ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE

(650-1066)
 Until the XVIth century works were
collected in monasteries and available to
monks.
 With the Reformation, many documents
came to light and many others were lost
altogether.
 Written in Old English by clerks between
the VIIth and Xith centuries.
 The Latinist clerks: Aldhelm, the Venerable
Bede and Alcuin
 Aldhelm (650?-709)
 School of Canterbury, founded by the monk
Augustine in 597.
 He was a Saxon and became abbot of
Malmesbury.
 He wrote poetry in the vernacular, but only
his Latin works remain.
 Riddles, Latin poems and discourses
(addressed to nuns mainly)
 The Venerable Bede (673-735)
 Angle who lived in the monastery of Wearmouth
and Jarrow, Northumbria
 Under the influence of the Irish Christian monks.
 A theologian and historian.

 Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum

(Ecclesiastical History of the English People)
 From Julius Caesar's conquest up to 731
 Cædmon is mentioned here

 Lives of Saints, some Latin verses, a treatise on

metre, a natural history, a universal chronology of
the Christian Era (On the Reckoning of Time (De
temporum ratione))
 Alcuin (730?-804)

 An Angle brought up in York, from

Northumbria.
 Teacher and theologian.
 He collaborated with Charlemagne from
790.
 He wrote Latin poems
 Prose: on grammar, rhetoric, dialectics,
dialogues and catechisms.
 Propositiones ad acuendos juvenes:
attributed to him, 53 mathematical problems
 Alcuin's Problems
http://logica.ugent.be/albrecht/alcuin.pdf http://utenti.quipo.it/base5/alcuino/alcuintegra.htm

Propositio de lupo et capra et fasciculo cauli:

Homo quidam debebat ultra flavium transferre lupum, capram, et
fasciculum cauli.
Et non potuit aliam navem invenire, nisi quae duos tantum ex ipsis
ferre valebat.
Praeceptum itaque ei fuerat ut omnia haec ultra illaesa omnino
transferret. Dicat,
qui potest, quomodo eis illaesis transire potuit.

Proposition of a wolf, a goat and a bunch of cabbages:

A man had to take a wolf, a goat and a bunch of cabbages across a

river. The only
boat he could find could only take two of them at a time. But he had
been ordered
to transfer all of these to the other side in good condition. How could
this be done?
 Anglo-Saxon Prose

 King Alfred the Great (849-899), king of

Wessex.
 Translations of Cura Pastoralis, Boethius's Consolation
 Universal History by Osorius, Bede's Ecclesiastical History
translated under his orders and influence
 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, promoted by Alfred
 Aelfric (c. 955-c. 1010)
 Homilies (compilations and translations from the Fathers of the
Church), Lives of Saints
 Learning Latin, Grammar, Glossary, Colloquium
 Wulfstan (d. 1023), Archbishop of York
 Homilies, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (Sermon of the Wolf to the
English)
 ANGLO-SAXON POETRY
 Junius Manuscript (Bodleian Library)
 Caedmonian Poems
 Exeter Book (Codex Exoniensis, Exeter
Cathedral)
 Bishop Leofric, XI century
 The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Wife’s Lament, Riddles
 Cotton Vitellius (British Library)
 Beowulf, Judith

 Vercelli Manuscript (found 1832 in Vercelli

Cathedral)
 Religious poems and Lives of the Saints
 Two short fragments of verse (manuscripts lost)
 Battle of Maldon, Battle of Finnesburh, an episode of the life of
Waldhere (Walter of Aquitane)
 Christian poetry

 Cædmon, monastery of Whitby, Northumbria

 Cædmon's Hymn (c. 670), only surviving work, and
first poetic example in Old English
 It is referred to in Bede's Ecclesiastical History
 Cædmon has a dream in which God inspires him
some verses which he sings when he wakes up.
 The verses are praises of God and paraphrases of
the Creation and Holy Scripture
 “Once, when he had done thus, and gone from the
feast to the stable where he had that night charge of
the cattle, there appeared to him in his sleep One
who said, greeting him by his name, 'Sing, Caedmon,
some songs to Me.' 'I cannot sing,' he answered, 'for
this cause left I the feast and came hither.' He who
talked to him answered, 'However that be, you shall
sing to Me.' 'What shall I sing?' rejoined Caedmon.
'The beginning of created things,' replied Him.”

Bede, Ecclesiastical History

 Cædmon's Hymn
Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard
metudæs maecti end his modgidanc
uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuaes
eci dryctin or astelidæ
he aerist scop aelda barnum
heben til hrofe haleg scepen.
tha middungeard moncynnæs uard
eci dryctin æfter tiadæ
firum foldu frea allmectig
primo cantauit Cædmon istud carmen.
Now must we praise the Guardian of heaven's kingdom,
The Creator's might, and his mind's thought;
Glorious Father of men! As of every wonder He,
Lord eternal, formed the beginning.
He first framed for the children of earth
The heaven as a roof; holy Creator!
Then mid-earth, the Guardian of mankind,
The eternal Lord, afterwards produced;
The earth for men, Lord Almighty.
 Cynewulf

 Probably Bishop of Lindisfarne, Northumbrian, lived in

mid VIII c. or IX c.
 Christ (1700 lines), The Life of Saint Juliana (Codex
Exoniensis Exeter Book)
 Saint Helen, The Fates of the Apostles
(Vercelli Book)
 His name appears in runic characters in the poems.
 He probably wrote in Anglian, but the preserved
copies of the poems are in West Saxon
 Cynewulf's Juliana
BBC RUNES Juliana

... ... ... ... ... ... ... Geomor hweorfeð

'C', 'Y' ond 'N'.
sigora syllend,
'E', 'W' ond 'U'
hwæt him æfter dædum
lifes to leane.
seomað sorgcearig. ... ...
Cyning biþ reþe,
þonne synnum fah
acle bidað
deman wille
'L', 'F' beofað,
... ... ... ... …

Mournful turns the 'pine' [C, cen]

the 'horn' [Y, yr] and 'need' [N, nyd]. King is enraged,
giver of victories
when, marked with sin, the 'horse' [E, eoh], the 'joy' [W, wynn]
and 'auroch' [U, ur] wait, frightened,
what will be judged to them for deeds
as gift for life they've led,
'ocean' [L, lagu] and 'herd' [F, feoh] tremble and rest
in sorrow.
 Other Christian Poems
 The Dream of the Rood (Vercelli Book)
 Once attributed to Cynewulf, but now anonymous
 End of VIIth c.?
 One version appears on the Ruthwell Cross, a stone monument
in Dumfriesshire (Galloway-Scotland)
 Use of synonyms to describe the Cross and Christ.
References to Latin hymns and liturgy
 Bestiary
 Fragment containing the Panther, whale, and a
passage on the partridge

 Riddles
 A sort of encyclopaedia, with domestic animals, celestial bodies
and phenomena, art, tools, clothes, musical instruments, etc.
 The Phoenix
 700 hundred lines, based on a IVth c. Latin model
Ruthwell Cross
 Pre-Christian
 Compiled or edited in between the VIIIth and Xth
c.
 Impregnated with Christian and Latin ideas and
models
 Deor
 Recollects the lament of a scop or poet whose lord has chosen
another poet.
 He mentions Germanic heroes and gods as examples of his own
fortunes

 Widsith (great traveller)

 Name of the persona or character in the poem
 Account of the poet's trips in the Continent giving
a description of tribes and chiefs
 Lyrical and Elegiac Poems

 The Seafarer (Exeter Book)

 A sailor describes the joys and perils of sea life, as well as his
fascination with it
 Ambiguous interpretations: religious, lay
 The Wanderer (Exeter Book)
 An allegory of the tribulations of existence.
 A young peer goes int oexile to find a new lord to serve afte the
death of his first master
 The Maiden's or Wife's Complaint (Exeter Book)
 A slandered woman must live in a cave and thinks of her beloved
with regret
 The Ruin (Exeter Book)
 A Lament on the destruction of a town, probably Bath
 Heroic Poems

 The Battle of Brunanburh

 Epic to commemorate the victory of King Athelstan of Wessex and
Mercia in 937 over the Scots
 It was inserted in the prose chronicles by a monk
 Epic probably composed to be recited orally

 The Battle of Maldon (Vercelli Book)

 Epic fragment of 325 lines
 Describes the defeat of Byrhtnoth, chief of the East Saxons, in
993
 It describes Byrhtnoth's courage and honour and his death in
battle with all his loyal soldiers
BEOWULF
 ORIGINS AND MANUSCRIPT
 Cotton Vitellius A xv. (Nowell Codex)
 Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1571-1631),
Humanist and Antiquarian
 Sutton Hoo
 VIIIth century (year 750), but other theories
claim the XIth century.
 Transcribed by two scribes (A and B- line
1939 on) around year 1000.
 First epic poem in English literature
 Who was Beowulf?
 Sutton Hoo burial site
 6th century Geat (Goth)
warrior
 South of Sweden
 Plot takes place in Seeland,
a Danish island
Sutton Hoo
 Plot
 Beowulf helps Hrothgar, king of the Danes, whose
palace Heorot is being attacked by the monster
Grendel.
 Beowulf tears off Grendel's arm and wounds the
monster mortally.

 Grendel's mother comes to avenge his son and

Beowulf goes to her cave to fight her.
 Beowulf crossed a sinister lake and finds a magic
sword with which he kills this second monster.
 He returns victorious with its head and becomes king
of the Geats.
 Plot

 After 50 years some treasure guarded by a dragon is

stolen, and the dragon sets out to devastate the
kingdom.
 Beowulf kills the dragon but is mortally wounded.
 He dies nobly but great evils are prophesied for the
Geats because his warriors had abandoned him
during the fight, except the future king, Wiglaf.
 Interpretations
 Folk-tale brought by the invaders, not an epic
poem
 A Christian reworking of a pagan poem, copied by
a monk
 The welding together of Scandinavian sagas,
composed orally
 A poem composed for recitation to warriors in the
hall
 A Christian allegory of good vs. Evil
 A Christian allegory of salvation written for a
monastic order
 A Christian rendering of the themes of courage,
pride, fame
 Interpretations
 Beowulf is an example of popular literature

 Its structure follows a logical development

concerning the rise of the hero

 Structure rests on parallel situations rather than a

strict chronological order

 The theme of the cycle of violence (present at the

end of the poem)

 The theme of the life's transience

 Melancholy tone
 Style
 Long line divided into two halves by a caesura
 Alliteration links the half-lines
 Alliteration is seldom repeated from one line to the
next
 Two stresses or rhythmic accents per half-line:
 Stresses from the first half line alliterate, or just the first with itself
 The first stress in the second half-line alliterates, but the second stress
never does
 Syntax is relatively free and favours numerous
appositions
 Kennings: composites or compound words to name
an object by one of its attributes
 Bone-chamber, rod-fæstnen, hrith-heawere (slaughterer of cattle,
butcher), hring-finger (ring-finger), cynestol (king's seat / throne),
eardstaþa (earth-walker / traveller), ærend-gewrit (written
message / letter, hron-rad (whale-road / sea), swan's road
 Periphrasis and synonyms; Lack of subordination