Đang tải... (xem toàn văn)
giới thiệu về lịch sử văn học Anh cổ
1 What is literature? What are the differences between art and science? 1.1 Definition of literature - Literature is the reflection of life which is a fact widely knowledged Literature, as an imitation (mô phỏng) of human action, often presents a picture of what people think, say and in the society In literature, we find stories designed to portray (miêu tả sinh động) human life and action through some characters who convey (truyền tải) certain messages of writers about the life When we read a piece of words (tác phẩm văn học), not only can we understand the world around us, know the types of characters, feel the depth of human spirit, but also we can look at ourselves to amend (sửa đổi) - Literature may be defined as words working hard, the exploitation of words (the use of language in difficult level) Therefore, literature is a style rich in simile Words in literature have lots of meaning Hence, when people read a poem, a short stories or a novel, they can imagine to understand the deep thought of writer as well as the message he of she want to convey / transfer - Basing on techniques of imagination, literature was divided into major form: the novel, the poem, and the drama Summary of the Subject We are now ready, if not to define, at least to understand a little more clearly the object of our present study Literature is the expression of life in words of truth and beauty; it is the written record (ghi lại) of man's spirit, of his thoughts, emotions, aspirations (nguyện vọng, khát vọng); it is the history, and the only history, of the human soul It is characterized by its artistic, its suggestive, its permanent qualities Its two tests are its universal interest and its personal style Its object, aside (riêng) from the delight (điều thích thú, khối cảm) it gives us, is to know man, that is, the soul of man rather than his actions; and since it preserves (pri’zә:v - giữ gìn, bảo tồn) to the race the ideals upon which all our civilization (sivilai’zeiʃn - văn minh) is founded, it is one of the most important and delightful subjects that can occupy the human mind 1.2 The differences between literature (arts) and sciences - Literature: the novel, the drama, the poem - Sciences: mathematics, geography, chemistry, physics, and so on Features The Science ojects Literature of Despite of reflection of life, The reflection writers’ concern is the scientists’ concern is truth beauty They also find the The scientists always want to truth However, the truth find the correct explaination they find are the value of real for every phenomenon in the - life and beauty of human world around us Definitely, Not only they want to they desire (mong muốn) to convey the meaning of life, answer the big question “what but also they desire to is the world really like?” They discover the human’s deep tell us the truth of subsistence and different emotion Therefore, we can assert (khẳng định) that they tell us the beauty of subsistence The content of Science reflection reflect objectively the life Literature reflect the life Scientists must objectively and subjectively respect the preciseness of the They both reflect the beauty concepts They must not show of life and express their own their personal ideas The form ideas about that of Scientists build the concept, Artists built the art forms and reflection the theorem, the principles… characters to show us the to reflect the life They only meaning of life They are are people who discover the indeed creative people who truth of subsistence discover real and deep values of life The pieces of words Words are very correct We Words read them and we have lots of can meaning.We read them and understand them basing on our we must understand them not intelligence only by our intelligence but also by our spirit Can base on discovery before must be new, not repeat 1.3 Define literature and justify that it is important for our lives - (Giá trị thực) M.Gorki: “Literature must be at the centre of the life to recount (kể lại chi tiết) human’s life honestly by a exploitation of language” Literature portray (miêu tả sinh động) human life in every historical period When we read a novels or short stories, we can understand the lives of people of all conditions (con người tầng lớp, địa vị) (who come from many classes/grades/stratas in society) Besides, we also know about their spiritual life, about political situation and so forth in the historical periods For instance, when we read Jane Eyre, we can understand the strong conflict between social class and capital class in ninetieth century In addition, we also understand that in the capitalist society, women’s plight were very miserable / wretched (cùng khổ, đáng thương) Moreover, readers greatly admire Jane Eyre’s beautiful soul and her love with Rochester - (Giá trị giáo dục): When we read a piece of words (tác phẩm văn học), not only can we understand the world around us, know the types of characters, feel the depth of human spirit, but also we can look at ourselves to be self-educated Literature’s power is to turn/change education into self-education, to change the dry morals into voluntary actions Hence, literature results in making the good changes, in development of social progress Thach Lam, a Vietnamese writer, said that: “Literature can not only change the deceiful and ruthless society but also make our soul purer” For example, when we read - (Giá trị thẩm mĩ) Literature bring us the beauty of life and the beauty of human’s spiritual life Therefore, literature help us have the various points of view about the world around us Because of literature, our soul become much sensitive and emotional As a consequence, we can see the beauty that others can not see We can sympathize with the unfortunate/unlucky/poor people in scociety For example The first significant thing is the essentially artistic quality of all literature All art is the expression of life in forms of truth and beauty; or rather, it is the reflection of some truth and beauty which are in the world, but which remain unnoticed until brought to our attention by some sensitive human soul, just as the delicate (nhạy cảm) curves (đường cong) of the shell reflect sounds and harmonies /’ha: mәni - hài hòa, cân đối) too faint (mờ nhạt) to be otherwise noticed In the same pleasing, surprising way, all artistic work must be a kind of revelation (sự khám phá, tiết lộ) Thus architecture is probably the oldest of the arts; yet we still have many builders but few architects, that is, men whose work in wood or stone suggests some hidden truth and beauty to the human senses So in literature, which is the art that expresses life in words that appeal to our own sense of the beautiful, we have many writers but few artists In the broadest sense, perhaps, literature means simply the written records of the race, including all its history and sciences, as well as its poems and novels; in the narrower sense literature is the artistic record of life, and most of our writing is excluded from it, just as the mass of our buildings, mere shelters from storm and from cold, are excluded from architecture A history or a work of science may be and sometimes is literature, but only as we forget the subject-matter and the presentation of facts in the simple beauty of its expression The second quality of literature is its suggestiveness (tính gợi mở), its appeal (tính hấp dẫn) to our emotions and imagination rather than to our intellect It is not so much what it says as what it awakens (đánh thức) in us that constitutes (tạo nên, cấu tạo) its charm (huyền ảo, hấp dẫn, sức mê hoặc) Importance of Literature Literature preserves the ideals of a people; and ideals-love, faith, duty, friendship, freedom, reverence-are the part of human life most worthy of preservation (sự bảo tồn, giữ gìn) What is English literature? English literature is literature written in English The term “English” in “English literature” refers not to a nation but to language It does not focus on literature of England or British Isles Every piece of words in English all belongs to English literature Literature is an art of exploitation of language, so English literature is an art which exploits English language English literature is the literature which is distinctly written in the English language (both modern English and its antecedents), as opposed to differing languages English literature composed (sáng tác) in English by writers not necessarily from England nor primarily English - speaking nations such as Indians, Americans and so on In other words, English literature is as diverse (đa dạng) as the varieties and dialects (tiếng địa phương) of English spoken around the world in countries originally colonized by the British The old English literature (the first English literature / English literature in the making) 3.1 What is the first English literature? Old literature (sometimes sometimes referred to as "Anglo-Saxon literature") encompasses (bao gồm, chứa đựng) literature written in Old English (also called AngloSaxon language - the basic of modern English) in Anglo-Saxon England from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066 By the end of sixth century, the new masters of England become a Christian people And all the records of the early literature of the Anglo-Saxons belong to Christian England, written by clerk in monasteries (tu sĩ tu viện) At the end of nineth century, England was devided into main Kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex Of these three, Northumbria was the centre of learning with its rich monasteries Up to the middle of the 9th century, all the poetry of England was recorded in the Northumbria dialect (tiếng địa phương) But when the Danes invaded England and sacked (đuổi) Northumbria, Wessex, the Kingdoms of Alfred the Great, became England’s cutural center… 3.2 Why did the Anglo-Saxons come to England? What induced them to remain? Did any change occur in their ideals, or in their manner of life? Do you know any social or political institutions which they brought, and which, we still cherish? ANGLO-SAXON LIFE We have now read some of our earliest records, and have been surprised, perhaps, that men who are generally described in the histories as savage fighters and freebooters could produce such excellent poetry It is the object of the study of all literature to make us better acquainted with men, not simply with their deeds, which is the function of history, but with the dreams and ideals which underlie all their actions So a reading of this early Anglo5 Saxon poetry not only makes us acquainted, but also leads to a profound respect for the men who were our ancestors Before we study more of their literature it is well to glance briefly at their life and language The Name Originally the name Anglo-Saxon denotes two of the three Germanic tribes, Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, who in the middle of the fifth century left their homes on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic to conquer and colonize distant Britain Angeln was the home of one tribe, and the name still clings to the spot whence some of our forefathers sailed on their momentous voyage The old Saxon word angul or ongul means a hook, and the English verb angle is used invariably by Walton and older writers in the sense of fishing We may still think, therefore, of the first Angles as hook-men, possibly because of their fishing, more probably because the shore where they lived, at the foot of the peninsula of Jutland, was bent in the shape of a fishhook The name Saxon from seax, sax, a short sword, means the sword-man, and from the name we may judge something of the temper of the hardy fighters who preceded the Angles into Britain The Angles were the most numerous of the conquering tribes, and from them the new home was called Anglalond By gradual changes this became first Englelond and then England More than five hundred years after the landing of these tribes, and while they called themselves Englishmen, we find the Latin writers of the Middle Ages speaking of the inhabitants of Britain as Anglisaxones, that is, Saxons of England, to distinguish them from the Saxons of the Continent In the Latin charters of King Alfred the same name appears; but it is never seen or heard in his native speech There he always speaks of his beloved "Englelond" and of his brave "Englisc" people In the sixteenth century, when the old name of Englishmen clung to the new people resulting from the union of Saxon and Norman, the name Anglo-Saxon was first used in the national sense by the scholar Camden in his History of Britain; and since then it has been in general use among English writers In recent years the name has gained a wider significance, until it is now used to denote a spirit rather than a nation, the brave, vigorous, enlarging spirit that characterizes the English-speaking races everywhere, and that has already put a broad belt of English law and English liberty around the whole world The Life If the literature of a people springs directly out of its life, then the stern, barbarous life of our Saxon forefathers would seem, at first glance, to promise little of good literature Outwardly their life was a constant hardship, a perpetual struggle against savage nature and savage men Behind them were gloomy forests inhabited by wild beasts and still wilder men, and peopled in their imagination with dragons and evil shapes In front of them, thundering at the very dikes for entrance, was the treacherous North Sea, with its fogs and storms and ice, but with that indefinable call of the deep that all men hear who live long beneath its influence Here they lived, a big, blond, powerful race, and hunted and fought and sailed, and drank and feasted when their labor was done Almost the first thing we notice about these big, fearless, childish men is that they love the sea; and because they love it they hear and answer its call: No delight has he in the world, Nor in aught save the roll of the billows; but always a longing, A yearning uneasiness, hastens him on to the sea As might be expected, this love of the ocean finds expression in all their poetry In Beowulf alone there are fifteen names for the sea, from the holm, that is, the horizon sea, the "upmounding," to the brim, which is the ocean flinging its welter of sand and creamy foam upon the beach at your feet And the figures used to describe or glorify it "the swan road, the whale path, the heaving battle plain" are almost as numerous In all their poetry there is a magnificent sense of lordship over the wild sea even in its hour of tempest and fury: Often it befalls us, on the ocean's highways, In the boats our boatmen, when the storm is roaring, Leap the billows over, on our stallions of the foam The Inner Life A man's life is more than his work; his dream is ever greater than his achievement; and literature reflects not so much man's deed as the spirit which animates him; not the poor thing that he does, but rather the splendid thing that he ever hopes to In no place is this more evident than in the age we are now studying Those early sea kings were a marvelous mixture of savagery and sentiment, of rough living and of deep feeling, of splendid courage and the deep melancholy of men who know their limitations and have faced the unanswered problem of death They were not simply fearless freebooters who harried every coast in their war galleys If that were all, they would have no more history or literature than the Barbary pirates, of whom the same thing could be said These strong fathers of ours were men of profound emotions In all their fighting the love of an untarnished glory was uppermost; and under the warrior's savage exterior was hidden a great love of home and homely virtues, and a reverence for the one woman to whom he would presently return in triumph So when the wolf hunt was over, or the desperate fight was won, these mighty men would gather in the banquet hall, and lay their weapons aside where the open fire would flash upon them, and there listen to the songs of Scop and Gleeman, men who could put into adequate words the emotions and aspirations that all men feel but that only a few can ever express: Music and song where the heroes sat-The glee-wood rang, a song uprose When Hrothgar's scop gave the hall good cheer It is this great and hidden life of the Anglo-Saxons that finds expression in all their literature Briefly, it is summed up in five great principles, their love of personal freedom, their responsiveness to nature, their religion, their reverence for womanhood, and their struggle for glory as a ruling motive in every noble life Our First Speech Our first recorded speech begins with the songs of Widsith and Deor, which the Anglo-Saxons may have brought with them when they first conquered Britain At first glance these songs in their native dress look strange as a foreign tongue; but when we examine them carefully we find many words that have been familiar since childhood We have seen this inBeowulf; but in prose the resemblance of this old speech to our own is even more striking Here, for instance, is a fragment of the simple story of the conquest of Britain by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors From such records we see that our speech is Teutonic in its origin; and when we examine any Teutonic language we learn that it is only a branch of the great Aryan or IndoEuropean family of languages In life and language, therefore, we are related first to the Teutonic races, and through them to all the nations of this Indo-European family, which, starting with enormous vigor from their original home (probably in central Europe) spread southward and westward, driving out the native tribes and slowly developing the mighty civilizations of India, Persia, Greece, Rome, and the wilder but more vigorous life of the Celts and Teutons In all these languages Sanskrit, Iranian, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Teutonic-we recognize the same root words for father and mother, for God and man, for the common needs and the common relations of life; and since words are windows through which we see the soul of this old people, we find certain ideals of love, home, faith, heroism, liberty, which seem to have been the very life of our forefathers, and which were inherited by them from their old heroic and conquering ancestors It was on the borders of the North Sea that our fathers halted for unnumbered centuries on their westward journey, and slowly developed the national life and language which we now call Anglo-Saxon It is this old vigorous Anglo-Saxon language which forms the basis of our modern English If we read a paragraph from any good English book, and then analyze it, as we would a flower, to see what it contains, we find two distinct classes of words The first class, containing simple words expressing the common things of life, makes up the strong framework of our language These words are like the stem and bare branches of a mighty oak, and if we look them up in the dictionary we find that almost invariably they come to us from our Anglo-Saxon ancestors The second and larger class of words is made up of those that give grace, variety, ornament, to our speech They are like the leaves and blossoms of the same tree, and when we examine their history we find that they come to us from the Celts, Romans, Normans, and other peoples with whom we have been in contact in the long years of our development The most prominent characteristic of our present language, therefore, is its dual character Its best qualities strength, simplicity, directness come from Anglo-Saxon sources; its enormous added wealth of expression, its comprehensiveness, its plastic adaptability to new conditions and ideas, are largely the result of additions from other languages, and especially of its gradual absorption of the French language after the Norman Conquest It is this dual character, this combination of native and foreign, of innate and exotic elements, which accounts for the wealth of our English language and literature To see it in concrete form, we should read in succession Beowulf and Paradise Lost, the two great epics which show the root and the flower of our literary development The literature of this period falls naturally into two divisions, pagan and Christian The former represents the poetry which the Anglo-Saxons probably brought with them in the form of oral sagas, the crude material out of which literature was slowly developed on English soil; the latter represents the writings developed under teaching of the monks, after the old pagan religion had vanished, but while it still retained its hold on the life and language of the people In reading our earliest poetry it is well to remember that all of it was copied by the monks, and seems to have been more or less altered to give it a religious coloring The coming of Christianity meant not simply a new life and leader for England; it meant also the wealth of a new language The scop is now replaced by the literary monk; and that monk, though he lives among common people and speaks with the English tongue, has behind him all the culture and literary resources of the Latin language The effect is seen instantly in our early prose and poetry So wrote the great Alfred, looking back over his heroic life That he lived nobly none can doubt who reads the history of the greatest of Anglo-Saxon kings; and his good works include, among others, the education of half a country, the salvage of a noble native literature, and the creation of the first English prose Life and Times of Alfred For the history of Alfred's times, and details of the terrific struggle with the Northmen, the reader must be referred to the histories The struggle ended with the Treaty of Wedmore, in 878, with the establishment of Alfred not only as king of Wessex, but as overlord of the whole northern country Then the hero laid down his sword, and set himself as a little child to learn to read and write Latin, so that he might lead his people in peace as he had led them in war It is then that Alfred began to be the heroic figure in literature that he had formerly been in the wars against the Northmen With the same patience and heroism that had marked the long struggle for freedom, Alfred set himself to the task of educating his people First he gave them laws, beginning with the Ten Commandments and ending with the Golden Rule, and then established courts 10 "He is a man deserving of praise" was the highest tribute to the living The whole secret of Beowulf's mighty life is summed up in the last line, "Ever yearning for his people's praise." So every tribe had its scop, or poet, more important than any warrior, who put the deeds of its heroes into the expressive words that constitute literature; and every banquet hall had its gleeman, who sang the scop's poetry in order that the deed and the man might be remembered Oriental peoples built monuments to perpetuate the memory of their dead; but our ancestors made poems, which should live and stir men's souls long after monuments of brick and stone had crumbled away It is to this intense love of glory and the desire to be remembered that we are indebted for Anglo-Saxon literature 3.4 What are the features of the old English literature? The first feature was that prevalence of poetry over prose The second one was oral, passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation The third one was anonymous Its creators was unknown The forth one was religious Old English literature consists of poetry, prose, charms, riddles, maxims, proverbs, and various other wisdom sayings It is a mixture of pagan traditions, thoughts about life, the universe and nature, as well as Christian thought and moral values There is often no clear-cut delineation between religious and non-religious poetry Old English poetry included long epicheroic poems, which drew on the Bible as well as on pagan sources for their content Beowuf, incorporates both pagan and Christian ideas The monster-slaying hero has his origin in two ancient fairy tales From the pagan traditions also come a love of war and the virtue of courage The biblical Old Testament supplies the idea about giants and monsters having descended from Cain'sline The poem is sometimes seen as a conflict between good and evil From the Christian tradition, it incorporates morality, obedience to God,and avoidance of pride Prose developed later than poetry- in the ninth century - but sometimes it also partly contained the characteristics of poetry It was influenced by Latin, the language of the church and the educated One part of its consistence was religious writing 14 The origin of drama goes back to brief scenes that monks acted out in churches toil lustrate Bible stories.These later developed into full-length plays The literature of this period falls naturally into two divisions, pagan and Christian The former represents the poetry which the Anglo-Saxons probably brought with them in the form of oral sagas, the crude material out of which literature was slowly developed on English soil; the latter represents the writings developed under teaching of the monks, after the old pagan religion had vanished, but while it still retained its hold on the life and language of the people In reading our earliest poetry it is well to remember that all of it was copied by the monks, and seems to have been more or less altered to give it a religious coloring The coming of Christianity meant not simply a new life and leader for England; it meant also the wealth of a new language The scop is now replaced by the literary monk; and that monk, though he lives among common people and speaks with the English tongue, has behind him all the culture and literary resources of the Latin language The effect is seen instantly in our early prose and poetry 3.5 What you know about the oldest English poem? Tell the story of Beowulf What appeals to you most in the poem? Why is it a work for all time, or, as the Anglo-Saxons would say, why is it worthy to be remembered? Note the permanent quality of literature, and the ideals and emotions which are emphasized in Beowulf Describe the burials of Scyld and of Beowulf Does the poem teach any moral lesson? Explain the Christian elements in this pagan epic a Beowulf: A Literary Work Beowulf survives in only one version, in a manuscript now in the British Museum It is not known when the poem was composed, or by whom The dating of this copy of Beowulf 's manuscript is still a matter of controversy: some scholars put it as early as 700 others think it was probably made by scribes of about the year 1000, and the language is the "classical" late West-Saxon of the Wessex of Ethelred and Aelfric We know that Beowulf was admired in the ninth century by King Alfred The poem, first called Beowulf in 1805, was first printed in 1815 Burton Raffel's translation of Beowulf contains a prologue and 43 15 numbered sections; other translations not divide the text into numbered sections It is composed of 3,182 lines, which make it the longest Old English poem Beowulf's literary composition is traditionally placed in the Northumbria of the age of Bede, who died in 735, though recently the less well documented Mercia of King Offa, who reigned from 757 to 796, has found its supporters b The Plot of the Poem and its Structure The central hero of the poem is Beowulf, and its main stories are Beowulf's fights against two monsters, a male and a female, Grendel and Grendel's mother, and a dragon The poet also introduces o lot of incidental stories and digressions On the whole the poem tells two stories, the youth and old age of Beowulf, unified by the presence of Beowulf who is the hero of both According to the major events in the life of Beowulf, the hero of the Geats, the poem can be divided into two parts First Part In the first part Beowulf is in his youth and achieves glory in a foreign land by fighting and killing first Grendel, a monster who has been attacking Heorot, the hall of the Danish King Hrothgar, and then Grendel's mother, who comes the next night to avenge her son, in an underwater cave The fight in the subterranean cave is fierce, both sides evenly matched in strength, until Beowulf sees a giant sword on the cave wall which he uses to kill the monster and cut off Grendel's head, after which the sword-blade melts Beowulf returns triumphant with the sword-hilt and Grendel's head Second Part In the second part, Beowulf is in his old age, having ruled his country well for fifty years, after the deaths of Hygelac and his son Heardred Tragedy strikes again and Beowulf goes to fo fight a dragon who is destroying his people and his realm The dragon has guarded an ancient warrior's treasure until a fugitive slave robbed the hoard in order to gain the favour of his lord Beowulf decided to fight the dragon alone and has a fireproof iron shield made At the end of the fight Beowulf, after being mortally wounded and helped by his kinsman Wiglaf, kills the dragon The poem ends with Beowulf's funeral and a prophecy of disaster for his people, the Geats 16 The fight against the dragons is not like the tribal feuds the warriors were involved in because, according to their social code, they had the special duty of vengeance; Grendel and Grendel's mother are not part of that social order: they represent fatal evil and Beowulf's unknown destiny Fighting against Grendel Beowulf chooses the heroic way of life and tests Fate Beowulf puts himself in a position from which he cannot withdraw Doom ultimately claims him, but not until he has fulfilled to its limits the pagan ideal of a heroic life Beowulf - Typical Old English Verse Beowulf is an epic poem of over 3000 verses, whose manuscript dates from about the 10th century The poem is the only epic from the time that has been preserved as a whole Its author is unknown, but he seems to have had a good grasp (sự thấu hiểu, tri thức) of the Bible and other great epics, such as Homer’s Odyssey The work glorifies (ca ngợi) a hero and the values of bravery and generosity The story is set in Scandinavia around 500-600 AD - a time of battles (trận đánh) and conquests (sự xâm chiếm, chinh phục) by Germanic Anglo-Saxon tribes in Denmark and southern Swenden Its sources are old legends of these tribes who had moved north from Germany over Scandinavia and into Britain It also reflects the acceptance of Christianity by these new British settlers (thực dân) at the end of the 6th century The first part of the story takes place in Denmark King Hrothgar is being pestered (quấy nhiễu) by a water monster, Grendel, who is killing his men Beowulf comes to his aid and kills Grendel and later, at the bottom of the lake, also Gendel’s mother, who comes to avenge (ә’vendz - trả thù, báo thù cho ai) her son The second part happens in southern Swenden about fifty years later Beowulf himself is a king and has to fight a firebreathing dragon As with other Old English literature, this epic incorporates (sát nhập) both pagan and Christian ideas The monster-slaying hero has his origin in two ancient fairy tales From the pagan traditions also come a love of war and the virtue of courage The biblical Old Testament supplies the idea about giants and monsters having descended from Cain’s line The poem is sometimes seen as a conflict between good and evil From the Christian tradition, it incorporates morality, obedience to God, and avoidance of pride There are 17 many contrasts, for example, water and fire, youth and old age, life and death, rise and fall of nations and individuals, friendship and desertion (sự ruồng bỏ), faithfulness and betrayal (sự phản bội), heroism and cowardice (sự hèn nhát), hope and resignation (sự từ bỏ), good and evil, as well as the past, present and future Elegy (khúc tráng ca) is apparent (rõ ràng, hiển nhiên) throughout - life is passing and is full of struggles (sự đấu tranh) and suffering (sự đau khổ), (this theme has an application also for modern life and the struggles of mankind) This is contrasted by the courage (sự can đảm) of the main hero, said to be the “kindest and noblest (cao thượng nhất) of earthly kings and the most desirous (khao khát, đáng mơ ước nhất) of praise (preiz - khen ngợi) and glory (danh dự)” The poem begins and ends with the funeral (lễ tang) of a king The work, written in characteristic Old English verse style, has artistic maturity (độ chín) and unity (sự thống nhất) It uses alliteration (sự lặp lại) (words beginning with the same sound), kennings (ẩn dụ) (metaphorical descriptive phrases or compund words), and internal rhyme (a word within a line rhyming with a word at the end of the line) Each line has two beats or stresses syllables The style of poetical descriptions and word pictures with much repetition makes the action move slowly The poem is an important source of historical information which was later confirmed by archaeology The tone and descriptions capture the rough, cold and gloomy North Sea atmosphere, as well as life’s struggles of the people of the time who had to deal with many trials and obstacles (sự trở ngại) The poem was originally recited by a court singer and poet called “scop”, who accompanied it with music and made occasional changes according to the inspiration of the moment c Features, Themes and Criticism Beowulf is a typical heroic poem not only in its central figure but also in its world and its values The warriors are either feasting or fighting, they are devoted to glee and glory However, the poem presents a variety of features and the student should focus his attention on some its most important aspects, such as: 1) Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons, was used by the Beowulf-poet The Old English Beowulf-poet enjoyed using poetic diction, often old-fashioned words, with 18 frequent use of metonimy (when the part of an object stands for the whole), compound adjectives, compound-nouns, and the popular kenning, a condensed simile, usually in the form of a compound word A large number of compound words are found in Old English verse, but many of these are originally coined by the Beowulf-poet Old English vocabulary collects groups of meanings as the word is repeatedly heard in different context Words like Wyrd, "Fate", "Providence", or dom, "glory", "reputation", have a lot of associations, pagan and Christian alike The most common poetic device in Beowulf is variation, a word or expression is repeated, not identically, and each repetition adds a new quality to the concept For example, King Hrothgar is called by Beowulf, "son of Healfdene", "guardian of the people", "glorious hero", "Shepherd of the Danes", and each title adds another quality to Hrothgar The Old English poets also used the so called interlacing technique which allowed the poets to weave together simple statements to create a complex, poetic picture of the event they were narrating Another expression to explain is the "word hoard" the Beowulfpoet talks about The Old English poets refer to their "word-hoard", which indicates a stock of verse formulas, expressions, often half-lines, which would suit the particular matter on a particular occasion 2) Nordic and Germanic Elements: The Beowulf-poet found most of his material in Nordic-Germanic folklore, heroic legends, historical traditions and biblical sources Specific resemblances exist between Beowulf and certain Scandinavian sagas The action of the poem, that is Beowulf's three struggles 1) with Grendel and 2) Grendel's mother in the first part, 3) and the dragon in the second part, has its source in folklore Beowulf's youth is typical of the folklore hero The poem contains two songs, "The Lay of Sigemund" and "The Lay of Finnsburg," that show a likeness and between these two stories and and the Middle High German epic poem The Nibelungenlied (written about A.D 1200) In the Nibelungenlied there culminated a tradition of heroic poetry reaching back to the sixth or fifth century A.D in the lands of the Germanic peoples The allusive nature of the references in the Sigemund lay to the heroic exploits of Sigemund and to his victory over a dragon, indicate that the poet was able to assume acquaintance on the part of his readers with the primitive material from which the Volsungasaga, the dramatic northern legend to which the 19 Nibelungenlied has relationship The alliterative verse form that the Beowulf - poet used is another indication of the Nordic-Germanic tradition 3) Heroic Legend: The heroic legends dealt with in Beowulf are sometimes fused with historical elements and folklore Sometimes a historical figure is disguised in legends which the Beowulf-poet uses to set off a character, such as the legend of Scyld himself, supposedly the founder of the Danish throne, a hero who established an example of strong king His name is associated with the legend of a child arriving in a boat with a sheaf of corn 4) Historical Elements: The youthful heroism and the last battle and death of Beowulf, even if rooted in the primitive material of folk-tale, is skilfully projected against a background of history and chronicle The name of Hrothgar is recorded in the Danish Chronicles (written in Latin) and mentioned by other poets of later dates The civil war alluded to by Beowulf, was well known to the Beowulf audience, who also knew about the attack on Heorot by the Heathobards under Ingeld In general the allusions in Beowulf have to with the civil dissensions, the tragic and bitter feuds, which characterize the chronicles of the Geats and the Danes In this epic narrative the two principal figures are Beowulf and Hrothgar who were respectively of Geatish and Danish blood The bishop Gregory of Tours (c.540-94), in his Historia Francorum, records Hygelac's obsessive raiding against the Franks In about 516 Hygelac himself lost his life, when he embarked upon an expedition against the Franks In the poem there are passages which deal with the chronicle of the Geats and their constant and bitter wars with the Swedes Hystory also supports the Geats' fear of being annihilated by the fact that they seem to disappear from history during the sixth century Onela is a historic figure whose authenticity has been proven by archeological finds 5) Pagan and Christian Elements: Christian and biblical elements are evident in the poem Some critics believe that Beowulf was composed by a pagan poet, and that the presence of the Christian material is to be explained by subsequent excision of pagan, and interpolation of Christian, passages Others have argued that the Christian elements represent the work of a poet with vague and general knowledge of the faith, or merely nominal 20 ... about life, the universe and nature, as well as Christian thought and moral values There is often no clear-cut delineation between religious and non-religious poetry Old English poetry included... obedience to God, and avoidance of pride There are 17 many contrasts, for example, water and fire, youth and old age, life and death, rise and fall of nations and individuals, friendship and desertion... colonized by the British The old English literature (the first English literature / English literature in the making) 3.1 What is the first English literature? Old literature (sometimes sometimes