And Old English

The devolpment of Old EnglishBeowulf’s summaryBeowulf’s historical and cultural contextEpic

Eye on…

In the V century the Jutes, the Angles and the Saxons invaded Britain and these different languages made Old English. Vowels were pronounced in differently way and word’s stress was placed on the beginning sillable; a lot of words came from german and scandinavian language ( like “mann”,”cild” and “wif” ). In the end nouns, adjectives and verbs was inflected like modern German, therefore Old English was very different from Modern English.

This poem was the first important example of poetry in a European language that is not Greek or Latin. It was composed in England between 700 AC and 750 AC, and was first told orally before finally being written down; we don’t know the names of the people who partecipated in composing Beowulf.

Primary epic that were written down centuries after they were composed,like Beowulf.

Secondy epic,from later historical periods,which were written down at the same time as they were composed,and we know who and when wrote them.

Anyway they have some common elements:

The hero: The main character on whose actions depends the futures of many people.The setting: Where and when the poem takes place.The action: There are courageus and even superhuman actions done by the hero.The supernatural: Gods or monsters take part or are mentioned.The style:The ‘’poetic’’ style,full of repetitions and elaborate introductions of the characters