II.

Body
A. Point out recurrent issues, subject matter, and themes of Old English Period
In descending order of quantity, Old English literature consists of: sermons and saints' lives;
biblical translations; translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers; chronicles and narrative
history works; laws, wills and other legal works; practical works on grammar, medicine, and
geography; and poetry. The themes of Old English Period are, HEROIC, Religious, Elegy, and
War themes.

B. Themes in the Old English Period

HEROIC
 Beowulf, the epic poem written by an unknown author in the old English has a heroic
theme, the theme centers on the heroic story about the adventure of a brave man. It shows
the fierce fights and brave actions. The speeches of the leaders and the suffering of their
men are told in the poem. The poems describes their hard life.

RELIGIOUS THEME 
 Many Old English Poems existed with religious themes. The Christian poems Genesis-A
and Genesios-B are among them. There are concerned with the Genesis or origin of the
world as given in the Bible. Another poem taken from Bible is Exodus, which
describe, “How the Israelites left Egypt”. Daniel and Christian Satan are other poems
which are based on the Bible stories.

ELEGY THEME
 There are many old English lyrics, mostly with an Elegy theme. They were originally
meant to be sung and the expressed the poets thoughts and feelings. Old English lyrics
poems include Deor’s Lament, the husband’s message, the wanderer and the Wife’s
Complain. Some of these poems have an elegiac theme, lamenting the loss of a loved one
whether it be a husband as in the wife’s complain. 
WAR THEME
 There are some old English poems with the themes of war, such as the Battle of
Maldon etc. The well known war poems of the period and this war was fought against the
Danes. It is an inspiring poem particularly noteworthy for the world of courage. Which
the English uses. Translated from the old English. It stills evokes a Grand Vision of
Human courage.

C. Features
 Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English Language that was

spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between mid 15 th C and

the Mid 12th C.

 It is a West Germanic language, and therefore is, is closely related to Old Frisian and Old

Saxon.

 Old English also experienced heavy influence from Old Norse, a member of the related

North Germanic group of languages.

 It is also closely related to German and Dutch.

 In grammar, Old English is chiefly distinguished from later stages in the history of

English by greater use of a larger set of inflections in verbs, nouns, adjectives, and

pronouns, and also (connected with this) by a rather less fixed word order; it also

preserves grammatical gender in nouns and adjectives.

D. Influences
 In the course of the first 700 years of its existence in England it was brought into contact

with at least three other languages, the languages of the Celts, the Romans, and the

Scandinavians. From each of these contacts it shows certain effects, especially additions

to its vocabulary.
 E. Old English Poetry
 There are several other extant manuscripts written in the Old English language. One of

these is called the Junius mauscript. It contains a poem by Caedmon called Caedmon's

Hymn. This is believed to be the oldest surviving work of Anglo-Saxon literature,

Caedmon was an illiterate monk, and his hymn was recorded by others who could read.

The Exeter Book and Vercelli Book also contain a number of poems in the Old English

language. 

F. Nature of Poetry
 “Nature” has been the site of so many different naïve symbolisms, such as purity, escape,
and savagery. That's why poets and critics often refer to green poetry or environmental
poetry, which presupposes a complicated interconnection between nature and humankind.

G. Invasions of Old English Period

The Germanic invaders were the Angles and Saxons (called the Anglo-Saxons) and the Jutes.
These barbaric Germanic pirates took control of Britannia, harming the Celtic Britons terribly,
burning their homes and villages and killing or enslaving them. Many Celts fled to Scotland and
Wales and France. Many Celts fled to Scotland and Wales and France. Only a handful of their
words are found in the English language. The Thames River and the cities of London,
Dover, and Kent are probably named after Celtic tribes or chieftains. The words clan, crag,
and wraith may also derive from Celtic origins, but this is not certain.

From the tribal name Angle (the Angles) came the words England and English. Thus, the English
language was born about 1,500 years ago as a Germanic language. Only a fraction of the Old
English words exist today, including live, love, heaven, fight, good, evil, man, wife, child, sleep,
eat, house, stone, rain, one, two, three, green, black, the, an, to, for, but, around, will, do, and,
with, and compound words like mankind and blackbird. These English words came from
Germanic languages.
 H. Histories and surveys of Old English Period
The histories Old English is a West Germanic language, and developed out of Ingvaeonic (also
known as North Sea Germanic) dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of
the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England. The history
of English is conventionally, if perhaps too neatly, divided into three periods usually called Old
English (or Anglo-Saxon), Middle English, and Modern English. The surveys of old English
period is that, the world of Old English poetry is predominantly harsh and romantic love appears
hardly at all. The poetic diction, formulaic phrases, and repetitions of parallel syntactic
structures, which are determined by the versification, are difficult to reproduce in modern
translation. Poetic language is created out of a special vocabulary that contains a multiplicity of
terms for lord, warrior, spear, shield, and so on. Synecdoche and metonymy are common figures
of speech as when keel is used for “ship” or iron for “sword.” A particularly striking effect is
achieved by the kenning, a compound of two words in place of another as when sea becomes
“whale-road” or body is called “life-house.” The figurative use of language finds playful
expression in poetic riddles, of which about one hundred survive. Common (and sometimes
uncommon) creatures, objects, or phenomena are described in an enigmatic passage of
alliterative verse, and the reader must guess their identity.

I. Old English Literature and the Literary Problems and Potential

Old English literature refers to poetry 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. The Literary Problem is Problem of dating. Few poems
can be dated as closely as Caedmon’s “Hymn.” King Alfred’s compositions fall into the late
9th century, and Bede composed his “Death Song” within 50 days of his death on May 25,
735. Historical poems such as “The Battle of Brunanburh” (after 937) and “The Battle of
Maldon” (after 991) are fixed by the dates of the events they commemorate. A translation of
one of Aldhelm’s riddles is found not only in the Exeter Book but also in an early 9th-
century manuscript at Leiden, Neth. And at least a part of “The Dream of the Rood” can be
dated by an excerpt carved on the 8th-century Ruthwell Cross (in Dumfriesshire, Scot.). But
in the absence of such indications, Old English poems are hard to date, and the
scholarly consensus that most were composed in the Midlands and the North in the 8th and
9th centuries gave way to uncertainty during the last two decades of the 20th century. Many
 now hold that “The Wanderer,” Beowulf, and other poems once assumed to have been
written in the 8th century are of the 9th century or later. For most poems, there is no
scholarly consensus beyond the belief that they were written between the 8th and the 11th
centuries.

J. Old English Period writers and works

Until the 9th century literary prose did not develop in England. Before this Anglo – Saxon prose
started in the form of some laws, and historical records. Basically with Alfred The Great Anglo –
Saxon prose marks the true beginning. The three great prose writers of this period are King
Alfred, Aelfric and Wulfstan.

•King Alfred-He is known as the ‘father of English Prose’. He became the king of Wessex in 871
A. D. the successive raids of the Danes made the English miserable. The Danes burnt the books,
destroyed the monasteries and ever destroyed the mental peace. He translated the five great
works.

(A) Gregory’s – ‘Pastoral Care’ :It is a religious works which discusses the essentials of

Christianity. It is to be noted that in the preface of it Alfred said by the laity, to know the history
of their country.

(B) Bede’s – ‘Ecclesiastical History of the England’ – It is about the religious development in

England , Here Alfred , wished his people , not just clergy but the laity , to know the history of
their country.

(C) Orosius – ‘History of the World' – It is a study of the world from various aspects, His
accounts of geography. The language and places of Germany make the reading interesting Alfred
is desire was to see people acquainted not only with the country history but also was that of the
world beyond.

(D) Boethius’s – ‘De Consolation Philosophic’ – It is a fine study of the sorrows and suffering of

human title and the way of their consolation. It is written in the form of dialogue between
Boethius and philosophy. Boethius also has written it in prison in order to console his sole in the
dire hour of dejection and isolation. Here we find Alfred deep faith in Christianity finding
reflection in his translation.
(E) St. Augustine’s – ‘Soliloquia’ – It is a highly philosophic work. Its preface overflow’s with
emotions at the prospect of his departure from this world. Here he recall all his good work done
as a writer and educator and exhorts his for being to carry on the work he had began. A part his
translation Alfred wrote - Hand book – and Law book.

•Aelfric

Aelfric was a scholar of the monastic school founded by Aethelwold at Abingdon. He then
became an abbot of Eynsham in 1005. Among his writing ‘colloquium’ and ‘Catholic
Homilies’ deserve particular mention. These work basically has given him the position of prose
writers. 

Culloquime: - It is meant for teaching Latin by means of conversation. There is a teacher in one
side and on the other side there are a Number of Person coming from the different fields and a
Novi through the interesting conversation the way of learning slowly comes.

Catholic Homilies: - Alfric write sermon’s in vernacular. The first two Series of these sermons
are known as ‘Catholic Homilies and the third are known as ‘lives of the saints’, ‘catholic
Homilies’ two series of forty Sermon’s suitable for delivery by the clergy.

The first seven books of the Old Testament are supposed to be translated by Aelfric and that is
why he can be called as the first English Bible translator.Aelfric’s prose has a rhymed charm and
shares the element of poetry. He writes in a conventional style full of impulse and sonority.

• Wulfstan

He was the Archbishop of York from 1002 to 1023. He had witnessed the Danish invasion which
perhaps has started the patriotic zeal in him. Homilies are extant, but his fame mainly rests on a
single homily – “Sernwlupiad – Angles’. Wulfstan wrote at the time of Danish invasion during
the early eleventh century. In his 'homilies' he deplores with deep feeling the immortality of the
people to which he attributes the misfortunes of the country. Wulfstan is less of a finished prose
writer than Aelfric but popular emphasis of his language gives it color and lovely tones.

K. Old English Prose

Old English prose works include legal writings, medical tracts, religious texts, and translations
from Latin and other languages. Particularly notable is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a historical
record begun about the time of King Alfred's reign (871–899) and continuing for more than three
centuries.

L. The Anglo-Saxon Of Old English Period

Old English language, also called Anglo-Saxon, language spoken and written in England before

1100; it is the ancestor of Middle English and Modern English. Scholars place Old English in the
Anglo-Frisian group of West Germanic languagesFour dialects of the Old English language are
known: Northumbrian in northern England and southeastern Scotland; Mercian in central
England; Kentish in southeastern England; and West Saxon in southern and southwestern
England. Mercian and Northumbrian are often classed together as the Anglian dialects.
Most extant Old English writings are in the West Saxon dialect; the first great period of literary
activity occurred during the reign of King Alfred the Great in the 9th century. In contrast to
Modern English, Old English had three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) in the noun and
adjective, and nouns, pronouns, and adjectives were inflected for case. Noun and
adjective paradigms contained four cases—nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative—while
pronouns also had forms for the instrumental case. Old English had a greater proportion of strong
verbs (sometimes called irregular verbs in contemporary grammars) than does Modern English.
Many verbs that were strong in Old English are weak (regular) verbs in Modern English
(e.g., Old English helpan, present infinitive of the verb help; healp, past singular; hulpon, past
plural; holpen, past participle versus Modern English help, helped, helped, helped, respectively).