In this article, Robert Graybill analyzes the deeper meaning of the poem The Dream of the Rood. He goes beyond the basic literary analysis to delve into a deeper aspect of the poem, showing how it reveals a great deal about not only the religiosity of the Anglo-Saxon culture which produced it, but the complexity and richness of that culture as well. The article's main purpose is not only to examine the poem for its literary greatness, but to look beyond the actual words and to see into the Anglo-Saxon world; to show the true wealth of thinking that is very often denied to the Anglo-Saxons as a people. To fully understand how the poem achieves this, it will be necessary to give a background on first the Anglo-Saxon people as a whole, and then on the poem itself, followed by an analysis of how the poem reveals the true depth of Anglo-Saxon culture.
In the early middle ages, the Anglo-Saxons arrived in modern day England, and ruled the land from approximately 449BC until 1066BC. They were a Germanic people, and they brought with them a rich narrative tradition. Graybill points out in the opening line of the article that many critics turn up their noses at the Anglo-Saxons, dismissing them as "great shambling oafs with no understanding of the Platonic world of the spirit- (Graybill, 1). He argues quite persuasively that quite the contrary is true, that in fact the Anglo-Saxons were a great deal more complex that history often gives them credit for. The literature of a people is very telling of the culture that gives birth to it, and Graybill argues that Anglo-Saxon literature "shows suprising sensitivity to the concerns of justice, morality, courage, honor, fidelity, and generosity- (Graybill, 1). Thus, one of Graybill's main undertakings throughout the article is to convince the reader of the true worth of the Anglo-Saxon people. .
One of the preeminent works of Anglo-Saxon literature, The Dream of the Rood, supports Graybill's idea that the Anglo-Saxons were a spiritually and intellectually rich people.