Beowulf, the original text
Beowulf is probably the most famous Anglo-Saxon poem. It was told and retold by the germanic people before they came to England and when they did invade the country they brought this story with them too. It is believed that the story originates from the 6th century AD and it was put in writing around the 10th century. Today, only one manuscript remains. So, it is safe to say that it is a miracle that the story survived into this day and age at all.
The text of the manuscript is written in Old-English and takes the form of a typical Anglo-Saxon poem. This means that the story deals with wars and fights and its heroes are warriors and strong men. The villains are monsters and dragons and typically, the hero of the tale has to fight these monsters in order to prove that he is a brave warrior and worthy to lead his people. Key concepts are bravery and loyalty. These elements strongly reflect the Germanic culture as we have seen in previous parts of our webquest.
Beowulf also is a very long poem. It consists of more than 3000 lines.
The illustration on this page shows the opening lines of the poem in Old-English. You see a sample from the manuscript and a type written version of these lines.
When you look at these lines you will see that it is not just the language that is different. The poem itself takes a different form than we know today. In today's poems we usually use so-called end rhyme, but Anglo-Saxon poems still used alliteration, which means that the rhyming words, within a line, start with the same letter/sound. Also, note that these poems use what is called half lines. This means that a line can be divided into two halves and that each half line has four stressed syllables.
The text of the manuscript is written in Old-English and takes the form of a typical Anglo-Saxon poem. This means that the story deals with wars and fights and its heroes are warriors and strong men. The villains are monsters and dragons and typically, the hero of the tale has to fight these monsters in order to prove that he is a brave warrior and worthy to lead his people. Key concepts are bravery and loyalty. These elements strongly reflect the Germanic culture as we have seen in previous parts of our webquest.
Beowulf also is a very long poem. It consists of more than 3000 lines.
The illustration on this page shows the opening lines of the poem in Old-English. You see a sample from the manuscript and a type written version of these lines.
When you look at these lines you will see that it is not just the language that is different. The poem itself takes a different form than we know today. In today's poems we usually use so-called end rhyme, but Anglo-Saxon poems still used alliteration, which means that the rhyming words, within a line, start with the same letter/sound. Also, note that these poems use what is called half lines. This means that a line can be divided into two halves and that each half line has four stressed syllables.