1. or…. the tribes who melded to become The British Isles.
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. Hadrian’s Wall
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 Britain…why?
To drive off the Picts and the Scots

10. Ah! These new tribes were warriors and seamen
…….not farmers. They didn’t 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 /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
Virgil’s Aeneid
Milton’s 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
One’s 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”