denominations in Old English and in Old Norse, Díaz-Vera (2014) and Díaz-Vera & Manrique-Antón (2015) draw a clear connection between the Christianization of Northern European peoples and dramatic changes in their linguistic expressions for this emotion. Broadly speaking, whereas pre-Christian texts tend to show a preference for figurative expressions that highlight the social aspects of shame (as corresponds to a collectivist society; Hofstede 1991), Christianity brought a progressive change towards a more psychologised understanding of this emotion in order to reflect the new moral standards.

The study of the conceptualization of temperature across languages and cultures, which has become one of the most prominent areas of research within the field of cognitive linguistics (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2015: 1), has confirmed that, while negative emotions like anger are typically associated with adverse assessments of the experience, perceptions of positive emotions like love as warmth emphasize their favourable psychosomatic impact on the perceiver.^[1] Nonetheless, despite the apparent universality of these connections, such languages as Old English (850–1100) exhibit conceptual variation related to our understanding of positive emotions as strictly pleasing thermal sensation, confirming that metaphors are not necessarily universal.

With the aim of further illuminating the extent to which our figurative understanding of emotional experiences as temperatures is influenced by cultural factors, in this study I propose an analysis of different temperature expressions that, according to the lexicographic evidence available to us, were used by Old English writers. More specifically, I will describe and analyse the entire set of emotion expressions derived from the source domain temperature, as recorded in a corpus of texts written in Old English. I am especially interested in identifying which emotions were construed as temperature changes, as well as in the reconstruction of the relation between positive emotions and high body temperature, which is the single example of embodied imagery in Old English expressions for positive emotions.

2. Data and methods

Instead of analysing of the changes affecting one specific target domain (i.e., emotions), in this research I am interested in the identification and in the description of the semantic extensions towards emotionally loaded meanings that affected one particular source domain, i.e., high body temperature. This research can be divided into two parts. In the first part, using dictionaries and thesauri of Old English, I will identify all the expressions of positive emotions derived from original high temperature words recorded in the bulk of texts written in Old English. The dictionaries used for this part are the Dictionary of Old English (hence DOE), Bosworth and Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (hence BT), the Thesaurus of Old English (hence TOE) and the Oxford English Dictionary (hence OED). Furthermore, I have used the Dictionary of Old English Corpus (hence DOEC) to extract my examples and to calculate the frequency of each adjective in the corpus.^[2]

In order to identify these expressions, I will use a methodology derived from Stefanowitsch’s (2006) Metaphorical Pattern Analysis, which entails systematically examining the corpus to locate every occurrence of a particular lexical item (e.g., an emotion word), to determine which conceptualizations are most strongly associated with the concept evoked by that lexical item. More exactly, I will locate all the occurrences of Old English literal and figurative denominations for positive emotions combined with words indicating temperature. Once all the expressions recorded in the DOEC have been identified, I will further classify them into emotion families. The classification of emotions used for this research is based on the well-known Geneva Emotion Wheel (hence GEW; Scherer 2005, Scherer et al. 2013). Thereafter, a list of entailments from the high-level metaphor emotion is temperature, as illustrated in Old English texts, can be proposed. I will pay special attention to the role of the source domain high body temperature, which indicates negative hedonic experience^[3] (e.g., burning sensation, fever, seething, and distress, all of which are normally experienced in relation with negative emotions), in the construal of verbal expressions for positive emotions in Old English. I will divide my analysis into three main sections, which correspond to the three TOE subcategories within number 03.01.09 Heat with semantic extensions towards the domain of emotions.

In the first section, I will focus on the use of fire (TOE 03.01.09.02 Fire, flame) as a source domain for the expression of positive emotion expressions. More specifically, I will analyse the 26 occurrences of the motif fire yielded by the DOEC in expressions for the emotions interest and love across three textual categories: verse, prose, and glosses. In the second section, I will deal with Old English expressions rooted in the conceptual understanding of emotions as unpleasant heat (TOE 03.01.09.01 Hotness). My analysis will focus on the only positive emotion that is construed as heat by Old English authors, i.e., love (16 corpus occurrences). Finally, my third section will focus on the source domain a boiling liquid (within the body) (TOE 03.01.09.01.01 Boiling) and its role in the development of new emotion expressions by Old English authors. More exactly, I will describe here the 11 corpus occurrences of the verb OE weallan ‘to boil’ to evoke interest, pride, or love.

3. Results

3.1. The conceptual mapping emotion is fire in Old English

In her study of mental heat in Old English texts, Lockett (2011) affirms that heat can be considered “a prominent symptom of acutely aggressive states of mind (anger, cruelty, and illicit desires including lust), of prolonged intense suffering (sorrow and anxiety), and of energetic enthusiasms of a more positive nature (keenness for learning, love for god and other people)” (Lockett 2011: 92). In fact, based on the lexicographic data collected for this research, the source domain high body temperature is frequently used in Old English to derive figurative expressions for a wide variety of emotional experiences characterised by mental heat, regardless of whether they are positive or negative.

The metaphors and metonymies analysed in this section are rooted in the source domain fire, as well as in such fire-related processes as burning, maintaining, and extinguishing a flame. For example, the positive emotion concept interest^[4] (situated in the positive valence and low control quadrant of the GEW) is evoked by the author of the poem Saturn and Solomon through the use of the verb OE stigan ‘to rise (in flames)’ in combination with the noun OE forwytt ‘interest, curiosity’, in reference to the physical sensation of cardiac heat caused by one’s eagerness for knowledge as cardiac heat.

(1) mec ðæs on worolde full oft fyrwit frineð, fus gewiteð, mod gemengeð […]. Hwilum me bryne stigeð, hige heortan neah hædre wealleð (MSol, 57–62)

Very often in the world curiosity asks me about this, eagerly reproaches, disturbs my mind […] Sometimes a flame rises up in me, my mind seethes oppressively near my heart.

This description of the positive emotion concept interest, in reference to Saturn’s intense eagerness for knowledge, is, in fact, unique, as nowhere else in the poetic corpus is this emotion is conceptualised as fire within the subject’s body. Outside this poem, this understanding of interest as fire is illustrated by Old English glosses to the noun L ardor ‘ardour’. According to the DOE, the noun OE fyrwitt ‘curiosity, inquisitiveness’ is used twice in the Durham Hymnal (hymns 8.2 and 14.2), and its synonym OE fyrwitnes ‘curiosity’ is used once by the glossist of Aldhem’s De laude virginatis (1300) to translate L ardor ‘ardour’.

A second positive emotion that is frequently evoked using expressions from the source domain fire in Old English texts is love (which is situated in the positive valence and high control quadrant of the GEW). In most cases, these figurative expressions illustrate the well-known conceptual mapping love is fire (Kövecses 1988); according to this emotion construal, the increase of the subjective body heat is to be considered a physiological effect of love, so that the metaphor love is fire emerges from the metonymy body heat stands for the emotion, where body heat is specified as internal fire. The most frequently used expression within this group is the verb OE byrnan ‘to burn’ (6 occurrences), as in these examples:

(2) geopena heora heortan earan to þære halwendan lare, þæt hi þe anne lufian ... and mid beornendre lufe to þinum brydbedde becumen (ÆLS [Agnes] 330)

open the ears of their hearts to your healing doctrine, so that they will love only you … and come with burning love to your bridal bed.

(3) he wæs geþyldig and eadmod; and a seo godcunde lufu on hys heortan hat and byrnende (LS 10.1 [Guth] 2.89).

he was patient and obedient, and divine love was always hot and burning in his heart.

As can be seen above, in these two occurrences of the verb OE byrnan ‘to burn’ in prose texts, love is conceptualised as burning fire in the cardiac area. Most frequently (4 occurrences, out of 6), this verb appears in the collocation byrnan on/mid lufu ‘to burn with love’ (of God, of the world), as in the following examples:

(4) beo he eac onbryrd, and byrnende on Godes lufe swa swa fyr (ÆCHom II, 3 24.174)

be he also stimulated and burning as fire for love of God.

(5) þa halgan apostolas ... inneweardum heortum ecelice burnon þære Godes lufan (HomS 47 48)

the holy apostles … with their whole hearts were burning perpetually with God’s love.

Old English poets also show a strong preference for this verb, which always appears as a love denomination in the alliterative expression OE byrnan on breostum ‘to burn in the breast’ (4 occurrences) in order to specify the depth of this emotion within the individual’s body. In this sense, it should be remembered here that in Old English poetry, the mind is generally (but not exclusively) located in the cavity of the chest, so that the noun OE breost can be used to indicate not only the ‘breast’ but also the ‘mind’ (Mize 2006: 68).

(6) man ne cuðon don ne dreogan, ac him drihtnes wæs bam on breostum byrnende lufu (GenA 189)

they did not know how to do or commit sin, as the love of the Lord was burning in both their breasts.

(7) fela wearð todræfed gleawra godes ðeowa; þæt wæs gnornung micel þam þe on breostum wæg byrnende lufan metodes on mode (DEdg 18)

many of the wise servants of God were driven out; that was a great lamentation for those who carried in their breast a burning love of the Creator in their minds.

As the above examples show, energy is the most relevant perceived resemblance between the source of the target in conceptual mapping love is fire: love is conceptualised here as an internal light-energy that guides the person affected by this emotion towards God. However, in other cases, this perceived resemblance between love and fire is based on such negative notions as destructive power and consumption: on such occasions, the energy produced by the fire damages the perceiver, so that the self becomes dysfunctional as a result of the extreme intensity of the emotional experience. This conceptualization of love is illustrated by the verb OE forswælan ‘to burn to destruction, to consume’, which is used to gloss L concremare ‘to kindle (with the ardour of love)’ in the Durham Hymnal (3 occurrences). In this case, God’s love is depicted not as an internal light-energy, but rather as an external force that burns to consumption one’s breast from the outside, producing a total loss of control on the side of the person affected by this emotion (who is conceptualised as a victim of burnt sacrifice that represents redemption).

(8) onleoht nu breost & þinre lufe forswæl (HyGl 2 33.2)

illuminate now our breast and consume it with the ardour of your love.

Apart from these two verbs, words meaning ‘love’ (either literally or metaphorically) can be used in combination with the nouns OE blæse ‘blaze, flame’ (5 occurrences), OE fæcele ‘torch’ (1 occurrence) and OE bryne ‘burning, fire’ (2 occurrences) to highlight the ardour produced by this emotion. The first two nouns are more frequent in glosses to L facula ‘flame’: whereas OE blæse blaze, flame’ is used in four glosses to Aldhem’s prose treatise De laude virginitatis, to translate the metaphorical usage of L facula in clear reference to the ‘flame of love’^[5], OE fæcele ‘torch’ is used once in an Old English glossary included in MS Cotton Cleopatra A.III.^[6] Apart from these glosses, the corpus has yielded one more occurrence of OE blæse ‘blaze, flame’ as an emotional expression in Anglo-Saxon prose: in example (9), Pope Gregory feels ‘the blaze of true love’ for the English people. As indicated by Lockett (2011: 94), this is one of the few examples where the love is fire metaphor is not directly applied to love of God, but to love of another person (in this case, of the Anglo-Saxons, as soon as the Pope knew that they were in need of Christianization).

(9) he wearð æfter þysse æscan swa swiþe mid þære blæsan soþere lufe ontend þæt he swa wuldorfulle & Gode swa welweorþe leode geneosian & gefaran wolde (RevMon 37)

after these questions, he became so strongly inflamed with the blaze of true love that he wanted to depart and visit those people, so glorious and so good and so esteemed.

Finally, OE bryne ‘burning, fire’ is used once to gloss L ardor ‘ardour’ (HyGl 3 8.2). In its second corpus occurrence, this verb appears in combination with OE lufu ‘love’ in the following example by Ælfric, where it describes the emotional manifestation of God’s love on believers.

(10) sume Godes þeowan ... mid þam micclan bryne þære heofonlican lufe oþre ontendað (ÆCHom I, 24 375.140)

some servants of God … are inflamed with the great fire of heavenly love.

The conceptual mapping love is fire is also illustrated by the figurative uses of the adjectives OE brandhat ‘burning hot’ (1 occurrence) and OE fyrhat ‘ardent’ (1 occurrence). These two occurrences correspond to Old English Christian poems, namely Guthlac B and Elene. In both cases, corporeal fire alters the mental state of the person affected by this emotion, and a vital change is produced by the faith within them.

(11) ac him dryhtnes lof born in breostum, brondhat lufu sigorfæst in sefan (GuthB 963)

but love of the Lord burned in his breast, burning-hot love in his spirit.

(12) him wæs halig gast befolen fæste, fyrhat lufu, weallende gewitt (El 935)

the Holy Spirit was firmly bestowed to him, ardent love and an ebullient intelligence.

As illustrated by the data above, which I summarize in Table 1, the fire metaphors for interest and for love analysed here show a very even textual distribution. To start with, the alliterative collocation OE byrnan on breostum and the adjectives OE brandhat and OE fyrhat are exclusively found in Anglo-Saxon verse. The same can be said about the two interest denominations described in example (1), namely OE stigan ‘to rise (in flames)’ and OE weallan ‘to seethe’. Further, as can be seen from the examples above, all the occurrences of these five positive emotion expressions convey the localization of the burning sensation caused by love in the enclosed body space within the chest cavity, where it produces pressure upon the organs and, eventually, seething, swelling, and boiling. These physiological symptoms clearly illustrate the well-known hydraulic model of mental activity, as manifested in Old English poetry (Lockett 2011: 6).

As for Anglo-Saxon prose, there is a strong preference for the expression OE byrnan ‘to burn’, which survives in homiletic prose (especially by Ælfric). When texts in prose explicitly refer to a specific body part as the locus of love, it is typically situated within the heart. Other love-denominators used in the prose corpus are OE blæse ‘blaze, flame’ and OE bryne ‘burning, fire’; these nouns can be found in metaphoric expressions for love both in glosses to Latin works (5 occurrences) and, less frequently, in Old English prose (2 occurrences).

Table 1. Lexicalizations of the metaphors interest is fire and love is fire across three textual types 

As can be seen in Table 1, the conceptual mapping positive emotion is fire is illustrated by 10 different expressions. Based on their textual distribution, it can be confidently argued that Old English poets had a very specific emotion terminology at their disposal, which they used to highlight the physical sensation of internal burning triggered by interest or by love.

Broadly speaking, these poetic expressions indicate that the burning sensation, located in the chest area, is very intense and hard to control by the perceiver. In the case of interest, the source domain fire indicates two different aspects of the Old English cultural model of interest. On the one hand, since interest occupies the GEW quadrant that is next to anger, a certain degree of overlap in the way these two emotions are expressed figuratively by Old English authors is to be expected. On the other hand, given the fact that interest occupies the lower half of the GEW and, in consequence, is to be considered a low influence/control emotional experience, the conceptual mapping interest is fire (as illustrated by the expression OE astigan ‘to rise up in flames’) is highlighting this lack of control on the side of the perceiver of this emotion.^[7]

In the case of love, three different expressions used by Old English poets to construe this emotional experience as fire have been identified in this study: OE byrnan on breostum ‘to burn in the breast’, OE brandhart ‘burning hot’, and OE fyrhat ‘ardent’. Based on the analysis of their occurrences in poetic texts, it can be argued that the conceptual mapping love is fire that emerges from these expressions denominate reverential love for God, considered a major source of body heat and mental seething.^[8] As these occurrences show, God places his love, in the form of fire, within the chest of his followers, thus triggering in them an urging and uncontrollable need to adore him.^[9] Love, in fact, is construed as a reciprocal emotion; in this context, it is the perceiver’s desire to increase the intensity of their love for God that provokes physical and mental unpleasantness. Rooted, in sum, in our powerlessness in the face of fire, the metaphor positive emotion is fire highlights the uncontrollable character of two very specific positive emotional experiences: the need to satisfy one’s eagerness for knowledge; on the other hand, the need to return the love deposited by God in someone’s chest. The use of the alliterative expression OE byrnan on breostu ‘to burn in the breast’ as a love denomination demonstrates that this understanding of certain positive emotions as fire within the body should not be considered a mere borrowing from Latin but, rather, it existed in the folk psychology of the Anglo-Saxons and was reinforced (and maybe also re-elaborated) by the work of the educated elite that translated and disseminated Christian texts and beliefs across England. In this sense, it should be mentioned here that, unlike the flames and consumption elements highlighted by the emotional expressions used in many of the texts in prose analysed in this section (as in the case of OE (on)bærnan ‘to burn’ and its derivate OE forbærnan ‘to be consumed by fire’), the expression OE byrnan on breostum ‘to burn in the breast’ seems to refer to a less destructive and more enduring state of mind. Rather than as a force, this poetic expression conceptualizes fire as an internal light that, right from the middle of the human body, announces a divine presence in the same way as the sacred fire that continually burned on the altars (normally positioned on the centre) of ancient temples from different Mediterranean religions (Goudsblom 1994: 119). Consequently, this sacred fire is not only an expression of divine will (e.g., love or punishment), but also a means for personal communication with God.

Outside Old English verse, expressions illustrating the conceptual mapping positive emotion is fire are especially frequent in glosses to Latin texts. Very obviously, these glosses do not represent the vernacular interpretation of these emotional experiences. However, as can be seen in Table 1, some of these Latinate expressions finally entered the literary language of Old English prose. This is the case of OE bryne ‘burning, fire’, used once by Ælfric as a love denomination. Furthermore, the single occurrence of the expression OE blæse ‘blaze, fire’ to evoke love in a text in prose (i.e., RevMon 37) construes Pope Gregory’s ardent desire to convert the Anglo-Saxons. Finally, the verb OE byrnan ‘to burn’, which, as a love denomination, is is frequent in of Ælfric, appears as the only expression used by Old English authors to construe passionate love as fire. Broadly speaking, this expression, which results from the loss of the second element in the alliterative construction OE byrnan on brestoum ‘to burn in the breast’, construes marital love as a variety of reverential love, where the two lovers share the love placed by God in their hearts.

3.2. The conceptual mapping emotion is unpleasant heat in Old English

A second conceptual mapping identified in this study is intensity of emotion is heat. Instead of highlighting the flames and consumption elements described for the metaphorical mapping emotion is fire, the mapping emotion is unpleasant heat conceptualizes emotions as a hot humour that produces a relative increase in the body temperature of the affected person. Given this distinction, it can be argued that whereas fire metaphors indicate the highest degree of emotional intensity, heat metaphors cover a wider degree of emotional intensity; as Kövecses  (2000: 76) puts it, “various degrees of heat correspond to various degrees of intensity of emotion and lack of heat corresponds to lack of emotion.”

Most of the Old English expressions analysed in this section are derived from the Proto-Germanic root *hætu ‘high temperature, heat.’ These expressions are figuratively used in reference to four different emotion concepts in Old English texts. Only one of these emotion concepts, i.e., love, is clearly positive; the other two i.e., sadness, emotional distress, and anger, correspond to negative emotions.

The adjective OE hat ‘hot’, along with its derivates (namely, the verbs OE hatian ‘to heat’ and OE hætan ‘to heat, warm’, and the adverbs OE hate and OE hatlice, both meaning ‘hotly, with heat’), can be used to describe such virtuous passions as love and affection and, especially, the love of God. This is especially frequent in glosses to Latin texts (7 occurrences) and prose translations of Latin texts, where heat words are recorded in combination with nouns evoking the concept love in 7 occurrences, corresponding to five different texts: the anonymous lives of Saint Guthlac (1) and Saint Martin (1), Bede’s Ecclesiastical History (2), Alfred’s Pastoral Care (1), and Æthelwold’s Benedictine Rule (2):

(13) ða sende Uitalius se papa Osweo Seaxna cyninge lufsumlic ærendgewrit, þa he onget his aarfæstnesse willan & his hate Godes lufan (Bede 3 21.248.17)

Vitalis sent a loving letter to Oswio, King of the Saxons, as he understood his pious devotion and his heated love for God.

When the adjective OE hat ‘hot’ is used in Old English poetry to evoke the concept love, it does within the alliterative idiom OE hat æt heortan ‘hot in the heart’ (2 occurrences). Once again, the metric rules of Anglo-Saxon poetry and, especially, the need of verse-internal alliteration, can be used to justify the prevalence of this idiom in poetry, but not in prose.

(14) þær wæs wopes hring, torne bitolden; wæs seo treowlufu hat æt heortan, <hreðer> innan weoll, beorn breostsefa (ChristB 537)

there was the sound of weeping; that faithful love, bitterly oppressed, was hot around the heart; the chest swelled inwardly; the mind-in-the-breast burned.

However, the Old English poetic corpus also yields 1 occurrence of the adjective OE hat outside this alliterative idiom: in the following verse from The Seafarer, alliteration is based on the repetition of the phoneme /d/, so that the poet uses this adjective with an emotional sense, without making specific reference to the heart as the seat of affection:

(15) forþon me hatran sind dryhtnes dreamas þonne þis deade lif, læne on londe (Sea 64)

Therefore, the joys of the Lord are hotter to me than this dead temporary life on land.

According to the DOE, this use of the comparative form OE hatran ‘hotter’ indicates ‘warms feelings of affection’, so that, differently to the expression OE hat æt heortan ‘hot in the heart’, it conveys a positive evaluation of cardiocentric heat triggered by love for God.

The results of this analysis are summarised in Table 2. As can be seen here, whereas the conceptual connection between love and heat is marginal among Old English poets, its relevance in glosses and prose texts (most of which, as has been seen above, are translations from Latin) is much higher. Based on this textual distribution, it can be argued that the metaphor love is heat is a conceptual borrowing from Latin.

Table 2. Lexicalizations of the metaphors love is heat across three textual type 

Regarding the three instances of this phrase in religious poems, it's noteworthy that only the two instances of OE hat æt heortan ‘hot in the heartr' to evoke love which are influenced by the alliterative requirements of Old English poetry, imply that the poet is conceptualizing love as an unpleasant experience.

3.3. The conceptual mapping intensity is a boiling liquid in Old English

The last part of my analysis will focus on the use of verbs meaning ‘to boil’ as expressions for positive emotions in Old English. According to these expressions, Old English authors could construe emotions as liquids within the body or a specific body part, and their physiological effects on the perceiver as changes in the temperature of these liquids. The idea of emotions as liquid substances boiling within the body is illustrated by the metaphorical uses of the verb OE weallan ‘to well, bubble from > to boil’. Differently to other emotion metaphors based on the use of verbs meaning ‘to boil’ as source domains,^[10] the physiological reaction expressed by OE weallan can be associated in Old English texts both with negative emotions (such as wrath and anxiety) and with positive emotions (and, more specifically, interest, love, and pride).

As has been seen in example (1) above, the emotion interest is construed as  a boiling liquid in the Old English poem Saturn and Solomon (verses 57–62):  as the liquid boils in the chest of the perceiver, it produces mental seething and oppression around the cardiac area. As in the case of the conceptual mapping interest is fire, the metaphor interest is a boiling liquid highlights the fact that the perceiver has no control over the emotional experience.

The same can be said about the metaphor pride is a boiling liquid, as illustrated by the following sentence from the sub-corpus of Old English poetry:

(16) Wæs ær godes engel, hwit on heofne, oð hine his hyge forspeon and his ofermetto ealra swiðost, þæt he ne wolde wereda drihtnes word wurðian. Weoll him on innan hyge ymb his heortan,hat wæs him utan wraðlic wite. GenB, 349–356.

Before the angel of God, bright in heaven, until his pride seduced him and his greatest of all arrogances, so that he would not heed for any longer the word of the Lord of hosts. Inside him, pride welled around his heart. Outside was hot and the cruel torment.

The above sentence corresponds to the religious poem Genesis B (verses 349–353). I these verses, the noun OE hyge ‘pride’ appears twice in the poet’s narration of how Satan, chained in hell and unable to travel to Eden to coax Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, seduces an unnamed angel to fulfil this task. The first occurrence of this noun (verse 350) clearly illustrates the ‘pride’ reading of this expression, in reference to the pride and arrogance used by Satan to seduce the angel. As for the second occurrence (located in verse 355), the noun OE hyge ‘pride’ is accompanied by the verb OE weallan ‘to boil’ (a verb that strongly evokes the cardiocentric heat caused by a wide range of strong emotional experiences, not necessarily negative; Lockett 2011: 57). The boiling and seething expressed by this verb in combination with a pride denomination describes, on the one side, the feeling of satisfaction produced by Satan’s pride for having convinced the angel to disobey God and, on the other side, his unsatisfied pride caused by his impossibility to personally tempt Eve. According to the DOE, this is the single occurrence of the verb OE weallan ‘to boil’ in reference to pride.^[11] Based on this interpretation, it can be assumed that this understanding of pride suggests that although Satan’s pride has been satisfied, his satisfaction is little more than partial, in as much as he, securely fettered in hell, has not been able to accomplish his mission personally. It is precisely from these two opposite feelings, pride and frustration, that the sensation of cardiac seething emerges.

Furthermore, the verb OE weallan ‘to boil, seethe’ can also be used by Old English authors to evoke love. More exactly, this verb is combined with OE lufu ‘love’ to indicate seething caused by this emotional experience. This expression is used once in poetry, four times in religious prose, and four more times in glosses to L fervidus ‘burning, fiery, fervid’ or L ferventis ‘burning hot, glowing’.^[12] According to this understanding of love, this emotional experience is construed either as one of the frequent psychosomatic symptoms triggered by love, or by one of the personal reactions with which it is conceptually linked. Within this context, love can be construed as production of heat/fire, indicating a rapid increase of emotional intensity. Episodes of cardiac heat are relatively frequent in the textual corpus. One of the most representative episodes of this portrayal of love as a boiling liquid is found in the memorable narration of Beowulf’s departure from Denmark, where king Hrothgar kisses the hero lovingly and embraces him by the neck in tears, while he tries to cope secretly with intense feelings of sadness for the loss of his beloved friend.^[13]

(17)    gecyste þa cyning æþelum god, þeoden Scyldinga, ðegn betstan ond be healse genam; hruron him tearas, blondenfeaxum ... <wæs> him se man to þon leof þæt he þone breostwylm forberan ne mehte, ac him on hreþre hygebendum fæst æfter deorum men dyrne langað beorn wið blode. Beo 1870–1880.

The noble king kissed the good noblemen, the Prince of the Scyldings, the best of thanes he took by the neck; tears flowed from him, grey-haired … To him was that man so beloved that he could not restrain the seething in his breast, but a hidden longing for that dear man secured in his breast, a secret longing for the dear man burned against blood.

As this example shows, love among family members is nor restricted to one’s relatives by blood relationship, but also to members of one’s community. The importance of community bonds in Anglo-Saxon society is especially evident in epic poetry, where the expression OE lufu ‘love’, frequently accompanied by descriptions of some of the physiological signals related to this emotional experience, are regularly used in the context of close friendship and fellowship.

The love expression OE weallan ‘to boil’ is also used in Old English prose. However, three of the four occurrences of this expression correspond to the collocation OE weallendre lufe ‘ardent love’, which is a literal translation  of L fervens amor.^[14]

(18)    Se ðe ær glædlice mid godum weorcum hine sylfne geglengde. him gedafenað þæt he nu on ðisum dagum geornlicor mid weallendre lufe his godnysse gecyðe (ÆCHom II, 7 B1.2.8)

To him who had previously adorned himself gladly with good works, it is fitting that he on these days more earnestly with ardent love show his goodness.

The fourth occurrence of this expression is a translation of L divinae charitatis igne fervidus ‘warmed the fire of divine charity’, found in the Old English version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History:

(19)    Wæs he ær eallum ðingum mid þy fyre godcundre lufan hat & weallende, & in geðylde mægene gemetfæst, ond in wilsumnesse haligra gebeda begneorð & geornful; & he wæs eallum gespræce ðam þe to him for intingan frofre comon (Bede 4, 712)

Before all things he was warm and fervent with the fire of the godly love, modest with the virtue of patience, attentive and zealous in devotion to holy prayer; and he was affable to all who came to him for comfort.

The results of this part of the analysis are summarised in Table 3 below. As can be seen here, whereas the vernacular understanding of love as a boiling liquid is illustrated by the three occurrences of the love denomination OE weallan ‘to boil’ in Old English verse discussed above, the use of this expression in Old English glosses and prose is virtually restricted to glosses and translations and thus must be taken as a conceptual borrowing from Latin. Given the very limited distribution of these occurrences of the expression OE weallan ‘to boil’ as a love denomination in Old English prose, and the fact that they were exclusive of Latin translations, this understanding of love as a boiling liquid can be confidently described as exclusive of elite levels of learned discourse.

Table 3. Lexicalizations of the metaphors interest is a boiling liquid, pride is a boiling liquid, and love is a boiling liquid across three textual types

4. Discussion

Emotions in general as often construed as changes in bodily temperature. Whereas the source domain unpleasant temperature is preferred across world languages for the expression of negative emotional experiences (as in, for example, anger is fire and fear is cold), there exists a very strong preference to construe positive emotions as pleasant temperature (as in love is warmth; Kövecses 2000: 93). However, as has been seen in this analysis, positive emotions can also be conceptualised as high body temperature in Old English. Depending on how relevant these conceptualizations are in the cultural model of each positive emotional experience, I will argue here that some of the emotions considered positive in emotion literature (and, as such, included in the right half of the GEW) may have been considered negative in Anglo-Saxon culture.

In order to determine the role of cultural factors behind the use of the source domain high body temperature in the figurative construal of positive emotions in Old English, in the preceding pages I have analysed a total of 53 occurrences of expressions rooted in this general-level metaphor in the Old English textual corpus. These 53 occurrences correspond to three different positive emotions, namely:

1. Interest: Among the 42 instances of interest denominations (both literal and figurative) yielded by the DOEC, there are 6 occurrences of expressions (equivalent to 14.28%) that conceptualize this emotion in terms of temperature.
2. Pride: Among the 1447 instances of pride denominations found in the corpus, only a single word, accounting for merely 0.07%, illustrates this conceptual connection.
3. Love: There are 46 sentences where love is construed as temperature out of a total of 7037 instances of love denominations in the DOEC, making up approximately 0.65%.

As evident from the distribution of these occurrences in the DOEC, these expressions make up a minority when compared to literal, metonymic, and synesthetic denominations for these emotions, which strongly suggests that the utilization of temperature imagery to represent positive emotions is quite restricted in Old English. Even when compared to the non-embodied metaphorical motifs used by Old English authors to suggest these emotions (such as an opponent in a struggle, object, or motion), the embodied model, represented in the corpus solely by motif temperature, is not more entrenched than the other metaphorical themes.^[15]

As can be seen from the examples discussed in the preceding sections, there exist a series of elements that are apparently ubiquitous, namely:

1. Some positive emotions are contained within the body, generally in or near the heart; consequently, they suggest that the chest is the bodily seat of the mind.
2. Three of these positive emotions (namely interest, pride, and love) can produce an increase in temperature and pressure in the mind and in the internal organs located within the chest.
3. On some occasions, the heat and pressure triggered by these positive emotional experiences produce such unpleasant physiological reactions as seething, boiling, and swelling of the mind and of the internal organs located in this area.

Based on these elements, it has been affirmed that positive emotions can be construed as negative hedonic experiences, challenging conventional notions of pleasure. This construal, which very clearly challenges our understanding of positive emotions as pleasing states, is illustrated by very different expressions, depending on the textual genre.

For examples, as has been seen here, there seems to be a tendency for three source domains analysed in this study (i.e., fire, unpleasant heat, and a boiling liquid) to be more frequently used in glosses to Latin texts than in prose and, especially, in verse. However, though the fine-grained analysis of these expressions and their textual distribution, I have demonstrated here that this tendency applies exclusively to the conceptual metaphor love is high body temperature. In contrast with this, the conceptualization of the other two positive emotions discussed here, namely interest and pride, as high body temperature, is exclusive of Old English poems.

Based on the examples of Old English love denominations rooted in the source domains fire, unpleasant heat, and a boiling liquid), it can be argued that the metaphor love is high body temperature accentuates the heat aroused by the necessity to intensify the depth of affection one holds for God. This is especially true in the case of glosses and translated texts in prose, all of which have been described as occurrences of reverential love for God. Since God’s love is unlimited and unsurpassable, the need to reciprocate it with human love triggers a feeling of impotence and anguish in the perceiver, which, following the Latin conceptualization of reverential love, is construed by Old English authors as mental seething and burning.

Differently to the depiction of love that emerges from glosses and prose, the expression OE byrnan on bresotum ‘to burn in the breast’ in Old English poems can also evoke friendly love (Beo 1870–1880). As has been seen here, the parting of Beowulf triggers a sensation of seething in Hrothgart’s chest, where his love for his dear friend boils and produces a physical sensation of constriction around the heart. This construal of friendly love facilitated, in my view, the semantic extension of the verb OE byrnan ‘to burn’ to ‘to burn with love for another person’, which characterizes Ælfric’s English and appears as the only figurative expression of passionate love as fire. According to this analysis of figurative love expressions, two different causes of negative hedonic experience triggered by this emotion can be identified in Old English texts: whereas in prose texts unpleasantness is caused by one’s need to return God’s love, love can also be construed in Old English poems as loss of mental control and mental distress caused by the physical separation from the object of love.

The second positive emotion discussed here, i.e., interest, can be construed by Old English authors either as fire or as a boiling liquid. In both cases, these source domains are highlighting the uncontrollable character of this emotional experience. As suggested by Dumitrescu (2018: 49), this understanding of interest as high body temperature could be based on the need to imprint feelings of ardour for learning on novices early in their education, indicating that this conceptual connection between interest and heat was rooted in monasticism and devotional literature, rather than in the folk Psychology of the Anglo-Saxons. This link, which is exclusive of the didactic poem Saturn and Solomon, could have been further reinforced by an erroneous decomposition of the noun fyrwitt ‘curiosity, inquisitiveness’ into OE fyr ‘fire’ and OE wit ‘wit, intelligence, understanding’, which would explain the preference by some Old English glossists for this expression to render L ardour.

Finally, the emotion pride is construed as high body temperature in the single occurrence of the pride expression of OE weallan ‘to boil’ (in GenB 349–356), in reference to Satan. As has been said above, this expression highlights that the positive emotion pride is being overcome by the strong sense of frustration that invades Satan’s mind, triggering in him as sensation of loss of control cardiac seething. Once again, this construal of a positive emotion as high body temperature implies that the perceiver cannot regulate the impact of the event on his mind, so that his strong sense of dissatisfaction is preventing him from fully rejoicing in his pride.

As indicated by these findings, the conceptual metaphor positive emotion is high body temperature originates from two distinct sources in Old English. On one hand, the vernacular interpretation of this metaphor signifies the loss of control over the emotional experience by the perceiver, particularly evident in emotions characterized by a lack of control. For example, whereas the subject of interest may be carried away by eagerness to learn, the subject of pride may be invaded by feelings of dissatisfaction and partial accomplishment. More easily controllable emotions (and, more specifically, love) can also be construed as high body temperature. This is the case of Hrothgart’s mental seething at the depart of his friend Beowulf, where internal heat is caused by his mental efforts to regulate the emotional event. As this vernacular version of the conceptual mapping high body temperature stands for positive emotion shows, there existed in Anglo-Saxon culture an urging need to regulate one’s emotional reactions, which implies that low-control emotions tend to be construed as negative hedonic experiences and, in consequence, to be considered closer to negative emotions.^[16] On the other hand, the Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England brought with it, among many other consequences, the arrival of a new understanding of the link between emotions and the body, which was profusely used by Christian authors in order to construe reverential love for God. Instead of highlighting the negative personal and social consequences of loss of control, these expressions construe love as intensity, so that the perceivers of divine love struggle to return the same amount of this pleasurable emotion to their emotional object (i.e., to God), which triggers mental heat and seething.

Drawing from the preceding information, it can be assumed that, within the cultural framework that emerges from Old English texts, the conceptualization of positive emotions as products of the embodied mind is not only peripheral, but also susceptible to changes triggered by cultural and historical factors. While Old English poets use physiological references to underscore the need to control and regulate one’s reactions to positive emotional experiences, texts in prose (and, especially, glosses and translations from Latin) strongly suggest an emerging association between intensity and temperature, as corresponds to the underlying metaphor up is more (Lakoff & Johnson 1980). According to this new association, which is illustrated by Old English construals of love, the intensity of fire is likened to emotional intensity in a positive sense: more than an unpleasant bodily sensation, the examples examined here construe the emotional warmth and light of love as physical warmth and light (as in OE blæse ‘blaze, flame’).

Given the limited occurrence of the love is fire metaphor within the corpus, which is exclusively used in distinctly Latinate Old English texts, the interpretation of love by Old English authors through this lens can be confidently interpreted as a conceptual borrowing from Latin. In other words, the cultural impact of Latin not only led to the marginalization of the understanding of positive emotions as potentially unpleasant experiences, but also facilitated the transformation of the embodied model inherited from Germanic, which underscored the necessity to manage the perceiver’s emotional reaction. Instead, this model was reconfigured to emphasize emotional intensity over emotional regulation, as corresponds to the construal of positive emotions that emerges from Latin texts, proving that our associations between universal physiological symptoms and specific emotional experiences is subject to cultural and historical variation and that, in sum, culture is a major meaning-making resource.

5. Closing remarks

The analysis presented in this paper, based on a corpus of Old English texts categorized into verse, prose, and glosses, reveals that despite the limited prevalence of the temperature model and, particularly, the source domain of high body temperature in the representation of positive emotional experiences by Old English authors, the expressions examined in this study offer valuable insights into the distinct aspects of embodiment in the portrayal of emotions depicted in these texts. As demonstrated by my analysis, the conceptualization of positive emotions as high body temperature in Old English texts originates from two different sources. On one hand, the Germanic interpretation associates low-control emotions with socially undesirable behaviours, as evidenced by the expressions of interest, pride, and uncontrollable love reactions. On the other hand, the Christian perspective depicts divine love as painful, emphasizing that human love cannot match the intensity of love received from God.

All in all, in this study I have shown that emotions described as pleasurable can also be construed as negative hedonic experience. Through the use of the expressions discussed here, many of which are shared with negative emotions, Old English speakers construed positive emotions as unpleasant sensations. More specifically, the perceiver’s inability to control the emotional event or to reach a higher degree of emotional intensity can trigger drastic changes in body temperature. Furthermore, I have demonstrated here the importance of sociocultural factors in the lexical and conceptual choices performed by Old English authors. Whereas the feature loss of control is much more frequent in Old English poetry, glosses and prose tend to highlight the feature intensity of love. This echoes earlier studies on the construal of such negative emotions as fear (Díaz-Vera 2011) and shame (Díaz-Vera 2014, Díaz-Vera & Manrique-Antón 2015) in Old English texts, where the slow but steady social changes that affected Christian England, combined with the individual’s attitudes towards the changing cultural and social environment, modified the way feelings were expressed and, very probably, felt by Anglo-Saxon speakers.

^{1 For examples, Kövecses (2000) mentions the conceptual mappings anger is fire and happiness is warm.}

^{2 The DOEC comprises a total of 3.032.393 million running words in Old English, alongside over 750 thousand words from other languages, primarily Latin. It is divided into two main sections: prose (2.128.781 words in Old English) and poetry (177.480 words in Old English). Additionally, it encompasses all the interlinear glosses in the extant collection of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts (approximately 700 thousand words in Old English) and Old English translations of Latin terms recorded in Anglo-Saxon glossaries (around 27 thousand words). Consequently, the corpus utilized for this investigation encompasses the entirety of Old English vocabulary present in the bulk of surviving Anglo-Saxon texts and manuscripts.}

^{3 The concept negative hedonic experience is used by Uchida and Kitayama (2009) in their study of the cultural model of happiness in American and in Japanese society. Broadly speaking, this cluster of meaning includes verbal and nonverbal expressions that construe the emotional experience as an unpleasant feeling or as physical or mental pain.}

^{4 For a full characterization of interest as a positive emotional experience, see Silvia (2008).}

^{5 Namely, Aldhem’s De laude virginitatis 10, 22; 4, 39; 13.1, 976 (from 14, 243.15) and 13.1, 4427 (from 47, 300.24).}

^{6 Probably from Aldhem’s De laude virginitatis 14, 243.15 “scintillante superni ardoris facula inflammantur”.}

^{7 The feature influence/control refers to the perceiver’s control over the situation, that is, whether the perceivers believe that they can influence the situation to stop, maintain, or improve it if desired (upper half of the wheel) or not (lower half of the wheel; Sacharin, Schlegel & Scherer 2012: 4).}

^{8 For a full description of the different types of love and, especially, of reverential love and passionate love (the two types discussed in this study), see Lomas (2017).}

^{9 In Abrahamic religions, there is a strong tendency to identify God with fire. As noted by Charteris-Black (2017: 67), in these religions fire was created by a fire god and fire itself could be worshipped. Within this context, the love placed in the chest of his believers could be interpreted as a representation of God.}

^{10 Such as, for example, OE belgan ‘to boil with anger’ (but also ‘to swell’; Geeraerts & Gevaert 2008: 337–338),}

^{11 The interpretation of this verse is still open. While Bradley (1987: 32) translates this as ‘ambition’, Daria Izdebska (“The semantic field of anger in Old English,” unpublished PhD thesis, University of Glasgow 2015: 156) defines this inner welling as “some sort of grief.” Furthermore, Lockett (2011: 4) affirms that, “before Adam and Eve have succumbed to temptation, Satan broods with anger and jealousy.”}

^{12 More exactly, these four glosses correspond to the Durham Hymnal (3) and the Regularis Concordia (1).}

^{13 The intensity of Hrothgar’s emotional reaction is so strong that, rather than as an example of friendly love, literary critics have interpreted this passage as a proof of homoerotic desire (Moray 1996).}

^{14 The three occurrences of this expression correspond to Ælfric’s Homily Dominica prima in quadragesima (lines 32–37), Wulfstan Homily LV (line 105), and the Old English translation of Chrodegang of Metz’s Regula Canonicorum (line 37).}

^{15 This is especially true in the case of Old English metaphors of pride, where only one occurrence of the temperature model has been found (out of 44 occurrences of metaphorical expressions). In the case of interest (8 metaphorical expressions) and love (5 metaphorical expressions), the source high temperature is found in around 50% of the total number of metaphors. Once again, this confirms the tendency for the pattern of Old English emotion metaphors evoking the physiological framework to display remarkably low levels of salience, a characteristic previously discussed by Geeraerts & Gevaert (2008) and Díaz-Vera (2011, 2014), among others.}

^{16 In a collectivist society (Hofstede 1991), loss of emotional control is considered a factor of social disruption, which explains the negative consideration of such positive emotional experiences as interest and pride in Pre-Christian England.}

About the authors

Javier E. Díaz-Vera

Author for correspondence.
Email: JavierEnrique.Diaz@uclm.es
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-7251-2839

Professor in English Historical Linguistics and Sociolinguistics at the Department of Modern Languages, University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). His research focuses on the study of conceptual metaphor and metonymy from a variationist perspective, including historical, sociolinguistic and dialectal approaches. He has published a wide variety of papers and book chapters on the multimodal expression of emotions, cognition and sensorial perception in historical varieties of English, with special attention to Old English. His recent research focuses on the comparison between linguistic and visual representations of emotions in Anglo-Saxon texts and visual narratives.

References