customs, heritage, and language, including reliance upon an-
cient stories and songs to recall past heroes and heroic deeds.
Th e Anglo-Saxon bards were called scops, and the poems they
recited were lays. As in other cultures relying heavily upon
oral tradition, the scop performed before warriors, lords, and
ladies banqueting in great halls. Th e performance took place
nightly for successive days, as the scop sang songs of the past,
changing and adapting them as warranted by circumstances
and the audience. Th e theme of the lay was the heroic code
of valor and brave deeds. An example is Widsith, which in
its current literary form dates from the seventh century, but
which is mentioned here because it includes structure and
verse that dates from an earlier ancient time. Th e poem is an
account of the journey of the poet Widsith and a recollection
of all the places he has visited and all the kings and warriors
he has known from earlier times in Europe, before the Anglo-
Saxon invasion of England.
Another example of a lay recited by a scop is Beowulf, the
eighth-century literary version of which, like Widsith, was
based on earlier oral traditions and stories. Indeed Beowulf,
like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, was meant to be sung by a
bard rather than read. Th e story is based on a heroic code of
the Germanic past, where the worth of a person is based on
great deeds and courage. Beowulf, a king of the Geats, is a
hero who fi ghts monsters such as Grendel without fl inching,
emerging victorious in the end. Even when he dies of wounds
suff ered from fi ghting the Dragon that threatens his kingdom
and people, it is an honorable death, made memorable by his
courage, the stuff of which bards will sing for years to come.
RUNES
Th e Germanic tribes of Europe and their descendants, the
Saxons and the Norse, devised a script that was native to
their lands and peoples and not signifi cantly infl uenced by
Latin or Greek. Th e runic script, called the futhark, devel-
oped during the third century c.e., was based on 24 charac-
ters. Th e runic script was a simple form of inscribing a single
word or short phrase of identifi cation or indication, which
was done by cutting letters into wood or stone with a blade
or chisel. Runic letters were composed of single-stroke lines
that were vertical or diagonal but never circular or horizon-
ta l. A straight ver tica l line | was the letter i. Th e symbol < was
the letter k. Th e symbol ↑ was the letter t. Th e symbol ◊ was
the letter n, pronounced as an ng sound.
Th e Germanic peoples developed and used the runes at
the close of the ancient world to identify personal ownership
of property or to indicate the name of the rune master who
carved the letters. Some ancient Germans believed that the
runic letters and words themselves were magical. Runes were
carved into battle implements, such as shields or swords, as
a means of magic for protection or to help wage battle. Th e
owner of a sword that had been named Márr inscribed on it
the magic words: “May Márr spare nobody.” Th e ancient runic
script was not a literary device, though some of the earliest
Anglo-Saxon poems used runes as abbreviations for phrases.
GREECE
BY DAVID K. UNDERWOOD AND MICHAEL J. O’NEAL
Th e literature of the ancient Greek world spans more than
a thousand years, from the epic poetry of Homer in the late
eighth century b.c.e. to the fi rst century of the Common Era.
Turning their oral traditions and legends into written form,
the Greeks created the fi rst great body of Western literature:
a vast corpus of poetry, prose, dramatic art, philosophy, his-
tory, biography, and criticism, which, through its availability
to a large literate public, preserved and passed down a tra-
dition of canonical works that defi ned the identity of their
civilization, its ideals, and its standards. Th e earliest works of
Greek literature refl ect the impact and creativity of the roving
bards, who retold the heroic stories, myths, and legends of the
world of ancient Mycenae and the Heroic Age.THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY
Foremost among these heroic tales is the story of the Greek
expedition that conquered the wealthy trading city of Troy,
also known as Ilium, on the Ionian or western coast of Asia
Minor, in modern-day Turkey. Th e oral tradition recounting
this episode of Greek history served as the raw material from
which a great poet, whom the Greeks called Homer, com-
posed the two epic masterpieces in hexameter verse (consist-
ing of six metrical feet) that became the classic texts of Greek
literature: the Iliad and the Odyssey. Dating to the end of the
eighth century b.c.e., Homer’s works were probably among
the fi rst to make use of a new alphabetic script that devel-
oped in the Greek world at that time. Th ese two texts were
more than literature: Th ey represented the ethical standards
by which Greek men and women were to lead their lives in
relation to each other and to the gods. Like the Bible, Homer’s
works set a standard and established a foundational tradition
for subsequent Western literature.
Th e Iliad deals with the Trojan War, the wrath of the
proud Greek hero Achilles, and the eventual demise of his
Troja n enemy, Hector; t he Odyssey concentrates on the char-
acter Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his long and arduous voy-
age home aft er the end of the war. A major theme of the Iliad,
announced in the very fi rst line, is the destructive eff ects of
the anger of Achilles, which is brought on initially by the loss
of his slave girl to a fellow Greek and then by the death of his
friend Patroclus. Achilles’ prideful anger further intensifi es
when he temporarily withdraws from the battle against Troy,
brooding in resentment because the Greeks believe they can
succeed militarily without him. Restored to the battlefi eld,
Achilles slays Hector and drags his body in front of the city
gates for all to see. Th is brash violation of the body and honor
of a great hero foreshadows the demise of Achilles himself.
Homer’s point seems clear: Uncontrolled rage and unbridled
hubris can have only one result—the death of the hero.
Th e opening lines of the Iliad announce a second major
theme, one that is explored in the Odyssey as well: that this
“sovereign doom” of human war and strife is the will of theliterature: Greece 655