Old English Literature Lectures 1 & 2 PDF

Lectures 1, 2: Old English Literature Lecture 1: ❖ Historical Background Lecture 2: ❖ Anglo-Saxon Poetry ❖ Old English Prose  U P TO 1 0 6 6 BRITONS AND INVADERS 800,000 !"#–1066 "# 800,000–54 BCE 53 BCE–25...

Lectures 1, 2: Old English Literature Lecture 1: ❖ Historical Background Lecture 2: ❖ Anglo-Saxon Poetry ❖ Old English Prose  U P TO 1 0 6 6 BRITONS AND INVADERS 800,000 !"#–1066 "# 800,000–54 BCE 53 BCE–250 CE 250–448 3000 BCE 139–143 396 First stage of Stonehenge Frontier of Roman Britain Roman general Stilicho visits is built. moves north to new line of Britain to restore order. Antonine Wall from Firth 2400 BCE of Forth to the Clyde. Beaker-style pottery appears in Britain, a style possibly C.160 imported from Iberia. Pull-back from Antonine Wall to Hadrian’s Wall begins. Paleolithic stone tool Mildenhall treasure 800,000 BCE 2100 BCE Roman Emperor Claudius 260–74 407 conquering Britannia Flint tools in Suffolk are Knowledge of bronze-working Britain forms part of the Constantine III chosen the first signs of human arrives in Britain. 10–40 CE Gallic empire of Postumus as emperor by the British habitation in Britain. Cunobelinus, king of the and his successors. army: he removes most 700 BCE Catuvellauni, builds a of the troops to Gaul. 40,000 BCE Iron begins to come into powerful kingdom in 260–330 Modern humans arrive in regular use in Britain. southern England. Building of the Saxon Shore Britain across a land bridge forts (coastal defensive line from Europe. 43 between Solent and Wash). Emperor Claudius dispatches invasion force to Britain under Aulus Plautius. 4000 BCE 51 286 410 Neolithic Age begins in Caractacus in captivity Revolt of Carausius, who British leaders rise up and Britain as agriculture arrives after Queen Cartimandua declares independent expel remaining Roman from Europe. gives him to the Romans. British empire. officials from the towns. 3800 BCE 60–61 C.312 432 Earliest megalithic Boudica leads revolt of the Roman provinces divided St. Patrick arrives in Ireland monuments are built; also Iceni; Londinium (London), into two again, so that to begin his mission there. earthwork enclosures Verulamium (St. Albans), Britannia now has four and causeways. and Camulodunum provinces. (Colchester) burnt before the uprising is suppressed. 3100 BCE 74–78 Roman helmet The first henge monuments Roman conquest of most 208–211 are built. The Battersea shield of Wales carried out by Campaigns of Septimius Julius Frontinus. 400 BCE Severus in Scotland; on 3000–2500 BCE “Developed” hill-forts appear, his death, new emperor Stone village at Skara Brae 78–83 with more complex defenses. Caracalla terminates the war. in the Orkneys, Scotland, Campaigns of Agricola is built. in Scotland end with 55 AND 54 BCE 213 defeat of Caledonians Roman general Julius Roman province of Britannia at Mons Graupius. Caesar mounts two invasions becomes Britannia Superior of Britain. and Britannia Inferior. Stone house at Skara Brae 90 367 Roman agriculture Roman withdrawal from The “Great Barbarian most of north and eastern Conspiracy”: Picts, Scots, 446 Scotland. and Saxons attack Britain. “Groan of the Britons” plea by British notable to Roman 122–123 383 commander Aetius, asking Construction begins on Revolt of Magnus Maximus; for his help against Hadrian’s Wall after visit by many British legions barbarian raiders. Emperor Hadrian to Britain. accompany him to Gaul. The Manse stone 12  B R I TO N S A N D I N V A D E R S “I had horses, men, arms, and wealth… If you wish to command everyone, does it really follow that everyone should accept your slavery?” CARACTACUS, BRITISH CHIEFTAIN, AT THE TRIBUNAL OF CLAUDIUS IN ROME 449–792 793–990 990–1066 449 793 878 991 Traditional date for arrival of First Viking raid in British Isles Alfred flees into Somerset Battle of Maldon; Hengist and Horsa, legendary on monastery of Lindisfarne. marshes but then wins Battle new force of Vikings first Saxon rulers of Kent. of Edington against Vikings. defeats and kills the 794 ealdorman of Essex; 477–91 Vikings raid Iona, first 892–96 invaders paid 10,000 Aelle is King of Sussex: the recorded attack in Scotland. Alfred the Great fights off a pounds of Danegeld first of the Bretwaldas. new Viking invasion, aided to withdraw. by network of burhs and reformed army. Anglo-Saxon claw beaker Wulfstan psalter 633 909 1012 1035 Battle of Hatfield: Edwin of Edward the Elder of Wessex King Aethelred forced to Death of Cnut; succeded Northumbria killed by British beats Vikings at Tettenhall, pay a Danegeld of 48,000 by his son Harald Harefoot. King Cadwallon of Gwynedd. beginning reconquest of the pounds of silver. Five Boroughs. 1040 664 1013 Duncan I deposed by Synod of Whitby convenes 917 Aethelred flees to Normandy; Macbeth, the mormaer to settle differences Vikings retake Dublin his son Edmund Ironside of Moray. between Celtic and Roman (having lost it in 903). continues the anti-Danish Christian traditions. resistance. Saint Bede C.520 669 937 1042 Battle of Mount Badon. Theodore of Tarsus Battle of Brunanburh: alliance On death of Harthacnut, British check Saxon advance becomes Archbishop of of Constantine II of Scotland, the Anglo-Saxon dynasty in the west (victory ascribed Canterbury and begins Vikings, and Strathclyde is restored as Edward the to “King Arthur”). reform of English Church. Britons defeated by Athelstan Confessor becomes King. of Wessex. 547 694 1053 Foundation of Kingdom of Ine of Wessex gives the 939 Harold Godwinson Bernicia by Ida. kingdom its first law code. Death of Athelstan leads to becomes Earl of Wessex. resurgence of the Viking kingdom of York. Statue of King Alfred Dumbarton Castle 577 716 795 1014 1065 Battle of Dyrham: Saxon Aethelbald becomes King of Viking Age in Ireland begins Cnut of Denmark becomes Revolt of the northern earls; victory opens up southwest Mercia (to 765), beginning with an attack on the monastery king in the Danelaw portion Harold’s brother Tostig is to invaders. period of Mercian supremacy. of Rechru. of England. replaced as Earl of Northumbria. 597 757–96 841 1014 Mission of St. Augustine Offa becomes King of Mercia: Vikings establish a naval base At the Battle of Clontarf, the 1066 arrives in England and he dominates the other at Dublin (the origin of the city). army of Brian Boru and Mael Edward the Confessor converts Aethelbert of Kent. Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Sechnaill defeats the Dublin dies and is replaced as 850 Vikings and their allies. king by Harold. Viking army overwinters in Emly reliquary England for first time (on Thanet). 865 Anglo-Saxon reliquary 1016 The Viking Great Army arrives in Death of Aethelred. 954 England under Ivar the Boneless, Cnut is acknowledged Death of Eric Bloodaxe leads Haldfan, and Ubbi. as King of all England. to final conquest of York by the kingdom of Wessex. 869 1023 Vikings conquer East Anglia. Gruffydd ap Llywelyn 973 becomes King of Edgar of Wessex receives 874 Gwynedd (he annexes submission of six kings, Vikings put an end to Deheubarth in 1039). symbolizing his dominion Mercian independence. over Britain. King Edward the Confessor with Harold 13  Britons and Invaders 800,000 BCE – 1066 CE -first signs of human habitation in Britain (flint tools found in Suffolk, East Anglia) may date from around 800, 000 BCE -periods of abandonment followed (as ice alternately advanced and retreated across the landscape of the islands) - modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) arrived in Britain after 40, 000 BCE (≈20 sites are known; many were temporary camps or shelters used by hunters) -≈25, 000 BCE, the climate cooled again and Britain became uninhabited for some 10, 000 years -≈15, 000 BCE, the climate warmed again, the ice sheets began to melt, and groups of mammoth hunters returned ≈13, 000 BCE, when the continuous occupation of Britain began -the arrival of agriculture (≈4 000 BCE) allowed communities to live a more settled life ➔ fixed villages were established, great stone monuments were erected, etc. -by the end of the Neolithic Age (≈2 400 BCE) parts of Britain were densely populated by a fairly prosperous farming folk (but life was hard, diseases were rife, violent conflicts were common, and the average age at death was 30 years). Stonehenge ≈ 2 150 BCE Stonehenge The famous monument at Stonehenge is part of a larger sacred landscape which developed from around 4000 !"# and includes hundreds of burial mounds. The site that is seen today was built from around 2150 !"# using at least 85 stones from the Preseli Hills in Wales, more than 135 miles (217km) away. Other stones came from the Marlborough Downs nearby. -the Iron Age (from ≈800 BCE) witnessed a gradual political consolidation; the warrior elites dominated the countryside from their hill-fort strongholds and maintained strong links with their European counterparts -funeral monuments became less grand, society more stratified, trade between Britain and Europe grew stronger, -the society shaped by the new centres of population around hill forts has conventionally been termed “Celtic” (first used by Greek writers) but the people of Britain never used the term to describe themselves -the first written accounts of Britain appear in this period, e.g. by the Greek adventurer Pytheas of Massilia, who visited the islands in ≈320 BCE and called them Prettania, which, modified into Britannia and then Britain, has survived to this day -by 200 BCE, the population of Britain had reached ≈2 million, while its growing wealth and overseas trade contacts made it an attractive asset to potential invaders. Horned bronze helmet (1st century BCE) ➔  Roman Invasions and Conquest of Britain (55 BCE – 43 CE) -In 55 and 54 BCE Julius Caesar mounted 2 expeditions against Britain ➔ met with little success (did not establish permanent Roman presence on the Isles) -Emperor Augustus (Caesar’s adoptive son and successor) also made plans to invade Britain twice, but called off the expeditions because of suspected revolts elsewhere in the Empire -In 40 CE – another aborted expedition under Caligula -43 CE – Britain was finally invaded on the orders of Emperor Claudius and remained under Roman control for almost 4 centuries (43-410 CE). -Hadrian’s Wall (built ≈122 CE) marked the northernmost border of the Empire  Britain – a Roman Province (43-410 CE) -during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, Roman Britain enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous period – the province developed into a place with a complex road network, flourishing towns, the Roman governmental system, new architecture, a new way of life -Romanization of Britain: the presence of the Roman legions, the growth of towns and markets, the building of roads, the use of Latin in administration and the army, etc. -in rural Britain the old way of life and traditional beliefs (Celtic gods) persisted -Latin: it is not clear whether it fully replaced the native Celtic languages of Britain (there is evidence that in the south and east Latin was widespread, whereas in other areas people retained their native languages); however, Latin continued to be the language of education and culture for centuries; as the universal language of the Christian Church, Latin experienced a revival in Ireland and other areas of Britain converted either by Celtic missionaries or by the mission of St Augustine (late 6th century CE).  End of Empire -mid-3rd century CE – signs that Britain was entering a period of economic decline -new challenges were emerging – threats of barbarian invasion (by the Picts and by Saxon pirates) -in the early 5th century CE the Roman army was gradually removed from the British provinces, leaving much of the British garrison vulnerable to barbarian raids -in 410 CE Roman rule over Britain came to an end and British rulers were left to face invaders alone -the period after the collapse of the Roman province was a confused time, with the arrival of German barbarians and the emergence of old tribal identities (native kingdoms based on the pre-Roman tribal centres) King Arthur – legendary ruler in Britain in the period following the collapse of the Roman Empire (according to Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, he was a defender of the Britons against Saxon invaders  Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms -Germanic invaders (the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes) arrived in Britain around 449 (according to Bede) but a decisive victory over the Britons was won only in 577 -the invaders are believed to have come from northwestern Germany and the Frisian coast of modern Netherlands -Gradually the tribal war-bands coalesced into a series of kingdoms – the principal seven of these are collectively termed “the Heptarchy”: Kent, Sussex, Essex, East Anglia, Wessex, Mercia, and Northumbria -Anglo-Saxon kingship had its roots in north European Germanic custom (i.e. the king was a source of patronage and wealth, who gave feasts in his hall attended by a retinue of warriors); Beowulf reflects this reality closely (“It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning”) -The kingdoms established by the Anglo-Saxons became, by the end of the 8th century, increasingly sophisticated, with rulers who were among the most powerful in Europe -At the end of the 8th century, Viking raiders began attacking vulnerable coastal settlements in England ➔ within 50 years, larger armies overcame the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and started dividing the land between them. All Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, save Wessex, were destroyed by the Viking raids.  Lindisfarne NORTH Jarrow Ruthwell Monkwearmouth Chester- le-Street UM Hartlepool Durham Whitby B Hackness Ripon R IA D York A Humber N Chester E Repton L Crowland Peterborough A EAST M E R Ramsey C I W St. Neots ANGLIA Worcester A Evesham St. David’s Eynsham Maldon Malmesbury Barking London Bath Edington Rochester Glastonbury Canterbury X Athelney S E Winchester KENT S Waltham E Sherborne W Cernel Exeter Bodmin Some places mentioned in the text Lindisfarne Stone, erected in commemoration of the Viking raid in 793  Christian England -end of 6th century: missionaries sent by Pope Gregory I converted the first Anglo-Saxon kingdom (Cantia/Kent) – the Diocese of Canterbury became the first Episcopal See and has since remained Britain’s centre of Christianity (Saint Augustine was the first archbishop of Canterbury) -within just over a century all the rest of the kingdoms had become Christian, and England became the home of a vibrant and thriving Christian culture, largely based in monasteries, where monks produced and copied by hand hundreds of manuscripts (in the scriptoria) -The Venerable Bede (a monk at Jarrow) produced the most significant literature in England between Roman times and the Norman Conquest; he chronicled the early history of the Anglo-Saxon Church in his Ecclesiastical History (731) -by late 8th century, the English Church was well-established and confident – England had truly become a Christian country. The Venerable Bede  Viking Raids, Anglo-Saxon Kings, and Danish Rule -by the end of the 9th century, the Vikings had invaded and settled in central, northern, and eastern England (Northumbria, East Anglia, East Mercia) – these areas became known as the Danelaw -Viking language: the effect of the Viking settlement was significant – some legal customs in the Danelaw persisted long after its re-conquest by the kings of Wessex (Alfred the Great, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmund, Eadred); much of the vocabulary of modern English comes from Old Norse (the Viking language): “eye,” “bread,” “sky,” as well as place name ending in “-by” and “- thorpe.” -Alfred the Great (871-899) saved Wessex from conquest by the Vikings but it was not only for this that he is remembered as “the Great”: he promoted and funded a revival of learning in Wessex, attracting the best scholars to his court and establishing a school to educate the children of the nobility (Alfred himself translated a series of books from Latin into Anglo-Saxon) -for the next half-century after his death, his successors progressively re- conquered the areas of Viking England, until their lands bordered with Scotland, emerging as undisputed rulers of all England. -however, from the 990s Viking raids began once more – by 1016 these raids turned into an invasion and the Danish king Sweyn seized the throne. His son Canute and his grandsons presided over a quarter century of Danish rule in England -King Canute (1016-1035) ruled the whole of England, which was now part of a vast realm that spanned the North Sea and included Denmark, Norway, and part of Sweden -Canute’s son, Harthacnut was the last Danish king to rule England, before the restoration of Anglo-Saxon rule under Edward the Confessor (1042—1065) -Edward the Confessor: a reign marred by growing tensions between the pro- Norman court and the Anglo-Saxon earls -his successor, Harold Godwinson, was the last Anglo-Saxon King of England -the Norman invasion of 1066 overthrew 6 centuries of Anglo-Saxon rule in England; William the Conqueror’s victory at Hastings and subsequent accession to the English throne (to which he had a stronger claim than Harold, being Edward’s cousin) mark the beginning of the Middle Ages in the history of Britain.  Old English Poetry - the first literature in any culture is oral (classical Greek epics, Asian narratives, earliest versions of the Bible and the Koran, etc.) - the first signs of oral literature in English had mainly three kinds of subject- matter: - religion - war - the trials of daily life - most of the oral literature produced in the vast expanse of time before the Norman Conquest (1066) was never written down and most of what was preserved in writing was destroyed or damaged later; - most of it is anonymous, untitled, and undated; only Cynewulf “signed” his work (religious poems, probably composed in the 2nd half of the 8th century); - even though less than 9% of the surviving corpus of OE texts is in the form of verse, we may safely call it a verse literature (since OE prose = history, theology, biography, letters, laws, treatises, etc.); - defining characteristic: its fusion of two contrasting strains – the military culture of the Germanic peoples and the Mediterranean learning introduced by Christian missionaries from the end of the 6th century.  Old English Manuscripts - OE literature is preserved solely in manuscripts compiled by ecclesiastics (monks, monastic scribes), whose literary tastes were formed by intensive study of Latin texts; - OE poetry has survived chiefly in 4 manuscripts: 1) the Junius or “Caedmon” Manuscript (versified scriptural narratives: Genesis A and B, Exodus, Daniel, Christ and Satan) 2) the Vercelli Book (homilies + religious zpoems: Andreas, The Fates of the Apostles, Soul and Body I, Dream of the Rood, Elene, etc.) 3) the Exeter Book (diverse poetic types, including most of the surviving lyric poetry: The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Deor’s Lament, etc.) 4) the Beowulf Manuscript or “Nowell Codex” (Beowulf, Judith, three prose texts: Life of St. Christopher, Wonders of the East, Letter of Alexander to Aristotle) - a wide-ranging, consistent, complex and sophisticated poetic tradition; - an elevated, male-centered literature, which lays stress on the virtues of a tribal community, on the ties of loyalty between lord and liegeman, on the significance of individual heroism, on the powerful sway of wyrd (i.e. fate); - meant for public repetition, performance, recitation, improvisation. - earliest dated poem: Caedmon’s Hymn (≈670), the first song of praise in English culture and the first Christian religious poem in English; - elegies: Deor’s Lament, The Seafarer, The Wanderer, Wife’s Lament, The Ruin, The Husband’s Message – elegiac poems of solitude, exile, and suffering; monologues (the convention of the 1st person speaker narrating his experience) on the passage of time, the transience of earthly things, the pain of exile and separation, the ache of absence and longing; there is always some consolation or hope for the future; - The Dream of the Rood (late 7th century)– the finest of a large number of religious poems in OE (based directly on Scriptural sources and on saints’ lives: Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, Judith, The Fates of Apostles, Juliana, Elene): a vision of Christ’s cross shifting from the gilded cross of victory worshipped by the angels to the wooden cross of Christ’s crucifixion, to its miraculous transformation, by his Resurrection and Ascension, into “the best of signs” glorified in Heaven: Lo! I will tell the dearest of dreams That I dreamed in the midnight when mortal men Were sunk in slumber. Me-seemed I saw A wondrous Tree towering in air, Most shining of crosses compassed with light. The Ruthwell Cross (Dumfriesshire, Scotland) -long poems: Beowulf (8th century) and The Battle of Maldon (end of 10th century) Beowulf -epic poem, celebrating the achievements of a great hero in narrative verse, the longest surviving OE poem, the first great work in the oral, epic mode; -it recalls a shared heroic past – that of the earlier Germanic race (the Danes, the Geats, the Jutes, the Swedes) – an indefinite past (the “olden days”) in which fact blends with fiction to make the tale; -themes: power and fame, heroism and loyalty, transience and mortality, fate and man’s heroic submission to God’s will; -poem of praise, tragedy, elegy, myth, history, fantasy; - it “mediates between a settled and an an unsettled culture, between one which enjoys the benefits of a stable, ordered, agricultural society and one which relished the restlessness of the wandering warrior hero.” (Sanders, 21) -the story is a pagan one (pagan virtues, pre-Christian world-view) but the poet’s perspective is Christian ➔ the original audience must have shared this mixed culture (primitive, pagan notions of heroism mixed with the moral values of a Christian society).  The Battle of Maldon - it recounts a defeat (of the English by the Danes), commemorating the battle which took place in 991; - a more factual, less fictional tone; a rather more realistic depiction of the necessity of victory, and therefore the need for a hero; - a celebration of honour, fidelity and bravery in the face of defeat: Then fighting was near, Honour in battle. The hour was come Doomed men must fall. A din arose. Raven and eagle were eager for carnage; There was uproar on earth. - the hero, Byrhtnoth, “is seen as something more than a brave warrior; in some senses he is a martyr, throwing away his life, and those of his loyal vassals, for the sake of his liege-lord (King Ethelred) and for his nation […] his defeat may be viewed as a sacrifice for Christian culture against a pagan enemy.” (Sanders, 23)  Old English Prose Old English dialects: - OE was not a single language, but the name we give to a group of dialects: mainly Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, Kentish. ➔ - up to the middle of the 9th century, Northumbria was the centre of learning (monasteries); but the 9th century saw the end of Northumbria as the library of England, as the Danes invaded England and looted the monasteries, slaughtered the monks and destroyed the books; - Wessex, ruled by Alfred the Great, became England’s cultural centre. -the treaty issued by Alfred the Great after a series of victories against the Danes confined their rule to the north (Danelaw) and made him ruler of all the rest of England (first king of all England) -he promoted and funded a revival of learning: improving education, founding schools, importing teachers from Europe, translating Latin books into West Saxon English, etc. ➔ the first great flowering of English prose: - Alfred himself translated much Latin into English (including the Ecclesiastical History of the Venerable Bede, the first great English historian): Alfred’s program of translation had the consequence of dignifying the vernacular, legitimizing English as a language of scholarship; - The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – a record of the main events in the history of the people, kept by monks in 7 successive monasteries – was started during the reign of Alfred the Great (the first history of a Germanic people and the most solid and interesting piece of OE prose); ➔The golden age of OE prose composition begins in the years around and shortly after the millennium (990-1023), as reflected in the work of its greatest practitioners: - Aelfric (abbot of Eynsham) - Wulfstan (archbishop of York and bishop of Worcester) - Byrhtferth (Benedictine monk of Ramsey)