AN

INTRODUCTION
TO BRITISH
LITERATURE
PERIODS OF BRITISH LITERATURE
1. OLD ENGLISH /
ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD
(600-1066)
• I served them, in quittance, with my
dear-lovèd sword
• I had fewer retainers, dear-beloved
warriors, whom death had laid hold
 Anglo-Saxon literature
• 400 surviving manuscripts;
• both in Latin and the vernacular;
• West Saxon dialect /also Mercian or
Northumbrian;
• anonymous.
 Major Genres
• epic poetry,
• hagiography (lives of the saints),
• sermons and homilies,
• Bible translations,
• chronicles,
• riddles,
• charms
 Old English Poetry
• oral craft / a scop / a harp;

heroic
poems
subgenres
elegies
 Heroic Poetry: BEOWULF
• 3,182 lines;
• 195x130mm;
• dates back to c. 1000;
• handwriting /inscribed by two different
people;
Beowulf
and
Sutton Hoo
Heroic Poetry: The Battle of Maldon
• celebrates Earl Byrhtnoth and his
men who fell in battle against
the Vikings in 991.
• both the beginning and end are
missing ;
• the only manuscript was destroyed
in a fire.
 ELEGY
• A poem that laments the loss of worldly
goods, glory, or human companionship:
• The Ruin
• The Wanderer
• The Seafarer
• The Husband’s Message
• The Wife’s Lament
 Old English Poetry Features
• No rhyme;
• Alliterative verse;
• Caesura (pause);
• Kenning;
• Litotes.
 Other subgenres
• Anglo-Saxon riddles
• short verses, or charms (Nine Herbs
Charm, For a Swarm of Bees, Against a
Dwarf, Against a Stabbing Pain);
• mnemonic poems (The Fates of the
Apostles, The Rune Poem, The Seasons for
Fasting, and the Instructions for Christians)
 Christian Poetry
• narrative poems of saints’ lives:
Andreas;
• Bible translations and paraphrases :
Genesis A and B, Exodus and Daniel;
• Dream of the Rood
 THE POETS
• Caedmon’s Hymn;

• Cynewulf (The Fates of the

Apostles and Elene, Ascension (Christ
II) and Juliana).