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History of British and Irish literature 1 Old English and medieval poetry (The Wanderer, The Dream of the Rood, Caedmon’s Hymn and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales).

The historical background of the Old English period or the Anglo-Saxon period: It all started in the year 430. However, it is not the first period in the history of Britain or the history of British civilisation or the history of British Isles. When does British culture begin? When does British culture in the British Isles begin? Nobody knows for sure. It is estimated that the first inhabitants/settlers came to Britain around 250 000 years ago or a quarter of a million years ago. This was probably the beginning of the civilisation in Britain or on the British Isles. We are not going to reach that far for the simple reason that the first manuscripts or literary documents go back to the Old English period, which comes much later. So we are not going to start with the Stone Age or the Bronze Age or the Iron Age simply because there is not enough evidence that the literature was present in those distant times. For this reason, our beginning of the course is The Old English period which begins in the year 430. What happened in 430? The year 430 marks the end of Roman Britain, the end of the time when Britain was dominated by the Romans. The Roman did many useful things in Britain: they built roads, they built bridges, but they were not interested in promoting local culture. In 430 the Romans left Britain for the simple reason that the Roman Empire was threatened by the Goths (German tribes from the North). In place of the Romans new Germanic tribes from Scandinavia begin to arrive and settle down. So, we had a new wave of invaders/conquerors and settlers at the same time. These were the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. They started to arrive and settle down after the Romans had left they came from continental Europe from what is now the Valley of the River Elba (northwest of Germany), close to present city of Hamburg. The Jutes came from Jutland, which is a peninsula in continental Denmark. Those tribes set up seven Kingdoms. It took them centuries to establish 7 Old English Kingdoms; The Angles inhabited the northern part of Britain and southern Scotland, they set up the Kingdom of Northumbria, Mercia and the Kingdom of East Anglia.

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The Heptarchy: The Saxons established other kingdoms along the River Thames: Essex (north of the River Thames), Sussex (south of the River Thames) and Wessex -what is now the Cornwall Peninsula (south-west part of England). The Jutes set up only one kingdom that was in the south-east part of England. This period in British history it is known as the Heptarchy- the time when in Britain the Seven Kingdoms existed. Those kingdoms were neighbours and they coexistence wasn't peaceful. They war one with one another, they tried to dominate their neighbours, but they also traded with their neighbours. And obviously in the course of time they mixed, and Britain became more or less united; politically, economically, militarily and administrative. This process took many years - a few centuries. Additionally, in this period The Vikings from Scandinavia invaded the British Isles. Theirs sailed in their longboats from what is now called Sweden along the eastern coast of Britain, they sailed into the river estuaries and also over time they settled down. It was another mixture and another component of what we might also call a melting pot. A very important date in this Anglo-Saxon period is the year 597-the beginning of Christianization. In this year a missionary from Rome came to Britain. His name was St. Augustus. He landed in Kent and that year should be understood as the beginning of Christianisation not the transformation of those pagan tribes that lived there. It was only the beginning. The slow process gradually spread from South of England into the northern and western part of Britain. It is believed that the first ruler of the United Kingdom was Alfred the Great; the king who is credited with uniting all those kingdoms and defending Britain from the Viking tribes. We should also realise that those people did not speak English as it is today; In fact, they spoke different dialects. In different parts of the country, different dialects were used. English language as such was formed much later in the Middle English period. So the English language, which is understandable more or less today, was formed much- much later. The features of the Old English Literature: The first feature of the Old English literature was that it was mainly poetry. The reason was that, at that time, the majority of the literature was transmitted orally. It was much easier to remember verses of poetry rather than verses of prose. So one of the main feature of old English literature was oral transmission- it was sung or it was recited. Who composed old English verses? Bards or scops or entertainers. They entertained the warriors at the feasts (uczta). Warriors fought and after a successful battle they would gather and feast; eat and drink together celebrating their victory. The bards would often entertain them with their music and their verses. Another important feature of the Old English literature was anonymity. That means that we do not know the name of the English authors. The reason 2

was that the writing was not known to many people and they did not have chance to put their name on the paper. This leads us to another characteristic feature, which was collective authorship. In many cases, we cannot point to any particular author as there were many of them involved. For example, one bard composed a poem in favour of a warrior. Then another bard would add something to the poem; then another adds something else… Thanks to this, also longer poems/songs were created. There were also some other characteristic features of Old English literature. The oldest/earliest part of the old English literature was of the continental origin. It means, that in some cases, Old English poets derived from continental Europe. A good example of a poem with continental origin is Beowulf. Continental origin of Old English literature: The poem Beowulf is about exploits/great deeds of the Scandinavian warrior from the Old English period. He sails from the south of Sweden across the Baltic Sea to the Island of Zealand because there is the kingdom of Denmark which is called Hrothgar. King Hrodgar was a historical figure; he was the ruler of Denmark. Beowulf travels with a group of warriors because the island of Zealand is raided by a terrible monster whose name is Grendel. The king Hrothgar asks for help, and Beowulf kills Grendel. A splendid feast takes place where Beowulf and his warriors eat, drink, make speeches and then Grendel’s killer receives a gift. Then they all fall asleep. At night Grendel’s mother, who is another monster, comes to the place to take revenge for killing her son. Beowulf fights again, and he defeats Grendel's mother. The fight is very tough and at this time and Beowulf is knocked down, and Grendel's mother almost kills him. At the critical moment, God intervenes and saves his life, and Beowulf again is the victor. In the poem, we don't see British people, the story takes place in Denmark, the King is Danish, so this proves the point of the continental origin of the Old English poetry. To these poems later were added different pieces as they were developed. One of such additions were Christian elements which were added to original page elements. In Beowulf, this Christian element was the intervention of God in the second fight with the Grendel’s mother. Manuscripts: Poems such as Beowulf were eventually written down. In this way, four collections or 4 manuscripts which contain old English verses have survived to our times. In all probability, there were other collections or manuscripts. The manuscripts were handwritten down there were not printed like printed books, so they were only several copies, and they were very easy to destroy; they were very fragile. The manuscripts of Old English poetry are four in number:

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1. Beowulf MS (dated 1000, (British Library, London Cotton Vitellius A.xv) ‘Book of Monsters’ 2. Exeter Book (dated 1050), (Exeter Cathedral) 3. Vercelli Book (containing Cynewulf poems dated 1560), (Vercelli, Italy) 4. Junius MS (containing Caedmon poems, dated 1655), (Oxford, Bodleian Library) Old English poetic genres and their features: The Old English period concludes in 1066 which marks the Norman Conquest (podbój normandzki). It was the conquest which came from what is now the territory of Northern France- Normandy. One of the consequences of the Norman conquest was the domination of French-language into English Literature at the time. English ‘borrowed’ around 10 000 French words into its language, e.g. genre [dzanr]- the pronunciation is not typical for the English language. In Polish translation the word can have two different things: 1. rodzaj literacki/ gatunek literacki one only! e.g. poetry, prose, and drama (narrow meaning).

2. many different types of drama, poetry and prose- (general meaning or broader sense).

Epic poetry: An epic poem is a long poem (e.g. Beowulf is 3000 lines), and the characters/heroes are not ordinary people -not commoners- they are kings, rulers, great warriors. The style of the poem is grand; we have all kinds of poetic ornaments and sophistication. We can also find the presence of supernatural machinery/apparatus- supernatural presence (monsters, witches, demons). Another feature of this poetry in a mixture of legends and history. Elegiac poetry (elegies): 4

The adjective elegiac derives from the noun elegy. An elegy is a poem of mourning. (poem zalobny) (mourn-oplakiwac). Elegiac poems are not typical elegies but poems of sorrowful mood. Elegiac poems are not poetry related to one particular person who died, but they talk about the passage of time, the inevitability of death- they talk about depressing things. The best English known elegiac poems are The Wanderer and The Seafarer. These poems are much shorter than epic poetry, The Wanderer is about 100 lines ling, and the Seafarer is similar in length. They are quasi-historical, that means that they contain some historical elements, but they are presented in an unreliable way. This is best presented by the poem called Widsith. Widsith can be translated into modern English as “the far traveller” or ‘the fellow traveller”. The length of the poem is about 100 lines and the speaker – Widsith, tells us about his travels in Europe. He mentions the kingdoms and the names of their rulers whom he apparently visited/met. (rzekomo/jakoby). What is more, he also mentions gifts that he received from these rulers during his travels. However, this book as a source of historical facts is not reliable because he confuses the places and chronology. War poetry: The war poetry is represented by the poem The Battle of Maldon. Maldon is a real place and the poems describes the real battle that took place in the 10th century. The contestants were the Viking invaders and the Saxons. What is important that the Vikings outnumbered the Saxons and before the fight the Vikings said: “We will leave you alone unless you paid ransom”. (okup) This offer is refused by proud Saxons who fight to the last men, but they remain on the battlefield. They fight to the end and remain loyal to their king and their fellow warriors. What is important in this poem is the fact that it can be treated as the first poem of chivalry (rycerstwo). Generally speaking the chivalric poems or romances came much later and they glorified the exploits of the knights. In The Battle of Molden chivalric virtues are emphasized/glorified; bravery, valiance, loyalty. (The opposite of virtue is vice-występek). Riddles and charms: riddles- puzzles, charms-uroki: Charms had the task to counter something evil or prevent something bad. They were for people who supposed to have ‘supernatural’ powers. The people in those days were superstitious. The charms were supposed to secure a good harvest, or they were meant to keep the disease from you. Riddles were puzzles in the form of verses which describe certain objects in a roundabout way without naming them. The task of the listener was to guess the meaning of the thing which was described, e.g. ‘I was an armed warrior. Now the proud, young 5

champion carries me. Sometimes men kiss me; Sometimes I call present companions to battle with a song. Who says these words? The HORN OF THE BULL. To sum up, the Old English literature was mainly secular. Only in some of them, we can find elements of religion co-existing with secular or pagean.

Religious or Christian poems: The two poems, which were composed distinctively as Christian were: “Cædmon's Hymn” and “The Dream of the Rood”. He was a shepherd, a simple man an uneducated but he composed his famous hymn under the influence of a dream vision. In this dream, he was visited by a stranger who addressed him as Cædmon. The stranger asked him to sing him about the origin of things. This hymn is a song of praise usually religious but also patriotic. Cædmon's Hymn is short. It consists only of 9 lines and is dedicated to God, the creator whose mind surpasses human understanding. “The Dream of the Rood” The rood is the holy cross on which Jesus died or was crucified.

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