Buchara state university m. Bakoeva, E. Muratova, M. Ochilova english literature

6
. Name the main heroes of the poem “Beowulf’.
7. Characterize Beowulf.
8
. Why did Wiglaf put the blame for Beowulf 's death on 
cowardly earls?
9. What is the merit o f the poem?
10. Does the poem “Beowulf’ remind you o f any Russian or 
Uzbek epic poems?
The Literature of the 7"1 - 11th Centuries
Anglo-Saxon Literature. 
The culture o f the early Britons 
greatly changed under the influence o f Christianity, which 
penetrated into the British Isles in the 3rd centun/. That was the 
time when many Christians escaped from Roman persecution to 
Britain and Gaul (France), which were colonies o f the Roman 
Empire at that period.
At the end o f the 
6
th centuiy the head of the Roman church at 
that time Pope Gregory decided to spread his influence over 
England by converting people to Christianity and sent monks to 
the island. They landed in Kent and built the first church in the 
town o f Canterbury.
Now the Roman civilization poured into the country again, 
Latin words once more entered the language o f the Anglo-Saxons, 
because the religious works were all written in Latin. The 
monasteries, where reading and writing were practiced, became 
the center of learning and education in the country. Poets and 
writers o f that period imitated Latin books about the early 
Christians, and also made up stories of their own, about saints. 
The names of only two of those early poets have reached our 
days. They were 
Caedmon and Cynewulf.
Caedmon lived in the 7th century. He was a shepherd at Whitby,

---

a famous abbey in Yorkshire. He composed his poetry in his native 
language, in the Northumbrian dialect of Anglo-Saxon. He 
composed hymns and a poem “Paraphrase”. This poem retells 
fragments from the Bible in alliterative verse. Many other monks 
took part in the work but their names are unknown.
Cynewulf was a monk who lived at the end ofthe 
8
th century. 
His name was not forgotten, as he signed his name ih runes in the 
last line of his works. Two of his poems, “Elene” and “Juliana” 
are notable because they are the first Anglo-Saxon works to 
introduce women characters.
Along with religious poetry, folk-lales about worldly affairs 
were written down at the monasteries and put into verse by poets. 
Among them there were wedding-songs, songs to be sung at feasts, 
war-songs, death-songs, and also plowing-songs, and even riddles.
Thus, the spread o f Christianity was crucial for the development 
of Anglo-Saxon culture. The Church brought contact with the 
distant and ancient Mediterranean world. To the illiterate Germanic 
tribes it brought the essential skill for advanced culture - writing. 
Soon Anglo-Saxon monasteries were copying books from Rome 
and beginning to produce manuscripts The church also served as 
a force for unity and peace, trying to teach new values to these 
warrior-kings - compassion and cooperation, instead of arrogance 
and violence.
Written literature did not exist in the British Isles until about 
the year 700. It first comes to our att ention in the work of the 
most famous o f the Anglo-Saxon monks, the Venerable Bede.
The V enerable Bede