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English Literature Until 15 Th C.

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English Literature Until 15 Th C.
1. Explain meaning of terms and their relevance to Eng Literature (examples, people, time span):

Old English/Anglo-Saxon – language (many different dialects) and culture of Anglo-Saxons, 7th -11th c., lit.: The Ruin, Beowulf, Seafarer etc; Bede, Caedmon, St Columba, St Augustine, Alfred the Great; Early Medival times, migrations, arrival of Christianity, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Viking Invasion, Germanic heritage, Christian ideology, memory of Roman Empire (myth of origins, Brutus), Celtic elements, traditions (druids, runes, magic), heroic code

Orature – oral transmission of narratives, Beowulf (until it was written down), riddles, chanson de geste, used by scopes, troubadours

Middle English - 12th - 15th c., Norman Conquest – William the Conqueror, French as a language of nobility, Matter of Britain and Englishness, Arthurain myth, lit.: Laustic, Brut, Sir Gawain, Canterbury Tales; Marie de France, G. Chauser, Layamon, feudal system, Doomsday Book, the Plantagenets, crusades, chivalry, courtly love

Mead-hall, scopes and their place in culture – OE period, mead-hall was a place of meeting, telling stories and celebrating, a court of early nobleman (eg in Beowulf), scopes were bards/poets (on courts or travelling), their function was not only to entertain but also preserve oral tradition and history

ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt and sic transit gloria mundi, transitoriness – Where are those who were before us, Thus passes the glory of the world, OE existentialism – constant violence and uncertainity of Anglo-Saxon times The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, The Ruin, everything passes

the Heptarchy – the Anglo-Saxon seven kingdoms (Northumbria, Essex, Wessex, Sussex, Mercia, Kent, East Anglia), 500-850 AD (constant political instability until unification under Egbert)

kenning – OE, whale-road (sea), sleep of the sword (death), shadow-walker (Grendel) in Beowulf, a condensed metahpor made of usally 2 nouns

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