... of a constant number either one or to of unaccented syllables that alays precede or follo any stressed syllable. Another unfamiliar but equally striking feature in the formal character of Old English poetry is structural alliteration, or the use of syllables beginning ith similar sounds in to or three of the stresses in each line.All these qualities of form and spirit are exemplified in the epic poem Beoulf, ritten in the 8th century. Beginning and ending ith the funeral of a great king, and composed against a background of impending disaster, it describes the exploits of a Scandinavian culture hero, Beoulf, in destroying the monster Grendel, Grendels mother, and a fire-breathing dragon. In these sequences Beoulf is shon not only as a glorious hero but also as a savior of the people. The Old Germanic virtue of mutual loyalty beteen leader and folloers is evoked effectively and touchingly in the aged Beoulfs sacrifice of his life and in the reproaches heaped on the retainers ho desert him in this climactic battle. The extraordinary artistry ith hich fragments of other heroic tales are incorporated to illumine the main action, and ith hich the hole plot is reduced to symmetry, has only recently been fully recognized.Another feature of Beoulf is the eakening of the sense of the ultimate poer of arbitrary fate. The injection of the Christian idea of dependence on a just God is evident. That feature is typical of other Old English literature, for almost all of hat survives as preserved by monastic copyists. Most of it as actually composed by religious riters after the early conversion of the people from their faith in the older Germanic divinities.Sacred legend and story ere reduced to verse in poems resembling Beoulf in form. At first such verse as rendered in the somehat simple, stark style of the poems of Caedmon, a humble man of the late 7th century ho as described by the historian and theologian Saint Bede the Venerable as having received the gift of song from God. Later the same type of subject matter as treated in the more ornate language of the Anglo-Saxon poet Cyneulf and his school. The best of their productions is probably the passionate Dream of the Rood.In addition to these religious compositions, Old English poets produced a number of more or less lyrical poems of shorter length, hich do not contain specific Christian doctrine and hich evoke the Anglo-Saxon sense of the harshness of circumstance and the sadness of the human lot. The anderer and The Seafarer are among the most beautiful of this group of Old English poems.ProseProse in Old English is represented by a large number of religious orks. The imposing scholarship of monasteries in northern England in the late 7th century reached its peak in the Latin ork Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 731 by Bede. The great educational effort of Alfred, king of the est Saxons, in the 9th century produced an Old English translation of this important historical ork and of many others, including De Consolatione Philosophiae The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius. This as a significant ork of largely Platonic philosophy easily adaptable to Christian thought, and it has had great influence on English literature.MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIODExtending from 1066 to 1485, this period is noted for the extensive influence of French literature on native English forms and themes. From the Norman-French conquest of England in 1066 until the 14th century, French largely replaced English in ordinary literary composition, and Latin maintained its role as the language of learned orks. By the 14th century, hen English again became the chosen language of the ruling classes, it had lost much of the Old English inflectional system, had undergone certain sound changes, and had acquired the characteristic it still possesses of freely taking into the native stock numbers of foreign ords, in this case French and Latin ones. Thus, the various dialects of Middle English spoken in the 14th century ere similar to Modern English and can be read ithout great difficulty today.The Middle English literature of the 14th and 15th centuries is much more diversified than the previous Old English literature. A variety of French and even Italian elements influenced Middle English literature, especially in southern England. In addition, different regional styles ere maintained, for literature and learning had not yet been centralized. For these reasons, as ell as because of the vigorous and uneven groth of national life, the Middle English period contains a ealth of literary monuments not easily classified.Allegory In the north and est, poems continued to be ritten in forms very like the Old English alliterative, four-stress lines. Of these poems, The Vision of illiam Concerning Piers the Ploman, better knon as Piers Ploman, is the most significant. No thought to be by illiam Langland, it is a long, impassioned ork in the form of dream visions a favorite literary device of the day, protesting the plight of the poor, the avarice of the poerful, and the sinfulness of all people. The emphasis, hoever, is placed on a Christian vision of the life of activity, of the life of unity ith God, and of the synthesis of these to under the rule of a purified church. As such, despite various faults, it bears comparison ith the other great Christian visionary poem, La divina commedia The Divine Comedy, by Dante. For both, the atchords are heavenly love and love operative in this orld.A second and shorter alliterative vision poem, The Pearl, ritten in northest England about 1370, is similarly doctrinal, but its tone is ecstatic, and it is far more deliberately artistic. Apparently an elegy for the death of a small girl although idely varying religious allegorical interpretations have been suggested for it, the poem describes the exalted state of childlike innocence in heaven and the need for all souls to become as children to enter the pearly gates of the Ne Jerusalem. The ork ends ith an impressive vision of heaven, from hich the dreamer aakes. In general, poetry and prose expressing a mystical longing for, and union ith, the deity is a common feature of the late Middle Ages, particularly in northern England.Tales of Chivalry and AdventureA third alliterative poem, supposedly by the same anonymous author ho rote The Pearl, is Sir Gaain and the Green Knight late 1300s, a romance, or tale, of knightly adventure and love, of the general medieval type introduced by the French. Most English romances ere dran, as this one apparently as, from French sources. Most of these sources are concerned ith the knights of King Arthur and seem to go back in turn to Celtic tales of great antiquity. In Sir Gaain, against a background of chivalric gallantry, the tale is told of the knights resistance to the blandishments of another mans beautiful ife.Chaucer To other important, no alliterative verse romances form part of the ork of Geoffrey Chau...
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