ASPeriodandEpicWarrior.pdf

Name_________________________ Period________________________ Date__________________________ The Anglo-Saxon Period and the Epic Warrior 1. On the map of Great Britain: a. Where was Shakespeare born? b. Where did Venerable Bede write? c. Where did Caedmon’s hymn take place? d. Where id King Duncan’s...

Name_________________________ Period________________________ Date__________________________ The Anglo-Saxon Period and the Epic Warrior 1. On the map of Great Britain: a. Where was Shakespeare born? b. Where did Venerable Bede write? c. Where did Caedmon’s hymn take place? d. Where id King Duncan’s palace? e. Where was Macbeth slain? f. Where did Jonathan Swift preach? g. Where did Edmund Spenser write? h. By what town did Sir Gawain and the Green Knight take place? i. Where was King Arthur born? 2. According to the Peasant’s Wheel of Life, what time of year do you think was the most difficult for the peasants? Why? 3. What is wergild? Why was it established? 4. On the basis of wergild, how valuable was a nobleman in comparison to a free person? 5. Who owned most of the land in England in the 11th century? How much did they own? 6. Where were most of the towns located in medieval England? 7. Who were the original inhabitants of England? 8. When and how did the Romans take over Britain? What did they accomplish while there? 9. When did the Roman Empire begin to fall? Why? 10. What were the implications, to Britain, when the Romans left? 11. Where did the Angles, Saxons and Jutes come from? What did they do to Britain? 12. What happened in Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries? 13. Who was King Alfred and what did he do? When did this occur? 14. What happened in 1066? Who fought? Who won? What did the winner become? Big Idea 1 - The Epic Warrior 15. What was the single most valued heroic type in Anglo-Saxon society? 16. What four virtues did these people embody that were important to Anglo-Saxon society? 17. What dominated the Anglo-Saxon way of life? 18. What is a comitatus? 20. How did the warlords reward their bravest followers? How did the followers respond to this reward? 21. What did the Anglo-Saxons bring to Britain? 22. What is a bard or scop? 23. Why were the bards or scops considered to be so important – what did they create for the society? 24. What is mead? 25. What did the scop’s songs provide for the warriors in Anglo-Saxon society? What was a warrior’s ultimate goal? 26. What were the two most important influences on Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, literature? 27. What were the Germanic religious beliefs concerning an afterlife? 28. How did these beliefs influence Anglo-Saxon warriors? 29. What happened to these Germanic beliefs when Christianity came to Britain? 30. What is wyrd? How did the belief in wyrd influence Anglo-Saxon warriors? Part 1 – The Epic Warrior 1. What is an epic? 2. What do historians and anthropologists consider epics? 3. What is considered the earliest surviving epic? What society composed this epic? 4. What are the two most famous Greek epic poems? 5. What is a famous epic poem in Spanish? French? Anglo-Saxon? 6. What are the five standard features of the epic form according the Homer? a. b. c. d. e. 7. What is an epithet? Give two examples. 8. What is a kenning? Give two examples. 9. What does the plot of an epic usually involve? 10. What is an epic hero? (Look up term in the Literary Terms Handbook in back-be sure to tell what he embodies) 11. What cultural values does Beowulf embody? Before You Read 12. What distinction does the poem Beowulf have in terms of literature? 13. What is important about the language of Beowulf? 14. Why do scholars assume that Beowulf was composed after the Anglo-Saxons had converted to Christianity? 15. When was the poem Beowulf actually written down? By whom? Where is the Beowulf manuscript today? 16. What is the setting for the story of Beowulf? When does the story take place? 17. What two tribes are involved in the story?