The amount of surviving Old English prose is much greater than the amount of poetry. Of the surviving prose, the majority consists of sermons and translations of religious works that were composed in Latin, for literacy in Anglo-Saxon England was largely the province of monks, nuns, and ecclesiastics (or ofContinue Reading
Religious poetry seems to have flourished in northern England-Northumbria-throughout the eighth century, though most of it has survived only in West Saxon transcriptions of the late tenth century. Much of it consists of retellings of books and episodes from the Old Testament. Much of this religious poetry is anonymous, butContinue Reading
Anglo Saxon literature frequently took up the theme of fights and hostilities, in which the nobility of a character was brought out through a display of courage, valour, loyalty to the lord and the community and a thirst for glory. Glory was the most coveted thing because death lurked everywhere.Continue Reading
Beowulf credited with being a quintessential piece of epic. An epic is a long and highly stylized narrative poem on a grand scale about the deeds of warriors and heroes. It is a polygonal, ‘heroic’ story incorporating myth, legend, folk tale and history. Epics are often of national significance inContinue Reading
Except for a few scattered poems, most of the Old English poetic material we possess comes to us in four manuscripts. The first manuscript is called the Junius manuscript (also known as the Caedmon manuscript), which is an illustrated poetic anthology. The second manuscript is called the Exeter Book, alsoContinue Reading
