British Literature in Credo: Old English & Late Medieval Periods

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Origins of English English is a member of the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. As Old English, it was first spoken by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes from Jutland, Schleswig and Holstein respectively who settled in Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries AD.

From The Macmillan Encyclopedia
The earliest works of the Old English period (407-1100 AD) are heroic poems, notably the epic Beowulf, which belong to a Germanic oral tradition of alliterative unrhymed verse and were not put into written form until the 7th century.

General name for the range of dialects spoken by Germanic settlers in England between the 5th and 12th centuries AD, also known as Anglo-Saxon.

From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
Although the development of language, like history, is a continuous process, thus making the assignment of periods a somewhat arbitrary proposition, it is generally agreed that the language written and spoken in England from 450 to 1150 is called Old English.

From Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity
The first Anglo-Saxon literary personality.

From Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature
The term Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers not to a single text but to a group of anonymous texts written in Old English prose compiled at various places around England and all deriving ultimately from an original core text. The Chronicle is the chief written source for the history of Anglo-Saxon England, particularly from the reign of King Alfred the Great (871–899) through the Norman Conquest.

An anonymous Old English epic poem in alliterative verse, believed to have been composed in the 8th century AD. Generally agreed to be the finest example of OLD ENGLISH literature, Beowulf, a poem of 3,182 lines, survives in a single manuscript, BL Cotton Vitellius A.xv, copied approximately 1000.

From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
Cædmon is widely regarded as the first English poet, and “Cædmon’s Hymn” or the “Hymn of Creation” is the earliest surviving example of Anglo-Saxon vernacular verse.

From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
Cynewulf, an Anglo-Saxon poet writing sometime during the 8th-9th cs., created a unique fusion of Christian religious themes and the oral-formulaic style of OLD ENGLISH poetry in his Fates of the Apostles, Ascension, Juliana, and Elene.

Period in English history following the defeat (1066) of King Harold of England by William, duke of Normandy, who became William I of England.

Period of the English language from about 1050 to 1550.

From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
The Middle English period is generally acknowledged to have begun in 1066, the year of the Norman Conquest, and to have ended in 1476, the year in which William CAXTON established the first printing press in England.

From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
Caxton was born to prosperous parents, who apprenticed him to Robert Large, a successful silk mercer who became Lord Mayor of London.

English poet, noted for his narrative skill, humour, and insight. The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, reveals his knowledge of human nature and his stylistic variety, from the sophisticated and subtly humorous to the simple and bawdy. Although frequently imitated, Chaucer's blend of humour, realism, philosophical depth, poetic virtuosity, and masterful control of dialogue and character was never matched. Chaucer made a crucial contribution to English literature in using English at a time when much court poetry was still written in Anglo-Norman or Latin. His confidence in the English language encouraged his followers and imitators also to write in English and speeded the transition from French as the language of literature.

From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
English medieval drama is today the subject of an enthusiastic scholarly and popular revival. The literary and theatrical qualities of the plays are being newly revealed in academic research and in exciting productions, mounted in physical conditions approximating to the original staging.

From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
The legend of King Arthur remains alive in English literature today largely because of the work of Malory, who shaped it into what is sometimes seen as the first novel in English, published by William CAXTON in 1485 as Le Morte d’Arthur (wr. ca. 1470).

Born in London on 7 February 1478, and executed on Tower Hill in the same city on 6 July 1535. English statesman and author of Utopia, celebrated as a martyr in the Roman Catholic Church. He received a Latin education in the household of Cardinal Morton and at Oxford.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Putative author of Piers Plowman. He was born probably at Ledbury near the Welsh marshes and may have gone to school at Great Malvern Priory. Although he took minor orders he never became a priest.