Old English (Anglo-Saxon)
The indigenous of Britain isles was Celt (under protection of Roman Empire since 50 A.D, in which in 410 A.D withdrawn) was overran in 5th A.D. by North Germanic tribes: Jutes, Angles, and Saxons (Anglo-Saxon: the predecessor of English language). In 6th C, the Christianity scattered in the land of England (important moment in this era).
Poetry
Theme: religious (Christianity), Often bold and strong, but also mournful and elegiac in spirit, this poetry emphasizes the sorrow and ultimate futility of life and the helplessness of humans before the power of fate.
Characteristics
- Much of Old English poetry was probably intended to be chanted, with harp accompaniment, by the Anglo-Saxon scop, or bard.
- Almost all this poetry is composed without rhyme, in a characteristic line, or verse, of four stressed syllables alternating with an indeterminate number of unstressed ones. This line strikes strangely on ears habituated to the usual modern pattern, in which the rhythmical unit, or foot, theoretically consists of a constant number (either one or two) of unaccented syllables that always precede or follow any stressed syllable. Another unfamiliar but equally striking feature in the formal character of Old English poetry is structural alliteration, or the use of syllables beginning with similar sounds in two or three of the stresses in each line.
The famous literary arts
- Beowulf (the greatest)
The epic poem Beowulf, written sometime between the 8th century and the late 10th century. Beginning and ending with the funeral of a great king, and composed against a background of impending disaster, it describes the exploits of a Scandinavian cultural hero, Beowulf, in destroying the monster Grendel, Grendel's mother, and a fire-breathing dragon.
- Caedmon
Caedmon (650?-680?), considered the earliest of the Anglo-Saxon Christian poets. The only information concerning Caedmon is in the Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation (731), by the English theologian Saint Bede the Venerable.
In the end of 8th C, the Scandinavian attacked the Northern England destroying the culture including the literary arts. The remaining inscriptions were translated by the King Alfred the Wessex’s scholars into West Saxon dialect. The extinction of northern England’s literature brought the end of the era of poetry; and the appearance of King Alfred the Wessex signed the beginning of the new era in Anglo-Saxon literature, the era of prose.
Prose
Prose in Old English is represented by a large number of religious works. The imposing scholarship of monasteries in northern England in the late 7th century reached its peak in the Latin work Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 731) by Bede. The great educational effort of Alfred, king of the West Saxons, in the 9th century produced an Old English translation of this important historical work and of many others, including De Consolatione Philosophiae (The Consolation of Philosophy), by Boethius. This was a significant work of largely Platonic philosophy easily adaptable to Christian thought, and it has had great influence on English literature.
References:
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Samekto. 1976. Ikhtisar Sejarah Kesusastraan Inggris. Jakarta: GM
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