1. A bit of background before we read...
Beowulf
A bit of background before we read...

2. 55 BCE
Julius Caesar invades Britain

3. Romans abandon Britain circa early 5th c.
Britains in conflict with the Celts…

4. ….the Irish….

5. ....Scots and Picts…

6. …eventually falling to the Germanic tribes from Northern Europe, known as the Anglo-Saxons
By 650 the Anglo-Saxons have taken over Britain.

7. The next 200 years or so are small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fighting for power and control.
They bring with them their way of life from the mainland.
Earls and upper class
and bondsmen

8. The concept of loyalty and personal indebtedness

9. The importance of kinship; crimes against kin punishable by death

10. 597 CE Pope Gregory the Great sends an emissary to Britain to bring Christianity to the Island.

11. 1066 – The Battle of Hastings
End of Anglo-Saxon rule, signalled by the Norman Conquest
The Normans have Viking roots and had taken over the part of France called…
Normandy.

12. About this time, Beowulf is written.

13. So, why are we bothering to read something written 1000 years ago?
The only surviving example of Old English literature. (It’s a classic!!)

14. Who wrote Beowulf? Author is unknown. It is not recorded.
Some think there were multiple authors
It seems apparent that the author(s) was learned.
On a different note, this contemporary author’s name is John Beowulf.

15. Written about 700CE (sung in the meantime)
written down about 1100CE
events that took place around 600CE
(There is an event that actually took place in history, which is how scholars have dated the poem, however, it is thought to be fable.)

16. There is 1 manuscript.
Where the transcript goes for the first 500 years of its existence is unknown.
Henry the VIII (when he is dismantling the Catholic church and its monastaries in 1536) destroys many
documents found therein:
the Beowulf manuscript
survives

17. The manuscript is eventually owned by Robert Cotton in the mid-17th C.
The manuscript is also known as Cotton Vitellius A.XV

18. It survives the destruction of Cotton’s library by fire in 1731.

19. It now resides in the British museum

20. Beowulf is written in Old English.
There is an absence of rhyme
Alliteration is used
Strong, direct language
4 beat lines
Of course, the sounds and rhythms of the poem change in the translation to a more modern English