Old English written records

Our knowledge of the OE language comes mainly from manuscripts written in Latin characters. The first English words to be written down with the help of Latin characters were personal names and place names inserted in Latin texts; then came glosses and longer textual insertions. Among the earliest insertions in Latin texts are pieces of OE poetry. Bede’s HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA GENTIS ANGLORUM (written in Latin in the 8th c.) contains and English fragment of five lines known as “Bede’s Death Song” and a religious poem of nine lines, “Cadmon’s Hymn”. It was translated into Kentish dialect. The greatest poem of that time was BEOWULF, an epic of the 7th or 8th c. It was originally composed in the Mercian or Northumbrian dialect, but has come down to us in a 10th c. West Saxon copy. It is valued both as a source of linguistic material and as a work of art; it is the oldest poem in Germanic literature. BEOWULF is built up of several songs arranged in three chapters. It is based on old legends about the tribal life of the ancient Teutons. The author is unknown. Religious poems paraphrase, more or less closely, the books of the Bible – GENESIS, EXODUS (written by Cadmon, probably in Northumbrian dialect). CHRIST, FATE OF THE APOSTLES tell the life-stories of apostles and saints or deal with various subjects associated with the Gospels. OE poetry is characterized by a specific system of versification and some peculiar stylistic devices. Practically all of it is written in the OG alliterative verse: the lines are not rhymed and the number of stressed syllables being fixed. The style of OE poetry is marked by the wide use of metaphorical phrases or compounds describing the qualities or functions of the thing. OE prose is a most valuable source of information for the history of the language. The earliest samples of continuous prose are the first pages of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLES. It was written in West Saxon dialect. By the 10th c. the West Saxon dialect had firmly established itself as the written form of English.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-03