Anglo-Saxon literature

English literature of the Old English or Anglo-Saxon period, from the 6th to the 10th centuries,
testifies to the encounter of the Germanic-pagan tradition with Christian and classical culture.
Poetry is nourished by the distant Germanic origins in its epic poems (Beowulf), but for the religious
compositions (Cynewulf) the works are indebted to the conversion to Christianity of the sixth
century. The prose consists above all of translations and the overlapping of Latin writings (Alfredo
the Great). The period of Middle English (from the XI to the XV century) records as an effect of the
Norman conquest of 1066, the influence of French themes and fashions.

English literature in Anglo-Saxon in this first phase does not yet have its own features, it is strongly
conditioned by classical and Christian culture. The most widespread literary form is the verse form,
in which it is possible to distinguish, for the little that is preserved, two strands: pagan and Christian.
The epic refers to the Germanic origins, prose is totally indebted to conversion to Christianity. A
Latin production of a learned or religious character continues to persist.
The beginnings of English literature have found verbal and artistic expression in a rhythmic form:
organizing the language in repetitive patterns with a certain scan and with rhythm facilitated the
memorization and the transmission. These were literary compositions designed for oral circulation,
of which traces remain, precisely because of their oral and episodic character; instead writings, or
works intended for circulation in written form, have been received.
The first documents before the conversion to Christianity, are the group of inscriptions in cuneiform
characters, the runes, which constitute an alphabet of twenty-four signs, the futhark, which were
used for engraving on hard materials, but were not suitable for literary compositions .
The scholar Benedictine monk Bede the Venerable (675-735) translator in Anglo-Saxon of the New
Testament and author of works of biblical exegesis, grammar and metric, in the Historia
ecclesiastica gentis anglorum written in Latin but translated into Anglo-Saxon during the reign of
King Alfred, which illustrates the events of the Angles from Caesar's landing up to 731 tells of the
cantor Caedmon, humble, illiterate laborer who received the gift of song by miracle and immediately
raised an Hymn in praise to the Creator, reported in Latin by Bede; the only detectable source are
the divine inspiration and the Christian tradition.

Some of the poems preserved in the Junius code (Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, Christ and Satan, can be
traced back to Caedmon.
Cynewulf, a poet of the early ninth century, used to sign his works with an acrostic and in runic
characters in particular Christ, elene, Juliana and The Fates of the Apostles. His compositions show
the knowledge of the classical models and a passage from the paraphrase of the biblical story to
an essentially didactic poetry with a more meditative tone. The poem The dream of the rood,
which has the form of vision, is attributable to its influence.
In the old English or Anglo-Saxon period, the two alphabets, Runic and Latin, coexisted and just
two runes were added to the Latin characters to represent common sounds in English but absent
in Latin. The literary material of this period received is a work of transcription made in an
ecclesiastical environment and therefore reflects the tastes of the church: the language used is the
Anglo-Saxon, primitive stage of English, which betrays the Germanic origin for the presence of
similar endings to those of the German. The approximately three thousand verses of the Anglo-
Saxon poetry are preserved in four manuscripts:
Cotton Vitellius A. XV
Junius
Exeter Book
Vercelli Book
The Anglo-Saxon literature was the result of centuries of collective and anonymous production. The
protagonists of this process were the scops, entertainers who sang poems for noblemen. This
production was passed on orally until the 12th century, when it was written down by church clerks.

 Poetry characteristics: 1) each line was divided in two parts by a break, or caesura, and had
four stresses; 2) alliteration; 3) kennings (nouns replaced by short phrases, like “the whale road”
for the sea).
 Epic poems deal with the recollection of a glorious past and describe vividly the deeds of a hero.
They extol a military and aristocratic society based on honour and loyalty to the lord, through
a narration hopping between normally unrelated episodes, from fights with mythological
creatures like monsters to emblematic social events like banquets and funerals. The aim was
didactic, that is, to inspire the reader to pursue the same heroic values. Linguistically, they use
a solemn style with a rich vocabulary.
o Beowulf is an anonymous epic poem written in Old English at the end of the 7th century and
dealing with the heroic actions of the hero, a native of Geatland. The plot is divided in two
parts: Beowulf first achieves fame fighting for Hrothgar, king of the Danes, after which he
returns to his country to become king; later he decides to fight a dragon, but he gets killed,
and his funeral ends the poem with a note of uncertainty for the future of Geatland, no more
protected by its hero. In the poem we can find references to both the Germanic/Pagan
culture (celebration of the heroic code, bravery, loyalty, pride, honour…) and the Christian
(mentions of the Old Testament, use of words like “Father” and “Lord”). Legends and
historical facts are mingled in the story.
 Elegies are poems in the form of dramatic monologues in which the speakers bewails the loss
of something, whose nature and identity are only implied. They mirror the Anglo-Saxon fear of
losing their clan (because of exile -wracca- or the dissolution of the clan itself), which at that
time would lead to a lonely life, and a likely death, as it wasn’t possible to be accepted by a
different clan. Six of them have been preserved until today in a 10th century volume called
Exeter Book:
o Deor’s lament is about a minstrel who laments the loss of his position at court and consoles
himself by considering the past misfortunes of others.
o The wife’s lament is about a female narrator grieving for a lost or absent lover.
o The wanderer revolves around the meditations of a solitary exile on his past glories as a
warrior, his present hardships and the values of faith.
o The seafarer is about an old seafarer looking back on his lonely life at sea.
o The husband’s message is in the form of a message to a woman of royal rank from her
husband or lover, who has been forced to leave his country on account of a vendetta.
o The ruins describes an ancient Roman city in ruins.
 Religious poetry: the first Anglo-Saxon Christian poet was Caedmon, who wrote the earliest Old
English poem, “Caedmon’s Hymn”, between 658 and 680; another later poet, Cynewulf, wrote
poems based on the lives of the saints and the apostles.
 Prose: Edward of Wessex gave a great impulse to the use of Old English in literature as he
ordered the translation of the Bible from Latin and the writing of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a
history of England, which went on for over three centuries.
 Lyric was a form of poetry that expressed strong personal emotions. They were religious at first,
but then shifted to love themes.

 Romances
Tales in verses about chivalry, dealing with knights, love and supernatural elements like fairies
and dragons. There were three main sources for the stories: the matter of France (tales of the
court of Charlemagne), the matter of Rome (classical stories, such as the conquest of Troy) and
the matter of Britain (legends surrounding King Arthur).
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1380)
Considered the finest of the Middle English romances, its author is unknown. It deals with a
mysterious Green Knight appearing at King Arthur’s court and offering the other knights a
chance to strike him with an axe if they accept to let him do the same after one year. Sir Gawain
accepts the challenge and beheads the Green Knight who, nonetheless, collects his head and
leaves. One year after Gawain is on a search for the Green Knight when he runs across a castle,
whose lord tests his moral strength tempting him with his wife. When Gawain finds the Green
Knight, it is revealed that he and the lord are actually the same person, sent by the witch
Morgana, Arthur’s half-sister, to test the Arthurian knights’ pride.
The romance contains references to the Celtic and the Germanic folklore: for example, the
Celtic mythology also features a Green Man related to nature and its cycle.

 Ballads
Anonymously composed around the 13th and the 14th century, they were accompanied by
music and dances for they were intended to be publicly performed by minstrels. As a
consequence, the language employed was very simple.
Minstrels transmitted them orally from generation to generation until 1765, when Bishop
Thomas Percy collected them in his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.
They were divided in stanzas of 4 lines each, often rhyming ABCB (e.g. Geordie) and linked
to each other by a refrain. The story, normally a single episode, develops through a series of
questions and answers which offer rapid flashes of what has happened. They are presented
by a mix of dialogue and narration.
They can be grouped according to their subject matter into:
border ballads, about the rivalry between the English and the Scottish;
ballads of magic and supernatural events, about fairies, witches and ghosts;
ballads of crime, about outlaws (e.g. the cycle of Robin Hood);
ballads of love and domestic tragedy;
religious ballads
 historical and legendary ballads.

 Narrative poems
Collections of tales in verse were popular during the Middle Age. They were at once
entertaining and didactic, and nowadays bear witness of the social and cultural changes
occurring in Britain over time.
Some of these collections are considered poems, in that the stories are related and belong
to a single narration. One example is The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, as the
author, a 1st person narrator, in the “General Prologue” sets a frame which encompasses
the following tales, also describing a common setting as regards time and place.
Another examples are Piers Plowman by William Landland and John Gower’s Confessio
Amantis.

 Prose
Geoffrey of Monmouth (ca. 1100-1155) wrote Historia Regum Britanniae, an historical
account of Britain from the first settlement to the 7th century. It is especially remarkable
because it contains the first account of King Arthur’s life.
John Wycliffe (ca. 1330-1384), founder of the Lollardy movement, explained his political and
religious idea in Tracts and Treatises. Written it Latin, it states that the Church should not
have any concern with temporal matters and the superiority of the Bible over the Church
authority. He is also remembered for the first translation of the Bible into Middle English.
Mergery Kemp (ca. 1373-1438) devoted herself to an ascetic life after experiencing a vision.
She started travelling on several pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de
Compostela, which she would account for in her Book of Mergery Kamp.
Thomas Malory (ca. 1416-1471) is the author of La Morte d’Arthur, a prose narrative about
the rise and fall of Arthur and his knights.

 Drama
Mystery Plays, dealing with Biblical episodes such as the Creation or Judgement Day
Miracle Plays, revolving around the lives of saints and organized in few main cycles
Toward the end of the Middle Ages also Morality Plays began to appear. They were also known
as Interludes and staged the struggle between good and evil with a moralizing purpose for the
audience. The most important morality plays are: The Castle of Perseverance, about a hero,
Humanum Genus (an allegory of mankind), fighting against evil forces for his soul; and Everyman,
about the namesake hero who is informed by Death that he must die, so he asks his friends
(Fellowships, Goods, Knowledge…) to accompany him in his last journey, but he eventually
realizes that he will be alone before God and the only things he can bring with him are his good
deeds.
Middle Ages plays where performed on decorated stages set up on movable wagons called
pageants, by amateur actors members of a trade guilds. Performances were carried out
especially during the Feast of Corpus Christi.