The AngloSaxon Period of English Literature

1
The Anglo-Saxon Period of English Literature

• 450-1066

2
Beginnings of British Culture

• First knowledge comes from the conquering of
  Britain by Julius Caesar in first century B. C.
• Celtic peoples of much of Britain adapted to
  Roman ways. Much of the island was never
  conquered--Wales, Scotland, and other areas. The
  Romans protected against Saxon invasions
• Romans began leaving around 400 A. D. because of
  threats at home. Local peoples were not well
  adapted to protect themselves.
• Around 450, Germanic tribes--Angles, Saxons, and
  Jutes--began the invasion of Britain and
  conquered most of the island. Tribal name
  Angl(i)I apparently gave England its name.
  Britain comes from the name of the Celtic
  speaking peoples--Britons.

3
Beginnings of British Culture

• The Britons had been Christianized to some
  extent by the Romans, since Rome had become
  Christian by the fourth century A. D..
  Anglo-Saxons (as the invaders were called) were
  pagans. Beginning in 597 A. D. St. Augustine of
  Canterbury began the conversion of the
  Anglo-Saxons.
• Viking invasions began soon after the Anglo-Saxon
  conquest (think Hagar the Horrible).
  Scandinavian peoples conquered large tracts.
  Alfred, King of the West Saxons, stopped them in
  the ninth century and united much of Southern
  England.

4
Anglo-Saxon Literature

• Little is known of pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon
  writings.
• Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English
  People gives useful information on peoples and
  events.
• Poetry follows the warrior code
• Kinship is critical. Death of a kinsperson must
  be avenged.
• Tribe is ruled by a chieftain (Lord) who chooses
  his war band (thanes), many of them blood kin.
• Those who are loyal to the lord are rewarded with
  the mead hall fellowship and with rings.
• Thane is obliged to fight and die beside the
  lord. If the lord is killed in battle, the
  thanes must stand and fight till the death over
  his body.

5
Anglo-Saxon Literature

• Those thanes who fail to fight are outcasts,
  doomed to wander alone.
• Swords or other weapons often have names in the
  poems.
• The battle poems have a sense of doom, perhaps
  reflecting the conflict the Christian writer who
  wrote down the poems saw between Christianity and
  the warrior way of life. The ideal is perfect
  courage in a lost cause.
• Heroic poetry presupposes fate--or wyrd--though
  sometimes a determined man can overcome his wyrd.
  

6
Anglo-Saxon Literature

• Anglo-Saxon poetry came in the form of
  speakings, an oral tradition.
• They had a runic alphabet used for tombs, sword
  pommels, or boxes, but apparently no writing
  equipment.
• Thus, the early speakings were recorded by
  clerics, the only people who could write.
  Clerics thus got to choose what we get to read
  from the time. Anything they disapproved of
  would not have been recorded, or would get
  substantial change.
• Some of the Anglo-Saxon runes survived for a time
  in the new written language to express certain
  sounds.
• Lines are broken by a caesura ( a pause that
  separates the line into two parts.)

7
Anglo-Saxon Poetry

• The poet makes frequent use of kennings, which
  are synonyms for simple nouns, such as the sea
  wood for ship or the whales road for sea.
• Instead of rhyme, the lines are linked by
  alliteration, the repetition of initial consonant
  or vowel sounds The fair breeze blew, the
  white foam flew (Coleridge)

8
The Hero in Literature and Myth

• Represents the best of a nation or a race.
• Is often the savior of his race.
• May have connection to the gods or some other
  aspect of divinity.
• Is often rejected by his own people
• May be a scapegoat whose death is necessary to
  save his people.
• Examples Odysseus, Beowulf

9
Beowulf

• Our Beowulf manuscript dates to the tenth century
  A. D. and describes a setting from the sixth
  century in the mother country to the
  Anglo-Saxons--the island of Zealand off the coast
  of Sweden.
• The manuscript survived when others were burned
  or used to wrap packages during the rioting after
  Henry VIIIs dissolution of the monasteries
  (1535-39).
• Laurence Nowell saved it in 1560s and Robert
  Cotton kept it , but it was nearly lost in a
  fire.
• The work was taught in literature classes in the
  early 20th century, but not really appreciated as
  literature until J. R. R. Tolkiens Beowulf the
  Monster and the Critics.

10
Beowulf--You Cant Tell the Players without a
Scorecard

• Beowulf--the epic hero and a thane to the king of
  the Geats.
• Hygelac--king of the Geats and Beowulfs lord.
• Also Beowulfs uncle and kinsman.
• Ecgtheow--Beowulfs father
• Hrothgar--king of the Shield Danes (sometimes
  Bright Danes).
• Wealhtheow--Hrothgars queen.
• Unferth--Dane warrior who insults Beowulf but
  later provides a sword.
• Aeschere--counselor to Hrothgar killed by
  Grendel.
• Grendel--the fen monster.
• Grendels mother--demon spawn descendent of Cain

11
General Characteristics of the epic

• Holman and Harmon describe the epic as a long
  narrative poem in elevated style presenting
  characters in high position in adventures forming
  an organic whole through their relation to a
  central heroic figure and through their
  development of episodes important to a nation or
  race. Holman describes a theory which suggests
  that epics originate in scattered works and
  through gradual accretion these episodes were
  molded into an organic work. Others believe the
  epic is the work of a single genius.

12
Types of Epic

• Folk Epics--authorship is uncertain and the work
  springs from an uneducated people, possibly
  through an oral tradition.
• Homers Odyssey and Iliad
• Beowulf
• The Song of Roland
• The Nibelungenlied

13
Characteristics of Literary Epic

• Hero of national importance
• Setting is vast
• Action consists of deeds of valor
• Supernatural machinery
• Sustained elevated style
• Invocation to the muse
• Opening in medias res
• Opening epic question

14
Literary Epics

• Virgil, The Aeneid
• Milton, Paradise Lost
• Dante, The Divine Comedy
• J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
• Richard Adams, Watership Down

15
Some Interpretations of Beowulf

• Early critics found Beowulf to be a work written
  by and for pagans to which Christian copyists
  added a veneer of Christianity.
• Others find it a work from Germanic society in a
  very early stage of conversion to
  Christianity--all allusions are to Old Testament.
• Tolkien finds Beowulf to be a Christian poem
  (written in the time of Bede) about a Pagan past,
  not an epic but elegaic (a tone of sadness) and
  lyric (expressing emotion of author in melodious
  verse). The monsters have always been here and
  represent the enemies of good.