Ancient English Literature: General Overviews & Critical Studies

Abstract

Old English is the name given to the initial recorded stage of the English language, up to approximately 1150AD. It refers to the language as it was used in the long period of time from the coming of Germanic invaders and settlers to Britain—in the period following the collapse of Roman Britain in the early fifth century—up to the Norman Conquest of 1066, and beyond into the first century of Norman rule in England. It is therefore first and foremost the language of the people normally referred to by historians as the Anglo-Saxons. Within the field of English, then, Old English studies afford unique opportunities, since no literature in English is as culturally remote as that of the Anglo-Saxons, and the differences expose clearly some of the otherwise invisible assumptions on which modernity, as we perceive it, is based. To cite just one example, the very act of reading a book, for instance this one, differs basically from the near the beginning medieval experience, and in a variety of ways. Yet, when reading was a private activity, readers commonly pointed to the words and spoke them aloud; but more often reading was a communal activity in which many “readers” never actually saw the page.