Istoria literaturii şi civilizaţiei engleze (de la începuturi până la Restauratie) - seminar

Seminar no. 1
Anonymous Old English Poetry - General Characteristics (Deor’s Lament)
Old English poetry represents the collective work of anonymous successive contributors who passed on
by word of mouth either lyrical productions, pervaded with an acute feeling of melancholy and tragic destiny, or
saga1-like heroic poems extolling the deeds of legendary men.
The tone of the Anglo-Saxon lyrics is usually elegiac and they are marked by seriousness and melancholy.
They echo the early story of man’s desperate struggle to survive in a hostile world. It was a world of the “survival
of the strongest and the fittest” and these early literary productions recount of
- man fighting against man and
- of man fighting against Nature for mere survival.
On the other hand, in the pieces of Old English Poetry of the epic kind the characters are endowed with
rare qualities such as bravery, wisdom, generosity and extreme courage, while they pursue their noble ideals.
The tone is elevated and aristocratic, since poetry was primarily intended for recital with harp
accompaniment, intended for the nobles and warriors gathered in mead halls. Humour is rare, except as it
appeared in the irony of fighting men usually in the form of litotes (understatement for rhetorical effect, especially
using negation with a term in place of using an antonym of that term: She was not a little upset (i.e. very upset);
That [sword] was not useless / to the warrior now.” (Beowulf)). Another literary convention is the flyting2, a
mocking word-contest between two warriors.
The style of Old English Poetry is composite, abounding in
syntactic parallelism3,
repetitions
metaphorical compounds (kennings)
Examples of kennings: “Our life” is “a sea-travel”; “the sea” is “the swan-track”, “the swan-road”, “the
ice-cold pathway”, “the whale’s home”; “the ship” is “the sea-steed” or a “wave traveller”.
Old English poetry made ample use of alliteration and of rhythm (“beatings”). The lines of a poem were
usually made up of two hemistichs (a half line of verse), each having two feet, with each foot having one stressed
syllable and a variable number of unstressed syllables. It was oral not written composition.
The scop (poet) composed and the gleeman (minstrel) chanted Old English verses long before they were
committed to manuscript.
Literary critics register the following characteristics of Anglo-Saxon poetry:
1. In metre it is marked by accent and persistent alliteration.
2. Rhyme is absent, and there are no definite number of syllables. (…)
3. The poetry was sung, for in early times poetry and music were one and indivisible, and the
minstrel was free to modify the movement of the verse. Any modification introduced was, however, subject to
certain rules. There were always four accented syllables and three alliterative syllables.
4. There is a prevalence of compound words, by means of which the poet sought to condense the
qualities of his subject (“hoarse-tongued fire”, “leaden-eyed despair”)
In light of the above, anonymous old English poetry may be divided into:
a. Lyrical poetry;
b. Heroic epic poetry.
Lyrical Poetry
Among members of the military there were certain talented warriors who undertook to entertain their
fellows in the mead-hall with songs covering a set range of themes or topics: glorifying leaders, urging to combat,
or to revenge, mourning the brave who fell in battles. They were rewarded by their patrons with gifts of gold or
land, the relationship being the same as the one which held between the lord and the retainer 4. The economic ties
were, however, doubled by feelings of reciprocal affections, and such relationships occasioned the only love
poetry of the heroic age.
ANONYMOUS OLD ENGLISH POETRY
The Anglo-Saxons left behind no poetic rules or explicit system. For this reason, everything we know about
the poetry of the period is based on modern analysis. The most popular and well-known understanding of Old

1
Saga - a medieval Icelandic or Norse prose narrative of achievements and events in the history of a personage, family, etc.; any narrative
or legend of heroic exploits.
2
Flyting is a contest consisting of the exchange of insults, often conducted in verse, between two parties.
3
Parallel structure or parallelism means using the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of
importance.
4
Retainer – a supporter or dependant of a person of rank, especially a soldier
1
Istoria literaturii şi civilizaţiei engleze (de la începuturi până la Restauratie) - seminar
English poetry continues to be alliterative verse. The entire poetical system is based upon the following figures of
speech:
 accent
 alliteration
 the quantity of vowels, and
 patterns of syllabic accentuation.
Old English verse lines are divided in half by a pause; this pause is termed a “caesura” and each half-line
has two stressed syllables. Old English poetry was an oral craft and our understanding of it in written form is
incomplete; for example, we know that the poet (referred to as the Scop) could be accompanied by a harp, and
there may be other acoustic traditions we are not aware of.
THE POETS
Most Old English poets are anonymous; twelve are known by name from medieval sources, but only four of
those are known by their vernacular works to us today with any certainty: Caedmon, Bede, Alfred, and Cynewulf.
Of these, only Caedmon, Bede, and Alfred have known biographies.
DEOR’S LAMENT: ELEGY/ POEM OF CONSOLATION
Deor/Deor’s Lament is an Old English poem from the 9th or 10th century, in the Exeter Book, of 42 lines
divided into seven unequal sections and containing the refrain ‘that evil ended; so also may this’ 5.
Deor seems to be a minstrel who has fallen out of favour and consoles himself by considering the past
misfortunes of others such as
 Weiland (Wayland) the Smith,
 Theodoric, and
 Eormanric (Hermanric).

The present piece of literature is one belonging to the group of poems in the
Exeter Manuscript referred to as ‘elegies’. The poem, like all other Old English poems, is
untitled in the manuscript, but a poet named Deor is cited within the poem as its
author, so his name has commonly been used as the title. Although the poem has come to us in written form, it
still preserves the oral style of poetry supposed to be recited aloud.
All attempts at placing this poem within a genre are difficult. Some commentators attempting to
characterise the work have called it an ubi sunt (“where are they?”) poem because of its meditations on transience.
It can also be considered a traditional lament and poem of consolation (consolatio genre).
When compared to the other Old English lyrics, Deor stands out as a heroic poem cast in a lyric form. It is a
monologue by the scop Deor lamenting for the loss of his lord’s favours and finding comfort in the enumeration of
a series of misfortunes that occurred to other people, famous heroes in the Old Germanic heroic tradition, a few of
whom are also historical identifiable characters.
But the poem holds a place apart among Old English early lyrics and can be labelled as unique in several
other respects:
 it has a strophic form,
 each of the seven stanzas, of unequal length, presents in a nut-shell, a story of personal misfortune
and failure that was supposed to be well-known to the audience
 it has a refrain, the stanzas being separated by a recurrent phrase of laconic form and aphoristic
meaning, obviously separated by a gap in the manuscript each time it occurs.
The refrain “That evil ended. So also may this” has become famous as a challenge for many generations of
translators of Anglo-Saxon poetry who have made a point in rendering it in Modern English.
The poem runs through a list of legendary figures, asks what happened to them, and then responds with a
refrain of “That evil ended. So also may this”. Among the miseries and dismal fates that Deor runs through are
those of Theodoric the Great, Eormanric of the Goths, and the mythological smith Weiland. Each had an
undeserved end, and in each case ““That evil ended. So also may this”. It is only in the last stanza that we learn
what the “this” is.
At the poem’s conclusion, Deor reveals that he was once a great poet among the Heodenings, until he was
displaced and sent wandering by Heorrenda, a more skilful poet. According to Norse mythology, the Heodenings
were involved in the never-ending “battle of the Heodenings”. Heorrenda was one of the names of Odin, the god of
war and poetic inspiration.
The poem, also referred to as an elegy deals with the characteristic themes of

5
In another version of translation: That was surmounted; so may this be.
2
Istoria literaturii şi civilizaţiei engleze (de la începuturi până la Restauratie) - seminar
 the transitoriness of man’s fortune (‘fortuna labilis’ in Latin) and
 of exile (‘wraecca’ in Anglo-Saxon),
two obsessive issues of human condition in those troubled times, rendered by set descriptions of physical
hardships, accepted with stoical resignation. Composed after the Christianization, the poem displays a heroic
defiance of adversity and the hope that misfortunes will be put an end to in this world rather than in the world to
come. This is evidence that Christianity had not yet been fully assimilated in Anglo Saxon poetic tradition.
COMPREHENSION HINTS
 Weiland - the smith of Germanic legend whose name means ‘maker’, a supernatural being corresponding to
Hephaystos in classical mythology
 Nithhad - the hero who captured Weland (Wayland) and set him to work. The latter managed to escape killing
Nithhad’s two sons and raping his daughter Beadohild.
 sinewy bonds – phrase encountered in line 15 and refers to the bonds which were imposed by cutting a
prisoner’s tendons
 Beadohild - her case is an example of a ‘blessing in disguise’ because her son fathered by Weiland was to be
Widia, a celebrated hero in the Germanic tradition. Being the mother of a hero was a compensation for her
“sad plight” in line 9.
 Theodoric - the reference in line 19 is obscure. Scholars tend to decode it by identifying Theodoric either as the
king of the Ostrogoths, or as Dietrich von Bern who held the city of Maering (Verona) before being exiled by
Eormanric
 Eormanric - a historical figure, referred to in line 20. He was the king of the Ostrogoths, who ruled an empire
stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea during the third quarter of the fourth century. The legend credited
him to be cruel and treacherous.
 the Heodenings - the descendants of Heoden, the ruler of a Germanic tribe on the shore of the Baltic
 Heorrenda - poet of the Heodenings, also mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon epic Widsith. As Heoden’s minstrel, he
is sent to woo for his master king Hagen’s daughter, Hild. The girl is lured by Heorrenda’s magic song but Hagen
pursues his daughter and is killed by Heoden and his followers.
 land-right - as a reward for his services, a lot of land was granted to Deor. This is evidence of the important
position held by the scop in Anglo-Saxon society.
LITERARY TERMS CORNER
ALLITERATION: Repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with
the same consonant sound. The repetition can be located at the beginning of successive words or inside the words.
For instance, the phrase “buckets of big blue berries” alliterates with the consonant b. e.g. Grim was his menace,
and many a man
ALLITERATIVE VERSE: A traditional form of Anglo-Saxon poetry in which each line has at least four stressed
syllables, and those stresses fall on syllables in which three or four words alliterate (repeat the same consonant
sound). e.g. Deor my name, dear to my lord
ASSONANCE Sometimes called ‘vocalic rhyme’; it consists of the repetition of similar vowel sounds, usually
close together, to achieve a particular effect of euphony. e.g. That evil ended. So also may this !
ELEGY stands for any poem that laments/grieves the loss or passing of beloved persons, places, or things. It
also refers to any poem written in elegiac meter (alternating hexameter6 and pentameter lines). An elegy came to
mean any poem dealing with the subject-matter common to the early Greco-Roman elegies – complaints about
love, lamentation, or sombre meditations.
Characteristics of Elegy
 Invokes a muse
 Contains a poetic speaker
 Raises questions about justice, fate, or providence
 The poet digresses about the conditions of his time or is own situation
 Digression allows the speaker to move beyond his original emotion or thinking to a higher level of
understanding
 The conclusion provides consolation
KENNING is a type of literary trope, specifically circumlocution (an indirect way of expressing something), in the
form of a compound (usually two words, often hyphenated) that employs figurative language in place of a more
concrete single-word noun.

6
Hexameter is a metrical line of six feet. A foot is a group of syllables forming a metrical unit; a unit of rhythm. We measure feet in
terms of syllable variation: long and short syllables, stressed and unstressed.
3
Istoria literaturii şi civilizaţiei engleze (de la începuturi până la Restauratie) - seminar
- Compulsory reading - DEOR’S LAMENT (Romanian Version - Plângerea lui Deor)
Weland knew fully affliction and woe,
Hero unflinching enduring distress;
Had for companionship heart-break and longing
Wintry exile and anguish of soul,
5 When Nithhad bound him, the better man,
Grimly constrained him with sinewy bonds
That evil ended. So also may this !
Nor was brother’s death to Beadohild
A sorrow as deep as her own sad plight,
10 When she knew the weight of the child in
her womb.
But little could know what her lot might be
That evil ended. So also may this !
Many have heard of the rape of Hild,
Of her father’s affection and infinite love,
15 Whose nights were sleepless with sorrow and grief.
That evil ended. So also may this !
For thirty winters Theodoric held,
As many have known, the Maering’s stronghold.
That evil ended. So also may this !
20 We have heard of Eormanric’s wolf-like ways, Widely
ruling the realm of the Goths;
Grim was his menace, and many a man,
Weighted with sorrow and presage of woe,
Wished that the end of his kingdom were come.
25 That evil ended. So also may this !
He who knows sorrow, despoiled of joys,
Sits heavy of mood; to his heart it seemeth
His measure of misery meeteth no end.
Yet well may he think how oft in this world
30 The wise Lord varies His ways to men,
Granting wealth and honour to many an earl,
To others awarding a burden of woe.
And so I can sing of my own sad plight
Who long stood high as the Heodenings’ bard,
35 Deor my name, dear to my lord.
Mild was my service for many a winter,
Kindly my king till Heorrenda came
Skillful in song and usurping the land-right
Which once my gracious lord granted to me.
40 That evil ended. So also may this !
Prea deplin cunoscu Weland suferinţa
Nobilul volnic îndură prăbuşire cumplită;
Mâhnire şi dor de lipsiţii-i prieteni,
Surghiunul în iarnă şi durere în suflet,
Când cetluit fu de Nithhad bravul bărbat
Priponit fără milă în cătuşe de oase.
Răul acela trecu. Aşişderi acesta.
N-a fost moartea de fraţi pentru Beadohild
Suferinţa la fel de cumplită ca starea-i de jale,
Când cunoscu povara pruncului din al său pântec,
Ci puţin a ştiut ce soartă avea să-mplinească.
Răul acela trecu. Aşişderi acesta.
Mulţi auzita-au de-a Hildei hulpavă hrăpire,
De-a părintelui jale şi iubire dără istov,
De nopţi nedormite de mâhnire şi dor.
Răul acela trecu. Aşişderi acesta.
Stăpâni Theodoric peste cetatea din Maering
Treizeci de ierni, precum mulţi au aflat.
Răul acela trecu. Aşişderi acesta.
Cu toţii auzirăm de lupeasca apucătură,
A lui Eormanric, mare peste ţinutul neamului got;
Mulţi bărbaţi au zăcut sub zăcaşa-i sminteală,
Sugrumaţi de suspinuri, suferind apăsare,
Prea mult doritori de căderea regatului său.
Răul acela trecu. Aşişderi acesta.
Cel ce cunoaşte mâhnirea, când bucuria se trece,
Stă copleşit de tristeţi; prin surparea din suflet
nu mai răzbate
Vreun capăt restriştei ce i-a fost dată.
Ci cugetă doar cum peste toată suflarea
Căile Domnului sunt potrivite pentru feluri de oameni,
Luptătorului parte îi face de bunuri şi vâlvă vestită,
Pentru ceilalţi doar suferinţe li-i soarta.
Astfel cânt eu starea-mi de jale
Fost-am de frunte poet la neamul Heodening,
Drag stăpânului meu, Deor mi se zice,
Dulce mi-a fost slujba ierni multe la număr,
Blând foarte voievodul, până veni Heorrenda
În cântec măiestru, jinduindu-mi prinosul
Ce-odinioară nobilul domn cu mine împărţise.
Răul acela trecu. Aşişderi acesta.
4
Istoria literaturii şi civilizaţiei engleze (de la începuturi până la Restauratie) - seminar
Seminar Assignment

1. Deor’s Lament is an Old English poem…..

a. from the 7th or 8th century, in the Exter Book, of 40 lines divided into seven unequal sections and
containing a refrain
b. from the 9th or 10th century, in the Exter Book, of 42 lines divided into six unequal sections and
containing a refrain
c. from the 9th or 10th century, in the Exeter Book, of 42 lines divided into seven unequal sections and
containing a refrain
d. from the 9th or 10th century, in the Exeter Book, of 42 lines divided into seven equal sections and
containing a refrain
2. Alliteration is defined as……..
a. stressing a consonant sound in close proximity to others.
b. Repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with the same
consonant sound.
c. beginning several words with the same vowel sound.
d. repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with the same vowel
sound.
3. What is an elegy?
a. any poem written in elegiac meter (alternating hexameter and pentameter lines)
b. any poem dealing with the subject-matter common to the early Greco-Roman comedies
c. any poem that rejoices the loss or passing of beloved persons, places, or things
d. any poem dealing with the subject-matter common to the early Anglo-Saxon elegies
4. “That evil ended. So also may this” stands for:
a. a stanza in Deor’s Lament
b. the refrain in Dear’s Lament
c. the laconic refrain in Deor’s Lament
d. the subtitle of Beowulf
5. Deor’s Lament deals with the following characteristic themes:
a. love and death
b. the transience of man’s fortune
c. transitoriness of man’s fortune and exile
d. betrayal and forgiveness
6. Deor’s Lament runs through…………, asks what happened to them, and then responds with a …………… “That
evil ended. So also may this”.
a. a list of legendary figures; refrain
b. several sad episodes; line
c. a list of themes; song
d. some historical episodes; refrain
7. Who is Deor?
a. Deor was once a great poet among the Heodenings, until he was displaced and sent wandering by
Heorrenda, a more skilful poet.
b. Deor was a begging minstrel who fought for his lord, but was wounded in battle and sent wandering.
c. Deor was once a great poet among the Heorrendas, until he was displaced and sent wandering by
Heodning, a more skilful poet.
d. Deor was the writer of the first Anglo-Saxon song.
8. Beadohild’s case is an example of a ‘blessing in disguise’ because…
a. her son fathered by Nithad was to be Widia, a celebrated hero in the Germanic tradition.
b. her son fathered by Weland was to be Widia, a celebrated hero in the Germanic tradition.
c. her son cherished and loved her.
d. she was daughter of a lord.
9. Identify the figures of speech in the following line: Deor my name, dear to my lord
a. comparison and parallelism
b. assonace and comparison
c. alliteration and simile
d. alliteration and syntactical parallelism