Study Sheet: First six weeks Literary Terms/Elements

  • Hyperbole: She is the wisest person in the world.
  • Personification: The world laughs at fools.
  • Simile: Kind people are like gold—precious.
  • Metaphor: Good advice is a precious gem.

Sound Devices

  • Alliteration: mourning of mind; wretched robin
  • Assonance: climb rimed cliffs; no sorrow
  • Consonance: confess and redress; lonely and weary
  • Onomatopoeia: eagle’s screech; ouch

Prose: ordinary speech or writing

Vernacular: the language of the common people

Verse: poetry

Scop: traveling storyteller/poet; Oral tradition

Anglo-Saxon Literature

1. Poetry

  • Heroic poetry: EX Beowulf (epic poem)
  • Lyricpoetry: Express the thoughts and feelings, of a single speaker

EX Elegies: “The Wanderer” and

“ The Seafarer”

Elegy: a type of lyric poem in which the loss of something or someone is mourned

2. Riddles

Famous Anglo-Saxon manuscripts/books

Bede: A History of the English Church and People;

A collection of historical events and stories

written in Latin that tell of the warring

kings of England and the spread of Christianity

The Book of Exeter: A collection of manuscripts

written in Old English include “The Wanderer,”

“The Seafarer,” and “The Wife’s Lament.”

Anglo-Saxon Chronicles: A collection of manuscripts/journals knit together by monks during the reign of King Alfred (AD 871-899) written in Old English

Anglo- Saxon Verse—Alliterative verse

  • 4 strong beats/accented sounds per verse
  • Caesura—a break in the middle of the verse to allow the poet/speaker to take a breath
  • Alliteration
  • Kenning: two word metaphor; EX ring giver for lord

Common Anglo-Saxon Themes

  • Good vs. Evil / Heroic traditions
  • Isolation/Exile
  • Christianity/Joys of Heaven
  • Hardships

Important Dates and People

  • BC 800-600: Celts—Britons and Gaels
  • BC 56-55: Julius Caesar—Roman invasion
  • AD 70: First permanent Roman settlement in London
  • AD 300: Romans introduce Christianity to

people in Britain

  • AD 400: Romans leave
  • AD 449: Germanic tribes invade—Angles, Saxons, and Jutes
  • AD 871-899: King Alfred the Great—briefly unites Anglo-Saxon tribes; encourages learning and education
  • AD 587: Saint Augustine converts King Ethelbert to Christianity
  • AD 886: Danelaw--England is formally divided
  • Prominent Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms—Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, and Kent
  • AD 1066: Battle of Hastings—Anglo-Saxon King Harold II vs. William of Normandy; Harold loses, ending Anglo-Saxon Rule; the Norman Conquest begins
  • AD 1066-1154: Norman Rule—suppression of Anglo-Saxon nobility; Normans control government; feudal system ; business conducted in French or Latin

Feudal system is system that involves an exchange of property for personal service:

King—parcels land to his supporters

Barons—pay fees and taxes and

supplied a specified number of

knights, professional soldiers to the

king

Knights—received smaller parcels of land called manors

Serfs—peasants worked the manors

  • AD 1154 Norman rule ends when Henry Plantagenet , count of Anjou becomes king
  • AD 1215: King John forced to sign Magna Carta—charter limiting King’s power, marking the beginning of constitutional powers