The formative factors of the Old English culture .s entered the history of civilized Europe, they were inhabited by a diversified race of people. It was the Celtie race; in the wrth and the westcalled Gaels, their original language, customs and ethnic {qualities already changed by contact with the aboriginal inhabitants; in the southeast much less altered Celtic tribes were Britons (or Cymri). While foday the remnants of the Gaels survive in Ireland and West Scotland, Britons survive in Wales and Cornwall. They were a people of sensitive nature and emotional temperament, marked by ironic introspection and a tendency to mockery, with a bold imagination and fancy. Both farmers and warriors, they formed a number of small kingdoms, but never achieved the foundation of a stable and powerful state. Their religion was also heterogeneous, a symbiosis of polytheism with various monotheistic influences. They believed in a number of gods, some of them local, many of them goddesses, which were the personifications of natural powers and of the particular events of the lifecycle; they believed also in immortality and the transmigration of souls, practised human sacrifice, worshipped oak and mistletoe, a boar and a horse, and as they never built churches, held their rites in holy woods. Their priests were called druids, and accordingly, their religion is named dni The Celts in the British Isles were first invaded by Julius Caesar in 55- 54 BC. The occupation of the country by the Romans and the introduction of Roman civilization and social order were achieved in the years 43-84 AD. The Romans, not contributing much to the later culture of Old English, slowly withdrew their legions to protect Rome from barbarians in the years 401-410 AD. ___ The Celts were left to cope with a number of small raids and invasions of barbarians, Picts, Scots and Teutonic tribes. Jutes, one of the tribes, Came in 449, and settled on the Isle of Wight and in Kent. By this process, the Celts were absorbed, exterminated or pushed to the west and the north. In 447 came another tribe, the Saxons, who settled in Essex, Sussex and Wessex, while in 547 Angles invaded the country north of the Humber and founded their kingdom there, in Northumbria. Being most numerous, they ave the name Angleland (England) to the whole country. 13Christianity first came to the British Isles during the Romat occupation, but then became obliterated by the Anglo-Saxons, althougl the converted Celts had carried it to Ireland whose main missionary an was St, Patrick (c. 432-461). The Anglo-Saxons brought their ow ion and mythology with them: a polytheism, this time offerin; a more strict hierarchy of gods, resembling that of ancient Greeks an Romans, with such gods as Woden, Thor, Loki, Tiu, whose destiny, as w as that of humans, was decided by Wyrd (Fate), For the second time Christianity came from two directions. Aidan! and other Irish monks converted North Anglians and established the seat] of episcopate in Lindisfame. From Rome came St. Augustine (597), whol converted Kent and established another centre of Christianity at Canterbury. The two rites, Irish and Roman, differed slightly, and the Irish one was ‘more popular. Finally, since the Synod at Whitby (664), the Roman church began to prevail The return of Christi ‘was a significant cultural factor, stimulating ite on the continent and creating a number of educational centres, like, for instance, York, or the famous monasteries jarrow and Wearmouth which were engaged in copying manuscripts and boasted of rich libraries. The stern life of warriors and sailors moulded the racial features of the Anglo-Saxons: their power of endurance, seriousness of thought and common sense. The hardships of life at sea strengthened perhaps the tint of fatalism in their religious feeling; on the other hand Anglo-Saxons were responsive to Nature, showing particular love for the sea in their poetry. The ruling motive of every noble life was the love of glory, while the mo: Significant social virtue was the loyalty and fidelity of the warriors, the thanes, to the lord or the king who was expected, on his part, to offer open: handed hospitality to his followers. Anglo-Saxons honoured truth, loved personal freedom, and did not allow much expression of sentiment The most important cultural institution was the scop, the bard, at the same time the poet and the performer, who not only shaped the verses, but also sang, recited or chanted them (probably, to the accompaniment of a harp) during the banquets and meetings of the thanes in their lord's or King’s meadhall. The language of the Anglo-Saxons was, of cours different from Moder English. Old English was a synthetic language, Possessing an inflectional system and as a result giving greater freedom in 14 was almost unilingual, and the language abounded oe ae that gave it peculiar vigour and strength. There were ieee major dialects of Old English: a. Kentish (spoken in Kent and Surrey), b. West Saxon (the rest of the region south of the Thames), c. Mercian or Midland (between the Thames and the Humber), 4. Northumbrian (between the Humber and the Firth of Forth). Almost all OE literature is written in West Saxon, but i that modem English developed. Mere The oldest texis surviving in OE are, naturally, not of a literary character. Some of them are early Germanic, written in the runic alphabet and they are usually rather short inscriptions found on swords or horns ot other objects of everyday use. Other texts survived in various manuscripts, tay wre memon jingles collection of shuhmicl gsnsloi,lw c. Many of them are evidently of pagan origin, aie ceid/ alam ut ee inane tox mmpanetall comets bearing traces of untutored language, English or dog-Latin, in prose and in verse, usually meant to control nature, to bring rainfall orto end a drought, the texts forgetting rid of pain, for regaining stolen catle or for dressing a wound, Another type of texts is the gnome, a short, often proverbial wise saying or sententious counsel, usually of pagan origin. Itis often found in larger poems, e.g. in Beowulf. re he consonantal vigour of Old English was additionally strengthened OE poetry by a particular system of verification. In this system each © is divided by a pause (caesura) into two parts (hemistichs). In eac the number of stresses is important, not the number of syllabl cach hemistich has two strongly accented syllables, wl Cn accented ones varies. At least one of the stressed syllables in the first ich must alliterate with the first stressed syllable (the thyme-giver) in the second hemistich. The alliteration is the repetition of the same consonantal sound (ot letter) at the beginning of a word; a vowel may erate with any other vowel. In this system there is no end-thyme and ines have usually distinct pauses atthe end (end-stopped lines). The nature of both language and the versification system, combined With the tendency to repeat an idea by means of other epithets or phrases (syntax and phrase m) endows OE poetry with a peculiar emphatic quality. Besides, the alliterated and reiterative flow of OE poetic lines seems from 15function for a scop as well as for his audience. Many expressions used: in this poetry were rather of a cultural, not a literary nature, especi periphrases - in such cases called kennings. OE poetry is characterize: also by a prevalence of compound words, by the frequent use of pronoun: instead of nouns, and by the lack of explanatory detail, which results in a noticeable swiftness of narrative Most OE poetry survived in the four best known collections off manuscripts: a, MS Cotton Vi “Sudith”); b. The Exeter Book (“Deor”, “Widsith”, “The Wanderer”, “The Seafarer”, “Christ”, and others); ¢. The Junius Manuscript (“Genesis”, “Exodus”, and others); d. The Vercelli Book (“Andreas”, “The Dream of the Rood’ “Elene”, and others). jus (among other contains “Beowulf” and ‘The spectrum of Old English poetic genres An Old English scop had a wide choice of stories he could recite at a gathering of thanes. One such story is “Widsith”, a poem of 143 line: which actually seems to be a narrative enumeration of the materials the scop had at his disposal for epic declamation. Whi openly fictitious travels, the bard presented a kind of names of heroes and kings. Coming probably from the seventh century, the poem makes us realize how much epic tradition was known then, which now irretrievably lost. Three other fragments which survived to our times belong to the same tradition of Anglo-Saxon epics. One of them, of 50 lines, named the “Finnsburgh” fragment, recounts a sudden attack upon a hall and the brave resistance of the warriors to the assault. It is a part of the story about Finn which is sung by the scop in “Beowulf”. ‘Two other fragments, coming from the eleventh century, are known under the common title of “Waldere” and belong to the cycle of the Germanic epic called the “Nibelungenlied”. Both constitute the speeches of the warriors before a fight. The whole legend was also treated in Lati ‘on the continent (in Switzerland known as “Waltharius”) and the version of the 16 since the 13th century. But the most important example in OE of the genre is the oldest surviving epic of any Teutonic people, “Beowulf”. It was probably composed by the refashioning of short lays (songs) and completed some ;mme in the second half of the eighth century. tis a narrative neither about he Anglo-Saxons nor about England. Danes, Geats, Franks, Frisians are presented as characters and the place of action is Denmark and South Sweden. The story falls into four distinct narratives about: 1. Beowulf’s victory over the cannibal-ogre Grendel in Hrothgar’s meadhall, Heorot; 2. Beowult’s slaying of Grendel's mother in her cave at the bottom of the sez 3. Beowulf’s return in glory to his uncle, Hygelac, king of the Geats, whom Beowulf later succeeds to the throne; 4, Beowulf’s death after the victory over the dragon fifty years later. The text was evidently meant for oral recitation to some kind of musical accompaniment. We can guess that i as the second episode - the fight with Grendel summary of the first part and the dragon episode forms a whole in itse It was performed at kings’ courts or at noblemen’s houses probably in various versions and the audience must have been accustomed to this type ofsstory telling, in which they met numerous episodes, heard the account of long speeches by the heroes and enjoyed the poem’s style and composition: ions, syntactical parallelisms, kennings, understatements. It seems that the audience could have been expected to know some other versions of the same story, so they often knew the events to be told and could also find some pleasure in listening to the allusions to other poems of the same kind, The text itself suggests that it adheres to som conventions, that behind it lies a long tradition of similar narratives. It is mainly the tradition of Scandinavian sagas which is recalled, for instance, by the history of the Scylding family feud alluded to in the fragment about the strife between Hrothgar and Hrothulf, by Ingeld’s story and by Finn’s story. The stories of some local kings and nobles were pethaps known better, but this history of the Geat kings seems to have been less popular, 7hence its treatment is broader. Owing to this we have some mentioned that appear to be historical. Hygelac is a historical character wh lived about AD 512. In historical sources he is mentioned as the leader the raid on the lower Rhine, in which his nephew Beowulf distinguishe himself. Similarly Heardred, who succeeded to the throne after Hygelac’ death about 520, The story is also well rooted in the everyday experience of th understanding to the 9f hunting and fowling, to the enumeration of gifts and grants of land that the warriors} were offered for their service and loyalty to the king. In general, the poem fits well the culture of those times. Not only 1 about the warriors” deeds to an audience who had first-hand knowledge of warfare, but it also} enabled them to appreciate the pathos of some heathen ceremonies still kept then, like, for instance, the funeral of a German warrior. The audience could evidently share the all-present belief in ogres, demons, giants and devils, treated in the poem as the evil brood of Cain; the listeners were in their life governed by the need of vengeance; the revenge - being quite understandable and in accordance with the Anglo-Saxon law in those times. - was often in unavoidable circumstances a binding duty to the warrior. Nevertheless, the culture of the audience was a Christian one. The Christian element in “Beowulf” can be observed not only in pious exclamations but also in the general acceptance of the Christian view. life. It is evident, for instance, that the visions of the Last Judgement and of the eternal life for the righteous are taken for granted in the text. Christian dogmas are here accepted, the poem is free from religious polemic. The Christian order of things pervades also the imagery of the poem: the sun is here “the heaven’s candle” or “the bright beacon of God”, and the spring thaw comes, when “The Father unbinds the fetters of the pool”. In the text we can find many stock met homiletic tradition, often of biblical origin, To such belongs the metaphor of “the spiritual armour against the arrows of the devil”, or the periphrasis for the king’s d who is said “to choose God’s light”, which could not have been used a description of a passing of a half-heathen monarch. It was probably a familiar poetic expression for the statement “he died” and belonged to the stock phraseology of the times which is derived, at least partly, from the translations of the Vulgate or Christian hymns. 18 In other words, the audience evidently were not partial or superficial converts. The scop expects them to understand the allusions to bibli Seents without giving information beforehand He assumes their knowledge Fhe Bible and of the commentaries to it through the teaching of the Church. He counts on their culture being fully Christian. Besides, the audience was also accustomed to listening to Christian posty: the scop sings in Heorot about the Creation and it would not have een described in “Beowulf” if such a procedure had been abnormal in those times. interpret the poem according to some myths. The nineteenth-century criticism often interpreted the figure of Beowulf himself as a sun-god, or as an allegorical figui fankind, or the Spirit of Summer (as he resembles Apollo fighting the Python, or St. George, or the Archangel Michael). But all these suggestions show at best the affinity of the poem with the remote f folklore, especially those found also in some Scandinavian sagas. One can also trace the cultu m of Vit perhaps and through Vi of stylistic details, the convention of the heroic boasting, the two voyages of Beowulf, his funeral, similar to that of Hercules - such elements resemble the Greek and Latin epic poems, Hence we can pethaps speak of the poem as the amalgamation of two types of heritage: Germanic and Latin. Besides telling an adventurous story “Beowulf” also carries some general meanings. The story seems to suggest that in the Christian universe ity is not left helpless in the hands of evil powers; that monsters can be overcome by human beings of courage and fortitude, by those who go into fight full of faith in God. Historical allusions help in establishing a contrast between noble disinterested deeds for the good of the people and actions of violence or passion motivated by divided loyalty, by ambition and treachery. There is also a sense of the temporal nature of earthly si everything passes, but there are some things that last forever: the memory of the brave deed and of a courageous hero, his fame and glory. In these respects, too, “Beowulf” is a poem representative of its culture. Ss - Anglo-Saxonepicpoemstoldstoriesofalegendarynatureandalthough some characters bear historical names, chronological inconsistencies are 19not infrequent and many supematural characters are introduced. But this long epic tradition is continued in many respects in other poetic narratives, in historical battle poems. Two such texts are known from “The Anglo: Saxon Chronicle”. “The Battle of Brunanburgh”, a poem of 73 lines, recorded under the date AD 937 and tells about the victory of Aethelstan, king of Wessex, over the Scots and Danes. The other text, “The Battle of Maldon”, dated AD 991, tells in 325 lines about the death of Byrhtnoth the battle against the invading Danes under Olaf Tryggvason (probably) Another genre of OE poetry is of different nature. It is a group of texts which are monologues in the shape of complaints or laments. Their melancholic or even elegiac tone is due to the grief expressed in them, either the intimate and personal grief of a banished lover, as in “The Wife’s Lament”, or the grief of a thane who lost his lord, his land and his kinsmen’ in “The Wanderer”, or a scop who laments the victory of his rival and the loss of his lord’s favour - in “Deor’s Lament”. Sometimes the grief is of a more general nature and it is motivated by the sight of the ruins of a town, as in “The Ruin”, or - as in “The Wanderer” - by reflections on the passage of time and the death of peop! This whole melancholic tendency is sometimes called the ““ubi sunt” trend in Anglo-Saxon poetry, suggesting by the term the dominant thematic motif of a persistent question “where are (those people, those times, those riches)...” (Latin “ubi sunt...”) Some of those poems are obscure, the number of the speakers in them being not clearly defined (as in “The Wanderer”) and it is often not clear which passages there might be later Christian interpolations. In “The Seafarer” - a poem about the love of sea-life in spite of its hardshi and about the resignation from the well being on dry land - the end is moralizing: man ought to reject earthly pleasures for the happiness which awaits him beyond death, and this is possibly such a later intrusion. Only in one of the poems in this group, “The Husband’s Messag is the habitual melancholy mood missing. It comprises a lover’s message to his woman, which is sent by means of runes carved on a wooden tablet, urging her to join him in exile when spring comes Another, more numerous group of texts contains 95 short descriptio of various enigmatic objects (like a shield or ice) which must be guessed 20 by the reader. The OE riddles are based on Latin originals (almost 100 sified riddles in Latin may be found in ALDHELM’s “Epistola ad ‘reicium”). Sometimes it is not an object itself but an abstract notion rggested by the described object, which should be guessed (“Lorica”). ‘The riddles are those texts that may pethaps best suggest the preoccupation of OF culture with the variety and wonders of creation. Some extant genres of OE literature point decisively at their Christi origin. Among them are free paraphrases of the Bible into alliterative verse. Some parts of the Bible seemed to be more popular than others in those times. The creation of the universe was a topic of major interest, as its appearance in many OE texts indicates (“Beowulf”, Aldhelm’s Latin riddles, Caedmon’s “Hymn”), Another attractive subject was that of a negative cosmic power which appears in the Bible and Christian literature in such situations as the revolt of the angels, Satan tempting Christ or devils tempting saints. In paraphrases these fragments were usually put into terms of military combat, with Christ himself presented as the Lord of the warriors. Besides battle scenes, descriptions of life at sea were popular, too. Those features may be observed in most famous poems attributed to Caedmon’s school, in “Exodus” and “Genesis”, and in the poems of CYNEWULF, like e.g. “Christ Il”. CAEDMON (¢.670) is the first known English poet - the only extant authentic fragment of his poetry is the praise of the Creator: 9 lines of the famous “Hymn”, Cynewulf (ninth century) signed some of his poems by runes corresponding to the letters of his name - the unsigned poetry is attributed to his school. Besides paraphrases of the Bible we find also in manuscripts the (“Judith” - attributed to Caedmon’s school), the “Fates of the Apostles” (“Fata Apostolorum”), and the adventurous lives of the saints, either written by Cynewulf (“Elene”) or ascribed to his school (“Andreas”). One of the most imaginative poems of the epoch is “The Dream of the Rood”, a dream vision about a miraculous tree, in tums shining ith jewels and bathed in blood, which becomes the teller of its life story ~ the story of the Crucifixion, Christ’s passion, death and triumph. Some Of the poem’s 150 lines are inscribed in runes on the Ruthwell Cross in Dumfries, 21The device of allegory was already important in those earl medieval times, It was used in biblical transpositions and in “The Dre: of the Rood”, But it was most functional in some didactic poems, lik for instance, “The Old English Physiologus”, three surviving poet of the earliest Teutonic bestiary. Medieval bestiaries were collections of pseudo-classical lore and fictitious natural history, originating in Greel sources from the second century BC. Their purpose was to teach religio or moral lessons through the example of the behaviour and appearance of the animals described. In “The OE Physiologus” the Panther, the Whal and the Partridge are described - the Panther standing for the Lord God an the Whale for Satan, “The Phoenix” and its story of the mythical bird’s death and rebirtl from ashes may be also read as an allegory of man’s resurrection. Th poem shows perhaps a much more Celtic temperament in its feeling fo nature and in its flights of fancy than the rest of OE poetry. Bibliography: D. Whitelock, The Audience of “Beowulf”, Oxford 1965. Further reading: J. Wegrodzka, The Lures of Allegory: Some thoughts on the Old English “Wanderer “Studies on Poetry", Zesz. Nauk. Wydz. Hum., Filologia Angielska 5, Gdatisk 1984, pp. 720. Anglo-Saxon prose In contrast to Anglo-Saxon poetry, OE prose, written for practical and religious purposes, is direct and clear, almost completely devoid of] stylistic devices and ordered in simple sentences. The earliest texts (till the ninth century) are written in Latin and are devoted to history, as “De Excidio et Conquesto Britanniae”, by GILDAS (c.497-c.570), relatin the history of Britain from the time of the Roman invasions to the tim of its author, or “Historia Brittonum” (c.796) by NENNIUS, a Welsh annalist. In ALDHELM’s (¢.640-709) “Epistola ad Arcicium” we find not only Latin riddles, but also a prose treatise on versification, while ALCUIN, (€.735-804), besides his liturgical, homiletic, and philosophical works is! remembered for his 311 “Letters”, valuable as a historical source, and for his treatise “On Grammar” in a form of a dialogue. 22 But the most important Latin scholar of the early Anglo-Saxon period is BEDE (673-735) - BEDA VENERABILIS, the author of about Zo books, theological, scientific and historical. His greatest achievement is iHistoria Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum” (731), a faithful and accurate pistory which includes also two passages important froma literary point of jew. The first is the story about Caedmon receiving a divine gift of poetic {elent, the other is an elaborate simile of human life which is compared to sparrow that flies out of darkness into a hall lighted and warmed by a fire, rests there for a while, and returns again into the darkness and cold. In the late decades of the 9th century, Wessex becomes not only a political but also a cultural and literary centre. King ALFRED THE GREAT (848-901) encouraged the development of leaming, secured the help of foreign scholars and started himself a number of translations from Latin into English. Pope Gregory’s “Cura Pastoralis” was translated and sent to every bishopric as a handbook for the clergy. The adapted translation of Paulus Orosius’s “Historia Universalis” was supplemented with original materials from the reports of contemporary seafarers. A free translation of Boethius’s “De Consolatione Philosophiae” - a significant philosophic dialogue on fate and free will - is perhaps the most original work of Alfred. King Alfred translated also the important history of Bede into the vernacular. Another important cultural enterprise began to develop into a systematic work during King Alfred’s time. It was “The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle”; begun as casual notes by monks, it grew into four versions of annals preserved now in seven manuscripts, the Peterborough version containing the entries till 1154, The “Chronicle” became the most important historical source of the times when the Old English changed into the Early Middle English. The “Chronicle” recorded also two historical battle poems. ‘A number of authors of those times engaged in writing homiletic rose, forinstance AELFRIC (c.995-c.1022) inhis“Homilae Catholicae”, 80 sermons on Church events, doctrine, and history, or WULFSTAN (died 1023) in his “Sermo Lupi ad Anglos” (1014), denouncing the evils and moral breakdown of English society. The anonymous “Blickling Homilies” are perhaps a good illustration of the ignorance and superstition that returned after the death of ‘King Alfred. It is a collection of canonical 23