viii introDuCtion
different about Old english itself—the lexicon (word
bank) was limited, and although it expanded through
various means (loanwords, compounds, affixes, etc.),
that expansion was slow. related to the riddles are a
number of charms found scattered throughout various
Old english texts. These are generally pre-christian in
nature and serve a mystical purpose.
as the society shifted towards christianity, a new
type of poet, the monastic writer, emerged, though
these, too, were generally unknown. Some of these
religious poems include poetic paraphrases of Old
Testament texts (Genesis, exodus, and Daniel), Guthlac
a and B (two versions), Judith, christ and Satan, and
The Fates of the apostles, among several others. an
assortment of Psalms, creeds, prayers, and hymns also
survives. cynewulf, author of the Old english poems
Juliana, Elene, Fates of the Apostles, and Ascension,
signed his poems using a runic signature—his name
spelled in Futhark—hidden in the manner of an
acrostic. Other than his name, however, very little
is actually known about cynewulf. The poems were
composed in the 8th or 9th century and signal a shift
in Old english poetry from heroic or martial verse to
meditative devotional pieces. Still, the biblical themes
are presented in manners similar to the anglo-Saxon
heroic poems. The dream vision poem Dream of the
Rood, for instance, blends christian mysticism with
Germanic heroism in a successful manner. a similar
occurrence can be found in “resignation,” an elegy
about sin and forgiveness.
Finally, some poetry was composed in latin or was
composed in imitation of a classical form. Of particu-
lar relevance are the physiologius poems, which are
adaptations from the latin bestiary tradition, includ-
ing “The Phoenix,” “The Partridge,” “The Whale,” and
“The Panther.” as well, there is a surviving transla-
tion/adaptation of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy,
generally attributed to alfred the Great.
miDDLE EngLish poEtry at a gLanCE
With the Norman conquest in 1066, english lit-
erature was irrevocably changed, as was the english
language. William the conqueror and his followers
spoke Norman French, and as they replaced the exist-
ing anglo-Saxon nobility, French became the language
of court and commerce. english was driven under-
ground. a mournful poem found in the Worcester
cathedral library, mS 174, records this passing: “many
of the teachers are being destroyed and the people
forthwith.” as the language changed, the Old english
verse forms died out too.
literature survived in three languages: anglo-
Norman, the emerging middle english, and latin.
The earliest poems in middle english tended to be
awkward and rough but ably demonstrate linguistic
shifts. For example, The Ormulum, a vernacular work
of the middle-to-late 12th century, while poetically
lacking, is of tremendous importance to orthographers
and grammarians. This massive work—20,000 lines
of exegetical homilies on christ—contains numerous
authorial attempts to regularize spelling and grammar.
Works such as this, in addition to the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, which continued into the 12th century,
show the linguistic adjustments brought on by the
spread of Norman French.
Thematically, the shift is away from epic and elegy
and toward romance and lyric. Still, the earliest
romances often relied on vestiges of the Old english
martial style. For example, one of the first is layamon’s
Brut, based on Wace’s Roman de Brut (1155), which
was written in anglo-Norman. Both were composed in
england and based on Geoffrey of monmouth’s latin
prose work Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the
Kings of Britain; ca. 1130–36). in each of these, the
kings of Britain descend from Brutus, aeneas’s grand-
son, and thus trace their lineage back to Troy. The
country, Britain, is named after Brutus, and no distinc-
tion is made between the celtic Britons (the “British”)
and the Germanic anglo-Saxons (the “english”); thus,
arthur, once a Welsh prince and enemy of the Saxons,
becomes one of the english people’s greatest heroes.
romances recorded knightly adventures (“quests”)
and honorable deeds, occasionally with a subordi-
nate element of love. Their main focus was chivalry,
although later romances show the impact of the idea of
courtly love. These poems recorded the idealized ver-
sion of the upper-class life: hunting, battles, defending
ladies, feasting, reading, playing chess, and other such
leisure activities. a more traditional division includes
the following: the matter of Britain (arthur and his