Old English Poetry Flashcards
Bede
Defintion
- Historian and monk
- Wrote Ecclesiastical History (book that covers the period 597 to 700)
- Book examines religious and political history of Anglo-Saxons
- Book documents the conversion of England back to Christianity
Example: ??
Significance
- Book records earliest surviving examples of Old English poetry, including “Caedmon’s Hymn”
- A source of Anglo-Saxon history for scholarly research (get a deep understanding of this time period, make connections, etc)
Caedmon
Definition
- Earliest English poet
- Illiterate farmer who could not sing during feats – he would always avoid the lyre (harp) when it came towards him; he would get up and leave; one night, he dreamed someone approached him and asked him to sing and that is when he sang the hymn; he woke up and remembered it (praises God)
- Given the gift of song
Example
- Caedmon’s Hymn
Significance
- Shows how poetry was delivered orally rather being written down
- Shows strict rules of Anglo-Saxon poetry (alliteration)
- Use of kennings –> reveals how it was a unique feature of Anglo-Saxon poetry and prose
Hymn
Definition
- A song or poem of praise to God
Example
- Caedmon’s Hymn
Significance
- Allows people to adore and worship God
- Allows people to teach others who God is and what he has done for the human race
- Allows them to declare the truth
Dream
Definition
- Series of thoughts, visions, or feelings that occur during sleep
Example
- Caedmon’s dream and Eve’s dream (Milton)
- Eve dreams that a voice leads her to the Tree of Knowledge –> foreshadows her temptation –> predicts future events in the story when she is tricked by Satan to eat the forbidden fruit
Significance
- Valuable narrative tool
- Allows authors to foreshadow future events
- Foreshadowing builds suspense for the reader and keeps them engaged
Translation
Definition
- Process of reworking text from one language to another while maintaining its original meaning
Example
- Many Old English poems are translated to modern English such as Caedmon’s Hymn
Significance
- Compare the two versions and recognize differences
- Helps demonstrate the important features of Anglo-Saxon poetry, such as alliteration, special characters, word order, and kennings
- Creates a larger audience –> preserving literature
Latin
Old English
Definition
- Earliest recorded form of the English language
- Also known as Anglo-Saxon
- Developed through the vocabulary of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes
Example
- Caedmon’s Hymn, The Wanderer, and the Wife’s Lament are poems written in Old English
Significance
- Shows us where English comes from
- Shows us how it developed and changed throughout the years
- Tells us about the history, society, and geography of England
Elegy
Definition
- A genre of poetry which reflects serious subjects
- Subjects typically include loss, hardship, and grief
- Tend to follow a rhyme scheme
- Serious tone
- Usually written in first person –> focus on emotional experience
Example
- The wanderer by an anonymous poet
Significance
- Allows authors to fully express themselves
- Allows people to heal –> finding solace by releasing their emotions
- In particular, Old English elegies capture Anglo-Saxon culture; teach readers how their life was; teaches them their struggles –> meadhall (gathering; celebrating with lord and warriors), loyalty, etc
Exile
Definition
- Permanent or long-term removal from one’s native place
Example
- The wife’s lament by anonymous poet, she is forcibly separated from her lover
- The wanderer is in exile
Significance
- Allows the audience back then and readers today relate –> feel less alone
- The wanderer driven into exile because he lost kinsmen and the lord; shows effects of exile on the mind; shows loss of identity because wanderer’s identity and beliefs were built around the lord
Scribe
Definition
- Individual responsible for making copies of manuscripts
Example
- ???
Significance
- Challenges faced by scribes
- Writing on vellum paper is hard
- Being careful –> no mistakes
- Eyes sore from staring at paper all day
- The time it takes to produce
- Every manuscript was going to be different –> changes dependent on the text –> certain conventions
- Anglo-Saxon culture is recorded because of scribes
- We would not have knowledge of their culture if it was not for scribes effort
Vernacular
Definition
- Literature written in everyday language of a particular culture
- Informal spoken language of a region/culture/group of people
Example
- Geoffrey Chaucer one of the first writer to use vernacular English as a literary language
Significance
- Chaucer helped establish Middle English vernacular as a mainstream language –> replacing Latin and French
- By writing in the spoken language, people could quickly accept and use it
- Written works more accessible to people –> widens the reading audience
- Makes it easier to add in Christian beliefs –> converting people to Christianity
Manuscript
Definition
- Old documents written by hand, before invention of printing
- Monasteries were centres of manuscript production
Example
- An example of a manuscript is “Caedmon’s Hymn”
Significance
- Preservation of knowledge
- Valued possessions in the medieval period because of how long it took to write, how expensive the process was (getting many sheets of vellum paper), sore eyes, avoiding mistakes
- Every manuscript was going to be different –> layout dependent on the text –> conventions
- Reflects wide readership as these stories could been read on page or delivered orally
- Anglo-Saxon culture is recorded because of scribes
- We would not have knowledge of their culture if it was not for these manuscripts
