ANGLOSAXON

LITERATURE
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN POETRY
ANGLOSAXON LITERATURE

• It lasted from the 7th century until 1066 (Norman Conquest

• It was mainly poetry (orally transmitted)
• It can be divided into two groups.
• Pagan Poetry : it contains elements common to Germanic history. It is partly the product
of the culture which was brought to Britain with German invasions of the 5th and 6 th century
which introduced a numaber of sagas, tales and legends long known to all the Germanic tribes.
• Christian Poetry: it instead derives its subjects from the Bible and the Lives of the Saints
which were paraphased for moral purposes.
PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN POETRY

• Pagan and christian poetry coexisted until the coming of the Normans.
But...
The Christian one continued after the Norman conquest
Pagan poetry, instead, slowly disappeared. For this reason the older works that
survived preserve their unique character bearing witness to a bygone age. The pagan poems
mirror the spirit of the past with its customs and traditions.
ORAL TRADITION

• Anglo-saxon pagan poetry was originally oral.

• It was only long after its composition that it was written
down, in monasteries by monks who interpolated
christian elements absent in the earliest versions
BEOWULF: AN INTRODUCTION

• It is the title given to an old-English poem which probably dates from the early 8th
century
• No one really knows when or by whom it was composed
• It is a story based on a Scandinavian saga which, after a period of oral transmission, was
probably written down by a scholar
• The original material was derived from different folk-tales and chronicals and was later
welded into a unity.
• It's a blend of legend and history
BEOWULF: FEATURES

• It is about 3200 lines long

• It is written in the wessex dialect
• It shows the characteristic features of Old English verse:
• Each long line is divided into two halves by a strongly marked pause in the middle of the line. The two parts are held
together by alliteration
• The poem is highly inflected
• It is poor in similies but rich in kennings
• There are no rhymes except for occasional internal ones.
• It would be impossible for the modern reader to read Beowulf in Old English.For this reason It has been translated
into modern English versions