Old english literature

4. Early Christian Literature. Bible story in Old English verse. Caedmon, Bede, Cynewulf. King Alfred

The ancient Celts or Britons believed in a form of nature worship which assigned deities, both good and evil, to places and things. Their most important men, called Druids, were both priests and statesmen. To be a member of this class long and patient preparations were necessary. Great quantities of verse, containing religions and political matter and legends, had to be memorized. Some elements of this old faith are reflected in later English Literature. The oak and mistletoe were sacred elements in their worship. The invaders of Britain who came from Northern Germany and drove out the Celts brought with them the old Teutonic faiths.

Odin, or Woden was their chief god; his name is preserved in "Wednesday". Another powerful deity was Thor, god or rain and thunder, whose name remains in "Thursday". Other Teutonic deities have given names to "Thursday", "Friday" and possibly "Saturday". Some traces of the old faith are found in such customs as Harvest-home (Thanksgiving), May-day (Easter) an the like.
In the year 597 a Roman priest named Augustine came to northern England with a group of missionaries and began the work of converting the English to Christianity. Canterbury became the center of this movement which gradually spread throughout the land. Thirty years later Paulinus came to northern English, and a similar center of Christian teaching was founded at York. The story of the conversion of Edwin, King of Northumbria, is told by Bede, a great historian of the early English church. Paulinus called upon King Edwin to become a Christian. A great assembly was called and an old counselor made a speech in favour of the new faith that could teach the people of whence and whither they were going, explain more of the unknown. This new faith seemed deserving to be followed. England became Christian. With the coming of priests from Rome, who were scholars as well as missionaries, a great impulse was given to learning and to the writing of poetry and prose based on the new faith.
Alcuin, one of the most learned of these early scholars and teachers, tells of the daily life at York. Grammar and rhetoric were taught, the elements of law and some classical literature. The English churchmen collected and copied manuscripts, founded libraries, taught young men. Travelers and merchants presented costly manuscripts brought from Europe to the monastic libraries; by the end of the eighth century the library at York was nearly equal to that at Rome. King Alfred was a translator, and took deep interest in promoting learning. Bede, one of the greatest of the scholars of his time, refused high office because he couldn’t bear to leave his beloved manuscripts. For thirty years he studied the Bible, wrote treatises, perfected himself in learning. At the end of his great "History of the English Church" he records the scholar’s prayer: "And I pray Thee, good Jesus, that, as thou hast mercifully granted to me sweetly to drink in the words of Thy Knowledge, so Thou mayest grant me of Thy goodness some day to come to Thee, Fountain of all Wisdom, and to appear continually before Thy face". Bede lived in the 8^th century, and his history of the church is as valuable as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the infatuation it gives of these early times. The venerable Bede was educated at the monasteries and lived in the monastery at Jarrow devoting his life to teaching theology, Hebrew, Greek and Latin. His writings are characterized by a concise style and are full of piety. The most important of them are "De Natura Rerum" (a work on physical science), "Historia Abbatum" (a history of the abbots). He was particularly noted for Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation written in Latin. About a century later it was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred the Great. In Bede's Chronicle many stories about poets and learned men among them there is an account of the poet Caedmon, who had been a servitor at the monastery at Whitby in Northumbria. He had no learning and his evenings were spent with companions who used to sing to accompaniment of the harp. One night he went to sleep in the cattle-shed. In a vision an angel came to him and said, "Caedman, sing something". The angel told him that he should sing "the beginnings of created things". In his dream the words of the famous hymn ascribed to him were put into his mouth, and so vivid was the dream that when he awoke he could remember every detail:

"Now shall we praise the Warden of Heaven,

The might of the Master and his manifold thought"

The nine lines of this hymn he recited to his companions, who brought him into the presence of abbess. Here in the company of many learned men, he told of the vision and sang his hymn. They told him some portion of the sacred history and asked him to render it in song. Next morning he returned and through the same divine inspiration he was able to render what had been told him in excellent verse. So the servitor was taken into the company of learners, where he received instruction in the sacred stories. And he converted into sweetest song all things he could learn by hearing. His theme was the creation of the world and the whole story of Genesis and of the sojourn of Israel people in Egypt and their entrance into the Promised Land. He sang also of Christ’s life and passion, of the coming of the Holy Chost and of the apostles, of the terror of the judgement and of hell. Many others made songs after, but none could equal him, for he learned not of man, but through divine inspiration.

Many centuries after the death of Caedmon and his biographer Bede, an Old English manuscript was discovered which contained poetic versions of large parts of the books of Genesis, Exodus and Daniel. Parts of the poems are very dull; other parts are intensely dramatic, such as the account, in Genesis, of the fall of Satan and his angels. In Exodus, the story of the passage through the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptians is told with great vigor and imagination.
The style of these Biblical paraphrases is often heroic, like Beowulf and the battle pieces in the Chronicle.
The leading characteristic of Old English versification is the use of alliteration instead of rime. Each line has a break in the middle and contains four stresses, or accents. Two or three of the accented syllables begin with the same consonant, or with the same vowel. The number of syllables in a line varies; there must be four stressed syllables, but there may be any number of unstressed syllables.
Old English poetic style is further marked by the frequent use of what are called "Kennings", or metaphors, in which the name of the thing is replaced by a compound word or phrase describing one of its qualities. Thus the King is called the "ring giver"; the sea is "the whale’s road" or "the gannet’s bath".
King Alfred, a famous monarch, who ruled Wessex in the ninth century was not only a statesman and military genius who warred successfully on the Danes and firmly established himself as the King of all England, but also a man remembered for his great services to English learning. He wanted to develop a truly national spirit. The literature and learning flourished brilliantly in the north. Much was destroyed by the Danes later and all England seemed about to lapse into barbarism. Alfred was a zealous patron of learning, he established a court school and brought to it British and foreign scholars. Alfred found time, in spite of the perplexing problems of his heroic life, to become a humble learner himself, to arouse the spirit of learning in others, and to establish schools. He gathered about him a group of scholars, and they busily translated into English tongue many books of history, philosophy and geography. He himself made translations of such works as the "Consolations of Philosophy" by Roman statesmen, "The History of the World: Pastoral Care" by Pope Gregory the Great.
Another Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf or Cynwulf who lived in the 8th century is thought to have been a Northumbrian minstrel. Historians attribute to him such works as "Christ", the epic of Salvation, "The Tales of the Apostles" (stories of the travels and missionary work of the apostles), "Helene" (the story of the finding of the true Cross by Helena, mother of Constantine and Juliana, a saint's legend).
This is an outline of the earliest English literature. The language is strange, though a little study of it reveals that it is indeed intimately related to the language that is spoken today. The versification is not less strange. But the verse is heroic, with a sturdy rhythm that suited those strong, simple men, the pioneers of a great race. Both because of its grave beauty and because this is the foundation on which English literature has been built, students should know something about this fine old epic. To understand the spirit that permeates English literature one needs to understand the spirit of Beowulf. This noble epic was the first great poem in English. The world today may need more than ever the indomitable spirit of service and hatred of cruelty and tyranny that can be found in Beowulf’s words as he went forth to his last battle:
"I have lived through many
Wars in my youth; now once again,
Old folk-defender, feud will I seek,
Do doughty deads, if the dark destroyer
Forth from his cavern come to fight me.