The British are coming!

1
The British are coming!the British are coming,
the British are coming, the British are coming

• or.
• the tribes who melded to become The British Isles.

2
Southern Britain was invaded from 450 bce to 1066
ad.

• The land was rich, the climate was suited for
  agrarian culture, and the harbors were safe,
  protected, and good for trade.
• However, invasions brought bloodshed, new people,
  customs, and languages.

3
The Celts The Picts

• Arrive 600bce in tribes
• Agrarian
• Migratory
• Created villages
• Fought among themselves
• Organized themselves by family
• Used bronze and iron

4
The Celts had their own mysteries

• Druids
• Erected shrines
• Stonehenge.. what was its purpose?
• Fertility?
• Weather?
• Astronomy?

5
Rome invades in 55 bc

• Julius Caesar
• Thought the Celts barbaric
• Rome was sacking the Celts as early as 264 bce.
• Defeated the Celts and drove them north to
  Scotland and Wales

6
Hadrians Wall

• 117-138 Emperor Hadrian built a wall to keep out
  the Celts
• Impressive engineering skills
• Hadrian probably helped build the Pantheon

7
Rome civilized these early tribes for over 300
years

• The land prospered
• Built roads
• Built aqueducts
• Towns
• Sanitation
• Government
• Latin

• but then Rome began pulling out legions to fight
  battles all over the world
• Rome became
• Vulnerable
• Weak
• Divided
• and the Celts came back

8
Welcome to Britain!The Germanic Tribes arrive
441ad

• The Angles
• The Saxons
• The Jutes

9
Angles Saxons and Jutes

• They came to England from an area just below
  Denmark in the first migration.
• They arrived in the fifth century
• They were invited by Vortigen, King of
  Britainwhy?
• To drive off the Picts and the Scots

10
Ah!

• These new tribes were warriors and seamen
• .not farmers. They didnt rotate crops or take
  care of the land.
• and the land was weakened
• ..so the Celts flee yet again to Wales

11
Stories of Arthur, a Celtic warrior, are sung by
bards 741 ad
12
..so what is an epic?

• A long narrative poem about a heroand his
  companions
• It is set in the idealic past, a past imagined
  as greater than the present
• The hero often has superhuman divine traits
• The style is elevated to the greatness of the
  deeds

13
Beowulf

• We know Beowulf comes from these Germanic
  Tribes
• We know that Beowulf came out of these warrior
  kings that the warrior who survived enough
  battles was elevated to the title of king
• Thanes were warriors who pledged themselves to
  these kings
• First King was Aethelbret

14
Beowulf

• First masterpiece of English Literature
• The true story of a hero who comes from Sweden to
  help the tribe in Denmark
• Hygelac real warrior dies in battle in 521
• The story was written down in 725
• Only surviving Old English poem first found in
  10th cen
• Henry VIII ordered all manuscripts/monasteries
• destroyed./16th c
• Lawrence Nowell, 16th c scholar credited with
  preservation
• 3,182 lines survive a fire in 1731

• 2 additional copies were made in 1786-87/Frimur
  Thorkelin/Danish scholar who guessed at words and
  lines
• The author knows Anglo-Saxon customs
• May be a priest, cleric, or tutor
• In love with words
• Blends the pagan and newly emerging Christianity
• Intense/exciting
• Themes of loyalty, success, fate, friendship, and
  legacy
• Lived in West Mercia-midlands of England (dialect)

15
Important themes

• Fate Goes ever as fate must
• It is better to avenge dear ones than to mourn
• Justice must be served (weirgild-manprice)

16
..so what is an epic?

• A long narrative poem about a hero and his
  companions
• It is set in the ideal past, a past imagined as
  greater than the present
• The hero often has superhuman divine traits
• The style is elevated to the greatness of the
  deeds

17
The epic is divided into 2 species

• The primary epic is a stately narrative about
  nobility and recited to nobility.
• It is spoken by a bard who speaks impersonally
  as the voice of the community
• The Iliad, the Odyssey, Beowulf

18
..(cont)

• The poet of the secondary epic has more
  individuality
• Virgils Aeneid
• Miltons Paradise Lost
• Ed.Barnet, Berman, Burto, The Dictionary of
  Literary Terms. Boston Little Brown and
  company, 1960

19
Elements of an Epic(you will need to know this
for the rest of your life)

• Journey of a hero
• Battles/monsters
• Blazon
• Pageantry
• Oratory/rhetoric
• cataloging
• Honor/loyalty
• Destiny
• Assembly scenes
• Perseverance
• Common sense
• Tragic waste

• Repetition
• Symbolism
• Long involved sentences
• Parallelisms
• Hyperbole
• Litotes
• Sung by bards to illiterates
• Heroic leaders on both sides
• Ones legacy after death is important

20
Old English Poetics

• Varies from the principle of iambic foot in
  modern English
• Poems constructed of phrasal lines (this just
  means groups of words that relate)
• Two half lines linked by alliteration on stressed
  syllables
• Half-lines linked by alliteration on stressed
  syllables
• Each half-line has two primary stresses, so four
  per line God-cursed Grendel came greedily
  loping.
• A ceasura separates the two parts
• Alliterative sounds are not necessarily repeated
• Kennings are highly compressed figures of speech,
  which are usually alliterative
• Characteristic of Old Norse poetry
• that dark death-shadow
• edges of iron
• remnants of hammers