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ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE - Coggle Diagram

- - - - legal, civil di ecclesiastical books
        
        Sermo lupi ad Anglos
        Most important sermon
  - - - king Alfred possible supervisor
  - - - St Gregory I's Pastoral Care
      - Boetius's Consolation of Philosophy
      - St Augustine of Hippo's Soliloquies
      - not literal but radically revised
        
        prefaces of great historical interest
- - - - ministrel who laments the loss of his position at court and consoles himself by considering the past misfortunes of others
    - - female speaker grieving for a lost or absent lover
    - - meditations of a solitary exile on his past glories as a warrior;his present hardships and the value of faith in the heavenly lord
    - - old seafarer reminiscing his lonely and sorrowful life at sea and later preaching the path to Heaven
    - - a message to a woman of royal rank from her husband/ lover who has been forced to leave his country because of vendetta
    - - descritpion of an ancient Roman city in ruins
    - - melancholic atmosphere and general tone of lamentation
      - pervaded by a sense of fate
      - describe a hierarchical society and nature is represented in its fiercest and gloomiest aspects
    - - exile and banishment
      - loneliness and suffering caused by the departureof a loved one
      - looking back at happier times now lost
- - - - Long poem - 3182 lines
        
        Composed by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet around 700 AD
        
        Contained in the
        Nowell Manuscript
      - PLOT
        
        1st part
        
        Hrothgar is the king of Denmark and his kingdom is attacked by a devouring monster named Grendel. Grendel is protected by a magic spell and cannot be hurt by weapons made by man. He lives in the wastelands and every night visits King Hrothgar's hall killing his guests.
        Beowulf lives in the nearby kingdom of Geatland. He has a great strength and extraordinary courage. He decides to help the king and with his bravest men he crosses the sea to Denmark where he is welcomed with a feast in the hall. That night everybody sleeps except Beowulf. Grendel arrives and kills one of Hrothgar's sleeping men. Unarmed, Beowulf fights the monster and mortally wounds him, forcing him to retreat to the wastelands.
        Grendel's mother seeks revenge and manages to bring back the torn off arm to a lake where she has taken refuge. She leaves a bloody trail and Beowulf follows it. He plounges into the lake and fights Grendel's mother with an old sword he finds in an underwater cavern. There is also Grendel's body and he cuts off the head to bring it to Hrothgar. Great feast and Beowulf is made king.
        
        2nd part
        
        After 50 years of successful reign Beowulf has to face another monster, a fire breathing dragon which is destroying the country and hidding and guarding a treasure.
        Helped by Wiglaf a young kinsman he kills the monster but he is mortally wounded. His body is burnt on a funeral pyre and he is buried with the treasure in a barrow overlooking the sea.
      - THEMES
        
        Manners and values of the Germanic heroic code
        
        it portrays aristocratic society based on hierarchy
        
        Christian elements
        
        prominence to nature in its dreariest and fiercest aspects
        
        Allusions to the Old Testament
        
        Words: Father / Lord / Creator
        
        forgiving attitude towards the enemies
        
        idea of glory in the afterlife
        
        Imp : splendour of the warrior class
        
        bravery
        
        loyalty
        
        pride
        
        honour
        
        kinship bonds
      - LANGUAGE
        
        Caesura
        
        It's a pause that splits the line up into two parts conveying rhythm. In the original it is marked by a space, in the translation it is represented by a comma, colon, semi-colon or full stop
        
        Alliteration
        
        important stylistic element of Anglo -Saxon poetry
        
        repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning or in the middle of two or more words. Anglo-Saxon poetry was recited, often accompanied by music, in front of an audience. Alliteration gave the language a musical quality. It also played the same role as rhyme in later poetry, it helped the poet and the audience to memorise the poem
        
        Formulae
        
        compound nouns or short phrases that are synonyms for often repeated words like ship, sea, king or names. As the poems were often composed on the spot about a recent event, formulae gave the poet time to think.
        
        King replaced by the ring giver, the treasure giver, a gracious friend
        
        Not simply synonyms, each of them stressed a different aspect of the thing described
        
        Kennings
        
        Most unusual formulae: metaphorical phrases that are used instead of a noun
        
        ship = sea-wood or wave-floater; body = bone-house; blood= war-sweat
        
        Solemn tone
- - - - illiterate herdsman divinely inspired after a vision in a dream and started to write on sacred themes in vernacular poetry. Took holy orders and led a pious life dying like a Saint after a premonition.
        
        he wrote accounts of creation, translation from Old and New Testaments and songs about the last judgement
        
        BUT
        
        only surviving work Hymn a nine-line alliterative poem in honour of God. Manuscripts of it in the poet's dialect (Northumbrian) and other Old English dialects
    - - little is known about his life and identity. Probably lived in the 9th century in Northumbria or Mercia and used Anglian dialect
        
        4 major poems
        
        Fates of the Apostles
        
        Elene
        
        Juliana
        
        Christ II
        
        Themes: death or suffering of the central characters due to their religious values; the last one - description of a devotional subject
      - he used to weave into the text letters of his name using runic inscriptions
        First to claim authorship