Anglo-Saxon Poetry

General

• Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse, 4-stress/line with medial caesura (pause)
  
  
• presumably oral origins, oral poetry retained in memory and passed on from generation to generation
  
  
• formulaic poetry, traditional formulas (stock phrases and expressions), recycled, adapted, and used in the crafting of new poems
  
  
• interlace designs, interweaving of motifs, images, formulas; poetic design reminiscent of interlacing patterns Anglo-Saxon art
  
  
• use of kennings, metaphorical word compounds, e.g. hronrad (whale-road) = ocean
  
  
  

Caedmon's Hymn ("Hymn of Creation", c. 670) (images:| large | small |

• one of the oldest poetic works in English
  
  
• Caedmon was attached to the monastery at Whitby
  
  
• text of the poem preserved in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731)
  
  
• presumably Caedmon was illiterate, poem might be therefore example of oral-formulaic poetry
  

The Dream of the Rood

• preserved in Vercelli Book (c. 1000)
  
  
• portions of the text in runic inscription on Ruthwell Cross (8th c.)
  
  
• dream vision
  
  
• prosopopeia, speaking tree
  
  
• mixture of cultural and religious traditions: Christian, Germanic, Celtic

The Wanderer

• preseved in Exeter Book (c. 1000)
  
  
• elegy, elegiac mood
  
  
• themes of loss, loneliness, exile
  
  
• ubi sunt ("where are they?") motif
  
  
• transitoriness of earthly things
  
  
• idea of comfort and rest in God