Beowulf Historical Facts
• Epic poem from Anglo Saxon England
• Author unknown
• Written around the year 1000
• Oldest surviving medieval manuscript
• Old English Poetry
• Includes elegiac theme
• Originated as oral myth
• Based on myth, history, custom, &
Christianity
• Only a partial version was saved from
fire
• Housed in the British Library in London
The British Library
The British Library is the national
library of the United Kingdom
and one of the world's greatest
libraries.
It receives a copy of every
publication produced in the UK
and Ireland.
Its collection includes 150 million
items, in most known languages,
and 3 million new items are
incorporated every year.
The British Library houses
manuscripts, maps, newspapers,
magazines, prints and drawings,
music scores, and patents.
If you saw 5 items each day, it would take you
80,000 years to see the whole of the collection.
The earliest dated printed book, the Diamond
Sutra, can be seen in exhibition galleries
alongside many other national treasures.
There is
on-site space for over 1,200 readers in the
library, and over 16,000 people use the
collections each day.
Collections at the British Library include:
- Magna Carta
– Lindisfarne Gospels
– Leonardo da Vinci's Notebook
–
The Times first edition from 18 March 1788
–
–
Beatles manuscripts
The recording of Nelson Mandela's trial
speech
Holdings include:
–
Material from 300 BC to today's newspapers
–
310,000 manuscript volumes, from Jane
Austen to James Joyce, Handel to the
Beatles
49.5 million patents
Over 4 million maps
Over 260,000 journal titles
–
–
–
The building at St. Pancras Street is the
largest public building constructed
in the UK in the 20th century.
Anglo Saxon England
In the fifth century AD, people from tribes called Angles,
Saxons and Jutes left their homelands in northern Europe
to look for a new home. They knew that the Romans had
recently left the green land of Britain unguarded, so they
sailed across the channel in small wooden boats.
The Britons did not give in without a fight, but after many
years the invaders managed to overcome them, driving them
to the west of the country. The Anglo-Saxons were to rule
for over 500 years.
Some objects were left behind by the Anglo-Saxons which
have given us clues about how they lived. This tour gives
you an introduction to that time through objects in The
British Museum, home to the largest and finest AngloSaxon collection in the world.
Anglo-Saxon England was
a violent place where it was
important to be able to
defend yourself. This seax
(single-bladed knife) was
used both for hunting and
fighting.
At the Taplow burial, one of
the richest finds from
Anglo-Saxon times, underneath a huge grassy mound
an important man was
buried with possessions his
followers thought he would
need in the Afterlife,
including this drinking
horn.
King Alfred 'the Great' was the most
famous Anglo-Saxon king, known for
being a very devout Christian and for his
efforts to promote learning and literacy in
a country where almost no-one could read
or write. He is also famous for his success
in battle against the Vikings.
This is a Warlike dragon
Figurehead from a small wooden
ship of the Anglo-Saxon period.
Anglo-Saxon England was divided into the
five main kingdoms of Wessex, East Anglia,
Mercia, Northumbria and Kent, each with
its own king. The strongest of the kings
would make the other rulers pay him
tribute.
Kings often died early and violent deaths.
As well as fighting against each other for
power, they had to keep their own nobles
happy, or they might rise up against them.
One way that they did this was to give them
expensive presents. These rings were
probably given to nobles by King Æthelwulf
of Wessex.
This coin was issued by Alfred some time
after he took control of London. On one
side is a picture of Alfred. He has been
made to look like a Roman emperor.
Epic Poems
The Epic
The epic is generally defined: A long narrative poem on a great and
serious subject, related in an elevated style, and centered on a heroic or
quasi-divine figure on whose actions depends the fate of a tribe, a nation,
or the human race. The traditional epics were shaped by a literary artist
from historical and legendary materials which had developed in the oral
traditions of his nation during a period of expansion and warfare
(Beowulf, The Odyssey, The Iliad).
Epic Conventions, or characteristics common to both types include:
* The hero is a figure of great national or even cosmic importance, usually the
ideal man of his culture. He often has superhuman or divine traits. He has an
imposing physical stature and is greater in all ways than the common man.
* The setting is vast in scope. It covers great geographical distances, perhaps
even visiting the underworld, other worlds, other times.
* The action consists of deeds of valor or superhuman courage (especially in
battle).
* Supernatural forces interest themselves in the action and intervene at times.
The intervention of the gods is called "machinery."
* The style of writing is elevated, even ceremonial.
• Additional conventions: certainly all are not always present)
– Opens by stating the theme of the epic.
– Writer invokes a Muse, one of the nine daughters of Zeus. The poet
prays to the muses to provide him with divine inspiration to tell the story
of a great hero.
– Narrative opens in media res. This means "in the middle of things,"
usually with the hero at his lowest point. Earlier portions of the story
appear later as flashbacks.
– Catalogs and genealogies are given. These long lists of objects, places,
and people place the finite action of the epic within a broader, universal
context. Oftentimes, the poet is also paying homage to the ancestors of
audience members.
– Main characters give extended formal speeches.
– Use of the epic simile. A standard simile is a comparison using "like" or
"as." An epic or Homeric simile is a more involved, ornate comparison,
extended in great detail.
– Heavy use of repetition and stock phrases. The poet repeats passages
that consist of several lines in various sections of the epic and uses
Homeric epithets, short, recurrent phrases used to describe people,
places, or things. Both made the poem easier to memorize.
Aristotle described six characteristics: "fable, action, characters, sentiments,
diction, and meter." Since then, critics have used these criteria to describe
two kinds of epics:
Serious Epic
-fable and action are grave and solemn
-characters are the highest
-sentiments and diction preserve the sublime
-verse
Comic Epic
-fable and action are light and ridiculous
-characters are inferior
-sentiments and diction preserve
ludicrous
-verse
When the first novelists began writing what were later called novels, they thought they were
writing "prose epics." Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Samuel Richardson attempted the comic
form. Yet what they wrote were true novels, not epics, and there are differences.
Serious Epic
Comic Epic
-oral and poetic language
-written and referential language
-public & remarkable deeds
-historical or legendary hero
-collective enterprise
-generalized setting in time & place
-rigid traditional structure
according to previous patterns
-private, daily experiencer
-humanized or “ordinary” characters
-individual enterprise
-particularized setting in time & place
-structure determined by actions of
character within a moral pattern
“An extended narrative poem,
usually simple in construction,
but grand in scope,
exalted in style, and heroic in theme,
often giving expression to the ideals
of a nation or race. “