British Literature

1. British Literature Background Vocabulary

2. Complete Lincs for the following words: • Wyrd – the Old English word for fate • Epic poems – poems that praised the deeds of heroic warriors • Mead halls – a huge banquet hall for kings and nobles to celebrate in • Scops – professional poets that often sang poetry • Lyric poem – shorter poems that could be sung • Black Death – a plague that killed one third of England’s population • Feudalism – a political and economic system that William the Conqueror set up where knights and barons owned land and pledged allegiance to the king and living on the land in return for food would be the serfs (common fold) • Ballad – narrative songs telling of the lives of common folk