The Benedictines establish a chain of monasteries; Britain is linked to the Latin civilization of the roman Church and Christian cultures of Western Europe. Aethelbert 1 of Kent becomes the first Christian King of England. By the end of the 7 th century all the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Britain accepted the Christian faith. 3.) Describe Old English Poetry in terms of form and content. Old English poetry is highly formal. Each line of it is divides into two halves, separated by a caesura, or pause, and is often represented by a gap on the page. The verse form contains complicated rules for alliteration designed to help scops, or poets, remember the many thousands lines they were required to know ny heart. Each of the two halves of an Anglo-Saxon line contains two stressed syllables, and an alliterative must be carried over across the caesura. Often features a distinctive set of rhetorical devices, like the kenning. 4.) Who is the Venerable Bede and what is he famous for?
faring from far and near", "By that bloody battle the boon had come" etc. Another characteristic is that there is no rhyme, but rhythm. This was very important in the Anglo-Saxon period as in the contemporary time the epic was performed by court singers. "Beowulf" was written with four beats to each line. The lines were divided into two parts, each with two beats. This is a natural place for a stop in a line of words and is called a caesura. For example "Many at morning, as men have told me" or "Death-sick his den in the dark moor sought" etc. Here one can also see that the initial sound of the third beat in each line echoes the initial sound of the first or second beats, or both of them. To add to the emotional colouring of the text, a lot of metaphors and epithets have been used. Some more outstanding epithets include "And baleful he burst in his
The Danes soon converted to Christianity By the end of the 10th c, England was a united kingdom with a Germanic culture throughout Most of Scotland united (at least in name) in a (Celtic) Gaelic kingdom Anglo-Saxon verse No rhyme nor regular number of syllables in a line, rhythm is important. The stressed syllables in a line usually begin with the same consonant alliteration. A line is divided into two half-lines by a pause a caesura, it is a natural place for a stop. Parallelism the repetition of the same idea in a different form. Many nouns and names substituted with metaphors and kennings. sea: salt-streams, sail-road, wave-deeps warriors: the famous-for-prowess, heroes-in-battle, the cased-in- helmets king: ring-prince, folk-leader, folk-chief Anglo-Saxon verse Composed by bards (scops) Relied on a stock of ready-made formulaic expressions
· The subject matter of A-S poetry is actually centered on the three things that were most important in A-S lives: war, the sea that surrounded the British Isles and death. · Main qualities: somberness, awareness of inevitable death. Formal features of A-S poetry: 1. No rhyme, instead they used alliteration; A-S poetry is alliterative. (Alliteration the repetition of the same consonants in a line); 2. Every line contains a caesura a pause in the middle of a line; 3. In every half-line there are two stressed syllables, so all in all, 4 in a line; 4. The number of unstressed syllables is not fixed; 5. There is no rhyme; 6. There are very few similes (a direct comparison, i.e your hair is like gold), in Beowulf there are 5 similes; 7. On the other hand there are many metaphors, typically A-S metaphors kennings (a special type of metaphor comprised of two words, i
e. Northern English) Auld Kirk, Free Kirk (German Kirche, Est. kirik Low German loanword). Cg probably /kjkj/ which later turned into /dz/. /r/ - trilled, rolled, again preserved in Scottish English. /r/ was still rolled in Shakespeare's time ("When that warlike Harry ...") In Old English poetry the number ofsyllables per line was not important What counted was thenumber of stresses. Four stresses per line, the stresses evenly spaced A pause (in Latin called caesura) in the middle of the line. Two stresses before the pause, two stresses after the pause. The number of unstressed syllables between the stressed syllables is not significant, varies. Old English poetry: initial rhymes (importantfor remembering! After all, the poetry was mainly oral, only selected poems written down by clerks at the command of noblemen/kings). Alliteration consonants at the beginning of words are repeated. Alliteration applied to stressed syllables
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