Old English /Anglo-Saxon period

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Old English /Anglo-Saxon period

• Years 449-1066

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Content

• Strong belief in fate
• Juxtaposition of church and pagan worlds
• Admiration of heroic warriors who prevail in
  battle
• Express religious faith and give moral
  instruction through literature

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Style/genres

• Oral tradition of literature
• Poetry dominant genre
• Unique verse form
• Caesura
• Alliteration
• Repetition
• 4 beat rhythm

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Effect

• Christianity helps literacy to spread
• Introduces Roman alphabet to Britain
• Oral tradition helps unite diverse peoples and
  their myths

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Historical context

• Live centered around ancestral tribes or clans
  that ruled themselves
• At first the people were warriors from invading
  outlying areas Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Danes
• Later they were agricultural

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Key Literature/Authors

• Beowulf
• Bede

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Beowulf (epic poetry)

• Long Narrative
• Larger than life hero
• Embodies values of the Anglo/Saxon society
• Includes elements of myth, legend, folklore,
  history
• Has a serious tone
• Uses more formal, almost grand language

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Beowulf (epic poetry)

• Alliteration
• Irony
• Elegy mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem,
  especially a funeral song or a lament for the
  dead. 
• Epic
• Personification
• Foreboding or foreshadowing
• Heroic code 
• Symbolism
• Gleeman an old English performer
• Scop an old English poet
• Kenning metaphorical compound noun ex. Body
  bone-frame

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Beowulf alliteration

• Alliteration was widely used in the Germanic epic
  and in Middle English poetry before end rhyme
  gradually took its place. Heres an older
  translation of the beginning

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Beowulf alliteration

• Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kingsof
  spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,we have
  heard, and what honor the athelings won!Oft
  Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,from many
  a tribe, the mead-bench tore,awing the earls.
  Since erst he layfriendless, a foundling, fate
  repaid himfor he waxed under welkin, in wealth
  he throve,till before him the folk, both far and
  near,who house by the whale-path, heard his
  mandate,gave him gifts a good king he!

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Beowulf cultural characteristics

• Bravery in battle
• Bards or poets were used to elevate heroes of the
  tribes and were usually as important as the
  warrior themselves
• Faith in God to intervene positively with fate
• Influence of old pagan religion
• Warfare was the order of the day
• Amassing a fortune in battle
• Reverence for womanhoodprecursor to chivalryis
  expected
• Openhanded hospitality is the order of the day
• Truth is highly cherished virtue
• Great love for personal freedom

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Beowulf heroic code

• The invading Anglo-Saxon tribes were dominated by
  codes and customs which included
• a warrior class that was ruled by a tribal
  chieftain
• a body of personal retainers, or warriors, bound
  to the chieftain by kinship
• the custom of gift-giving
• a personal code of honor which included the
  concept of blood vengeance.  This code demanded
  that a warrior must either kill another person
  who injured or killed a kinsman or get
  compensation money for the injury or
  death           
• a warrior must defend his lord to the death

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