Adeel Raza

Literary Movements

The Anglo-Saxon Period

Roman England
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Julius Caesar came to England in 55 BC

England was added to the Roman Empire as province Britannia
Emperor Hadrian built a 73-miles-long wall to protect Britannia from Scots
and Picts, who tried to invade Britannia.
When Rome became Christian, Roman missionaries spread the gospel in
Britain.
In 410 Goths swept down on Rome, Britannia was left to itself and the
country was ravaged by Barbarians from Scotland and pirates from Ireland
Anglo-Saxon invasions

After several invaders, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came from northern
Germany to invade cities. These people were pagans and with their
invasions Christianity died.
Britain came to be called Angle-land now and people spoke Anglo-Saxon.
The Anglo-Saxon tribes who had invaded Britain gradually merged into
seven kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, East-Anglia, Essex, Wessex, Sussex
and Kent.
Mission of Augustine

Christianity was brought back to Britain by means of Augustine, the first

archbishop of the Church of England.
Christianity spread rapidly and a new, Christian civilization began to take
shape.
Danes invade England

New invaders came from Norway and Denmark. They were Vikings, but the
English called them Danes.
The Danes would probably have wiped out Christianity, but Alfred the
Great, King of Wessex, protected it by defeating the Danes great army and
having them promised to be baptised and be Christians as well.
Alfred the Great founded English literature by translating Latin books into
Anglo-Saxon. He built schools and ordered the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the
first historical record of England, to be begun.
After Alfreds death Danes came again and again until 1042 when the
empire of king Canute of Norway and Denmark fell apart. The Danish
dynasty in England ended and Edward the Confessor came to the throne.
Old English Literature

Beginnings of English literature appeared in the 7 th or 8th century AD.

St Augustine established a Benedictine abbey at Canterbury which became
the centre of learning and scholarship of all Western Europe.
Early works of scholarship

Among others, two monks contributed to Old English Literature:

Bede the Venerable -> Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum

Adeel Raza
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Literary Movements

Alcuin -> responsible for revival of Latin scripts under Charlemagne

Alfred the Great also contributed to literature by starting the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle and by translating the Historia blablabla into Old English. He also
encouraged other scholars to translate Latin literature into Old English.
Examples of Old English Literature

There are several examples of Old English literature. The Anglo-Saxon

Chronicle and the aforementioned Historia blablabla are one of them.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the earliest known history of English, written
in the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) language.
One of the other examples is the Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
itself, which was written in Latin by Bede the Venerable. Besides writing,
Bede also introduced the practise of dating events from the birth of Christ
from ad 0. AD stands for Anno Domini (the year of our Lord). This method
of dating is still in use today.
The Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum contains among others the
story of the Conversion of Edwin and the Poet Caedmon.
(Examples of) Old English Poetry

There are several examples of early English poetry:

Beowulf is one of them. This poem is a blend of Christianity and paganism.
The language in Beowulf resembles modern German in grammar and much
of its vocabulary. The language is also an inflectional one: it has many
case endings for nouns, pronouns, adjectives and a complex system of
verbs. Beowulf was composed in Northumbria or West Mercia by an
unknown author. Although the poem teaches us a lot about Anglo-Saxon
ideals of heroism and kingship, the characters themselves are not AngloSaxon but related to Germanic people (Geats and Danes from
Scandinavia).
Another example is The Wifes Lament from the Exeter Book (a collection
of poems written in Old English -> the author of The Wifes Lament is
unknown.
The last example is the Anglo-Saxon riddles. Also published in the Exeter
Book, which contains 95 of them.
Help! What to study?

Study the notes/summary make sure you know everything from the
notes.
The Conversion of Edwin: study the answers to the questions 1 3 on p
14 of your reader. You should also be able to summarize the story of Edwin.
The Poet Caedmon: study the answers to the questions 1 4 on pp 1718 of your reader (4: only the first question). You should be able to
summarize the story of Caedmon as well.
The Wifes Lament: study the answers to the questions on the hand-out.
You should also be able to summarize The Wifes Lament.
The three riddles discussed in class: study them and make sure you
know what they are about. You should be able to give arguments for the
solutions to the riddles.
Beowulf: Study the plot overview (hand-out) very carefully. Make sure you
know the names of the characters and items mentioned in the overview.