Lecture 1 The Anglo-Saxon Period(1st hour), Beowulf

Part I Introduction to the appreciation of Poetry

1. Types of poetry

1. Types of poetry

Narrative poetry Lyric poetry

Narrative poetry

Narrative poetry

epic Ballad romance

• Epics are long narrative poems that record the adventures of a hero whose exploits are important to the history of a nation. Typically they chronicle the origins of a civilization and embody its central beliefs and values. Epics tend to be larger than life as they recount heroic deeds enacted in vast landscapes. The style of epic is as grand as the action; the conventions require that the epic be formal, complex, and serious--suitable to its important

subjects

• Ballads originally were meant to be sung or recited.

• Folk ballads (or popular ballads sometimes called) were passed on orally, only to be written down much later.

• literary ballads of known authorship. Literary ballads imitate the folk ballad by adhering to its basic conventions—

• repeated lines and stanzas in a refrain, swift action with occasional surprise endings, extraordinary events evoked in direct, simple language.

• Romance was a long composition, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, describing the life and adventures of a noble hero.

• The central character of romances was the knight, riding forth to seek adventures, taking part in tournaments, devoted to the church and the king.

• The code of manners and morals of a knight is known as chivalry.

Lyric poetry

• In lyric poetry, however, story is subordinated to song, and action to emotion.

• subjective poems that express the feelings and thoughts of a single speaker .

• Lyric poetry is typically characterized by brevity, melody, and emotional intensity.

major forms of lyrics

• Epigram,a brief witty poem,often satirical

• Elegy, a lament for the dead

• Ode, a long stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, and form.

• Aubade, a love lyric expressing complaint

• Sonnet, a poem of fourteen lines, an expression of emotion or an articulation of idea

Elements of poetry • Voice: speaker and tone. When we read or

hear a poem, we hear a speaker's voice. The voice conveys the poem's tone, its implied attitude toward its subject, e.g. ironic tone of voice.

• Diction, Poets choose a particular word. Its appropriateness is a function of both its denotation and its connotation, the best words in the best order.

• Imagery, an image is a concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea.

• Figures of speech. hyperbole or exaggeration, understatement, synecdoche or using a part to signify the whole, metonymy or substituting an attribute of a thing for the thing itself, personification, simile and metaphor, "saying one thing and meaning another, saying one thing in terms of another".

• Symbolism, any object or action that means more than itself, any object or action that represents something beyond itself.

• Syntax, grammatical structure of words in sentences and the development of sentences throughout the poem.

• Sound: rhyme, alliteration and assonance • Rhythm and meter

• Rhythm is the pulse or beat we feel in a phrase of music or a line of poetry. Rhythm refers to the regular recurrence of the accent or stress in poem or song.

• Meter is a count of the stresses we feel in the poem's rhythm. The unit of poetic meter in English is the foot, a unit of measure consisting of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Foot Meter Example• Rising feet iamb iambic prevent anapest anapestic comprehend• Falling feet trochee trochaic football dactyl dactylic cheerfully• Substitute feet spondee spondaic knick-knack pyrrhic pyrrhic (light) of the (world)• Duple meters: two syllables per foot: iambic and

trochaic• Triple meters: three syllables per foot: anapestic and da

ctylic .

• Number of feet per line• One foot Monometer• Two feet Dimeter• Three feet Trimeter• Four feet Tetrameter• Five feet Pentameter• Six feet Hexameter• Seven feet Heptameter• Eight feet Octameter

Part II. The Anglo-Saxon Period（ Old English literature, 5th-11th centuries）

• The Britons, early inhabitants in the island, a tribe of Celts. Britain, the land of Britons.

• The Roman Conquest, in 55 B.C., Britain was invaded by Julius Caesar, the Roman conqueror; in 410 A.D, all the Roman troops went back to the continent and never returned. Thus ended the Roman occupation in Britain.

• The English Conquest• At the same time Britain was invaded by swarms

of pirates, three tribes from "Northern” Europe: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, by the 7th century these small kingdoms were combined into a united kingdom called England, or, the land of Angles. And the three dialects spoken by them naturally grew into a single language called Anglo-Saxon or Old English, which is quite different from the English that we know today.

Part III "Beowulf”

• I. Anglo-Saxon Poetry: English literature began with the Anglo-Saxon settlement in England. Of Old English literature, five relics are still preserved. All of them are poems, or, songs by the Anglo-Saxon minstrels who sang of the heroic deeds of old time to the chiefs and warriors in the feasting-hall. There is one long poem of over 3,000 lines. It is "Beowulf”, the national epic of the English people.

II. The Story of " Beowulf” • Beowulf is the nephew of Hygelac King of the Geats, a p

eople in Denmark. • News reaches him that Hrothgar, king of the Danes has

built a great hall. But a terrible monster, Grendel, visits the hall from night to night and carries the warriors away.

• Beowulf sails for Denmark with fourteen companions and offers to fight the monster.

• he cuts off the head of the she-monster. There, too, he finds the body of Grendel .

• he becomes king and reigns over his people for fifty years.

• The fire dragon is killed at last, but Beowulf is hopelessly wounded and dead later.

III. Analysis of Its Content

• "Beowulf" is a folk legend brought to England by Anglo-Saxons from their continental homes. Its main stories ( the fights with monsters are evidently folk legends of primitive Northern tribes. They had to struggle against the forces of nature, which remained mysterious and unknown to them. They were brave but superstitious. Such is the background of the marvellous stories in “Beowulf”.

• Beowulf is a grand hero. He is faithful to his people. He goes alone, in a strange land, to rescue his people. He forgets himself in face of death, thinking only that it profits others. Though the poem was written in the tenth century, its hero was no doubt mainly the product of a primitive, tribal society on the continent.

Features of"Beowulf"

• The most striking feature is the use of alliteration.

• the use of metaphors." Ring-giver" is used for king, "hearth-companions" for his attendant warriors, "swan”s bath"or “whale”s road" for sea, "sea-wood” for ship.

• the use of understatements, "not troublesome” for very welcome, "need not praise" for a right to condemn, give an impression of reserve and at time a tinge of ironical humour.

Part IV Exercise

• Answer the following questions.1. What are the main incidents of the poem

“Beowulf”?

2. What are the main characteristics of Anglo-Saxon literature?

1.Main incidents of Beowulf

①. Beowulf’s fight with the monster Grendel in Hrothgra’s hall.

②. Beowulf’s slaying of Grendel’s mother in her lair.

③. Beowulf’s return in glory to his uncle, and his succession to the throne.

④. Beowulf’s victory in death, 50years later, over the fire dragon.

2.Main Characteristics of Anglo-Saxon literat

ure (old English Literature)

①. a verse literature in oral form.

②. the creators for the most part are unknown.

③. two groups of English poetry: pagan poetry represented by Beowulf and religious poetry by Caedmon and Cynewulf.

④. in the 8th century, Anglo-Saxon prose appeared represented by Venerable Bede and Alfred the Great