STARA BRITANSKA KNJIŽEVNOST
ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE
The Anglo-Saxon invaders who came to Britain in the 5
th
and 6
th
century, were
the founders of English Culture and English literature. They gave England its
name, its language. The Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes pushed the Romanized
Britons into western corners of England (Celts - part of them survived as
Welsh). This new barbarian society reflected heroic ideals.
1) Heroic poetry
Surviving A.S. literature bring us most closely into contact with the
Germanic origins of the invaders. It is written in Old English or Anglo-Saxon
(Engl. language in an earlier stage of its development, with inglections which
have since disappeared, a relatively small vocabulary from which many words
have since been lost).
the verse is alliterative and stressed, without rhyme, each line containing 4
stressed syllables and a varying number unstressed. There is a definite
pause (caesura) between the 2 halves of each line, with 2 stresses in each
line.
2 halves of each line are connected by alliteration which means that syllables
connected in this way begin with the same consonant, groups of consonants:
sp, st, sc or any vowel. Words that are accented or words bearing alliteration
are usually nouns, adjectives and rearly verbs and adverbs.
30 000 lines of A.S. poetry have survived - contained in 4 manuscripts:
1.
Cotton Vitelius: in British Museum - containing Beowulf, Judith + 3 prose
works
2.
The Junius Manuscript - religious poems
3.
The Exeter Book - Widsith, Wanderer, etc.
4.
The Vercelli Book
Heroic poetry celebrates war, bravery, loyality of soldiers. The style is severe
and solemn. We do not know much about OE culture (place names, certain
localities). Anglo-Saxon poetry is the nearest we can get to the oral pagan
literature of the Heroic Age of Germania. The stressed alliterative verse is the
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product of an oral court minstrels; it was intended to be receited by the Scop,
the minstrel who frequented the halls of Kings.
Widsith
(143 verses) - one of the earliest surviving A.S. poems. It is the
autobiographical record of such a scop.
The text is in Exeter book - 10 ct., in West Saxon dialect, but the poem dates
from 7-8
th
ct., though parts of it must be older.
Widsith, the ‘far wanderer’, tells of his travels throughout the Germanic world
and mentions the many rulers he has visited. Many of the characters he
mentions figure in other poems (Beowulf).
The poem is not a true autobiography, because it extends for 200 years, but it
is a view of Germanic history and geography as it appeared to a Northumbrian
bard of the 7
th
century drawing on the traditions of his people.
It shows us the world of barbarian wanderings and conquests. It contains of:
Prologue, I Catalogue, II Catalogue
BEOWULF
(from: Medieval British Literature)
The longest surviving poem in Old English, in a single manuscript, MS. Cotton
Vitellius A. XV in the British Museum, transcribed in the West Saxon dialect at
the end of the tenth century, at least two centuries after its composition. We
still do not know the name of its author, and it was not given the title Beowulf
until 1805 and not printed until 1815.
The text is divided into forty-three fitts or sections.It is suggested that there
must have been earlier manuscripts, transcribed in Northumbria perhaps,
where the poem may well have been composed. The written version existed
probably by the middle of the eighth century. It fits best the Christian culture
of Northumbria at the golden age of the Venerable Bede (c.673-735), one of
the greatest European scholars of the early Middle Ages.
Bowulf, the longest surviving Old English poem, is a somber masterpiece, the
first great English work in the oral, primary epic mode. It was written at a time
when the Germanic tribes still retained a consciousness of common origins
and history.
The hero of the poem is a Geat, a prominent member of a tribe known by the
name from only a few other sources, but said by the poet to be ancient and
powerful. Modern opinion favors their being the Gautar, who seem to have
lived in what is now southern Sweden. The atmosphere is of far away and long
ago, shaded, deliberately darkened, and misty - a time when men still fought
the evil creatures of the dark.. An English poet is writing about the common
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Beowulf is the beginning of the English literature and the end of Enlish pre-
literature.
As it is the only long heroic poem to have survived completely in OE, it has a
great philological, historical and cultural interest.
Beowulf first assumed its shape in the 8
th
century in Northumbria, its literary
composition is placed in the age of BEDE (died in 735). But, it survives in the
version from 1000., a copy of the original made in Wessex - the language is the
classical late West Saxon of Wessex of Ethelred and Aelfric. 3182 verses.
the poem itself is set in the southern Scandinavia of the 5
th
and 6
th
century
and contains no reference to British isles or to the New Testament
Christianity.
Though it is an Anglosaxon poem, it looks back to the period of
Germanic history before the AS invasion. Historical elements are mixed to
legend.
The story has a lot of digressions. Structurally weak, unsufficient unity of tone
and organisation. The story and the digressions must have circulated and
developed orally for a long time before they got their present arrangement.
It is a traditional folk poem; emerging from people, even if the scribe might
have been a noble and literate scholar.
The first and the second halves are different in structure and context, maybe
the 2 halves were originally separate tales.
The majority of works surviving from 8
th
century and before are works or Latin
Christians. Beowulf is assimilated to that model: rhetorical style + variations
upon a typical theme. But the poet could not have begun to compose without
the tradition of oral heroic verse, which supplied him with themes and
narrative devices.
THEMES
It reveals traditional themes in the form of a long narrative poem, the culture
and society of the Heroic Age of the German peoples. It is a combination of
heroic idealism and somber fatalism, which are representative for the
Germanic temper. It gives us the completest picture of the heroic world.
1)
On the surface it is a HEROIC POEM, a monument to a hero, celebrating
the exploits of a great warrior. It reflects the ideals of the Heroic Age:
courtesy, loyalty, thirst for fame, courage, endurance.
It shows a desire for a name that shall never die, for personal immortality -
motive that drives the hero.
That is the theme of all heroic poetry - the strength and courage of a single
male, undefeated by all his enemies and adversaries. The hero surpasses other
men and he is therefore rewarded by fame, which is the ultimate ideal and
human achievement in heroic age.
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2)
But there is also a number of CHRISTIAN ELEMENTS (God’s creation and
governance of the world, Cain’s murder of Abel). Also joining of good deeds
to the glory - which grants the hero eternity. However, the whole
atmosphere is pagan with the sense of the shortness of life and the
ephemerity of all things except fame a man leaves behind.
3)
Beowulf is a heroic poem, an epic and a MYTH: everything in it seems to
have foretold his death, and the mythic turn of the pooem requires it.
a)
Beowulf has superhuman powers. His bear-like strength is referred to in
the etymology of his name (Bee-Wulf = bear). He receives help from God.
The triple pattern of the fights is also a feature of magic and of folk poetry.
b)
Beowulf is inclusive: it comprehends life and death, peace and war, man
and God. The poem shows a life cycle of a hero (Beowulf) and of a people
(Danes&Geats).
c)
Beowulf is objective: it is traditional presentation of life in the heroic
world. Each action has a full spatial and temporal dimension.
d)
The action has wider significance:
Beowulf is hero (glory, action etc) and his world is heroic
the 3 fights are encounters with death in its different shapes.
it is not only a hero against 3 monsters but the hero defending
humankind against enemies.
the death of Beowulf is tragic and glorious (heroic), nut it has also a
wider significance - the days of heroism are over. The life and death of
the hero recapitulates the life cycle of the race- the heroic generation is
born, flourishes and dies.
there is attraction and repulsion btw positive and negative poles in the
action - conflict btw good and evil, gods and demons, hero and
monsters, true and false thane. The elaboration of the primitive
conflict btw Beowulf and Grendel into an epic conflict btw life and
death, harmony and chaos, good and evil, is the poet’s chief work.
e)
we are prepared for Beowulf’s death by several things:
the age of the hero when he goes to his last fight
the funeral of the Scylding which opens the poem
Sigmund, B’s only poet dies in his last dragon fight (under the grey
rock)
There is a feeling of inevitability as Beowulf goes down before the dragon 3
rd
attack.
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2)
Beowulf’s voyage to Denmark - the sea-voyage descriptions. In his
answer to a Coastguard, Beowulf explains that they are Geats and that their
errand is friendly. The coastguard escorts them to the hall of Heorot, the
Geats are greeted by Hrothgar’s herald. He introduces them to Hrothgar
himself and Hrothgar remembers his own friend Edgethew, Beowulf’s father.
He and Beowulf - long speeches.
(the poet displays his knowledge of court usage).
3)
The Mere - the Danes ride to inspect the Mere, to make sure that
Grendel is really dead. As they return, the scop composes a lay of Beowulf,
which is a reward - in it the Danes express their gratitude to Beowulf.
4)
The lay of the last survivor - Beowulf is the king of the Geats (after the
fight with the Swedes). There is a dragon who has a treasure but a fugitive
steals the treasure while the dragon is asleep. Beowulf fights the dragon
and gets himself killed, but manages to liberate his people from it.
Digressions
These stories are alluded to rather than related fully. The cluster of these
outside stories sets the story of Beowulf in a much larger context.
1.
Beowulf is compared to Sigmund, the greatest dragon-slayer, and
contrasted favourably with the violent Heremod.
2.
Story of the conflict, of the Geats, and the Swedes in terms of a blood
feud btw royal houses over two generations.
3.
4. blood-feuds btw Danes and Frisians & Danes and Heathbards - stories
of how a marriage failed to heal an ancient hatred.
There are more episodes, and they mostly occur in the second part of the
poem, when Beowulf is back at home, in Geatland, and they form a condensed
history of the great royal house, the Scydling dynasty. The crucial event in this
history is a death of Beowulf’s lord Hygelac (king before B.), in a Viking raid
upon the northern tribes of the Merovingian empire. A messanger at the end
of the poem foretells that Merovingian Francs and the Swedes will descend
upon the Geats, now that Beowulf is dead.
2) Religious poetry
Christianisation had important effects on the AS literature. By the 8
th
century,
the techniques of AS heroic poetry applied to purely Christian themes. It was a
new world of Latin Christianity; heroic themes became less and less common.
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