Essential Presentation

A generously made presentation by Rosario Zenna and Salvatore Ruggiero

The Origins of English literature

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Towards the 700 BC migrants from Germany started to reach England and those people were called Celts but also Britons, who spoke their own Celtic language. This language is still present even today in the British isles in the form of Welsh,Gaelic and Irish. The Celts where divided in tribes that lived in villlages and would even fight against eachother. Their economy was based on fishing, hunting and agriculture.

The Celts

The first inhabitrants of England were the pre-historic Iberians. Very little is known about them, but there is only one thing that still remains of their ancient civilisation. A well-known monument called the Stonehenge. An enormous circle made of massive stones which was theorized to be a temple.

The first inhabitants of England

The territory of England was later conquered in AD 455 by the Anglo-Saxons, a mixture of germanic tribes that were made up by Angles, Saxons and the Jutes. The Saxon were settled in the south and west, the Angles in the east and the Jutes on the isles of Wright, dividing the country in seven kingdoms. They prefered to live in smaller comunities and they spoke Old English that was the mixed languages they spoke. Some of these tribes used the runic alphabet .

The Anglo-Saxons

With the leadership of Julius Caesar the Romans invaded England in 55BC, but they never fully settled until AD 43.They built towns and roads throughout the country and spread their own culture, lifestyle and language. They never managed to conquer Ireland nor Scotland and in Ad122 The emperor Hadrian ordered to build a great wall in the north of England called Hadrian's wall, to prevent possible invasions fom the tribes of Scotland. In the end the civilisation divided in English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh. But England remained under the Roman Empire for another 400 years

The Romans

The Vikings came from Denmark and Norway, and they began their conquest of England in the 8th century entering through London. Making enemies like the Celts and even the Anglo-Saxons, most notably thanks to their confrontation with the Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred the Great who had to fight them off but was forced to give up the control of Northen England.

The Vikings

Around the 2nd and the 3rd century AD the romans had brought Christianity with them in England but with the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons most where pushed away. But in AD 600 Pope Gregory started a process of Christanisation where thousands of people were baptised, churches were built and temples were used for christian rites. The monk St.Augustine rebuilt an old church in Canterbury, founding a monastery and becoming the first archbishop of Canterbury.

The Christianity in England

Anglo-Saxon poetry was not written but an oral tradition. The scops would earn money by singing the myths,legends and historical events,they had to know these poems by heart often improvising. It was mainly after the Christian scribes that transformed the oral intro written form. Much of the Anglo-Saxon is lost but there are still 4 manuscripts that remain well kept: Beouwulf,Junius,The Exter book and the Vercelli book.

The unwritten word

The origins of English Literature date back to the Celts and the Anglo-Saxon tribes who used runic alphabet. It was made of runes that were not only used for writing but also magic and prophecies

The runic alphabet

The formal elements of Anglo-Saxon poetry were:.kenning: a type of methapor.caesura: a break or pause in a line.alliteration: repetition of consonants

Anglo-Saxon poetry

The poetry of that time fell intro two categories: pagan and christian that was written in Latin or Old English. The Anglo-Saxon conversion to Christianity gave birth to religious poetry. Pagan poetry can be divided into epic and elegy.

Pagan versus Christian

The elegy is an epic and melanchonic poem which mourns a person or a group of people that passed away, another type of elegy is pastoral elegy that was centered around the peace and semplicity of sheperds.

Elegy

Epic poems crearly reflect the pre-Christian oral tradition both for their meter and theme that was founded on ideals of heroism,loyalty and generosity.

Epic

During a feast organised by the King of Danes,Grendel, a monster carries off 30 of the king's men and brings them to his cave to eat them. Grendel terrorises the kingdom for 12 more years until the hero Beowulf, nephew of the king,comes to rescue witn 14 helpers, he defeats Grendel in a bloody battle. That same night Grendel's mother takes revenge taking a friend of the king and his counselor, again Beowulf comes to rescue killing Grendel's mother in a fight, later on he become king himselkf and rules for 50 years until a dragon brings death and destruction to the lands. With the help of his companion ,Wiglaf, Beowulf defeats the dragon but ends up badly wounded dying later on, in the end Beowulf receives a great funeral and is burned on a pyre.

THE STORY

Beowulf is one of the 4 Anglo-Saxon manuscripts that survived to our days, despite being damaged in a fire in 1731 it still survives in a British library. Its the most important Anglo-Saxon manuscripts that survived,it describes a great warrior facing monsters and dragons to defend his lord and land. It takes place in the 6th century around South Scandinavia, the poem reflects a great knowlege of Swedish history and artefacts. The hero Beowulf is a tipical warrior of the past: strong,fierce,cruel and heroic. It was originally written in Old English then it was translated to Modern English in 1999 by Seamus Heaney.

BEOWULF

The social order in England altered drammatically because of the Normans. Many Anglo-Saxon families opposed to the norman aristocracy which lead to confilict between the two,but in the end after some conflicts they began making mixed up marriages,mixed languages and traditions.

The social order under the Normans

In 1066 William Of Normandy defeated Harlord II in the battle of Hastings. When William was crowned William I, the Normans who came from Denmark that spoke French and had French culture began a period of time that's gonna be fundamental for the development of England

The Normans

The Domesday book was a record of all the land owned in England. It was made so the king could equally demand the right amount of taxes.Henry the II enforced the Constitution of Clarendon in 1164, this constutution enforced that a bishop who was accused of crimes had to first be judjed by the king's court and then by an ecclesiastical court but this was not accepted by the bishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket who after a six-year exile was assasinated bt the king's knights in the cathedral. In 1166 the Common Law was introduced which was a set of rules that followed the decisions of old judges insted of only following the rules.

The Domesday book

The system that the Normans established became the model of the medieval goverment called the feudal system. On the top there was the king, right below there were the aristocratic families and then then the knights who served in battle. The lower class were the peasant made up of the civilis and the merchants.

The feudal system

Henry II was followed by his son Richard I, also known as the Lionheart who spent the entire 10 years of his reign abroad in wars. in his absence, his younger brother John became king but was very unpopular for his high taxation policy. But he then was forced to sign a document, known as the Magna Carta, that limited the supreme power of the king. And In the following centuries with Henry III, Edward I and II there was a progression towards the building of Modern English political system through other reforms

Richard the Lionheart and King John

In the second half of the 14th century John Wycliffe led a protest against the Chruch's corruption. The movement was called the "Lollardy reform movement" and most of its followers were executed and burned as heretics, but they can be defined as forerunners of the Protestant movement in the 16th century

John Wycliffe

Edward III went to war against France to protect his French territories, starting in 1337 but getting interrupted by a plague that killed one third of the population called Black Death in 1348. In 1369 the war was resumed with Richard II, Edward III's successor. The English gained some important victories, but neither side truly got significant advantage. The war ended in 1453 with England losing all French possessions except Calais.

The Hundred Years' War

Another war broke out in the 15th century, more precisely between two dynasties, the House of Lancasters and the House of York. Each dynasty/house was represented by a rose: a red rose for the Lancasters and a white rose for the Yorks. This war was deemed even more destructive than the Hundred years' war and it started in a negative period for England. It ended in 1485 with the Battle of Bosworth and the defeat of Richard III by Henry VII Tudor, establishing a future for the dynasty of the Tudors (aligned with the Lancasters).

The wars of the Roses

La catastrofe di Manfredonia è qua...