OLD ENGLISH

ADISTHINA CAHYANING PUTRI

(1401305048)
DOMAS YUCHINTYA
(1401305055)

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF ARTS
UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
2016

I. History
The Early Period :
Celtics and Romans (before 450 AD)
After the aboriginal contact, the Germanic tribes speaking one
language spread out across northern and Central Europe. By 500BC
three major dialectal divisions had appeared in Germanic: East (the
Goths), North (the Scandinavians), and West (ancestors of the
English, Germans and Dutch).
The Germanic languages today show many signs of being
closely related:
English: sing, sang, sung;
Dutch: zingen, zong, gezongen;
Swedish: sjunga, sjo:ng, sjungit.
Before the Romans came to England, the British Isles were
inhabited by the Celts (pronounced [kelts]), or Ancient Britons. But
there are few obvious traces of their language in English
today. Some scholars have suggested that the Celtic tongue might
have had an underlying influence on the grammatical development
of English, particularly in some parts of the country, but this is
highly speculative. The number of loanwords known for certain to
have entered Old English from this source is very small. Those which
survive in modern English include brock (badger), and coomb (a
type of valley), plus many place names. Their language - Gaelic lives on to this day in Wales, Cornwall, Scotland and Ireland. It is not
closely related to modern English. Celtic had very little influence on
English and is mostly preserved inplace names.
The Roman Invasion :
In 55 BC, Rome, lead by Julius Caesar, invaded England and
the colony of "Britannia" was established. The Roman invasion of
Britain was arguably the most significant event ever to happen to
the British Isles, although not necessarily linguistically. It would take
a second invasion of Latin - in the form of the spread of Christianity for Latin to truly influence English.
Although it didn't affect language much, this first invasion did
have a profound effect on the culture, religion, geography,
architecture and social behavior of Britain. The island has a Roman
name, its capital is a Roman city and for centuries (even after the
Norman Conquest) the language of England's religion and
administration was a Roman one.
For 400 years, Rome brought a unity and order to Britain that
it had never had before. Prior to the Romans, Britain was a disparate
set of peoples with no sense of national identity beyond that of their
local tribe. In the wake of the Roman occupation, every 'Briton' was
aware of their Britishness. This defined them as something different

from those people who came after them, coloring

their national mythology, so that the Welsh could
see themselves as the true heirs of Britain, while
the Scots and Irish were proud of the fact that they
had never been conquered by Rome.
Latin did not replace the Celtic language in
Britain as it did in Gaul. Its use by native Britons
was probably confined to members of the upper
classes and the inhabitants of the cities and
towns. On the whole, there were certainly many people
in Roman Britain who habitually spoke Latin or upon
occasion could use it; however, its use was not sufficiently
widespread to cause it to survive the upheaval of the Teutonic
invasions as the Celtic language survived.
The use of Latin is believed to begin a decline after A.D. 410, the
approximate date at which the last
of the Roman troops were officially
withdrawn from Britain.
Scholars are convinced that
the use of Latin as a spoken
language did not survive very long
after the end of Roman rule in the
island and that such vestiges which
remained for a time were lost in the
disorders that came with the
Teutonic
(Germanic)
invasions.
There were no opportunities for
direct contact between Latin and
Old English in England, and such
Latin words as could have found their way into English would have
had to come in through Celtic transmissions.
A few words are thought for one reason or another to belong to this
period:
port (harbor, gate, town) from Latin portus and porta
munt (mountain) from Latin mons, montem
torr (tower, rock) possibly from Latin turris
wic (village) from Latin vicus
Latin influence during the first prolonged contact remains very
slight of all the influences which Old English owed to contact with
Roman civilization.
Although it is not surprising that the Romans borrowed little, if
anything from the Celts, it is extraordinary that they themselves left
such a small imprint on the speech of Britain at the time. So
thoroughly did the Romans mold and civilize the English Celts that
for many years after the withdrawal of the Roman legions, the
inhabitants still proudly called themselves Romani.

Despite such claims, linguistic scholars can find only a

minimal sprinkling of Latin words, other than the elements of place
names, which entered the English word list as a direct result of the
Roman occupation.
It wasn't until 200 years after the Romans left that in the 600's
(7th century AD), the Christian faith spread throughout England, and
this resulted in many Latin words entering the language - especially
words relating to religion. The Roman missionaries also introduced
the Roman alphabet, and the art of writing on parchment. More on
the second phase of Latinate borrowings coming up.

Anglo Saxon Period :

It was happened because of the invasion of germanic tribes.

Celts, a member of a group of peoples inhabiting much of Europe
and Asia Minor in pre-Roman times. After succession of invasions
from continental Europe after the Roman withdrawal. Celts was no
longer protected by the Roman military against the constant threat
from the Picts and Scots of the North, the Celts felt themselves
increasingly vulnerable to attack. Around 430AD, the ambitious
Celtic warlord Vortigern invited the Jutish brothers Hengest and
Horsa (from Jutland in modern-day Denmark), to settle on the east
coast of Britain to form a bulwark against sea raids by the Picts, in
return for which they were "allowed" to settle in the southern areas
of Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
But the Jutes were not the only newcomers to Britain during
this period. Other Germanic tribes soon began to make the short
journey across the North Sea. The Angles (from a region called
Angeln, the spur of land which connects modern Denmark with

Germany) gradually began to settle in increasing numbers on the

east coast of Britain, particularly in the north and East Anglia. The
Frisian people, from the marshes and islands of northern Holland
and western Germany, also began to encroach on the British
mainland from about 450 AD onwards. Still later, from the 470s, the
war-like Saxons (from the Lower Saxony area of north-western
Germany) made an increasing number of incursions into the
southern part of the British mainland. Over time, these Germanic
tribes began to establish permanent bases and to gradually displace
the native Celts.
All these peoples all spoke variations of a West Germanic
tongue, similar to modern Frisian, variations that were different but
probably close enough to be mutually intelligible. The local dialect in
Angeln is, at times, even today recognizably similar to English, and
it has even more in common with the English of 1,000 years ago.
Modern Frisian, especially spoken, bears an eerie resemblance to
English, as can be seen by some of the Frisian words which were
incorporated into English, like miel (meal), laam (lamb), goes
(goose), bter (butter), tsiis (cheese), see (sea), boat (boat), stoarm
(storm), rein (rain), snie (snow), frieze (freeze), froast (frost), mist
(mist), sliepe (sleep), blau (blue), trije (three), fjour (four), etc.
The influx of Germanic people was more of a gradual
encroachment over several generations than an invasion proper, but
these tribes between them gradually colonized most of the island,
with the exception of the more remote areas, which remained
strongholds of the original Celtic people of Britain. Originally seafarers, they began to settle down as farmers, exploiting the rich
English farmland. The rather primitive newcomers were if anything
less cultured and civilized than the local Celts, who had held onto at
least some parts of Roman culture. No love was lost between the
two peoples, and there was little integration between them: the
Celts referred to the European invaders as barbarians (as they had
previously been labelled themselves); the invaders referred to the
Celts as weales (slaves or foreigners), the origin of the name Wales.
Despite continued resistance (the legends and folklore of King
Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table date from this time), the
Celts were pushed further and further back by the invaders into the
wilds of Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Ireland, although some chose
to flee to the Brittany region of northern France (where they
maintained a thriving culture for several centuries) and even further
into mainland Europe. The Celtic language survives today only in the
Gaelic languages of Scotland and Ireland, the Welsh of Wales, and
the Breton language of Brittany (the last native speaker of the
Cornish language died in 1777, and the last native speaker of Manx,
a Celtic language spoken on the tiny Isle of Man, died as recently as
the 1960s, and these are now dead languages).
The Germanic tribes settled in seven smaller kingdoms, known
as the Heptarchy: the Saxons in Essex, Wessex and Sussex; the
Angles in East Anglia, Mercia and Northumbria; and the Jutes in

Kent. Evidence of the extent of their settlement can be found in the

number of place names throughout England ending with the AngloSaxon -ing meaning people of The Germanic tribes settled in
seven smaller kingdoms, known as the Heptarchy: the Saxons in
Essex, Wessex and Sussex; the Angles in East Anglia, Mercia and
Northumbria; and the Jutes in Kent. Evidence of the extent of their
settlement can be found in the number of place names throughout
England ending with the Anglo-Saxon -ing meaning people of (e.g.
Worthing, Reading, Hastings), -ton meaning enclosure or village
(e.g. Taunton, Burton, Luton), -ford meaning a river crossing (e.g.
Ashford, Bradford, Watford) -ham meaning farm (e.g. Nottingham,
Birmingham, Grantham) and -stead meaning a site (e.g.
Hampstead).
Although the various different kingdoms waxed and waned in
their power and influence over time, it was the war-like and pagan
Saxons that gradually became the dominant group. The new AngloSaxon nation, once known in antiquity as Albion and then Britannia
under the Romans, nevertheless became known as Anglaland or
Englaland (the Land of the Angles), later shortened to England, and
its emerging language as Englisc (now referred to as Old English or
Anglo-Saxon, or sometimes Anglo-Frisian). It is impossible to say just
when English became a separate language, rather than just a
German dialect, although it seems that the language began to
develop its own distinctive features in isolation from the continental
Germanic languages, by around 600AD. Over time, four major
dialects of Old English gradually emerged: Northumbrian in the
north of England, Mercian in the midlands, West Saxon in the south
and west, and Kentish in the southeast.
The Viking Invasions :
The second major vehicle of linguistic change during the AngloSaxon period came about as a result of Viking incursions into the
British Isles. Norse Invasions, primarily from Denmark began in the
late 700's. At first, King Alfred repulsed the Danes from the
southern half of the country. By the 8th century, however, the
Danish King Canute succeeded in uniting England and Denmark into
a single kingdom. Many Danes and Norwegians settled in England
after peace was established and quickly blended with the Anglo
Saxons. The conquering Norse did not look down on the AngloSaxons, but rather treated them as brothers and sisters. AngloSaxon and Old Norse were both spoken widely side-by-side between
700 and 900. As a result Anglo-Saxon underwent considerable
assimilation and change as it was mixed with old Norse. The mixing
of Norse and Anglo-Saxon, which produced the language known to
us as Old English, is a good example of the phenomenon of dialect
mixing.

II. Dialects
Old English should not be regarded as a single monolithic entity,
just as Modern English is also not monolithic. It emerged over time
out of the manydialects and languages of the colonising tribes, and
it is perhaps only towards the later Anglo-Saxon period that these
can be considered to have constituted a single national language.
Even then, Old English continued to exhibit much local and regional
variation, remnants of which remain in Modern English dialects.
The four main dialectal forms of Old English were Mercian,
Northumbrian, Kentish, and West Saxon. Mercian and
Northumbrian are together referred to as Anglian. In terms of
geography the Northumbrian region lay north of the Humber River;
the Mercian lay north of the Thames and South of the Humber River;
West Saxon lay south and southwest of the Thames; and the
smallest, Kentish region lay southeast of the Thames, a small corner
of England. The Kentish region, settled by the Jutes from Jutland, has
the scantiest literary remains.
Each of these four dialects was associated with an independent
kingdom on the island. Of these, Northumbria south of the Tyne, and

most of Mercia, wereoverrun by the Vikings during the 9th century.

The portion of Mercia that was successfully defended, and all of
Kent, were then integrated into Wessex under Alfred the Great. From
that time on, the West Saxon dialect (then in the form now known as
Early West Saxon) became standardised as the language of
government, and as the basis for the many works of literature and
religious materials produced or translated from Latin in that period.
The later literary standard known as Late West Saxon ,although
centred in the same region of the country, appears not to have been
directly descended from Alfred's Early West Saxon. For example, the
former diphthong /iy/ tended to become monophthongised to /i/ in
EWS, but to /y/ in LWS.
Due to the centralisation of power and the Viking invasions,
there is relatively little written record of the non-Wessex dialects
after Alfred's unification. Some Mercian texts continued to be
written, however, and the influence of Mercian is apparent in some
of the translations produced under Alfred's programme, many of
which were produced by Mercian scholars. Other dialects certainly
continued to be spoken, as is evidenced by the continued variation
between their successors in Middle and Modern English. In fact,
what would become the standard forms of Middle English and of
Modern English are descended from Mercian rather than West
Saxon, while Scots developed from the Northumbrian dialect. It was
once claimed that, owing to its position at the heart of the Kingdom
of Wessex, the relics of Anglo-Saxon accent, idiom and vocabulary
were best preserved in the dialect of Somerset.

III. Alphabets

The aged of rune :

Anglo-Saxon runes has its origins in the older Futhark, but enjoys
further in Friesland in the current North-West Germany, where
Saxons lived 400 years before they immigrants and occupied the
British Isles. "Anglo-Saxon runes" is therefore often called the
"Anglo-Frisan runes" in the litteratue. The language of the AngloSaxon inscriptions be both Old Frisian and old-English. The oldest
inscriptions can be heathen, but most of inscriptions that are found,
has Christian content, especially those from the British Isles.
The Celts and the early Anglo-Saxons used an alphabet of runes,
angular characters originally developed for scratching onto wood or
stone. The first known written English sentence, which reads "This
she-wolf is a reward to my kinsman", is an Anglo-Saxon runic
inscription on a gold medallion found in Suffolk, and has been dated
to about 450-480 AD.
Anglo-Saxon runic inscriptions are found along the coast from
today Friesland in North-West Germany to the Netherlands and in
England and Scotland. Anglo-Saxon runes, has been in daily use
from 400-500's to the 900's, when they gradually went out of brug
in line with Viking conquest of England and Scotland, which shows
through the many findings of Nordic inscriptions on British Isles from
the 900s and later.
The Anglo-Saxon runes, is arguably an successor of the 24runens older Futhark, when the Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet gradual
was expanded with several runes, opposite to what happened in the
Nordic countries at the same time. In Scandinavia developed the 24runers older Futhark to a 16-runers Futhark, while the AngloSaxon Fuorc gradually evolved to consist of 33 runes.
In the Nordic / Germanic runic alphabet is the first 5
runes fuark, but the first 5 runes in the Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet
is fuorc . Therefore are the the Anglo-Saxon / Anglo-Frisian runic
alphabeth primarily called aFuorc , after the first 5 runes in the
runic alphabet. The use of runes in England died out around just
before the year 1000, and was among others banned by King Knut
(1017-1036).

The aged of Latin ( Christianized) :

Although many of the Romano-Celts in the north of England had
already been Christianized, St. Augustine and his 40 missionaries
from Rome brought Christianity to the pagan Anglo-Saxons of the
rest of England in 597 AD. After the conversion of the influential
King Ethelbert of Kent, it spread rapidly through the land, carrying
literacy and European culture in it wake. Augustine was made
Archbishop of Canterbury in 601 AD and several great monasteries

and centres of learning were established

particularly in Northumbria.
The
early
Christian
missionaries
introduced the more rounded Roman
alphabet (much as we use today), which
was easier to read and more suited for
writing on vellum or parchment. The AngloSaxons quite rapidly adopted the new
Roman alphabet, but with the addition of
letters such as ("wynn"), (thorn),
(edh or eth) and 3 (yogh) from the
old runic alphabet for certain sounds not
used in Latin. later became "uu" and, still
later, "w"; and were used more or less
interchangeably to represent the sounds
now spelled with th; and 3 was used for
"y", "j" or "g" sounds. In addition, the
diphthong (ash) was also used; "v" was usually written with an
"f"; and the letters "q", "x" and "z" were rarely used at all.
The Latin language the missionaries brought was still only used
by the educated ruling classes and Church functionaries, and Latin
was only a minor influence on the English language at this time,
being largely restricted to the naming of Church dignitaries and
ceremonies (priest, vicar, altar, mass, church, bishop, pope, nun,
angel, verse, baptism, monk, eucharist, candle, temple and
presbyter came into the language this way). However, other more
domestic words (such as fork, spade, chest, spider, school, tower,
plant, rose, lily, circle, paper, sock, mat, cook, etc) also came into
English from Latin during this time, albeit substantially altered and
adapted for the Anglo-Saxon ear and tongue. More ecclesiastical
Latin loanwords continued to be introduced, even as late as the 11th
Century, including chorus, cleric, creed, cross, demon, disciple,
hymn, paradise, prior, sabbath, etc.

IV. Old English Literature

Old English literature (sometimes referred to as Anglo-Saxon
literature) encompasses literature written in Old English (also called
Anglo-Saxon) in Anglo-Saxon England from the 7th century to the
decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066. "Cdmon's Hymn",

composed in the 7th century according to Bede, is often considered

the oldest extant poem in English, whereas the later poem, The
Grave is one of the final poems written in Old English, and presents
a transitional text between Old and Middle English. Likewise, the
Peterborough Chronicle continues until the 12th century.
The poem Beowulf, which often begins the traditional canon of
English literature, is the most famous work of Old English literature.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has also proven significant for historical
study, preserving a chronology of early English history.Alexander
Souter names the commentary on Paul's epistles by Pelagius "the
earliest extant work by a British author". In descending order of
quantity, Old English literature consists of: sermons and saints' lives,
biblical translations; translated Latin works of the early Church
Fathers; Anglo-Saxon chronicles and narrative history works; laws,
wills and other legal works; practical works ongrammar, medicine,
geography;
and
poetry.
In
all
there
are
over
400
survivingmanuscripts from the period, of which about 189 are
considered "major". Besides Old English literature, Anglo-Saxons
wrote a number of Anglo-Latin works.
Old English literature has gone through different periods of
research; in the 19th and early 20th centuries the focus was on the
Germanic and pagan roots that scholars thought they could detect
in Old English literature. Later, on account of the work of Bernard F.
Huppe, the influence of Augustinian exegesis was emphasised.
Today, along with a focus upon paleography and the physical
manuscripts themselves more generally, scholars debate such
issues as dating, place of origin, authorship, and the connections
between Anglo-Saxon culture and the rest of Europe in the Middle
Ages, and literary merits.
Extant Manuscripts:
A large number of manuscripts remain from the Anglo-Saxon
period, with most written during its last 300 years (9th to 11th
centuries), in both Latin and thevernacular. There were considerable
losses of manuscripts as a result of theDissolution of the
Monasteries in the 16th century. Scholarly study of the language
began in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I when Matthew Parker and
others obtained whatever manuscripts they could. Old English
manuscripts have been highly prized by collectors since the 16th
century, both for their historic value and for their aesthetic beauty
of uniformly spaced letters and decorative elements.
There are four major poetic manuscripts:
a. The Junius manuscript, also known as the man hunt, is an
illustrated collection of poems on biblical narratives.
b. The Exeter Book, is an anthology, located in the Exeter
Cathedral since it was donated there in the 11th century.

c. The Vercelli Book, contains both poetry and prose; it is not

known how it came to be in Vercelli.
d. The Beowulf Manuscript (British Library Cotton Vitellius A. xv),
sometimes called the Nowell Codex, contains prose and
poetry, typically dealing with monstrous themes, including
Beowulf.
Seven major scriptoria produced a good deal of Old English
manuscripts:
a. Winchester
b. Exeter
c. Worcester
d. Abingdon
e. Durham, and two Canterbury houses
f. Christ Church
g. St. Augustine's Abbey
Old English Poetry :
Old English poetry falls broadly into two styles or fields of
reference, the heroic Germanic and the Christian. With a few
exceptions, almost all Old English poets are anonymous.
Although there are Anglo-Saxon discourses on Latin prosody, the
rules of Old English verse are understood only through modern
analyses of the extant texts. The first widely accepted theory was
constructed by Eduard Sievers (1893)., who distinguished five
distinct alliterative patterns. Alternative theories have been
proposed; the theory of John C. Pope (1942), which uses musical
notation to track the verse patterns, has been accepted in some
quarters, and is hotly debated.
The most popular and well-known understanding of Old English
poetry continues to be Sievers' alliterative verse. The system is
based upon accent, alliteration, the quantity of vowels, and patterns
of syllabic accentuation. It consists of five permutations on a base
verse scheme; any one of the five types can be used in any verse.
The system was inherited from and exists in one form or another in
all of the older Germanic languages. Two poetic figures commonly
found in Old English poetry are the kenning, an often formulaic
phrase that describes one thing in terms of another (e.g. in Beowulf,
the sea is called the whale road) and litotes, a dramatic
understatement employed by the author for ironic effect.
fyrene fremman feond on helle.
("to perpetrate torment, fiend of hell.")
-- Beowulf, line 101
Even though all extant Old English poetry is written and
literate, it is assumed that Old English poetry was an oral craft that
was performed by a scop and accompanied by a harp.

Famous Poets:
Most Old English poets are anonymous, and only four names
are known with any certainty: Caedmon, Bede, Alfred the Great, and
Cynewulf.
Caedmon is considered the first Old English poet whose work still
survives. According to the account in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica,
he lived at the abbey of Whitby in Northumbria in the 7th century.
Only his first poem, comprising nine-lines, Cdmons Hymn,
remains, albeit in Northumbrian, West-Saxon and Latin versions that
appear in 19 surviving manuscripts.:
Bede is often thought to be the poet of a five-line poem entitled
Bede's Death Song, on account of its appearance in a letter on his
death by Cuthbert. This poem exists in a Northumbrian and later
version.
Alfred is said to be the author of some of the metrical prefaces
to the Old English translations of Gregory's Pastoral Careand
Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. Alfred is also thought to be the
author of 50 metrical psalms, but whether the poems were written
by him, under his direction or patronage, or as a general part in his
reform efforts is unknown.
Cynewulf has proven to be a difficult figure to identify, but
recent research suggests he was from the early part of the 9th
century to which a number of poems are attributed including The
Fates of the Apostles and Elene (both found in the Vercelli Book),
and Christ II and Juliana (both found in the Exeter Book).
Although William of Malmesbury claims that Aldhelm, bishop
of Sherborne (d. 709), performed secular songs while accompanied
by a harp, none of these Old English poems survives. Paul G. Remely
has recently proposed that the Old English Exodus may have been
the work of Aldhelm, or someone closely associated with him.
Heroic Poems:
The Old English poetry which has received the most attention
deals with the Germanic heroic past. The longest (3,182 lines), and
most important, is Beowulf, which appears in the damaged Nowell
Codex. The poem tells the story of the legendary Geatish hero
Beowulf, who is the title character. The story is set inScandinavia, in
Sweden and Denmark, and the tale likewise probably is of
Scandinavian origin. The story is biographical and sets the tone for
much of the rest of Old English poetry. It has achieved national epic
status, on the same level as theIliad, and is of interest to historians,
anthropologists, literary critics, and students the world over.

Other heroic poems besides Beowulf exist. Two have survived

in fragments: The Fight at Finnsburh, controversially interpreted by
many to be a retelling of one of the battle scenes in Beowulf, and
Waldere, a version of the events of the life of Walter of Aquitaine.
Two other poems mention heroic figures: Widsith is believed to be
very old in parts, dating back to events in the 4th century
concerning Eormanric and theGoths, and contains a catalogue of
names and places associated with valiant deeds.Deor is a lyric, in
the style of Consolation of Philosophy, applying examples of famous
heroes, including Weland and Eormanric, to the narrator's own case.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains various heroic poems
inserted throughout. The earliest from 937 is called The Battle of
Brunanburh, which celebrates the victory of King Athelstan over the
Scots and Norse. There are five shorter poems: capture of the Five
Boroughs (942); coronation of King Edgar (973); death of King Edgar
(975); death of Alfred the son of King thelred (1036); and death of
King Edward the Confessor (1065).
The 325 line poem The Battle of Maldon celebrates Earl
Byrhtnoth and his men who fell in battle against the Vikings in 991.
It is considered one of the finest, but both the beginning and end is
missing and the only manuscript was destroyed in a fire in 1731. A
well-known speech is near the end of the poem:
Old English heroic poetry was handed down orally from generation
to generation. As Christianity began to appear, re-tellers often
recast the tales of Christianity into the older heroic stories.
Elegiac Poetry:
Related to the heroic tales are a number of short poems from
the Exeter Book which have come to be described as "elegies"[16]
or "wisdom poetry". They are lyrical and Boethian in their
description of the up and down fortunes of life. Gloomy in mood is
The Ruin, which tells of the decay of a once glorious city of Roman
Britain (cities in Britain fell into decline after the Romans departed in
the early 5th century, as the early English continued to live their
rural life), and The Wanderer, in which an older man talks about an
attack that happened in his youth, where his close friends and kin
were all killed; memories of the slaughter have remained with him
all his life. He questions the wisdom of the impetuous decision to
engage a possibly superior fighting force: the wise man engages in
warfare to preserve civil society, and must not rush into battle but
seek out allies when the odds may be against him. This poet finds
little glory in bravery for bravery's sake. The Seafarer is the story of
a somber exile from home on the sea, from which the only hope of
redemption is the joy of heaven. Other wisdom poems include Wulf
and Eadwacer, The Wife's Lament, and The Husband's Message.
Alfred the Great wrote a wisdom poem over the course of his reign
based loosely on the neoplatonic philosophy of Boethius called the
Lays of Boethius.

Classical and Latin Poetry:

Several Old English poems are adaptations of late classical
philosophical texts. The longest is a 10th-century translation of
Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy contained in the Cotton
manuscript Otho A.vi.[18] Another is The Phoenix in the Exeter
Book, an allegorisation of the De ave phoenice by Lactantius.
Other short poems derive from the Latin bestiary tradition. Some
examples include The Panther, The Whale and The Partridge.
Anglo-Saxon Riddles:
Anglo-Saxon riddles are part of Anglo-Saxon literature. The
most famous Anglo-Saxon riddles are found in the Exeter Book. This
book contains secular and religious poems and other writings, along
with a collection of 94 riddles, although there is speculation that
there may have been closer to 100 riddles in the book. The riddles
are written in a similar manner, but "it is unlikely that the whole
collection was written by one person. It is more likely that many
scribes worked on this collection of riddles. Although the Exeter
Book has a unique and extensive collection of Anglo-Saxon riddles,
riddles were not uncommon during this era. Riddles were both
comical and obscene.
Christian Poetry:
Biblical Paraphrases:
There are a number of partial Old English Bible translations
and paraphrases surviving. The Junius manuscript contains three
paraphrases of Old Testament texts. These were re-wordings of
Biblical passages in Old English, not exact translations, but
paraphrasing, sometimes into beautiful poetry in its own right. The
first and longest is of Genesis, the second is of Exodus and the third
is Daniel. The fourth and last poem, Christ and Satan, which is
contained in the second part of the Junius manuscript, does not
paraphrase any particular biblical book, but retells a number of
episodes from both the Old and New Testament.
The Nowell Codex contains a Biblical poetic paraphrase, which
appears right after Beowulf, called Judith, a retelling of the story of
Judith. This is not to be confused with lfric's homily Judith, which
retells the same Biblical story in alliterative prose.
Old English translations of Psalms 51-150 have been
preserved, following a prose version of the first 50 Psalms. There are
a number of verse translations of the Gloria in Excelsis, the Lord's
Prayer, and the Apostles' Creed, as well as a number of hymns and
proverbs.
Christian Poems:
In addition to Biblical paraphrases are a number of original
religious poems, mostly lyrical (non- narrative).

The Exeter Book contains a series of poems entitled Christ,

sectioned into Christ I, Christ II and Christ III.
Considered one of the most beautiful of all Old English poems
is Dream of the Rood, contained in the Vercelli Book. It is a dream
vision of Christ on the cross, with the cross personified, speaking
thus:
I endured much hardship up on that hill. I saw the God of hosts
stretched out cruelly. Darkness had covered with clouds the body of
the Lord, the bright radiance. A shadow went forth, dark under the
heavens. All creation wept, mourned the death of the king. Christ
was on the cross.
Dream of the Rood
The dreamer resolves to trust in the cross, and the dream
ends with a vision of heaven.
There are a number of religious debate poems. The longest is
Christ and Satan in the Junius manuscript; it deals with the conflict
between Christ and Satan during the forty days in the desert.
Another debate poem is Solomon and Saturn, surviving in a number
of textual fragments, Saturn is portrayed as a magician debating
with the wise king Solomon.
Other poems :
Other poetic forms exist in Old English including riddles, short
verses, gnomes, and mnemonic poems for remembering long lists of
names. The Exeter Book has a collection of ninety-five riddles. Some
of them play on obscene interpretations of the object described. The
answers are not supplied; a number of them to this day remain a
puzzle.
There are short verses found in the margins of manuscripts
which offer practical advice. There are remedies against the loss of
cattle, how to deal with a delayed birth, swarms of bees, etc. The
longest is called Nine Herbs Charm and is probably of pagan origin.
Other similar short verses, or charms, include For a Swarm of Bees,
Against a Dwarf, Wi frstice, andAgainst a Wen.
There are a group of mnemonic poems designed to help
memorise lists and sequences of names and to keep objects in
order. These poems are named Menologium, The Fates of the
Apostles, The Rune Poem, The Seasons for Fasting, and the
Instructions for Christians.
Old English Poetry and the Oral Tradition:
The hypotheses of Milman Parry and Albert Lord on the
Homeric Question came to be applied (by Parry and Lord, but also
by Francis Magoun) to verse written in Old English. That is, the
theory proposes that certain features of at least some of the poetry
may be explained by positing oral-formulaic composition. While

Anglo-Saxon (Old English) epic poetry may bear some resemblance

to Ancient Greek epics such as the Iliad and Odyssey, the question
of if and how Anglo-Saxon poetry was passed down through an oral
tradition remains a subject of debate, and the question for any
particular poem unlikely to be answered with perfect certainty.
Parry and Lord had already demonstrated the density of
metrical formulas in Ancient Greek, and observed that the same
phenomenon was apparent in the Old English alliterative line:
Hrothgar mathelode helm Scildinga ("Hrothgar spoke, protector of
the Scildings")
Beowulf mathelode bearn Ecgtheowes ("Beowulf spoke, son of
Ecgtheow")
In addition to verbal formulas, many themes have been shown
to appear among the various works of Anglo-Saxon literature. The
theory proposes to explain this fact by suggesting that the poetry
was composed of formulae and themes from a stock common to the
poetic profession, as well as literary passages composed by
individual artists in a more modern sense. Larry Benson introduced
the concept of "written-formulaic" to describe the status of some
Anglo-Saxon poetry which, while demonstrably written, contains
evidence of oral influences, including heavy reliance on formulas
and themes. Frequent oral-formulaic themes in Old English poetry
include "Beasts of Battle" and the "Cliff of Death". The former, for
example, is characterised by the mention of ravens, eagles, and
wolves preceding particularly violent depictions of battle. Among the
most thoroughly documented themes is "The Hero on the Beach." D.
K. Crowne first proposed this theme, defined by four characteristics:
a. A Hero on the Beach.
b. Accompanying "Retainers."
c. A Flashing Light.
d. The Completion or Initiation of a Journey.
One example Crowne cites in his article is that which concludes
Beowulf's fight with the monsters during his swimming match with
Breca:
Those sinful creatures had no fill of rejoicing that they consumed
me, assembled at feast at the sea bottom; rather, in the morning,
wounded by blades they lay up on the shore, put to sleep by swords,
so that never after did they hinder sailors in their course on the sea.
The light came from the east, the bright beacon of God.
Ns hie re fylle gefean hfdon,
manforddlan, t hie me egon,
symbel ymbston sgrunde neah;
ac on mergenne mecum wunde
be ylafe uppe lgon, sweordum aswefede,

t syan na
ymb brontne ford brimliende lade ne letton.
Leoht eastan com, beorht beacen godes;
Beowulf, lines 562-70a
Crowne drew on examples of the theme's appearance in
twelve Anglo-Saxon texts, including one occurrence in Beowulf. It
was also observed in other works of Germanic origin, Middle English
poetry, and even an Icelandic prose saga. John Richardson held that
the schema was so general as to apply to virtually any character at
some point in the narrative, and thought it an instance of the
"threshold" feature of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey monomyth.
J.A. Dane, in an article characterised as "polemics without rigour"
claimed that the appearance of the theme in Ancient Greek poetry,
a tradition without known connection to the Germanic, invalidated
the notion of "an autonomous theme in the baggage of an oral
poet." Foley's response was that Dane misunderstood the nature of
oral tradition, and that in fact the appearance of the theme in other
cultures showed that it was a traditional form.
Reception of Old English:
Old English literature did not disappear in 1066 with the
Norman Conquest. Many sermons and works continued to be read
and used in part or whole up through the 14th century, and were
further catalogued and organised. During theReformation, when
monastic libraries were dispersed, the manuscripts were collected
by antiquarians and scholars. These included Laurence Nowell,
Matthew Parker, Robert Bruce Cotton and Humfrey Wanley. In the
17th century there began a tradition of Old English literature
dictionaries and references. The first was William Somner's
Dictionarium Saxonico-Latino-Anglicum (1659). Lexicographer
Joseph Bosworth began a dictionary in the 19th century which was
completed by Thomas Northcote Toller in 1898 called An AngloSaxon Dictionary, which was updated by Alistair Campbell in 1972.

Because Old English was one of the first vernacular languages

to be written down, nineteenth- century scholars searching for the
roots of European "national culture" (see Romantic Nationalism)
took special interest in studying Anglo-Saxon literature, and Old
English became a regular part of university curriculum. Since WWII
there has been increasing interest in the manuscripts themselves
Neil Ker, a paleographer, published the groundbreaking Catalogue of
Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon in 1957, and by 1980 nearly all
Anglo-Saxon manuscript texts were in print. J.R.R. Tolkien is credited
with creating a movement to look at Old English as a subject of
literary theory in his seminal lecture Beowulf: The Monsters and the
Critics (1936).

Old English literature has had some influence on modern

literature, and notable poets have translated and incorporated Old
English poetry. Well-known early translations include William Morris's
translation of Beowulf and Ezra Pound's translation ofThe Seafarer.
The influence of the poetry can be seen in modern poets T. S. Eliot,
Ezra Pound and W. H. Auden.[4]Tolkien adapted the subject matter
and terminology of heroic poetry for works like The Hobbit and The
Lord of the Rings, and John Gardner wrote Grendel, which tells the
story of Beowulf's opponent from his own perspective.
More recently other notable poets such as Paul Muldoon,
Seamus Heaney, Denise Levertov and U. A. Fanthorpe have all
shown an interest in Old English poetry. In 1987 Denise Levertov
published a translation of Caedmon's Hymn under her title
"Caedmon" in the collection breathing the Water. This was then
followed by Seamus Heaney's version of the poem "Whitby- surMoyola" in his The Spirit Level (1996) Paul Muldoon's "Caedmon's
Hymn" in his Moy Sand and Gravel (2002) and U. A. Fanthorpe's
"Caedmon's Song" in her queuing for the Sun (2003). These
translations differ greatly from one another, just as Seamus
Heaney's Beowulf (1999) deviates from earlier, similar projects.
Heaney uses Irish diction across Beowulf to bring what he calls a
"special body and force" to the poem, foregrounding his own Ulster
heritage, "in order to render (the poem) ever more 'willable
forward/again and again and again.'"

Conslusion
There are 4 periods of early english history, which are PreRoman/Pre-Historical up to 55 B. C, Roman Occupation (55 B. C.
410 A. D), Anglo-Saxon Period (410 787 A. D), Viking Invasions
(787 1066 A. D). On Pre-Historical, The island we know as England
was occupied by a race of people called the Celts. But In 55 BC,

Rome invasion began , lead by Julius Caesar, Roman invaded

England and the colony of "Britannia" was established. Romans
leave in 410 A.D. because Visigoths attack Rome.
The Anglo-Saxon began in 449 AD. West Germanic
invaders(the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes) arrived in Britani.
They spoke a mutually intelligible language, which is called Anglo
Saxon (Old English). The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, had forced
them (Britain) to leave. On Viking invasion, By the 8th century, the
Danish King Canute succeeded in uniting England and Denmark into
a single kingdom. Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse were both spoken
widely side-by-side and mixed together. The result is Old English.
Old english literature began in 7th century. There are four
major poetic manuscripts ; The Junius manuscript, The Exeter Book,
The Vercelli Book, and The Beowulf Manuscript. There are 4 famous
poets ; Caedmon, Bede, Alfred the Great, and Cynewulf.

Reference

Kumari, Nasib. 2014. Old English Literature: A Brief Summary.

International Journal of English Language, Literature, and
Humaniyies (IJELLH).
Kamalani Hurley, Pat. Introduction to the Study of Language,
University of Hawai'i - Leeward Community College.
Retrieved from :
http://www2.leeward.hawaii.edu/hurley/Ling102web/mod6_world/6m
od6.2.1_oe.htm
Mastin, Luke. 2011.The History of English
Retrieved from :
http://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/history_old.html
Hauge,Erild. 2015. ANGLO-SAXONS RUNES AND ANGLO-SAXONS
RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS.
Retrieved from : http://www.arild-hauge.com/eanglor.htm