HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Anglo-Saxon Period
(450 – 1066)
Lecture 4
MA English
COMSATS Virtual Campus Islamabad
Overview
 In this class we will discuss:
A brief history of early Britain
What is Anglo-Saxon/Old English?
Brief History of Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon Poetry
Anglo-Saxon Prose
Literary works during the period
A brief history of early Britain
a. The Earliest Settlers
 In ancient times Britain was inhabited by Iberians of whom little is
known.
 The beginning of settlement in Britain took place in about 2000 –
1200 B. C.
 The early settlers were certain Celtic-speaking tribes called
Britons, from whom the island got its name--Britain ( the land of
Britons ).
Pre-Historical/Pre-Roman
The Celts were Pagans and their religion was
known as “animism” a Latin word for “spirit.”
A brief history of early Britain
The Earliest Settlers
 The Britons were primitive, bronze-age people.
 They lived in round, wooden huts and were mainly farmers
 They lived as tribes with a king or queen as their leader.
The Roman Conquest
 Conquest: Oxford dictionary Definition
 Act of taking control of a country or city by force
 In 55 B. C. Britain was invaded by the Roman general
Julius Caesar.
 The Britons fought bitterly against the Roman
conquerors (for about 100 years) and were not
completely subjugated to the Roman Empire until 78 A.
D.
 With the Roman Conquest, the Roman mode of life and
civilization came across to Britain also.
The Roman Conquest
 The Romans introduced their civilization and language and build
towns, roads, baths and temples.
 For over a century they tried to conquer Caledonia, Scotland, but
did not succeed. In the end King Hadrian ordered building of a wall
across the north of England.
 The Roman Conquest ended in 410 A. D.
The Most Important Results of the Roman
Occupation

Established camps that eventually became towns.

Maintained relative peace.

Latin heavily influenced the English language.

Christianity begins to replace Paganism, especially after St.
Augustine converts King Aethelbert in 597.
What is Anglo-Saxon or Old English?
 The earliest phase of English Literature
 Anglo and Saxons---two tribes occupied Britain
 English----Common tongue of these tribes
 Before the occupied Britain, they lived along the coasts of Sweden and Denmark
 The land which they occupied was called Engle-land
 These tribes-----fearless, adventurous and brave
 They sang at the feasts about battles, gods and their heroes
 Some of their chiefs were also bards
 Through their songs of religion------English poetry began in the ancient Engle-
Land.
 Britain was still a Roman province
Anglo - Saxons
 First landed in England in the middle of 5th century and by
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670 A.D. they occupied almost whole country
The came as conquerors
They made England their permanent home
The became ancestors of the English race
They ruled till 1066
Harold, the last Saxon king was defeated in the battle of
Hasting by William the Conqueror of Normandy, France
Background of Anglo – Saxon
Language
 Branch if Indo-European family of languages
 It has same root words for:
 Father and mother
 God and man
 Common needs and common relations of life
As we find in Sanskrit, Iranian, Greek and
Latin
What is Anglo-Saxon or Old Literature?
 Mush of the Anglo-Saxon poetry is lost
 Only some fragments are left
 Poems:
 Widsith describes continental courts visited in imagination by a far
wandering poet
 The Flight at Fibbesburg deals with the same favorite these of battle against
fearful odds
 Complaint of Deor describes the disappointments of a lover
 Beowulf----the most important poem of this period
Themes in Anglo – Saxon Poetry
 Five great principles:
 Love of personal freedom
 Responsiveness to nature
 Religion
 Love for womanhood
 Struggle for glory
All these principles are reflected in their
literature.
Beowulf
 Greatest Germanic epic in the world of
Literature
 Tale of adventures of Beowulf-----the hero
 A champion and slayer of monsters
 Full of all sorts of references and allusions to great
events
 To the fortunes of kings and nations
Old English Poetry
 Few books were written; most of those were written in
Latin, for religious purposes. What are the earliest works
written in Old English? Four books of Old English poetry
exist today.
Stories from the Old Testament turned into Old English poetry
2. Christian poems based on themes from the New Testament or
lives of saints.
3. An anthology of different short poems
4. The fourth contains Beowulf. Badly burned in 1731; today it is
carefully preserved in the British Museum, in London
1.
Beowulf
 First page of the
Beowulf
manuscript
•
How Old English sounds:
•
http://www.engl.virginia.edu/
OE/Beowulf.Readings/Prologue
.html
Old English Poetry
 Our ignorance about Beowulf.
 Was it a traditional heroic story, written down by a monk and then
recopied by other monks who added a thin veneer of Christian
moralizing to a basically pagan tale?
 Was it written by a scholar trying to create something like the great
Latin epic, the Aeneid?
Introduction
“The poem called Beowulf was composed
sometime between the middle of the seventh
and the end of the tenth century of the first
millennium, in the language that is today
called Anglo-Saxon or Old English. It is a
heroic narrative, more than three thousand
lines long, concerning the deeds of a
Scandinavian prince, also called Beowulf, and
it stands as one of the foundation works of
poetry in English.”
- Seamus Heaney
(translator, poet)
Background on Beowulf
 3182 lines
 Chief literary monument of the Old English Period
 Author unknown - - likely composed in 8th
century, by monk putting down oral tradition, with
a mixture of Christian tenets (unique combo of
Germanic pagan heroism + early Christian
teaching/world-view)
 first printed in the 19th century
Background on Beowulf
 Setting: not in England, but in earlier period in
Scandinavia (though it has been transformed into a
uniquely English text)
 in the heroic age of Germanic peoples (5th and 6th
centuries)
 hence, celebrates a past centuries old, glorified by oral
traditions
Beowulf and Poetic Beginnings
1. Use of Contrast (man-filled Heorot vs. lonely
Grendel stalking among corpses)
2. Early use of Symbolism (Beowulf hangs Grendel’s
arm on wall: symbol of victory)
3. Hyperbole (struggle so fierce even the mighty
Heorot is threatened)
Alliteration and Beowulf
 The most striking feature in Beowulf is the use of
alliteration.
 In alliterative verse, certain accented words in a line
begin with the same consonant sound.
 examples:
Of men he was the mildest and most beloved,
To his kin the kindest , keenest to praise.
(In modern translation)
Metaphor and Beowulf
 Ring-giver is used for King
 Hearth-companions for his attendant warriors
 Swan’s bath / whale’s road for sea
 Sea-wood for ship
Such metaphors occur in great numbers in this work.
Anglo - Saxon period and Christianity
 After the Anglo – Saxons embraced Christianity, the
poets took up religious themes as the subject matter of
poetry
 Major portion of Anglo – Saxon poetry is religious
 Two important religious poets:
 Caedmon
 Cynewulf
Caedmon
 He sang in series the whole story of the fate of
man
 From creation and the Fall to the Redemption
and Last Judgment
Cynewulf
 His most important poem is the Crist
 Narrative of leading events of Christ`s ministry upon
earth
 Christ`s return to judgment
English Prose and Anglo – Saxon
Period
 Began in King Alfred` s times
 Alfred`s translations from Latin– a common available prose
 There was no break in prose of Anglo – Saxon Period and
Middle English Period
 Comparatively easy to understand
 Prose– based on religious instructions
 Two great pioneers of English prose:
 Alfred the Great
 Alefric
Anglo-Saxon Prose
Alfred the Great
 The glorious King of Wessex
 Translated a number of Latin works in English
Aelfric
• A priest
• Wrote sermons in a sort of poetic prose
Anglo-Saxon Prose
1.
Bede ( the Venerable Bede)
◦ Father of English History
◦ Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (631)
◦ later translated from Latin into Anglo-Saxon by King
Alfred as The Ecclesiatical History of the English People
in 891
◦ covers from the Roman Invasion of Britain to AD731, 4
years before the author’s death
2. King Alfred’s contributions to English
literature
 Translations from Latin, including Bede’s History
 his free way of translation helped him to write in a natural
style in English, his contribution to the development of
English prose
 launching the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (also known as Old
English Chronicle), a historical register of national events
from dim past to his own age. This work was continued by
monks long after his death.
References
 A critical History of English Literature by Dr. Mullik
 A critical History of English Literature by David Daiches
 A dictionary of Literary Terms by Martin Gray
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