5. Anglo-Saxon lyric poetry

Only a scant (скудный) 30000 lines of the poetry of the Anglo-Saxons have survived, and more than a tenth of that is made up by Beowulf. Because monks were almost the only people who knew how to write then, it should not be surprising that much of the remainder (остаток) is religious poetry. A few speciments of the poetry that has survived are, nevertheless, not religious, treating such subjects as a battle and a lament of the woman for her absent husband.

‘The Seafarer’ is another example of such secular, or nonreligious, Old English poetry. An anonymous poem included in The Exeter Book, a famous collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry compiled in about 975, ;The Seafarer’ is especially noteworthy for its lyrical nature. It expresses the emotions of an old sailor who realizes the sadness of life, its difficulties, and its brief duration. In expressing his feelings the speaker also portrays the miseries and attractions of life on the Irish and North seas. Of the 123 lines that make up the complete poem, the most representative portions follow.

6. Anglo-Saxon religious poetry

The earlier Anglo Saxon literature was Pagan in origin. Those works were secular. The Anglo-Saxon poetrymarks a new development in the early history of English literature. It stood as a close antithesis to theHeroic Poetry. It explored the moral and ethical ideals of human life. The Christianity brought metamorphoses of life and philosophy. Paganism is essentially a belief or creed to worship nature as goodness. Now pure lyricism was blended perfectly with the lofty principles of Christianity. It produced a wonderful garland of religious poetry and major practitioners were Caedmon and Cynewulf.

Caedmon (7^th century) was an unlearned cowherd. According to legend , he was inspired by a vision and miraculously acquired the gift of poetic song. Unfortunately, only nine lines this first known poet survive. The second known poet was Cynewulf (8^th century). Little is known of him except that he signed his poems in a kind of cypher, or anagram, made up of ancient figures called runes. (an alphabet used by early Germanic tribes preceding the use of the Roman alphabet in England).

7. Anglo-Saxon religious prose

Anglo-Saxon religious prose is associated with the name of the Venerable Bede.

The Venerable Bede is considered the father of English history. During his lifetime he was without doubt the most learned scholar in all of western Europe. Bede, who was a monk, passed his days teaching in the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow in northeast Britain where he had been sent at the age of seven to study. Remaining in the monastery for the rest of his life, he was ordained (назначили) a deacon and later a priest.

Bede’s studies and writings were devoted to religious purpose. The central theme of his ‘Historia Ecclesiastica’ is that of the Church as a force welding (сближает) spiritual, doctrinal, and cultural unity out of violence and barbarism. The work integrates a mass of laboriously (старательно) collected information; its intellectual and artistic integrity set the standart for historical writing in medievial Europe.

He introduced to historical writing the system of dating events from the birth of Christ and did careful work on historical chronology, exemplified (проиллюстрированную) in ‘On the Reckoning (счет) of Time (726)’. Bede wrote about 40 works, among them commentaries on the books of Bible, biographies of saints and of the abbots of his monastery, and books of liturgy and festivals and on rhetoric. The breadth (широта) of his learning reveals the extensive library available to him and level of culture achieved in England in his time. Bede was canonized in 1899; his feast day is May 27, the day of his death.