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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]
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 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".
Example axe blood-ember Blóðeisu: N: Einarr Skúlason, Øxarflokkr 7 battle spear-din N: Snorri Sturluson, Skaldskaparmal: blood dead-slave N: blood battle-sweat One reference for this kenning comes from the epic poem, Beowulf. As Beowulf is in fierce combat with Grendel's mother, he makes mention of shedding much battle-sweat. N: Beowulf ...
The Exeter Book riddles can be situated within a wider tradition of 'speaking objects' in Anglo-Saxon culture and have much in common with poems such as The Dream of the Rood and The Husband's Message and with artefacts such as the Alfred Jewel or the Brussels Cross, which endow inanimate things with first-person voices. [28]
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.
It has been proposed that this poem demonstrates the fundamental Anglo-Saxon belief that life is shaped by fate. [16] In The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism (1975), Eric Stanley pointed out that Henry Sweet 's Sketch of the History of Anglo-Saxon Poetry in W. C. Hazlitt 's edition of Warton's History of English Poetry (1871), expresses a ...
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 ...