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Old English literature refers to poetry (alliterative verse) and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. [1]
This is a list of translations of Beowulf, one of the best-known Old English heroic epic poems. Beowulf has been translated many times in verse and in prose. By 2020, the Beowulf's Afterlives Bibliographic Database listed some 688 translations and other versions of the poem, from Thorkelin's 1787 transcription of the text, and in at least 38 languages.
The poet calls on Anglo-Saxon readers to recognize the imperfect aspects of their supposed Christian lifestyles. In other words, the poet is referencing their "Anglo-Saxon Heathenism". [159] In terms of the characters of the epic itself, Robinson argues that readers are "impressed" by the courageous acts of Beowulf and the speeches of Hrothgar.
The poem refers to a group of people called the Wicinga cynn, which may be the earliest mention of the word "Viking" (lines 47, 59, 80). It closes with a brief comment on the importance and fame offered by poets like Widsith, with many pointed reminders of the munificent generosity offered to tale-singers by patrons "discerning of songs".
Old English metre is the conventional name given to the poetic metre in which English language poetry was composed in the Anglo-Saxon period. The best-known example of poetry composed in this verse form is Beowulf, but the vast majority of Old English poetry belongs to the same tradition.
The poem is a product of the period of declining vitality of the runic script in Anglo-Saxon England after the Christianization of the 7th century. A large body of scholarship has been devoted to the poem, mostly dedicated to its importance for runology but to a lesser extent also to the cultural lore embodied in its stanzas.
The poem is told entirely from the perspective of the Anglo-Saxons, and names many individuals that scholars Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson [1] believe were real Englishmen. Mitchell and Robinson conjecture that the lost opening of the poem must have related how Byrhtnoth , an Anglo-Saxon ealdorman , hearing of the Viking raid, raised his ...
Layamon's Middle English is notably "native" in its vocabulary, i.e. devoid of words borrowed from Norman French; the scholar B.S. Monroe counted a mere 150 words derived from French in the poem's 16,000 lines. [1] It is remarkable for its abundant Anglo-Saxon vocabulary; deliberately archaic Saxon forms that were quaint even by Anglo-Saxon ...