These handouts are designed to help you as you study Old English literature.
1. English History and Literature: Notes on the Old English Period
2. Notes on Selected Old English Poems
English History and
Literature: Notes on the Old English Period
* The first people to populate England were the Celtic "Britons," who were ethnically and culturally related to the "Breton" people of the part of northern France we still call "Brittany." These people maintained trading relations and cultural interaction for many years. The languages of these people are still related, though geographical separation has allowed them to develop in different directions. Welsh is the English remnant of this original, British language.
* In the first century AD (ca. 43 AD), Romans invaded Briton and controlled all of the territory north to Hadrian's Wall -- the fortified boundary between Scotland and England. The Romans became Christian in the 4th century when Emperor Constantine was converted. In turn, the Romans converted their subjects throughout the Empire.
* No written literature survives from these earliest periods of English history. The Celtic language seems to have been primarily oral rather than written -- and the Romans were more interested in administrating the territory than in preserving its literature. Nonetheless, the Britons did generate a strong literary tradition: the Arthurian legends were created by the Britons either in England or in France (they seem to have been known by both groups) These stories were preserved from generation to generation as tales told by bards; they were not preserved in written form until much later.
* In the fifth century (ca 420), the Roman Empire withdrew its troops from England, leaving the native people exposed to invasion from the Germanic tribes of Europe. These invaders (the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes) conquered the Britons, took their land and pressed the survivors into the remote corners of the island, particularly into the mountains of Wales.
* "Old English" literature is the literature of these Germanic people (written in their language); much of it has to do with their ancestors' experiences in Europe -- like Beowulf and "The Wanderer," rather than with their life in England (Angle-land).
* These Germanic people were not Christians when they came to England. Their world view was based on Norse myth and contained a heavy sense of fatalism -- life was short and difficult. They believed in fate (wyrd) rather than Providence. They did not believe in an afterlife, but did place great importance on reputation/fame. Their literature, like the literature of the Britons, was oral: told or sung by bards and passed from generation to generation by careful memorization. Only much later (if at all) were these works put in writing. We assume that much of the literature of these early times has been lost over time.
* Christianity was reintroduced to England around the year 600 by two groups of missionaries: Irish missionaries, who concentrated their efforts on northern England, and Roman Catholic missionaries, who were sent to the southern parts of the island.
* Christian monks brought literacy with them: the first extensive record written in the Anglo-Saxon language (Old English) was a set of legal statutes issued by King Ethelbert of Kent. The language of religion was Latin, but the monks also wrote in the vernacular. For the most part, what they wrote down was religious in nature, though they did collect and preserve some secular literature (e.g., Beowulf). Other works seem to have been influenced by their Christian recorders. "The Wanderer," for instance, has a vaguely Christian opening and closing which seem to be additions to the original work to give its pagan world view an acceptably Christian frame of reference.
* England was multicultural/international throughout its early history: first, through its connection with the Breton people of France, then through its place in the Roman Empire, later through its connection with Germanic peoples and cultures of Northern Europe, and finally, through its connection with the Norman French. As we move through this course, we will begin to see the people of this northern island develop a sense of themselves as a separate people, as a nation with a distinct culture and a literature all their own.
Terms You Will Hear Often and Should Come to Understand*
Briton (vs. Breton)
Celtic
Angles, Saxons, Jutes
fate/wyrd
medieval period
Old English
Middle English
vernacular language
heroic literature
kenning
synecdoche
metonymy
cęsura
ballad
lyric
* Listen in class for explanations and usage, but you may also find it helpful to read the Introduction to "The Middle English Period" in the Norton Anthology (1-15) and the section on "Poetic Forms and Literary Terminology" at the back of the book (2558-2571).
Notes on Selected Old English Poems
"The Wanderer"
* This poem mixes Anglo-Saxon/pagan values and culture with distinctly Christian themes. "The Wanderer" is Anglo-Saxon in subject matter, but it is interspersed with references to God which seek to explain the hard lot of this man, not in terms of Fate (wyrd) alone, but in terms of God's plan. In the first sentence, "He who lives to find favor, mildness of the Lord . . . ," the second phrase seems to be an insertion (68). At the bottom of page 69, the poem refers to "the Maker of mankind[, who] laid waste this dwelling-place until the old works of giants stood idle." This reference to a creating/sustaining/destroying God contrasts sharply with the poem’s more usual view that the world is subject only to the operation of inscrutable Fate. Particularly, it contrasts with the statement on page 70 that "the world beneath the skies is changed by the work of the fates."
* The Anglo-Saxon sense of life's fleeting-ness was easily compatible with the Christian view that the works of man are vain distractions from God's plan. The Christian message, however, was that this life is only a precursor of eternal life: a great change of emphasis from the Anglo-Saxon sense of fatalism.
* Anglo-Saxon Thematic Elements, Part I: What gives the Wanderer joy? The comforts/delights of the Mead-hall, giver of treasure/gold-friend, friends, protectors. What creates the Wanderer’s sorrow? The loss of all those things and the sharpness of their memory. He seems to hallucinate reunion with his friends, only to lose them again as the vision fades/flies away as a flock of birds.
* Anglo-Saxon stylistic elements: kennings (gold-friend, hoard-case, earth-walker, hall-warriors). Kennings work by "metonymy": they communicate the intended concept not by using the most obvious word, but by substituting an image closely associated with it. This is poetic language; it means to do more than simply signify, it also means to describe and to emote. Thus, "earth-walker" is more descriptive and more moving than "man" as a reference to the Wanderer who suffers a weary, exilic life. "Gold-friend" is a more poetic word than Lord, because it conveys what the Lord does, what his relationship to the Wanderer is, it communicates his value as well as his function. "Hall-warriors" indicates simultaneously that these are soldiers and companions, brothers in arms and in peace. (It doesn’t mean they fought in the mead hall!) At the end of the poem we find "The ash-spears’ might has borne the earls away -- weapons greedy for slaughter . . ." (70). Of course, spears and weapons do not do or desire anything on their own. The words are metonyms for the enemies who wield such weapons -- and for Death itself.
* A rarer form of poetic word-association is synechdoche, also used by OE poets. Synechdoche is a figure of speech that substitutes a part for the whole concept-to-be-signified. (The classic example is the phrase, "All hands on deck," which calls not just hands, but whole people.) In "The Wanderer," the poet uses a synechdoche to mark the passage of time: "No man may indeed become wise before he has had his share of winters in this world’s kingdom," (69). Here, the word "winters" stands in for whole years. The substitution emphasizes the hardship of those years by focusing on the hardest season.
* Another important thematic element of OE poetry: The Ubi sunt theme. (The Latin phrase means "Where have they gone?") On page 70, the Wanderer says that the wise man remembers his past hardships and then speaks these words: "‘Where has the horse gone? Where the young warrior? Where is the giver of treasure? What has become of the feasting seats? Where are the joys of the hall? Alas, the bright cup! . . .’" Notice that this is a quotation within a quotation. The poet here has the Wanderer quote "the wise man": the passage clearly echoes (if it does not in fact quote) an earlier song about the transitory nature of life. It is a main theme in Old English poetry -- and also of other non-Christian heroic literature. Ubi sunt loses some of its poignancy in a culture that believes in life-after-death. Here, it jars with the added Christian opening and closing.
* In fact, the Christian part of the final paragraph seems to be intended as a direct answer to the longing/anxiety of the poem and the Ubi sunt theme’s mournfulness: yes, life is transient; yes, loneliness and suspicion mark men’s lives; yes, exile/abandonment is a common and difficult lot -- BUT, God provides stability and promise for a time to come beyond the vagaries of this world.
Bede and Cędmon’s Hymn
* One of the earliest and most important writers of the medieval period was a monk named Bede (the Venerable Bede). He wrote many theological works, but more important to us, he wrote a history of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain and of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity: An Ecclesiastical History of the English People. See page 17 in the Norton.
*Read opening paragraph of "The Story of Cędmon"
note what Bede notes and values about this author: illiterate, poetry a gift from God, wrote on religious themes ("proper for his religious tongue to utter")
* Read Cędmon’s song
literary features of Old English poetry: alliteration, kennings, epithets for God and secular Lord, stylized descriptions,
thematic features of OE poetry: heroic deeds/descriptions, joy in kin/community, sorrow in exile
"The Dream of the Rood"
*"The Dream of the Rood" tells a specifically Christian story: a believer has a dream vision in which the cross tells him the story of Christ's crucifixion.
But notice the Anglo-Saxon emphases of the tale: Christ is a young hero. He goes strongly and willingly to his death -- the Warrior, God Almighty, the Ruler of Heaven. The rood is one of his companions in arms, eager to support his lord, willing to do whatever is required of him. He mourns the fall of his chieftain and glories in Christ's everlasting fame.
* Contrasts with Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion. Gospels emphasize: 1) that the apostles deserted Jesus (only women stayed), 2) that Jesus was not a military leader (though the Jews seemed to expect that of the Messiah they were awaiting). Instead, Jesus is the sacrificial victim. This is the paradox as the Gospel tells the story: that Jesus overturned the expectations of political/military leadership.
* These are not characteristics likely to make Jesus an appealing/persuasive God to Anglo-Saxon warriors, though. So this poem (and OE lit, generally) puts a new spin on the story. Christ is the Warrior-Lord (like the Gold-Friend in "The Wanderer"). He is brave and unflinching. The Rood is his companion in arms, his loyal follower, who does not desert. The other "warriors" come to mourn the death and leave only when overwhelmed with the weariness of their grief: they are not cast as deserters, though there is a bit of wry irony about this: "small company." It is, however, the inevitable "small company" of death, not the cowardly betrayal of the apostles.
* It is important that Jesus be left with "small company" except the Rood, because that is also the Dreamer’s experience. This is an example of Jesus’s humanity. He shares with the Dreamer that most human of all experience (to the Anglo-Saxon mind, at least): loneliness/loss of companions. In the last paragraph, we learn that the Dream is such a comfort because the Rood comes to the Dreamer when he is "alone with small company." The Rood becomes the single source of comfort and hope in a life bereft of other companionship or meaning.
* The cross commands the Dreamer to tell his tale, to be the bard who preserves and declaims the famous deeds of Christ and his Cross. The emphasis in the next to last paragraph is not on fame (as in pagan literature it would be), but on evangelism: the conversion of others through report of this glorious story. In the final paragraph, as we’ve seen, the emphasis shifts from evangelism to the Rood’s power to comfort the Dreamer in his loneliness and to provide him with promise of reunion with his kin in the "feast" of Heaven (like a meadhall). We can see here how Anglo-Saxon materials and literary styles were adapted/used to convert these people to a new set of beliefs. In both Bede’s "Story of Cędmon" and "The Dream of the Rood," we see culture in transition.
Final thoughts about OE literature:
* We've read 3 OE works: Bede's early 8th C "Ecclesiastical History of the English People," (the story of Cędmon, who learned to sing); "The Dream of the Rood"; "The Wanderer" (dates of comp. unknown, but preserved in a late 10th C ms). These works show a culture in the process of becoming Christian.
* The Anglo-Saxon view that life is fleeting and difficult and dangerous was fully compatible with Christian belief that the world is in a fallen, sinful state.
* Thus, the Wanderer's longing for people and comforts he has lost -- the Ubi sunt theme -- must have made the Christian promise of heaven a welcome one. In "The Wanderer," that message is muted and seems to be an afterthought or an addition. God as a source of stability and potential comfort is the most TW offers. In "The Dream of the Rood," though, we see a similar figure -- one who has lost his kin and companions -- who eagerly accepts Jesus as his gold-friend, his lord. We see that the Dreamer eagerly anticipates his invitation to the great mead-hall of heaven where there is a place for him at the feast.
Now, the big leap to ME lyric poetry:
* Middle English is the language that developed as a result of the mingling of the Anglo-Saxons with the Normans after these people came across the channel from France and successfully invade England in 1066. (French was the language of the aristocracy and royal court/ Middle Eng was the language of the people.)
* The earliest lyrics you've read for today may date to the 12th C: fully 200 years later than the OE poems. The passage of time and the introduction of Norman culture and ideas accounts for the differences.
* What is the same: These lyrics, like the OE poems, were composed to be sung (though in a different style) and to be passed on orally. They were written down only after the fact -- perhaps considerably after. (That's why they are hard to date.)
* The church still had a near monopoly on literacy, although that began to change as we'll see when we get to Chaucer. So it was still monks and priests who wrote and preserved the mss in which these poems are recorded. Thus, religious themes are still more numerous than poems with more secular subject matter -- though as you must have noticed, those subjects have crept in!
Lyric: a brief melodic and imaginative poem, characterized by the fervent but structured expression of private thoughts and emotions by a single speaker who speaks in the first person. (Bedford Glossary, 194)
"Wen the turuf is thy tuur," (13th C): Compare with the Ubi sunt theme: This poem doesn't mourn the loss of earthly things, but emphasizes their impermanence and the inevitability of death in order to prove worldly things worthless in the long run. The implication is that one should renounce earthly pursuits and focus on heaven. The WORMS: In a culture without a belief in afterlife, death is sacred. Medieval Christianity emphasized the humiliations of life/death in the flesh to emphasize the importance of spirit.
Norton: "Fowls in the Frith," "My Lief is Faren in Londe," "Western Wind" -- brief, mournful in tone. Hint at larger story of a lover, but catch only the emotion. This poem is a sharp contrast with the poems about springtime, sex, love, gardens, and the folly of lovers.