OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE

- Main characteristics:

- It was part of oral traditional

https://www.britannica.com/topic/oral-tradition

- recited by a scop in mead-halls

- gloomy atmosphere - gory details
- themes: battles - past deeds
- anonymous
- Boastful tone, aim to encourage warriors to join the deeds.
- It was written down later by monks
-

- Features of Language:
- Futhark
- guttural sounds

Definition of scop (Merriam Webster) : an Old English bard or poet

http://csis.pace.edu/grendel/spring2008/irfan/Scops.htm

- GENRES:
Poetry

SECULAR POETRY:
- EPIC POETRY e.g. The Battle of Maldon - Beowulf
- hero
- ……..
- digressions

- LYRICAL POETRY e.g. The Wife’s Lament - Deor’s Lament

- RIDDLES

CHRISTIAN / RELIGIOUS POETRY

Old English Versification

- 4 stressed syllables on one verse

- irregular number of unstressed syllables
- alliteration - (at least) 3 stressed syllables that alliterate

e.g. the three thoughtful tennants

/ /

I think tennats th...

- caesura (pause)
- rhythm

https://literarydevices.net/alliteration/

O.E. RHETORICAL DEVICES:

- ALLITERATION
- CAESURA
- RHYTHM
- REPETITION - VARIATION : same idea repeated
- KENNINGS
- GENEALOGY
- HYPERBATON,
*example, ‘NO NOVICE, was the earl’ (also a litote)
- LITOTES,
 IRONICAL UNDERSTATEMENT

- DIRECT, RAPID STYLE

- PERSONIFICATION
- DREAM VISION

PROSE

the lyrical poem: The Wife’s Lament

- Hyperbaton
- caesura l.10
- alliteration l.33 “lovers, living in love”
l.44 “for wide and far, in foreign folk-lands”
- repetition, “beneath the oak tree, in an earth-cave” “by the oak and earth-cave” (line
27; 35)
-