OLD ENGLISH OR ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD REPRESENTATIVE WRITERS

Hello, tonight I am putting on my blog some information pertaining to early English Literature. Some time I write helter skelter with no proper form. I have noticed others do the same. Maybe a look back might be educational. This is from an English Literature book of 1894.

OLD ENGLISH OR ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD.
REPRESENTATIVE WRITERS.

poetry.
Caedmon (t 680).
Author of "Beowulf."

prose.
Bede (673-735).
Alfred the Great (849-901).


OLD ENGLISH OR ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. (500 —1066.)


8. British Celts.— The original inhabitants of the British Isles, within historic times, were Celts — a part of the first great Aryan wave that swept over Europe. In a portion of Great Britain,— in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales,— the Celtic element is still very strong. The Celts are a vigorous people, adhering to their national customs with great tenacity. They possess a lively imagination, delicate feeling, and a ready en­thusiasm. They seem, however, to be lacking in the power of strong political organization; and this defect made them a prey, first to Roman, and later to Teutonic, invaders.

9. Roman Conquests.— The Romans under Caesar invaded Britain, 55 b. c., and partly subdued it. In the following century Agricola extended the Roman conquest over the territory now included in England, and reduced Britain to a Roman province. Towns were built; military roads were constructed; Roman law was administered; Christianity was introduced; and a con­siderable commerce was developed. Corn was exported, and the tin mines of Cornwall were worked. But the native popu­lation, unlike what had taken place in Gaul and Spain, re­mained unassimilated to the empire, and still clung, in large measure, to its language and customs. When, after some four hundred years, the Roman forces were withdrawn, the Latin language, with the exception of a very few words, disappeared entirely. The principal relics of this Roman occupation sur­viving in our language to-day are the word street (from the Latin strata via, a paved way), and the words caster, c ester, and chester (from the Latin castra, camp) in the names of places; as, Lancaster, Worcester, and Winchester.

10. Teutonic Invasion.— After the withdrawal of the Roman legions in the fifth century, Britain was invaded by the Angles, Saxony and Jutes — Teutonic tribes that inhabited Schleswig, Jutland, and adjacent territory on the Continent. The beginning of this invasion is usually dated from 449, the year in which Hengist and Horsa, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, landed on the shores of Kent. The invading Teutons, hated for their cruelty and their heathenism, were stubbornly resisted by the native Celts, and it was nearly a hundred years before the Britons were finally driven back into Cornwall and Wales. They slowly retired, as did the Ameri­can Indians in this country, without assimilation; and beyond a few names of places, they left scarcely any trace in our language. The Saxons occupied the south, and the Angles the north and centre of Britain; and to the latter, who were the more numerous,, belongs the honor of giving to the country its modern name of England — a word signifying the land of the Angles.

11. Racial Character.— In the character of these Teutonic tribes are to be found the fundamental traits of the English people and of English literature. In their continental home they led a semi-barbarous and pagan life. The sterile soil and dreary climate fostered a serious disposition, and developed great physical strength. Courage was esteemed a leading vir­tue, and cowardice was punished with drowning. No other men were ever braver. They welcomed the fierce excitement of danger; and in rude vessels they sailed from coast to coast on expeditions of piracy, war, and pillage. Laughing at storms and shipwrecks, these daring sea-kings sang: " The blast of the tempest aids our oars; the bellowing of heaven, the howling of the thunder hurts us not; the hurricane is our servant, and drives us whither we wish to go."
With an unconquerable love of independence, they preferred death to slavery. Refined tastes and delicate instincts were crushed out by their inhospitable surroundings; and their pleasures, consisting chiefly of drinking, gambling, and athletic sports, were often coarse and repulsive. Yet under their coarsest enjoyment we discover a sturdy, masculine strength. They felt the presence of the mysterious forces of nature, and deified them in a colossal mythology. Traces of their religion are seen in the names of the days of the week. Wednesday is Woden's day, Thursday is Thor's day, Friday is Frea's day. Eostre, the goddess of dawn and of spring, lends her name to the festival of the Resurrection. With these Teutons the sense of obligation and duty was strong; and having once pledged fidelity to a leader or cause, they remained loyal to death. They honored women and revered virtue. In a word, they possessed a native seriousness, virtue, and strength, which, ennobled by Christianity and refined by culture, raised their descendants to an eminent position among the nations of the earth.

12. Anglo-Saxon Language.— The Anglo-Saxon belongs to the Teutonic branch of the Aryan family, and is closely related, on the one hand, to German, and on the other to Scandinavian. It is an .inflected language with four cases. In England it was divided into four dialects,— the North­umbrian, the Mercian, the Kentish, and the West Saxon. Most of our Anglo-Saxon remains are in the West Saxon dialect, though it is from the Mercian, which was spoken in central England, that modern English is most directly derived. The Lord's Prayer in Anglo-Saxon, with an interlinear translation, will serve for illustration.

Ure Fasder, ttm the eart on heofonum, si thin nama gehalgod.
Our Father, thou who art in [the] heavens, be thy name hallowed.
Tocume thin rice. Geweorthe thin willa on eorthan swa-swa on heofonum.
May come thy kingdom. Be thy will on earth as in [the] heavens.
Sele us to-daeg urn daeg-hwamlican hlaf. And forgif us ure gyltas
Give us today our daily bread(loaf). And forgive us our guilts
swa-swa we fogifath urum gyl-tendum. And ne lad thu us on costnunge.
as we forgive our guilty ones. And not lead thou us into temptation.
Ac alys us from yfel. Si hit swa.
but release us from evil. Be it so.


13. The Gleeman.— The first literature of a people is
poetry. In national as in individual life, the imagination is active during the period of youth. Among the Anglo-Saxons, as among some other nations, narrative poems, before they were reduced to writing, were sung by the wandering glee-man,—

"A man of celebrity, mindful of rhythms,
Who ancient tradition treasured in memory,
New word-groups found properly bound."

The most pleasing picture that comes to us from the early days of our English forefathers, is that of the scop or gleeman at their feasts. While the stern warriors sit at their long tables and quaff their mead in the large hall hung with shields and armor, and lighted by great blazing logs on the hearth, the rude poet, to the sound of his harp, recounts the deeds of heroes in rhythmical song.


14. Alliterative Character.— The principle of Anglo-Saxon poetry is not rhyme nor metre, but alliteration. Each line is divided into two parts by a caesura, and two principal words of the first hemistich, and one of the second, regularly begin with the same consonant. If these principal words be­gin with vowels, they are different. Parallelism — the repe­tition of the same thought in different words, as in Hebrew poetry — is also common. The following extract from " Beowulf" exhibits the Anglo-Saxon alliterative form:—
" His armor of iron — off him he did then, His helmet from his head— to his henchman committed, His chased-handled chain-sword,— choicest of weapons, And bade him bide, — with his battle-equipment."

15. Style and Tone.— The language of Anglo-Saxon poetry is abrupt, elliptical, and highly metaphorical, but often of great energy. The range of ideas is necessarily limited. From what we already know of the life and character of the Angles and Saxons, it is not difficult to understand the 'spirit of their poetry. Not love, but war and religion form its lead­ing themes. Its prevailing tone, especially of that portion which contains an echo of the continental home of the Angles and Saxons, is one of sadness. The inhospitable climate of north­ern Germany, and the 'stern struggle for existence on land and sea, made life a deeply serious thing. Human agency was felt to be weak in comparison with the great invisible forces of nature. The sense of fate and death weighed heavily on the Anglo-Saxon mind. Thus, in " The Wanderer," a poem of an unknown author, we read: —

“Earth is enwrapped in the lowering tempest,
Fierce on the stone-cliff the storm rushes forth,
Cold winter-terror, the night-shade is dark'ning,
Hail-storms are laden with death from the north.
All full of hardships is earthly existence —
Here the decrees of the Fates have their sway —
Fleeting is treasure and fleeting is friendship —
Here man is transient, here friends pass away.
Earth's widely stretching, extensive domain,
Desolate all — empty, idle, and vain."


16. Caedmon.— Caedmon, the earliest of English poets, lived in the latter part of the seventh century. He has with justice been called "the Milton of our forefathers"; and his poems are strongly suggestive of " Paradise Lost." He seems to have been a laborer on the lands attached to the monastery of St. Hilda at Whitby, and was advanced in years before his poetical powers were developed. When at festive gatherings it was agreed that all present should sing in turn, Caedmon was accustomed, as the harp approached him, quietly to retire with a humiliating sense of his want of skill. Having left the banqueting hall on one occasion, he went to the stable, where it was his turn to care for the horses. In a vision an angel appeared to him and said : " Caedmon, sing a song to me." He answered: " I cannot sing; for that is the reason why I left the entertainment, and retired to this place." " Nevertheless," said the heavenly visitor, " thou shalt sing." " What shall I sing?" inquired the poet, as he felt the movement of an awakening power. " Sing the beginning of created things," said the angel.


17. Paraphrase of Scripture.— His mission was thus as­signed him. In the morning the good abbess Hilda, with a company of learned men, witnessed an exhibition of his newly awakened powers; and concluding that heavenly grace had been bestowed upon him, she bade him lay aside his secular habit and received him into the monastery as a monk. Here he led a humble, exemplary life in the exercise of his poetic gifts. " He sang the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the history of Genesis; and made many verses on the departure of the children of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the Land of Promise, with many other histories from Holy Writ ... by which he endeavored to turn away all men from the love of vice, and to excite in them the love of, and application to, good actions."

18. Beowulf.— The most important Anglo-Saxon poem that has descended to us is " Beowulf," a primitive epic of some three thousand lines. It was probably composed in its present form in the eighth century, but the events it celebrates are of a much earlier date. It brings before us the spirit and man­ners of our forefathers, before they left their continental home.
The hero of the poem is Beowulf: —

" Of heroes then living
He was the stoutest and strongest, sturdy and noble."


Sailing to the land of the Danes, he slew a monster of the fens called Grendel, whose nightly ravages brought dismay into Hrothgar's royal palace. After slaying the fiend of the marshes and his mother beneath the waters, Beowulf, loaded with presents and honors, returned to Sweden, where he became king, and ruled fifty years. But at last, in slaying a fire-dragon " under the earth, nigh to the sea-wave," he was mortally wounded. His body was burned on a lofty funeral pyre amidst the lamentations of his vassals.


19. Interesting Details.— Such in brief is the story of this epic of heroic daring and achievement, in which the old Teutonic character is reflected in its fulness. Its details are full of interest. The fierceness of northern seas and skies is brought before us. We assist at mead-hall banquets, in which gracious queens and beautiful maidens hand the ale cup. The loyalty of liegemen is beautifully portrayed. A stern sense of honor prevails among the rude warriors: —

"Death is more pleasant
To every earlman than infamous life is."

Their courage is dauntless, and words count for less than actions. Beowulf thus states to the queen the object of his visit: —

"I purposed in spirit when I mounted the ocean
When I boarded my boat with a band of my liegemen,
I would work to the fullest the will of your people,
Or in foe's-clutches fastened fall in the battle.
Deeds I shall do of daring and prowess,
Or the last of my life-days live in this mead-hall."


20. Other Poems.— Other Anglo-Saxon poems that de­serve mention are " The Seafarer," " Deor's Complaint," " The Fight at Maldon," " The Battle of Brunanburh," and' " Judith." The former deal with the hardships and sorrows of life; the latter breathe the martial spirit of the Teutonic race. Besides these and other secular poems, there is a cycle of religious poetry dating from the eighth or ninth centuries. It was stimulated by the work of Caedmon. " Others after him," says Bede, " tried to make religious poems, but none could vie with him, for he did not learn the art of poetry from men, nor of men, but from God." This religious poetry is usually based on Scripture or on legends of saints. Cynewulf, a North­umbrian poet of the eighth century, was the author of several religious poems of acknowledged excellence, among which are the "Passion of St. Juliana," the "Christ," and " Elene, or the Finding of the Cross."

21. The Father of English Prose.— Bede may be justly regarded as the father of English prose. From an interesting autobiographical sketch at the close of his " Ecclesiastical History," we learn the leading events in his unpretentious life. He was born in 673, near the monastery of Jarrow in north­ern England. As pupil, deacon, and priest, he passed his entire life in that monastic institution. The leisure that remained to him after the faithful performance of his various official duties, he assiduously devoted to learning; for he al­ways took delight, as he tells us, " in learning, teaching, and writing." He was an indefatigable worker, and wrote no less than forty-five separate treatises, including works on Scripture, history, hymnology, astronomy, grammar, and rhetoric, in which is embodied all the learning of his age.
His scholarship and aptness as a teacher gave celebrity to the monastic school at Jarrow, which was attended at one time by six hundred monks in addition to many secular students. His fame extended as far as Rome, whither he was invited by Pope Sergius, who wished the benefit of his counsel. He led an eminently simple, devout, and earnest life. He declined the dignity of abbot, lest the duties of the office might interfere with his studies. As a writer he was clear, succinct, and art­less. His "Ecclesiastical History," which was composed in Latin, is our chief source of information in regard to the early Anglo-Saxon church.

22. Alfred the Great (849-901).— Not many sovereigns deserve a place in literature because of their own writings. But Alfred was as great with the pen as with the sword. He ascended the throne at the age of twenty-three, and spent a considerable part of his subsequent life in conflict with the Danes, who in great numbers were making a descent upon the cultivated districts of England and France for the sake of pillage. When he came to the throne, the learning which a century before had furnished Europe with some of its most eminent scholars had fallen into decay. " To so low a depth has learning fallen among the English nation," he says, " that there have been very few on this side of the Humber who were able to understand the English of their service, or to turn an epistle out of Latin into English; and I know that there were not many beyond the Humber who could do it."


23. Literary Labors.— With admirable tact and wisdom he set about remedying the evil. He studied Latin himself that he might provide his people with useful books; he invited learned scholars from the Continent to his court; and he es­tablished in the royal palace a school for the instruction of noble youth. His efforts were grandly successful; and in less than a generation England was again blessed with intelligence and prosperity. Among the books he translated into Anglo-Saxon were Bede's " Ecclesiastical History "; Orosius's " Uni­versal History," the leading textbook on that subject in the monastic schools for several centuries; and Boethius's " Con­solations of Philosophy," a popular book among thoughtful people during the Middle Ages. These translations were not always literal. Alfred rather performed the work of editor, paraphrasing, omitting, adding, as best served his purpose. In the work of Boethius he frequently departed from the text to introduce reflections of his own. To him belongs the honor of having furnished England with its first body of literature in the native tongue.



FOR FURTHER READING AND STUDY.
The following subjects may be assigned students for parallel study, essays, or reading' in class. Other subjects and sources may be indicated according to the judgment of the teacher and the library facilities at his command. A select bibliography will be found in the appendix.
The Roman conquest of Britain, Tacitus, "Agricola" ('Bohn), Macaulay, " History of England," ch. I, and Green, " History of the English People," ch.I; The introduction of Christianity under Augustine, Bede, "Ecclesiastical History," chaps. 25, 26 (Bohn), and Macaulay and Green; The death of Casdmon, Bede, " Ecclesias­tical History," ch. 24; Celtic literature, Morley, " English Writers," vol. I, ch. 3, and Matthew Arnold, "Celtic Literature"; "The Voyage of Maeldune," based on an Irish legend about 700 a.d., Tennyson, " Poems"; The circumstances of Bede's death, Cuthbert's Letter in the preface of Bede's " Ecclesiastical History" (Bohn); Teutonic character and customs as illustrated in "Beo­wulf," Earle, " The Deeds of Beowulf," a prose translation, and Hall, " Beowulf," a metrical, alliterative version; The qualities of Anglo-Saxon poetry as exemplified in " The Seafarer," " The Wanderer," and " The Battle of Maldon," Cook and Tinker, " Select Translations from Old English Poetry," and Brooke, " Early Eng­lish Literature."
"The Battle of Brunanburgh" is given in the selections of Part II.

I will add more as time allows.

Sleep safe my friend.

For all is well down on the farm.

The Old Farmer