History of English literature
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf
· A-S were converted to Christianity. A lot of religious poems and hymns. Caedmonian.
· Cynewulf represents the essence of Christianity perfectly. The idea of the cycle of
the Sun and the Moon, the movement of the waves, nature.
· 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
annaabi.ee 
