We have seen that Anglo-Saxon succeed in producing work both in prose and verse which has not only intrinsic merit and interest and additional historic claim but which has further attraction. Icelandic itself was probably some two centuries behind Anglo-Saxon in use of vernacular prose. We are going to study the two literary form of literature Anglo-Saxon poetry and Anglo-Saxon prose.
ANGLO-SAXON POETRY
However this may be,it is certain, as literature the Anglo-Saxon in prose is very much less than its achievement in verse.
Anglo-Saxon poetry,then, as we see it in the sufficient if not very plentiful remains of its best period before the end of the eighth century , displays merits of what we my call poetical intention considerably surpassing those shown by most litterateurs in their early stages.In the first respect the author of Beowulf is at least not less richly and variously endowed than even the author of the Chanson De Roland; in second the author of Phoenix is very far ahead of the author of Poema del Cid. The alliteration supplied a musical charm which has never died out of English poetry, and therefore never can die out of it. For a certain meditative kind of poetry,like that of the Ruin and the great Phoenix passage, the whole scheme is well fitted, in its earliest form, as in Beowulf, and its latest and almost last, as in Layamon. The poem called Widsith, from its opening word,designation of a 'far-travelled' and interesting as sketching the gainful and varied life of a minstrel in dark ages. There are names in Widsith-Heorot, Hrothgar, and others Beowulf. Beowulf presents itself in a manner which may be summarised as follows;it is a poem, in rather less than 3200 lines, which must necessary be very old first invasion of Britain by the Saxons. The other remains which certainly or probably belong to the same class chronologically with Widsith and Beowulf are of much shorter length The Fragment about sixty lines called Waldhere. So, too the Fight and Finnsburg about fifty lines and Complaint of Deor shows us immense advance in poetical form.
Some notice of the more remarkable contents and characteristics of these era's poem will be given presently. Caedmon, who towards the and of the century was servant of the monastery of Whitby , was miraculously inspired to write sacred poetry. The Runic charades or acrostics which compose the name 'Cynewulf' a great poet who wrote merely poems.
ANGLO-SAXON PROSE
The prose division of Anglo-Saxon literature is of less than the verse; but it is more abundant in quality ,and it is not separated from later developments of the language. In all languages poetry as literature comes before prose, the immortal jest of Moliere said that though prose is more obviously natural to man in conversation. By the ninth century ,however, there is no doubt about the the plentiful production and the at least relative accomplishment of Anglo- Saxon prose.Of the three writers of it who alone may be said to have a personal reputation , king Alfred, Elfric, and Archbishop Wulfstan,the first belongs to this century, the last third of which was was covered by his glorious and beneficent reign. The Saxon Chronicle, in its continuous and fairy accomplished shape, may be a little older than Alfred himself.
Alfred's works are, with the exception of some original insertions, translation-indeed, the matter is about the last that the Anglo-Saxon as a literature can claim. But in the special circumstances this makes far more for the king's honour. His literary work was inspired not by any desire of fame, nor by any need of satisfying a peremptory personal craving to write, but wholly and solely by the wish to benefit his people,to do something that might help England.His noteworthy works the History and Geography of Orosius;one in domestic history, the unrivalled Ecclesiastical History of Bede;the most popular ethical and philosophical treatise of the Dark Ages, the Consolation of Boethius; and an ecclesiastical book, the Cura Pastorals of Pope Greogory. Alfred's translation of Bede's History has yet again a different kind of interest; and to us it is specially welcome because it brings the Venerable one within the compass a history English Literature.
The two remaining known and distinctive writers of Anglo-Saxon prose come under the disqualification which attaches from the purely literary point of view to religious writers, in all cases but those of a very few periods and a few individuals outsides them-the disqualification not at all that they are religious but they are second hand the first is Elfric, is undoubtedly the greatest pose writer in the language known by his great work Blickling Homilies. And the third writer Wulfstone, Archbishop of York, in him we find more attempt at periodic prose.
Here we are going to study of English literature so first we have to define what is literature and how it is different from other