Work of Clerks, monks

Christian Literature
Social Background
Settlement
Uprooting of Primitive Myths
Disjointing with Scandinavians
Religious poetry flourished in northern England-Northumbria-
throughout the 8th century, though most of it has survived only
in West Saxon transcriptions of the late 10th century.
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Aldhelm (639?-709)
West Saxon abbot of Malmesbury, the most learned
teacher of 7th-century Wessex, a pioneer in the art
of Latin verse among the Anglo-Saxons, and the
author of numerous writings in Latin verse and
prose.
It includes as examples 100 aenigmata (riddles) of
Aldhelm’s own invention in Latin hexameters.
Heavy Decorated Style
Violent Metaphors
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The Venerable Bede (672-735)
a monk of the Northumbrian monastery & widely
recognised as the greatest Anglo-Saxon scholar.
The Father of English History
Treatise on Metre Natural History Martyrlogy
• His most famous work is ‘Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum’ or ‘The Ecclesiastical History of the English
People’ completed in 731 AD.
• Bede details the history of the conversion of the English to
Christianity from the time of St Augustine through to the
early eighth century.
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Alcuin of York (c. 730-804)
An English churchman, educator, statesman, and
liturgist.
Besides establishing his school, which became a
center of Western culture, Alcuin wrote important
political and liturgical works.

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 Anglo Saxon Poetry
Role of Scops
Warriors, travelers and reporters. Scops were ancient
performers but they did not perform for pleasure; they
performed to inform and to spread news.
Recited long Epic poems in the halls of great kings.
Main Features of Anglo Saxon Poems
• Caesuras-pause
• Alliteration
• Kennings-metaphorical phrase
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 Junius MS (4 poems Biblical subjects)
The Junius Manuscript is one of the four most
significant manuscripts of Old English verse.
It contains the sole surviving copies of four long poems
on biblical themes, which are called Genesis, Exodus,
Daniel and Christ and Satan by modern editors.
The manuscript owes its current designation to the
Anglo-Dutch scholar Franciscus Junius, who was the
first to edit its contents and who bequeathed it to
Oxford University.
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Caedmon: First to use English
first Old English Christian poet
The Venerable Bede first refers to Cademon, who
according to him tended to the animals. one
evening as he fell asleep amongst the animals in
his care, Caedmon is said to have dreamt that an
apparition appeared before him telling him to
sing of the principium creaturarum, or ‘the
beginning of created things’
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• Throughout the remainder of his life his
more learned brethren presented Scripture
to him, and all that he heard he
reproduced in vernacular poetry.
• The original hymn—extant in 17
manuscripts, some in the poet’s
Northumbrian dialect, some in other Old
English dialects—set the pattern for
almost the whole art of Anglo-Saxon verse.
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Codex Exoniensis (The Exeter Book)
A 10th Century book
Only four collections of Old English verse exist, out of
which the Exeter Book is the largest and most
impressive.
Exeter Book contains elegies, laments, animal poems,
gnomic verses, and religious works, including "The
Wanderer,“ “Widsith” "The Seafarer," "The Ruin,"
"Deor," "The Wife's Lament," "The Husband's Message,"
and over ninety riddles.
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 Pagan Poems/Lyrical & Elegiac poems
Widsith
• Also known as The Traveller's Song, it is a
poem of 143 lines.
• An idealized self-portrait of a scop (minstrel) of
the Germanic heroic age who wandered widely
and was welcomed in many mead halls.
• The poem is divided into three 'catalogues', so-
called ‘thulas’[Lists]
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Deor's Lament
a moving elegy of forty two lines which gives
voice to the suffering of a minstrel or a scop who
has been replaced by a rival after years of service
to his Lord. The speaker’s self consolation takes a
meditative form as he looks back upon five
instances of suffering inflicted upon Germanic
heroes.

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The Seafarer
The 124-line poem is often considered an elegy, since it
appears to be spoken by an old man looking back on his life
and preparing for death. He discusses the solitariness of a
life on the waves, the cold, the danger, and the hardships.
Ezra Pound produced a loose translation of ‘The Seafarer’ in
the early twentieth century.
The Ruined Burg
The poem evokes the former glory of an unnamed ruined
ancient city that some scholars have identified with
modern Bath, by juxtaposing the grand, lively past with the
decaying present.
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The Wanderer
The lament of a solitary man who had once been happy
under the protection of his loved lord but after his lord’s
death is confronted with bitter frozen waves and winter
cold. The thought of his lost happiness makes him
miserable as he journeys into his wasteland of exile.

Ubi sunt (literally "where are... [they]")

Where is the horse gone? Where the rider? Where the giver of treasure?
Where are the seats at the feast? Where are the revels in the hall?
[...] How that time has passed away,

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