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It should be borne in mind that poetry of the time was primarily oral, and much has been lost through time since it went unrecorded. The poet, referred to as a Scop, was frequently accompanied by a harp in the process of declamation.
A line of poetry in Old English consists of two half-lines or verses, distichs, with a pause or caesura in the middle of the line. Each half-line has two accented syllables. The following example from The Battle of Maldon (poem), spoken by the warrior Byrhtwold shows this:
Hige sceal že heardra, heorte že cenre, mod sceal že mare, že ure męgen lytlašTranslated Courage must be the greater, heart the bolder, Spirit the greater, the more our strength is diminished.
The first stressed syllable of the off-verse, or second half-line, usually alliterates with one or both of the stressed syllables of the on-verse, or first half-line. The second stressed syllable of the off-verse does not usually alliterate with the others.
The longest, and most important, Old English poem is Beowulf, which survived in a single damaged manuscript. It tells the story of the legendary Geatish hero Beowulf who is the title character. The story is set in Scandinavia, in Sweden and DenmarkKongeriget Danmark ( In Detail) Motto of the Queen: Guds hjaelp, Folkets kaerlighed, Danmarks styrke (English: God's help, the love of the people, Denmark's strength) Official language Danish Capital Copenhagen Kobenhavn Monarch Margrethe II Prime Ministe, and the tale likewise probably is of Scandinavian origin. The story sets the tone for much of the rest of Old English poetry, as the hero knows that he is doomed to die in one last battle, yet marches off to meet his fate. The complex interplay between this Germanic heroic warrior ethosEthos is a Greek word corresponding roughly to Modern English's " ethics. However, the word has several special uses and contexts. Moral core: The disposition, character, or fundamental values peculiar to a specific person, people, culture, or movement: T and the new religion of ChristianityChristian cross and its many variations are widely recognized as an ancient Christian symbol. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as described in the New Testament. Although Christians generally chara is a theme that is touched on many times in Old English poetry.
In addition to Beowulf, other Old English heroic verse exists in fragments. The tale of the Battle of MaldonThe Battle of Maldon took place in 991 near Maldon beside the River Blackwater in Essex, England, during the reign of Ethelred the Unready. The Anglo-Saxons, led by Byrhtnoth and his thegns, fought against a Viking invasion, a battle which ended in utter likewise tells of the last stand of ByrhtnothByrhtnoth Byrhtno also spelled Byrhtno Byrihtno Brihtno Beorhtno Beorhtno Baeorhtno , Anglo-Saxon name, composed of beorht 'bright' and noth 'courage'. Name of the leader of the Anglo-Saxon defence force in the Battle of Maldon in 991. Anglo-Saxon people and his band of doomed warriors. Within Beowulf itself, the tale of the Fight at Finnsburg is told as a digression. The Anglo-Saxon ChronicleThe Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of (mainly) secondary source documents narrating the history of the Anglo-Saxons and their settlement in Britain. Much of the information in these documents consists of rumors of events that happened elsewhere and preserves a poem on the Battle of BrunanburhThe Battle of Brunanburh was a West Saxon victory in 937 by the army of king Athelstan and his brother Edmund over the combined armies of Olaf III Guthfrithson, Viking king of Dublin, Constantine, king of Scotland and King Owain of Strathclyde. This poorl.
Related to the heroic tales are the elegiesOriginally used for a type of poetic metre ( Elegiac metre), the term is also used for a poem of mourning, from the Greek elegos a reflection on the death of someone or on a sorrow generally. Some notable elegies include: The Elegies of Propertius Thomas for the fallen and the foredoomed from the Exeter Book. Most closely related to the heroic genre is Widsith, which contains a catalogue of names and places associated with valiant deeds. More consistenly gloomy or contemplative in mood are The Ruin, which tells of the decay of a once glorious city of Roman Britain (Britain fell into decline after the Romans departed in the early 5th c.), and The Wanderer, in which an older man talks about an attack that happened in his youth, where his close friends and kin were all killed; memories of the slaughter have remained with him all his life. He questions the wisdom of the impetuous decision to engage a possibly superior fighting force: the wise man engages in warfare to preserve civil society, and must not rush into battle but seek out allies when the odds may be against him. This poet finds little glory in bravery for bravery's sake.
Old English poetry, along with other early Germanic literatures, often seeks to recast the tales of Christianity into the older heroic ethos. The fit was not always perfect, but the very tension between the two visions lends depth to both of them. Chief among these is the Dream of the Rood, which displays the passion of Jesus Christ in a manner that may owe much to the depiction of Odin in the Old Norse Hįvamįl. Other long poems in this genre include the Andreas, Juliana, and Elene , which depict the lives of various saints. A hagiography of Saint Guthlac is also given a poetic treatment. The corpus also includes poetic paraphrases of Exodus, Book of Daniel, and Book of Judith.
In addition to these long poems, there are a number of collections of shorter poems. There are many Old English poetic riddles; these are important also because they shed light on the kennings used in Germanic literatures generally. The curious dialogue between Solomon and Saturn belongs among these as well; the two ancient characters discuss much curious lore, including the runic alphabet. There are also a number of magic charms preserved in the literature, a metaphorical poem about the Phoenix, and Alfred the Great's translation of the Meters by Boethius. Caedmon's nine-line hymn of creation is the oldest surviving text in English.
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