Old English Period(449-1066)

English Literature

The division of a nation’s literary history into periods offers a convenient method for studying authors and movements. Hence, most literary histories and anthologies are arranged by periods. However, it has been an everlasting debate on how to classify the English literature into periods. Some scientists classify by the dates of the historical events of the time and give the names of the most important people involved (Victorian Age, Augustan Age, etc.). Others claim that if we deal with the literature, we should classify by the names of the dominating literary movements or to name a period for its greatest or most representative author like Romantic Period, Realistic Period or Age of Shakespeare, Age of Dickens, etc. Logically, some single principle should be adhered in classification, but such consistency is seldom found. In most histories and anthologies, authors follow “mixed” principle, using all the three above mentioned approaches. So we will take the classifications most commonly used in the literary world.

English Literature in Periods

1.  Old English Period (449-1066)

2.  Medieval Period (1066-1485)

3.  Renaissance Period (1485-1660)

1485-1558 Tudor Age

1558-1603 Elizabethan Age

1603-1660 Commonwealth Interregnum

4.  Neoclassic Period (1660-1798)

1660-1700 Age of Restoration

1700-1750 Augustan Age

1750-1798 Age of Johnson

5.  Romantic Period (171798-1870)

1798-1832 Age of Romantic Movements

1832-1870 Early Victorian Age

6.  Realistic Period (1870-1914)

7.  Modernist and Contemporary Periods (1914-present)

Old English Period(449-1066)

The Old English Period starts in 449 when Germanic tribes (Jutes, Angles, Saxons) crossed the North Sea to England and Anglo-Saxon rule began. For this reason this period is sometimes referred as the Anglo-Saxon Period.

Many hundred years ago (about 4^th century A.D) the country we now call England was known as Britain and the people who lived there were the Britons. They belonged to Celtic race and the language they spoke was Celtic. In the 1^st century A.D. Britain was conquered by the powerful Romans under the command of Julius Caesar who later wrote an interesting account of Britain. Towards the end of the 4^th century the invasion of all of Europe by barbaric peoples compelled the Romans to leave Britain. As soon as the Britons were left to themselves, some Germanic tribes called Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain. Saxon monarchies were established in Sussex, Wessex and Essex in the fifth and sixth centuries; Anglian monarchies were in Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia in the sixth and seventh centuries.

Romans as well as pagan Germanic tribes influenced both in the English language and culture: the names of the gods worshiped by Anglo-Saxons and Romans became the names of the days (Tuesco-God of Darkness, Woden-god of War, Thor- the Thunderer, and Freia- goddess of Prosperity, and the Romans’ god of time Saturn).

English literature began as oral, not written, literature with songs and poems celebrating heroes. These poems were passed on by minstrels, or scops, who composed many poems and songs through which the major battles and the feats of the tribe’s heroes and kings were recited and remembered.

The beautiful epic “Beowulf”, composed about 700 by an unknown minstrel, may be called the foundation-stone of all British poetry. Beowulf is a young knight of the Geats, or Jutes. His adventures form two parts of this heroic epic. Beowulf fights not for his own glory, but for the benefit of his people. He is ready to sacrifice his life for them.

Written literature did not exist in the British Isles unil about the year 700. It first comes to our attention in the work of the most famous of the Anglo-Saxon monks, the Venerable Bede, the author of “Ecclesiastical History of the English History” in Latin. He was brought up in the monasteries of Northumbria where he received the best education of the time. He wrote mostly in Latin. His famous book, “The History of the English Church,” and other books on natural history and astronomy were well known in France and Italy. The first notable written literature actually composed in Old English came almost two centuries later when the remarkable Anglo-Saxon King Alfred wrote his “Anglo-Saxon Chronicles,” also a history, in the 892. Besides being a skilful politician, Alfred was a Latin scholar; he had traveled on the continent and visited France. He is famous not only for having built the first navy, but for trying to enlighten his people. He drew up a code of laws. He translated the Church history of Bede from Latin into Anglo-Saxon, the native language of his people, and a portion of the Bible as well. To him the English owe the famous “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” which may be called the first history of England, the first prose in English literature. Alfred remains the only English ruler to be styled “The Great.”