Main directions of the English Literature in the Early Middle ages

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   Main directions of the English Literature in the Early Middle ages.There are no “English” characters in Beowulf, and English scholars and authors had no knowledge of the poem before it was discovered and edited in the 19 century. Although written in the language called “Anglo-Saxon”, the poem was claimed by Danish and German scholars as their earliest national epic before it came to be thought of as an “Old English” poem. One of the results of the Norman conquest was that the structure and vocabulary of the English language changed to such an extend that Chaucer, even if he had come across a manuscript of old English poetry, would have experienced far more difficult construing the language than with medieval Latin, French, or Italian. If a king Arthur had actually lived, he would have spoken a Celtic language possibly still intelligible to native speakers of Middle Welsh but not to Middle English speakers.English literature is often described as beginning with Chaucer. This would give England six centuries of literature. Actually, there were more than six centuries of literature before Chaucer was born. The modern reader can make out the general meaning of a page of Chaucer without difficulty, but if he looks at the earliest English literature, he finds that it does not read like English. The two most important events in the history of England took place before the Norman Conquest. One of them was the period when Angles, Saxons and Jutes came to England.In the 1st century before our era, the powerful State of Rome conquered Britain. The Romans were practical men. They were very clever at making hard roads and building bridges and fine tall houses. The Romans taught Britons many things. But, at the end of the 4th century they had to leave Britain because they were needed to defend their own country invaded by barbaric people. As soon as Romans left, Britain had to defend the country from Germanic tribes called Angles, Saxons and Jutes. The Anglo-Saxons were advanced people and by the time they conquered Britain, they already had their own letters called “runes”, but still no written literature existed yet, and the stories and poems they made up passed from one generation to another verbally. Songs and tales composed by people when at work or at war, or for amusement (folklore) became widespread. There were also professional singers called “bards”. They composed songs about events they wanted to be remembered. Their songs were about wonderful battles and exploits of brave warriors. These songs were handed down to their children and grandchildren and finally reached the times when certain people who were called “scribes” wrote them down. (The word “scribe” comes from the Latin “scribere”-“to write”). Many old English poems glorified a real or imaginary hero and tried to teach the values of bravery and generosity. Poets used alliteration (words that begin with the same sound) and kennings (elaborate descriptive phrases). They also used internal rhyme, in which a word within a line rhymes with a word at the end of the line.
   

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