E@6 VIDEOPEDIA PDF
Episode - 3
Dr. Kalyani Vallath
Old English and Middle English
Period
Watch the video on Old and Middle English Periods
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Old English Period
• Early inhabitants of Britain were called the
Celts.
• They established their society dominated by
kinship relations.
• They had their own Celtic languages and
religion.
• Julius Caesar visited Britain ten years before his
death.
• The Romans invaded Britain after Caesar’s
death.
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• Romans followed a systematized
administration in Britain.
• In 5th Century A D Romans left Britain because
Rome was conquered by the barbarians.
• This event was mentioned in Edward Gibbon’s The
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
• There were Eastern and Western Roman empires.
• Western empire fell in the beginning of 5th century.
• Eastern empire flourished for one thousand years
more. This empire is known as Byzantine Empire.
• Ottoman Turks conquered Byzantine in the 15th
century.
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• Celts were also attacked by the Picts,Scots,Irish
and the barbarians, they were left without a
ruler.
• The Celtic war-lord Vortigern invited the
Germanic mercenary tribes the Angles, Saxons
and Jutes to assist the Celts; their leaders were
Hengist and Horsa.
• The Anglo-Saxons settled in Britain in 5th
century AD.
• The period is called Old English period.
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Major dialects in Old English
• The beginning of English literature is marked from
the Old English period.
• Old English language was synthetic and inflectional.
• It was full of Germanic words.
The 4 major dialects
1. Northumbrian
2. Mercian
3. West Saxon
4. Kentish
• West Saxon dialect was the most prominent
dialect.
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Genres of Old English
• The genres were both religious and secular.
• Hagiography
• Epics
• Poetry
• Prose
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Major writers of Old English
❖ Caedmon: Father of Old English, wrote Caedmon’s
Hymn
❖ Cynewulf: wrote poems that were didactic,
devotional and mystical.
❖ Aelfric: known for his sermons,homilies,lives of
saints.
❖ Venerable Bede: Most of what we know about Old
English literature is contributed by Bede in his work
Ecclesiastical History of the English Race.
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❖ King Alfred the Great: Translated theological
and philosophical prose from Latin like Pastoral
Rule, History of the World by Orosius etc. He
wrote Anglo-Saxon Chronicles which is a
collection of historical documents.
❖ Wulfstan: wrote sermons of which Sermon of
the Wulf is important.
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Manuscripts of Old English
• Old English literature was mostly oral and it
exists in 4 manuscripts.
1. The Junius manuscript
2. The Exeter book
3. The Vercelli book
4. Nowell Codex also called Cotton Vitellius
manuscript
• Beowulf is written in Nowell Codex.
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Features of Old English Poetry
• Bold and strong
• Mournful and elegiac
• Themes are about heroes and their
achievements and also about the futility of
human life.
• Songs about the glories of the heroes
• Use of alliteration and kenning
• Kenning : use of descriptive phrases.
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Beowulf
• Oldest epic in two parts
• Set in Scandinavia
• Beowulf is a Geatish hero
• First part : Beowulf is brave warrior. He helps
the Danish king Hrothgar to kill the monster
Grendel. Grendel’s mother who seeks revenge
is also killed by Beowulf.
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• Second part: Beowulf is the king of the Geats.
He kills a sea monster who attacks his people
and is himself gets wounded and both die. The
entire community mourns his death.
• Use of communal memory and shared tribal
history.
• Pagan philosophical poem.
• Beowulf was a model for many works of Old
English literature.
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Elegies
• Originally means a passionate poem
• Themes of loss and consolation
• Seven major elegies of Anglo-Saxon period
1. Deor
2. Wulf and Eadwacer
3. The Wife’s Lament
4. The Husband’s Message
5. The Ruin
6. The Wanderer
7. The Seafarer
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Middle English Period
• The Anglo-Saxon period ended with the Norman
Conquest in 1066 AD
• William The Conqueror of Normandy defeated the
Anglo-Saxons.
• This set the beginning of Middle English period.
• It was a time of injustice and oppression, the
Catholic church and aristocracy oppressed the
people.
• Towards the end of medieval period Hundred Years
War 1337-1453 broke out between the French and
the English.
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• This war stopped the French influence in
Britain and hence Renaissance began at the
end of medieval period.
• Black death in 1348, a bubonic plague broke
out that killed one third of the population.
• The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 gave freedom for
peasants which was the aftermath of Black
Death.
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Major Writers of Medieval Europe
❖ Dante Alighieri: author of The Divine Comedy
❖ Giovanni Boccaccio: author of Decameron
❖ Francisco Petrarch: author of Petrarchan
sonnets and also the father of Humanism.
❖ Geoffrey Chaucer: brought Renaissance in
English literature.
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