WEDNESDAY

Anglo- Aug. 31

Saxon
Poetry:
CHARACTERISTICS
AND EXAMPLES

SLIDESMANIA.
Reporter: Giselle C.
Melendres
 Anglo-Saxon
History
Anglo-Saxon Poetry
●Anglo-Saxon literature (or Old English According to the Venerable
literature) encompasses literature written Bede, the Anglo-Saxon
in Anglo-Saxon (Old English) during the people were a composite of
600-year Anglo-Saxon period of Britain, three separate tribes—the
Angles, the Saxons, and the
from the mid-5th century to the Norman
Jutes.
Conquest of 1066. These works include
genres such as epic poetry, hagiography,
sermons, Bible translations, legal works,
chronicles, riddles, and others. In all there
are about 400 surviving manuscripts from
the period.

SLIDESMANIA.
 7 Major Characteristics of A nglo-Saxon poetry

1 2 3 4

IDEALISTI PESSIMISTI MUSICAL

C NOTE ALLITERATI
C QUALITY VE

5 6 7
EXTENSIVE USE
OF
VARIATIONS

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METAPHORICAL
DESCRIPTI PHRASES, IN METER
SYNONYMS AND
VE COMPLEX
WORDS.
 Characteris
tic
Idealistic 1
idealism was mostly related to the pagan
sentiment, the pagan way of thought, the pagan
traditions. Both the Christian and the non
Christian types of poetry are essentially
idealistic. Apart from the holy idealism of
Christian poetry, Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry is
found to express the lofty idealism of chivalry
and self-sacrifice for the worthy and noble

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purposes of life.
 Characteris
tic
Pessimistic Note 2
this usually arrives from the fact that an
Anglo Saxon poet constantly felt
haunted by the fact that he was just a
helpless creature under the influence,
under the control of an inscrutable, cruel
divine power.

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 Characteris
tic
Musical Qualities 3
Most of these points were lyrical in
nature. They had very strong musical
qualities to them because most of
these points were meant to be sung
by the Minstrel. So obviously they
will be musical to a certain extent.

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 Characteris
tic
Alliterative 4
Anglo-Saxon poetry creates rhythm through a
unique system of alliteration. Syllables are
not counted as they are in traditional
European meters, but instead the length of
the line is determined by a pattern of stressed
syllables that begin with the same consonant
cluster.

SLIDESMANIA.
 Characteris
tic
Alliterative 4
Anglo-Saxon poetry creates rhythm through a
unique system of alliteration. Syllables are
not counted as they are in traditional
European meters, but instead the length of
the line is determined by a pattern of stressed
syllables that begin with the same consonant
cluster.

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 Characteris
tic
Descriptive 5
Anglo Saxon poetry had rich descriptions and
vigorous portrayals of the details of various
places and events in a way that you can literally
visualize what is happening right in front of your
eyes, even though you do not belong to the Anglo
Saxon period, even though you do not have much
idea about how the Anglos action world usually
looks like.

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 Characteris
tic
6

Extensive use of
metaphorical phrases,
synonyms and complex
words.

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 Characteris
tic
Variations in Meter 7
The meter used to write the poem, it can be
pentameter, hexameter, tetrameter, whatever.
It's not like the entire poem has to be
stationed on one particular meter. But there
are variations in the meter of the poem and
different parts of the poem.

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 Read
Caedmon’s Hymn THIS
Now let me praise the keep of Heaven's
kingdom...
He first created for the sons of men
Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator,
then Middle-earth the keeper of mankind,
the Eternal Lord, afterwards made, the
earth for men.

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 Read
Caedmon’s Hymn THIS
"Ni scylun hergun hefaenricaes uard

metudaes maecti end his modgidanc"

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 Read
CAEDMON THIS!
● Caedmon, (flourished 658–680), first Old English Christian
poet, whose fragmentary hymn to the creation remains a symbol
of the adaptation of the aristocratic-heroic Anglo-Saxon verse
tradition to the expression of Christian themes.

● an illiterate herdsman, retired from company one night in shame

because he could not comply with the demand made of each
guest to sing. Then in a dream a stranger appeared commanding
him to sing of “the beginning of things,” and the herdsman
found himself uttering “verses which he had never heard.”

SLIDESMANIA.