2.Wessex Literature
2.Wessex Literature
2.Wessex Literature
The second highlights happened during the reign of King Alfred.(871-899) (1)A number of Latin books of educative value
Christianized. • Churches were established and monks bacame the most learned in the country. • Heavens mythology was gradually replaced by Christian Religion.
Northumbrian School & Wessex Literature
1.Northumbrian School
1.Northumbrian School
• Its center was the monasteries and the abbeys in the kingdom of the northumbria. • Related with this schol was Ceadmon who turned the stories in the Bible into verse form. The title was Paraphrase. • Ceadmon could sing and became the first Anglo-Saxon poet.
Brief Introduction
• In the poem, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, battles three antagonists: Grendel, who has been attacking the mead hall in Denmark called Heorot and its inhabitants; Grendel's mother; and, later in life after returning to Geatland (modern southern Sweden) and becoming a king, he fights an unnamed dragon. Beowulf is fatally wounded in the final battle, and after his death he is buried in a barrow in Geatland by his retainers.
1.Northumbrian School
• Another well-known figure related with the Northumbrian School was the Venerable Bede. • “father of the English history” • “The Ecclesiatial History of the English People”—covering the length of the early English from the invasion by Julius Caesar.
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Anglo-Saxon Poetry
• There are a long poetry Beowulf, a number of religious poems and historical poems, and some elegies.
Beowulf
4. About 450 A.D., waves of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes invaded the British Isles.
• The Anglo-Saxons defeated the Celts, and became the new master of the British Isles and were the ancestors of the present English people.
3. From 55 B.C. to 407 A.D. the British were under the rule of Roman Empire, which had a high level of civilization.
• The first Roman general came to Britain was the famous Julius Caesar.
• The Roman ruled over Britain for three and half centuries. • They built temples, roads, walls, and military camps, but made little influences on the cultural life of the Celts. • Most of our knowledge of the Roman Britain comes from De Bello Galico, a book written by Caesar, and Germania by Publius Cornelius Tacitus (55-120 A.d.).
6. After Anglo-Saxons’ settlement in Britain, their tribal society gradually dis integrated and feudal society came into being.
7. In the later part of the 8th century, the Danes, or the Vikings, came to invade England. 8. In the second half of the 9th century, King Alfred of the Wessex led the Anglo-Saxon kings to defeat the invaders by uniting their forces.
5. About 500 A.D., King Authur, the founder of the kingdom of Wessex, acquired his fame while struggling against Cerdic.
• He gathered around him the bravest of his followers, who were known as the Knights of the Round Table and for 24 years he fought against the Anglos-Saxons invaders.
Thank you! --魏昃临
9. Norman Conquest: in 1066, the Nomans came from Nomandy in northern France attacked England under the leadship of the Duck of Normandy.
**10. In 579 Pope Gregory the Great sent St. Augustine to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons. • Within in a century, all England was
Pope Gregory the Great
St. Augustine
Northumbrian School & Wessex Literature
• There were 2 highlights in the development of the Anglo-Saxon literature.
• The poem contains 3183 lines and the story in it is based on partly historical and partly legendary materials, brought over by the Anglo-Saxon from their original homes.
Chapter One
The Anglo-Saxon Period (450-1066) --魏昃临
Historical Background
1. About B.C.the Celts migrated to the British Isles. 2. About 400 to 330 B.C. the Brythons, a branch of the Celts, came to British Isles and from them came the name Britain.
were translated into West Saxon dialects. (2)Alfred was responsible for the launching of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. (3)He created a style of Anglo-Saxon prose ehich was not obscure.