Old English Literature

Question 1

Timeline

Answer 1

c. 600 BC: First Celtic settlers

55 BC: First contact with the Roman Empire

43 AD :Lowlands of British Isles become part of the Roman Empire

c. 450 : Anglo-Saxon Invasions (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes)

Question 2

Beda Venerabilis / The Venerable Bede

Answer 2

• Benedictine Monk in Northumbria
• first historian of England
• author of Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (engl.: Ecclesiastical History of the English People)

Question 3

Typical features of Old English Literature

Answer 3

• majority of Old English literature is lost
• poetic corpus is recorded in four codices
• OE poetry: no end rhyme but the words in each verse are linked by alliteration; each line has four main stresses and each line contains a caesura
• “kennings” → figurative descriptions/compound words

Question 4

Caedmon’s Hymn

Answer 4

• first known work of English poetry by the English monk Caedmon and written down by Bede in the Ecclesial History of the English People
• amalgamation → merging of pagan traditions, oral poetry, heroic verse with Christian themes

Question 5

The Dream of the Rood

Answer 5

• religious poem; no known date of composition and author
• crucifixion → retold from the point of the view of the cross that was forced to be the instrument of the saviour’s death

Question 6

Beowulf

Answer 6

• Beowulf Manuscript; written down around the year 1000, composed probably in the middle of the 8th century
• story of the hero Beowulf, who comes to the aid of the Danish king Hrothgar to defeat the monster Grendel and later, Grendel’s mother. After many adventures, Beowulf becomes the king of the Geats and ultimately dies in battle with a dragon