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The Anglo-Saxons. Their History, Culture, Language, and Literature. Unit Objectives and Skills.
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The Anglo-Saxons Their History, Culture, Language, and Literature
Unit Objectives and Skills • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.12.3 Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed). • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL12.5Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact. • Characterization – epic hero • Narrator bias • Author’s purpose • Author’s Choice: Structure/Setting/Characterization • Tone • Point of View
Overview of Historical Events • Ancient Britain • Roman Britain • Coming of the Anglo-Saxons – The English language begins • Anglo-Saxon Culture, Religion, and Social Order • Beginning of the literary tradition • Second Viking invasion
Ancient Britain 2000 - 43 A.D. • Inhabited by Britons and Celtic people • Farmers and hunters • Society organized into clans • Ruled by tribal chieftains elected from the class of pagan priests, known as the Druids
Roman Britain 43 – 449 A.D. • 43 A.D. – Romans, under Claudius’s rule, conquer Britain. • Brought their law, culture, comforts, and Latin language to the land. • The Celts become “Romanized,” tribal disputes stop, and things are fairly peaceful. • Britons were converted to Christianity with the rest of the Roman Empire in the 4th century. • 5th century – Roman occupation ends.
Arrival of the Anglo – Saxons5th Century A.D. • Withdrawal of the Romans left the native Britons vulnerable. • Next 100 years – Britons were invaded by seafaring, Germanic invaders. • Three tribes known as Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. • Invasion forced natives to retreat to Wales. • Old English Period begins in 449.
Anglo-Saxon Occupational Areas • Angles- Northern and Midland Sections – Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia • Saxons- Southern sections – Wessex, Essex, Sussex • Jutes- Southeastern Province, which became the kingdom of Kent • Return
Anglo-Saxon Culture • A.S. brought legends about ancient German heroes and kings. • Warriors were celebrated in lays or songs sung at feasts by a gleeman or scop. • Lays accompanied by the harp or lyre. • Songs composed orally – for entertainment, but also kept history alive. • Kings would entertain friends in mead halls, named for the drink mead made from fermented honey.
Anglo-Saxon Religious Beliefs(Before Christianity) • A.S. were Pagans. Christianity of Roman times kept alive only in remote regions. • Every human life in the hands of fate. • Worshipped ancient Norse gods: Tiu, god of war and the sky; Woden (Odin), chief of the gods; and Fria (Freya), Woden’s wife. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday • Except the Irish – which had their own Celtic pantheon.
Anglo-Saxon Society • Organized into a class of warriors known as earls or thanes. • These warriors protected and were devoted to the king, who was chosen by a witan-council of elders. • There was also a class of freemen known as churls. • Slaves were known as thralls. • Women, as “peace-weavers”
Return of Christianity • All of England converted to Christianity upon the arrival of Augustine in 597 A.D. • Augustine began by converting King Ethelbert of Kent. • Rest of England soon followed. • Monasteries built. • By 731 A.D.-Christianity well-rooted
The Scribes • In monasteries, scribes produced books by hand. • Books were usually religious in nature. • Focused on saints’ lives and sermons. • There were also copies of the oral literature. • Because of these Christian scribes, Anglo-Saxon culture was recorded. • “Father of English History” – the Venerable Bede, a Northumbrian monk.
The Danish Invasion • Vikings (warriors) carried their piracy to the British Isles, bringing destruction and fear. • Despite England’s efforts to defend itself, most of northern, eastern, and southern England fell to the Danes by the middle of the ninth century. • Only the Saxon kingdom of Wessex fought the Danes to a standstill.
Heroism and kingship – the relationship between kings and their thanes (warriors). Wergild- “man price” or retribution for the death of one’s family member. After the arrival of Christianity, their relationship with God takes on these themes. Wyrd- “Fate” controlled one’s destiny. Exile- the cost of being abandoned or apart from one’s tribe and society. Anglo-Saxon Literary Themes
Beowulf • Archetypal Anglo-Saxon literary work and as a cornerstone of modern literature, Beowulf • Beowulf was composed by an unknown Anglo-Saxon poet around 700 A.D., but much of its material had been in circulation in oral narrative for many years. • Elements of the Beowulf story—including its setting and characters—date back to the pe • The action of the poem takes place around 500 A.D.Many of the characters in the poem—the Swedish and Danish royal family members, for example—correspond to actual historical figures.riod before the A-S migration.
Beowulf cont. • Though still an old pagan story, Beowulf thus came to be told by a Christian poet. The Beowulf poet is often at pains to attribute Christian thoughts and motives to his characters, who frequently behave in distinctly un-Christian ways. The Beowulf that we read today is therefore probably quite unlike the Beowulf with which the first Anglo-Saxon audiences were familiar. • The world thatBeowulf depicts and the heroic code of honor that defines much of the story is a relic of pre–Anglo-Saxon culture.
