The Anglo-Saxons

Question 1

Important dates

Answer 1

• second half of 300 A.D.: the Roman legions start leaving Britain;
• 410 A.D.: the withdrawal is completed under Emperor Honorious;
• 476 A.D.: official fall of the Roman Empire;
• 450 A.D.: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes begin conquest and settlement of Britain;
• 597 A.D.: a mission from Rome led by Augustine and sent by Pope Gregory I begins to spread Christianity in England

Question 2

What’s the difference between Britannia and England?

Answer 2

• Britannia/Brittannia: name given by the Romans to their colony.
• Great Britain = Great Land of the Tattooed people.
• England: name given by the Anglo-Saxons = Land of the Angles.

Question 3

Who lived in Britain before the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons?

Answer 3

The Romanised Celts (the Britons)

Question 4

3 things about Old English period (700-1150)

Answer 4

• this term refers to Germanic dialects spoken by Jutes, Angles and Saxons: Kentish, WestSaxon, Mercian and Northumbrian
• the West-Saxon reign was the most important religious, military and cultural centre in England - King Alfred
• West-Saxon was considered the first standard written language, associated with political, military and cultural power in society

Question 5

How is the Anglo-Saxon language or Old English?

Answer 5

• Inflectional endings of nouns (noun declensions)
• Verbs are conjugated
• Infinitives of the verbs: gongan, drincan
• Stress of words is as near the beginning as possible

Question 6

Who is King Alfred?

Answer 6

King of Wessex from 871 to c. 886 and king of the Anglo-Saxons from c. 886 to 899

Question 7

What di King Alfred do?

Answer 7

Spent several years fighting Viking invasions. He won a decisive victory in the Battle of Edington in 878 and made an agreement with them

Question 8

What did King Alfred believe?

Answer 8

He believed Viking raids were a divine punishment for the people’s sins, and he attributed these to the decline of learning, for only through learning could men acquire wisdom and live in accordance with God’s will

Question 9

What are translations among King Alfred’s reign?

Answer 9

• The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, by the English historian Bede (also known as Venerable Bede or St. Bede, ca 673–735)
• The Pastoral Care of St. Gregory I
• the Soliloquies of the 5th-century theologian St. Augustine of Hippo.
• Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy.
• Though not Alfred’s work, he supported the birth of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, one of the greatest sources of information about Saxon England, which began to be circulated about 890.

Question 10

What is Beowulf and when was it written down?

Answer 10

Beowulf is a Scandinavian Epic set in the 5th century and it was oral literature. It was written down between 7th and 10th century

Question 11

What did the pagan world exalted?

Answer 11

– Loyalty to one’s family, kin or leader (family honour and bond between the lord and his people)
– Obligation to lord and guests
– Physical courage
– Importance of fate
– Search of glory in this life

Question 12

What are the poetic devices in Anglo-Saxon poetry?

Answer 12

• Kenning;
• No rhyme;
• Alliteration;
• Assonance;
• Stress;
• Litotes;
• Metonimy.

Question 13

What is a kenning?

Answer 13

It is a formulaic phrase that is used in place of a name or noun (swan road = sea)

Question 14

What is an alliterarion?

Answer 14

It is the repetition of consonant sounds especially at the beginning of several words or syllables that are close together

Question 15

What is an assonance?

Answer 15

It is the repetition of vowel sounds in several words or parts of words

Question 16

What are litotes?

Answer 16

They are an understatement in which affirmative is stated by negating its opposite

Question 17

What is a metonymy?

Answer 17

It is the act of referring to something using a word that describes one of its qualities or features (the wood for the ship)

Question 18

What are the Anglo-Saxon literary genres?

Answer 18

Epic, elegiac and religious

Question 19

Four things to say about the Epic genre

Answer 19

• deals with the recollection of a glorious past in the national history of a country, the praise of the brave deeds of heroes, the lament at their death.
• It is a heroic and military society.
• Supernatural folktales and mythological events.
• Didactic aim (celebration of the heroic ethic)

Question 20

Four things about Elegy

Answer 20

• A lyrical poem, generally in the form of a dramatic monologue. An isolated speaker laments his loss of friendship or favour or past splendour. Man = metaphor of humankind
• An individual’s loss rather than a collective story
• Anglo-Saxon imagination is haunted by the possible dissolution of the clan due to internal conflict or external attack. Vulnerability
• Melancholic mood

Question 21

What’s the plot of Beowulf?

Answer 21

• Beowulf is a thane (nobleman) of the Geats /gei:ts/ (Geatland = southern Sweden, ruled by King Hygelac /hiƏlk/). Beowulf leaves his country to help a kindred population, the Danes. A terrible
  monster, called Grendel, frightens them making raids and ransacking the mead-hall.
• Beowulf confronts and kills the monster and his mother. Later on he becomes king of the Geats. His final deed is the killing of a fire-breathing dragon but he is mortally wounded , too.

Question 22

What are the Christian elements in Beowulf that were added later on?

Answer 22

• References to Old Testament
• Grendel belongs to the race of Cain
• Beowulf prays the creator of all things, the ruler of the heavens
• God’s will replaces fate