Everyman lecture – 10:00 (23.0.50)

The Origins of the English Language and Its Literature
English literature almost precedes the english language. Modern english starts to show up around the 1600’s. Shakespeare writes in modern english. What we see today as modern english is a very new revival. There is no systematized spelling, it’s not until Gutenbergs printer that it’s shaped as a whole. It gets systematized with the printer.
Campion wrote in the ”golden age” in english. The theme of love is very common in this period. He wrote before Shakespeare. Campion ”stole” it from Catullus. Rebirth of classical learning. The right place to go is to the source, the roman poets. During the renessance.
English had to find itself, therefore it had to go look for inspiration abroad. The first time English could say this is ”our” invention.
Homer – The Odyssey. James Joyce – Ulysses. They’re ”borrowing” a lot from the greeks and the romans.
Milton is desperate to make english latin. We have got to be latin, if it’s not latin it’s not literature. The language comes really late into the game. English always tries to catch up.
Languages comes from a conquerer taking a country and forcing his language onto the native language. English is a mishmash language. Grammar is also merged.
The vikings/barbarians invaded England, and beat down all culture/cities/religion. They wiped out the latin culture. And settled. Anglo-saxon 450-550 AD. Britain becomes a series of tribal bands. Britain becomes ”aengland”. Britain becomes a country under a german people.
G.M- Trevelyans comment on the Anglo-Saxons: In many respects the life resembles that of Homer’s day. Each was a free Heroic Age, wherein the warrior chief played his part unshackled. Even when Christianity and territorial feudalism were beinning to lay new restraints on the individual, Anglo-Saxon society had in it much that was disordered, fierce, noble and tragic.
The Anglo-Saxon concept.: Law was not what they were told to do, but what custom required of them. The king could not make law; law was not ”made” by any individual, however, august, but was a large, rather untidy bundle of costumes inherited from the past. It was proper for the kind to remind the people of customs that were falling into disuse and to propose punishments for those who ignored them. He could amplify and clarify and enforce custom, he could make the law known. (Seaman, The New History of England, 34.)
Britain becomes ”re-christianized” in around 750 by monks. As they become christian they make the most amazing texts. Lindisfarne Gospels are an example, they’re amazing. These illiterate barbarian people transform into a more sofisticated and literate people later on.
The Story of English:
Computer analysis of the language has shwodn that the 100 most common words in english are all of Anglo-Saxon origin. The basic building blocks of an english sentence – the, is, you, and so – are Anglo-Saxon. Some Old English words, like mann, hus, and drincan, hardly need translation. Equally, a large part of the Anglo-Saxon lexicon – for example, a word like tungdwitega meaning ”atrologer” – is, to us, totally incomprehensible. These roots are important. Anyone who speaks and writes English in the late twentieth century is using accents, words, and grammar which, wirth several dramatic modifications, go all the way back to the Old English of the Anglo-Saxons. There is an unbroken continuity from here to there (both Old English words).
Beowuld becomes known to english scholars in 1850.
Old norse and old english are very close.
70% of the english vocabulary is from latin, through french. England gets invaded by the french, and the french make England write their literature in french.
”The Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 731
Anglo-Saxon riddles and their influence on modern literature.
English uses latin and greek words, mainly for abstractions. Concept is a latin word. Abstractions is a latin word. In English we cannot get there, we need latin. Latin and greek words are used for elevated talk. The anglo-saxon words are not about abstraction – they’re used for current concrete things. The anglo-saxon are very ”thingy” wehn they talk about things.
Riddle from the Exeter Book.: I’m a strange creature, for I satisfy women, a service to the neighbors! No one suffers at my handes except for my slayer…..

Beowulf is set abroad. (Some argue that it’s set in Lejre, close to Roskilde) The earliest english literature is always looking somewhere outside of england.
There is a shift from anglo-saxon literature like beowulf and search for a new identity in frech literature and culture.
From Peter Ackroyd’s Albion.:
”In the writing of the Anglo-Saxons it is always winter; it is cold there, in a culture where the natural world is commonly considered to be an enemy. Winter, and darkness, were the prevailing conditions in a land of frost and snow falling. Storms of rain and hail pass through the night and touch ”the dark ear, wondrously cold. Endurance is all.” Peter Ackroyds, Albion, The Origins of the English Imagination, 72.
There is always a hostile environment – the nature wants to kill you. It’s always winter. The natural world is an enemy.
As L.C.B. Seaman relates, so important was the notion of being under a Lord that the literature of the Anglo-Saxons specifically ”represents the lordless man as a sad, forlorn and defenseless person, a pathetic orphan; but from the point of view of public order he could also be

The Anglo-Saxons lived under a constant anxiety, they live in their ”mead halls” and the hostile and evil universe threathens to tear the mead halls apart.
Grendel is a composit – he is that evil force in the world that is trying to destroy everything good. We can compare him with a troll/orc/ogre. There is an element of magic since Grendel has an amulet which protects him against physical attacks. Grendel is part man, but is supernatural. Grendel is outside the laws of man, which is a big problem Hrothgar.
Genre: epic poem. A tale of good deeds. They’re often about wars, we can learn from them. They’re a part of an oral tradition.
The function of epic poetry, is a tribal literature, Homer wrote his poetry for a small group of people. They find in their poems the important parts of their culture. They find in the poems their history and epic stories. Bards sing the poems.
What’s important in ancient literature is artificiality. – it calls attention to the human touch, it is written even though it’s not very realistic. (Artificiality: something that is not real. Eg. We go look at a painting of Maria and the baby jesus at a musem, it’s really artificial. The neck is long and the baby looks like a pig. Now if you see the painting by michelangelo, it’s an entirely different story.) Ancient people didn’t want their literature to be real.
They use head rhyme (repeating the same sound throughout the verse.)
Chaos is always just outside the circle. Chaos is always a fear. Poems try to control the fear. Poems are a art that tries to control the chaos, and be in control. Every poet and writer writes in a genre, because they want to be within that genre.
Christianity: Beowulf is a story with one foot in the pagan door and one foot in the christian door.
This text is standing in two worlds, and unifies the christian and pagan world, and fails too.