Before 450 - Iberian Peninsula; Peoples Immigrated Around 500 B

Before 450 - Iberian peninsula; peoples immigrated around 500 B.C, called Celts

· Several tribes, Brythonic to Britons moved eventually up to present-day England

· Julius Caesar invaded 55. B.C.; subjugated the Celts to Roman rule; built roads, aqueducts, and baths, huge structures that brought 'civilization' to the indigenous tribes.

· 412 - Last of Roman legions have been withdrawn; Celts left defenseless; at mercy of 'savages' from Scotland; turned to Jutes, Germanic Tribe, for help. Hengist and Horsa come into SE England to assist; call in Angles and Saxons who together with Jutes, took over Briton. Becomes 'Angleland'

· As well as they couold, wiped out evidence of Roman occupation

· A few Celtic bands fled to Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Others fled across the channel to France, settled in Britanny [or 'Briton-y']

Social characteristics: A warrior society

· Thanes - highest social allegiance is to King; Thanes, or Lords, pledge they will fight to the death; in return the King bestows gifts and protection

· Comitatus - a band of men; the king's or lord's companions-in-arms

· United in local groups; no national king

· Constantly defending against raiding Germanic and Scandinavian tribes

· Cultural Ideals

· A Hero is an avenger; true heroes seek vengeance for wrongs committed to them, their lord, or their people. Loyalty - to the lord above all else, to the death

· great love for personal freedom;

· honored truth;

· Repressed emotion or sentiment

· Physical prowess - might makes right

· Male-dominated,

· sister's son the most important relative

· women revered as bearers of the race.

· Life short and nasty

Literature/Culture:

· A cultural flowering in Northumbria in the seventh and eighth centuries

· Begun with the spread of Christianity and literacy; combined the Celtic myths and legends with those brought by the Germanic tribes from the Continent.

· This ended with the Danish invasions of the nine century

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· Old English literary center then shifted to Wessex in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, a kingdom unified under Alfred the Great, [849-899] who promoted literacy and education.

· Encouraged translation from Latin of religious works, such as Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People; Boethius' consolation of Philosophy.

· He commanded the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a compilation of English history beginning with Caesar's invasion in 55 B.C and carried through to A.D. 1154

· Language

· OE Dialects: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, Kentish

· By end of 14th c. West Saxon emerges as the supreme, London dialect. Scholars unable to translate OE until 17th c.

Anglo-Saxon Literature:

1. Pre or Non-Christian

· Polytheistic paganism; very little pagan poetry of religious nature extant.

· Ex. Charms or chants, prepared by women. [545]

· Gnomic verses - [label from the Greek tradition] aphoristic, moralistic, sententious; short poems that convey secular wisdom; didactic [512]

· Most pagan poetry is secular in nature. No love songs in OE although they were being written in France

· Most is elegaic

· "Deor's lament" repetition of one line suggest a particular stanza form. But most OE has no stanza form. Deor is a scop who has lost his position and laments this, but realizes that this, too, shall pass. It's a poem about the transitory nature of life.

· "The Seafarer" 8th century. Speaker is a seafaring man, poem contrasts joys of living on land and hardship of life at sea. Essentially pagan

· "Wife's Lament" and "The Husband's Message" usually found together and expression of sentiment that is extremely rare in OE poetry.

2. Heroic Tradition

· Arises from oral tradition

· Designed to be sung, originally unwritten; passed by the scop of the tribe on to the next minstrel

· Chief ingredient of OE heroic poetry is gloom; life temporarily lifted by moments of glory. Sure way to guarantee Valhalla was to die in battle, do deeds of valor.

· Intended to present an heroic incident in life of a great man who is physically strong. A great hero must be very strong and 'strength' here refers to physical attributes rather than mental acuity.

3. Christian Tradition

· Most written in Latin; Venerable Bede wrote an ecclesiastical history in OE and Latin of Eng speaking peoples. Wrote about a monk [Caedmon] who wrote a 9 line poem: "Caedmon's Hymn"; first OE author we know by name

4. Only a few MSS extant for study.

· Most of the poetry found in only four MSS, compiled around 1,000 A.D., in the West Saxon dialect, they contain poems of much earlier date: the Beowulf MS, Junius MS, Exeter Book and Verceli MS

5. Direct and powerful language

· Wyrd = fate; much concern with this; in Germanic tradition, always harsh and cruel/blind and pitiless

· tone is stern; life subject to nature's whims, particularly the sea

· Out of the oral tradition; meant to be accompanied by a harp -

· formulaic, repetitious formulas used as aids to memory; helps the person reciting the poem and helps the listener envision quickly the images as stock types used

· kenning - stereotyped figurative phrase as a synonym for a simple noun. Ex. "the ringed prow,' the 'foamy-necked', the 'seafarer' for a ship. The 'whale-road' for the sea.

6. Types: Accounts of heroic tales, epic, elegaic, commemorations of battles, religious poems

· Latin verse and prose of this period is usually didactic, consisting of biblical commentaries; moral, philosophic, and scientific treatises; devotional poems; and histories.

· Old English is the vernacular; Latin the international language and that used for religious, academic, and legal purposes

7. Modern Texts: Editor's role crucial; scholarly literature full of commentary

· No real way to pin down exact meaning or pronunciation

· Alliterative; lost to us in translation, but preserved in original..

8. Versification:

· Accentual only; based on a count of accents or stresses in each line, with the unstressed syllables varying in number. Ordinary line had four stresses, two on each side of a heavy caesura [pause].

· Usual mode of presentation was by a Scop, or minstrel, who would strike a chord on a harp either in conjunction with the stresses, or at rests between them.

· No unit larger than the line

· In place of end rhyme, OE poetry used alliteration, with normal line alliterating on three or sometimes two or all four of the stressed syllables.

· This system prevailed from about 500 - 1100 A.D.

The Venerable Bede

· A monk at the Northumbrian monastery at Jarrow; he wrote over thirty works of history, grammar, science, theological commentary. His best known work is the Latin Ecclesiastical History of the English People, from the roman invasion of England to 731. It was translated into Old English under King Alfred and also provided the material for the early part of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

· Within Bede's work we find the story of a monk who wrote a nine line poem "Caedmon's Hymn."

Caedmon [died approx. 680 A.D.] - Old English poet

· According to Bede he was an illiterate herdsman who received divine inspiration in a dream to write religious poetry; he is the first author writing in Old English of whom we are aware.

· The OE verse found in the "Caedmonian MS" ascribed to him contain only one hymn known certainly to be composed by him. The others may be the work of several authors.

Dream of the Rood - 9th c./found in Junius MS

· Rood = 'cross'

· Short dream vision, a genre that developed importantly during the later medieval period. A fragment of it is inscribed on an early eighth century stone cross in Scotland, and the Vercelli MS has a complete version.

· Dreamer beholds cross on which Christ was crucified. Narrated by the cross itself, tells of its life as a tree, etc.

· A fusion of Anglo-Saxon and Christian traditions; good for use in converting the 'heathen' to Christianity. Appeals to the warrior code while promoting Christian values.

· Harrowing of Hell - important in later medieval poem "Piers Plowman." Christ presented in the final lines of the poem as battle leader, his disciples = commitatus

Beowulf

Scholarly issues: dating, authorship, pagan/Christian mixture

· Some say the text was written by one author during the 9th c., a Christian who took an heroic poem, but shaped it from a Christian viewpoint.

· Most scholars believe it was written over a long period of time; multiple authors, probably composed around 752 AD

· Originated as a Norse text, transmitted orally

· Passed to England in the late 8th c.

Its value as literature

· Great historical value as it is the longest OE work we have extant.

· Structure: medial pause in line, four stresses per line, no rhyme, heavily alliterative (initial consonant sounds). This evidence from Beowulf structures assumptions about OE poetry in general, and allows a reconstruction of the language.

· First epic in English [Spenser's Faerie Queen and Milton's Paradise Lost follow; the only Folk epic [from the people; begun as oral composition; many 'authors' and passed down through generations] composed in English.

· Provides insight into Germanic customs and ideals

· Well unified poem: three major exploits of Beowulf.

· Exhibits early regard for Nature.

· Narrative moves swiftly; lots of good action; stately speeches characteristic of English poetry.

Epic structure and conventions, derived from Homer's Iliad:

· Great dignity and magnitude of subject

· Always in poetic form designed to be recited orally; early ones probably changed with musical accompaniment.

· Always concerned with exploits of a hero in an age when physical prowess is important.

· Hero is always well known to an audience.

· Only those exploits that make the hero memorable are included.

· He must be put in conflict with an adversary of equally heroic proportions.

· The conflict must be between two similar cultures.

· The conflict between cultures is symbolized by the struggle of heroes of both cultures.

· Victory is symbolized by killing of one of those heroes.

· Epic exaggeration; the greater the odds, the greater the struggle, the greater the victory.

· Always a tragic death occurs after great struggle.

· A true epic must come from the legends of a particular people.

· A clear statement of purpose early in the epic.

· Grand similes; elaborate comparisons

· Catalogues and listings.

Uses of the Epic

· Serves an historical function: commemorates events; records them in the communal memory

· Preserves cultural values by valorizing particular behaviors

· Serves as 'acceptable' form of commentary: Beowulf the first to question the warrior code.

· The Beowulf poet represents the pagan values as limited and doomed.

· Characters are governed by the duty of blood vengeance. Destructive feud mentality evident in Beowulf's speech about a political marriage between Hrothgar's daughter and King Ingeld: