OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE HISTORY
The Anglo-Saxon invaders came to England round about 5th century after the Roman Empire and ruled over England for nearly 600 years. They were basically three tribes which according to David Daches came from Denmark and Jutland. Literary works popular at the time of Anglo-Saxon were epic poetry, hegeography, sermons, Bible translation, legal works and chronicles etc. The most popular work of the age is the epic work called Bewolf, consists in 3,182 lines that tells the story of the heroic character Bewolf and his victory over the beast. Later on it was also called the national epic of England. The second most important work of the time is Cademon's Hymn, the oldest surviving work from the 7th century. Most of the literary works of the Anglo-Saxon age are written in the last 300 years either in Latin or in the vernacular. People started writing in old English out of sheer necessity after the Danish invasion as due to lack of education very few people could read and write in Latin. King Alfred (849_899) also lamented the poor state of Latin education and wanted to restore English culture. Out of the written works only 400 manuscripts are available in record of the Anglo-Saxon period, the reason is that at that time literature was transmitted orally, due to the oral tradition very few people bothered to write their works.
The style of the Anglo-Saxon age was highly alliterative, highly rhythmical. Rhythm in poetry was created not through rhyme and meter but through alliteration. Syllables were not counted as in traditional language, but instead the length of the line was determined through a pattern of stressed syllables that began with a same consonant cluster.
One common figure in Anglo-Saxon poetry is known as Kenning (a compound expression having metaphorical meaning) e.g in Bewolf the sea is called "the whale road". Second most common figure is Litotes (a dramatic understatement) employed by the author for dramatic effect in which a positive statement is expressed by negating its opposite. E.g. not bad.
Most of the poets of the age are unknown but only four poets are known to the history who wrote in the vernacular. Those poets are Cademon, Bede and Alfred. Cademon is the best known and is also called the father of old English poetry. He lived in Northumbria in the 7th century.
Various types of poetry has been written during this period such as heroic poetry (Bewolf). Wisdom poetry such as The Ruin, The wanderer...Classical and Latin poetry e.g. consolation of Philosophy, The Phoenix and the Christian poetry such as works The Andreas, Elene etc.
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