The Old English Period

The island was originally inhabited by Celtic tribes from Central Asia prior to the invasion by the Romans c. 50-100CE.  Some of the Celts, a brave, fierce, and what we would call barbaric people, fled west over the mountains to what is now Wales and further over to Ireland.  The rest stayed and intermarried with the invading Romans.  The Romans brought architecture, art, "civilization," Christianity and most important, literacy. They stayed in the land, founding the cities that are today London (then Londinium) and Winchester, but during the fall of the Roman Empire c. 450-500 CE, the Roman soldiers left, leaving the now-softened Celtic people. 

This left the natives open to attacks from the neighboring Picts (from what is today Scotland) and Jutes (a Germanic tribe).  The Celts called for help from the Angles and Saxons, tribes from the area that is the modern Germany - Denmark area.  The Angles and Saxons saved the Celts, but then turned against them and settled in England, becoming the Anglo-Saxons who lived in Angle-Land (-- England). 

These Anglo-Saxons were brave, rude, reckless, adventurous and barbaric.  They did not have much of a written culture, but they brought with them a rich folk-lore tradition, with long epics recited by scopes, the poets of the clan.  These recitations, the earliest English Literature, were finally written down by Christian monks in the 10th and 11th centuries. 

Anglo-Saxons used dialects that became known as Old English until about 1100.

Religion:

While the Romans brought Christianity to the land, it was not until around 650 CE that England was fully Christianized.  In 597 Saint Augustine of Canterbury converted the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. The native religions were dominated by the earth-based religion Druidism, but there were a number of smaller traditions being practiced.  These were not destroyed, but pushed underground in greatly diminished numbers, only to be resurfacing in the later part of this century.  Pieces of these older religions can be found throughout English literature.   Anglo-Saxon Poetry  

There were a number of qualities found in Anglo-Saxon poetry:  

• Heroic behavior is praised 

• Almost no romantic love 

• An overall effect to formalize and elevate language, often through the use of literary devices.  For instance: 

• Synecdoche: a part used to express the whole, or vice versa.  Ex: 50 sails=50 boats 

• Metonymy: the naming of a person, institution, or human characteristic by some object or attribute with which is closely associated. Ex: Crown, Majesty= Ruler 

• kenning: a compound of two words in place of another. Ex: whale-road=sea, loaf-giver = king, life-house = body (elaborate descriptive phrases)

• litotes: ironic understatement; an emphatic expression through an ironic understatement. Ex: “he's no beauty." 

• alliteration – words that begin with the same sound

• Internal rhyme – a word within a line rhymes with a word at the end of the line

• A very common theme is "ubi sunt"  "where have they gone?" 

Ubi sunt - is a phrase taken from the Latin Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?, meaning "Where are those who were before us?" Sometimes interpreted to indicate nostalgia, the ubi sunt motif is actually a meditation on mortality and life's transience.

• This was a rough, hard time of life.  The average age for men was 45, for women, 36.  It was not totally unusual to lose one's entire family to war, famine or some other calamity. 

Many Old English poems glorified the real or imaginary hero and tried to teach the values of bravery and generosity.

The first English poet known by name is Caedmon, who lived during the 600s. His only authentic surviving work is “Hymn”, a nine-line poem that praises god.

The first major work of English literature is the epic poem “Beowulf”. One or more unknown authors wrote it in the 700s. The poem tells about the adventures of a brave hero named Beowulf.

The Medieval Period