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History of English Literature

Notes syllables in corresponding lines, but it was uncertain as regarded the number of clearly stressed
ones. The derived English system adopted from the French (1) rime and (2) identical line-length,
and retained from the Anglo-Saxon (3) regularity of stress (4) It largely abandoned the Anglo-
Saxon regard for quantity and (5) it retained alliteration not as a basic principle but as an (extremely
useful) subordinate device. This metrical system, thus shaped, has provided the indispensable
formal basis for making English poetry admittedly the greatest in the modern world.

1.4.3 The English Dialects
The study of the literature of the period is further complicated by the division of English into
dialects. The Norman Conquest put a stop to the progress of the West-Saxon dialect toward
complete supremacy, restoring the dialects of the other parts of the island to their former positions
of equal authority. The actual result was the development of three groups of dialects, the Southern,
Midland (divided into East and West) and Northern, all differing among themselves in forms and
even in vocabulary. Literary activity when it recommenced was about equally distributed among
the three, and for three centuries it was doubtful which of them would finally win the first place.
In the outcome success fell to the East Midland dialect, partly through the influence of London,
which under the Norman kings replaced Winchester as the capital city and seat of the Court and
Parliament, and partly through the influence of the two Universities, Oxford and Cambridge,
which gradually grew up during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and attracted students from
all parts of the country. This victory of the East Midland form was marked by, though it was not in
any large degree due to, the appearance in the fourteenth century of the first great modern English
poet, Chaucer. To the present day, however, the three dialects, and subdivisions of them, are easily
distinguishable in colloquial use; the common idiom of such regions as Yorkshire and Cornwall
is decidedly different from that of London or indeed any other part of the country.

Task Write about the origin of Normans.

1.5 Summary

Old English literature (or Anglo-Saxon literature) encompasses literature written in Old
English (also called Anglo-Saxon) in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period from the 7th
century to the Norman Conquest of 1066.
The Anglo-Saxons left behind no poetic rules or explicit system; everything we know
about the poetry of the period is based on modern analysis.
The metrical system, which begins to appear in the thirteenth century and comes to perfec-
tion a century and a half later in Chaucer’s poems, combined what may fairly be called the
better features of both the systems from which it was compounded.
The study of the literature of the period is further complicated by the division of English
into dialects.

1.6 Keywords
The Junius Manuscript : It is also known as the Caedmon manuscript, which is an illustrated
poetic anthology.
The Nowell Codex : It is also a mixture of poetry and prose. This is the manuscript
that contains Beowulf.

1.7 Review Questions
1. What is extant manuscripts?
2. What is the difference between old English poetry and old English prose?

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