[Adapted from Fields of Vision 1 Literature in the English Language – Longman]
By Denis Delaney, Ciaran Ward and Carla Rho Fiorina
Storytelling was the main form of entertainment. Stories were passed on from generation to generation and some of those ancient stories are still with us today in the form of legends
, myths
and folk tales
.
Medieval legends have become very popular in today’s computer games because of their mix of magic, adventure and conquest. The monsters, dragons, magic rings, capes of invisibility, secret potions and the motives of love, greed and vengeance have all been reproduced in these games to entertain today’s players. Have you ever played any of these games? What were the features you enjoyed ?
One of the most important stylistic elements of Anglo-Saxon poetry is alliteration
, i.e. the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning or in the middle of two or more words. Anglo-Saxon poetry was recited , often accompanied by music, in front of an audience.
Alliteration gave the language a musical quality . It also played the same role as rhyme
in later poetry, it helped the poet and the audience to memorize the poem.
Alliteration is still widely used in modern English: songs, nursery rhyme, newspaper headlines and advertisements often contain alliteration.
The Development of the English Language
The origins of the English language can be traced back to the settlement of the
Angles
,
Saxons
and
Jutes
in Britain in the fifth century A.D.
The three Germanic tribes could understand each other’s language and they quickly fused together to form Old
English.
Old English was different from Modern English as to spelling, pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. Over eighty-five percent of Old English words do not exist anymore.
The words that are left refer to everyday common objects or family relations: words like mann (man), cild (child) and hus (house). Grammatical words such as pronouns, prepositions and auxiliary verbs are also of Anglo-Saxon origin.

Anglo-Saxon Literature
We know very little about the people who composed
Anglo-Saxon poetry
because their work belonged to an oral tradition
. They were travelling minstrels called scops who were the memory bank for the tribe or the kingdom’s history. Anglo-Saxon poetry is musical and the scop would recite and play a musical instrument at the same time (the harp or the lyre). Musical elements of the language such as alliteration
and rhythm were important because they helped the scop to memorise the long poems and made it easier to hand them down orally, from generation to generation.
The poems composed by the scops can be divided into two groups
:
Pagan and Christian poetry
:
-
Pagan poetry
: it includes sagas, tales and legends that are common to all
Germanic cultures and which were brought to Britain during the early invasions.
-
Christian poetry
: the topics were taken from the Bible and the lives of saints.
What remains of early Anglo-Saxon poetry today was written down by monks in monasteries from the end of the seventh century onward. The monks often eliminated pagan aspects of the works and added elements of Christian morality.
Beowulf
Of the only 30,000 lines of Anglo-Saxon verse that survive today, about ten per cent is the epic poem Beowulf (3,182 lines), the oldest work of literature in the English language
.
The Angles, Saxons and Jutes took the story to Britain during their fifth century invasions , then the story was passed on from generation to generation until it was eventually written down by an anonymous writer, probably in the eighth century . The only surviving manuscript of the poem dates from the tenth century (it is in the British
Library, London)
The setting
The poem tells the story of the hero Beowulf in his fights against supernatural creatures and includes many references to other stories and historical events. Most of the main action takes place in Geatland (in Sweden) and on the Danish island of Sjaelland
(Zealand) during the sixth century . However, the many digressions (deviations from the central theme) extend the poem’s geography to the rest of Denmark, northern
Germany, Poland and the Low Countries.
Historical content
Although there is no evidence that Beowulf himself ever existed , it seems that several poems were composed about the character. Even though Beowulf is a legendary figure the events of the poem occur in a real place and in a precise historical setting because the poets had a deep knowledge of Germanic history.
Task
–
Correct the following statements.
a.
Nearly all modern English words derive from Old English words. b.
The very few examples of Anglo-Saxon poetry that have come down to us were written in manuscript form by travelling minstrels called ‘scops’. c.
The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is a mixture of fact and fiction. d.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is an accurate historical account of the reign of King
Alfred the Great.

Task - Answers
Correct the following statements. a.
Nearly all modern English words derive from Old English words.
Over eighty-five per cent of Old English words do not exist anymore. Many modern
English words derive from Latin, French and other languages. b.
The very few examples of Anglo-Saxon poetry that have come down to us were written in manuscript form by travelling minstrels called ‘scops’.
What remains of early Anglo-Saxon poetry today was written down by monks from the end of the seventh century onwards. c.
The Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is a mixture of fact and fiction.
There is no evidence that Beowulf exis t ed. d.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is an accurate historical account of the reign of King
Alfred the Great.
Although it gives us a good idea of what happened in Britain over 1,000 years ago, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is not historically accurate.
Prose
The most important document from the Anglo-Saxon period is the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle . It was compiled on the orders of King Alfred the Great in
AD 890 and subsequently added to by generations of anonymous scribes until the middle of the twelfth century. It is a detailed timeline of English history. It does not present a complete history of those times and it is not one hundred percent accurate but it gives some idea of what happened in
Britain over one thousand years ago. It includes information on agriculture, science, law, battles, religion and many other topics.