Anglo- Saxon Heroic Poetry / Epic Poetry.

                                 Anglo- Saxon Heroic Poetry / Epic Poetry.  Anglo Saxon Heroic poetry is the nearest one can get to the oral pagan literature of the Heroic age of Germania. Ofsurviving Anglo-Saxon literature, Heroic poetry brings modern readers most closely into contact with the Germanic origins of the invaders of Britain. This is written in OldEnglish or Anglo-Saxon. The verse used is usually alliterative and stressed, is without any rhyme. Each linecontains four stressed syllables with a varying number ofunstressed ones. The stressed alliterative verse of Anglo-Saxon poetry is clearly the product of an oral courtminstrelsy – being intended to be recited by the scop who frequented the halls of kings and chiefs and sometimes even found service under one master.  The important specimens of this group are : (a) Widsith (b) Beowulf (c) Waldere (d)The Fight at Finnsburgh (e) Battle of Brunanburgh (f)The Battle of Maldon.  (a)- Widsith: A travel book of 143 lines, it narrates the experience of a wandering scop. He visited many tribes and princes of whom he produces a list. But the difficulty is that the princes he names lived centuries apart no one could meet them in a single life. Widsith encourages his fellow scops by referring to the rewards he got from the princes and praises his own profession. The first Part of the poem is much older than the second and is clearly the earliest piece of English verse. Its literary value springs from a competent arrangement of proper names. The view of life presented is a reflective one.  (b)- Beowulf :Beowulf written down about the year 1000 is the First long poem in English. It floated from mouth to mouth before the manuscript was composed.Of its authorship we know nothing. The story of Beowulf is of a monster named Grandel who is disturbing Hrothgarh, king of Danes in the great hall called Herot. A young warrior Called Beowulf comes with a band of warriors to the rescue. He kills Grendel and later fights and kills also Grendel's mother, a sea monster. Fittingly feasted and rewarded by Hrothgarh, Beowulf comes back to his native land.In the second part he becomes a king. In his old age he fights and slays a fire - spitting Dragon, but in the fight he himself receives a mortal wound. The poem is closed with the hero's funeral Ceremony. The poem possesses many features of an epic. (C)-Waldere - Waldere consists of two fragments (of 32 and 31 lines respectively ). Critics assume that these fragments, to telling 63 lines, could be a part of a larger poem – perhaps an epic of 1000 lines. Waldhere, the son of a King of Aquitaine was given up to Attila the Hun and became one of his generals in his later life because of his prowess. In this poem he escapes with Hiltgund, a princess of Burgundy, to whom he has been betrothed as a child. They are attacked and wounded Waldhere kills his enemies. But they are somehow able to continue their journey and happily married at the end.  (D) -The Fight of Finnsburgh : The Fight at Finnsburh depicts the Anglo-Saxon feuds and the plight of women married to the enemies to assuage hostility – as they have to lose kinsmen on both sides when war broke out again. This is a 48 line poem, of course a fragment, dealing with part of the tragic story of Finn and Hildeburh. An attempt is made to heal the long standing feud between the Danes and Frisians by the marriage of the Frisian King Finn to Hildeburh, the sister of Hnaef, the King of the Half-Danes. Apparently after a period of peace the feud resumes and results in the death of Hildeburh’s son, brother and husband.  (E)- The Battle of Brunanburgh: The Battle of Brunanburh, founded in four manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, deals with the battle fought in 937 at Brunanburh between the English under Athelstan, the grandson of King Alfred and the Danes, under Anlaf and Dublin, in alliance with the Scots led by Constantine II and Welsh. The poem celebrates the victory of Athelstan and his brother Edmund and rings with a note of patriotism. But, the poem has not been sobered by any clergyman and so, it ecstatically portrays the grotesque scenes of bloodshed and butchery.  (F)- The Battle of Maldon :- The poem gives the story of a deafeat the English suffered at the hands of the invading Danes in 991. But also that of glory as the defeat is the outcome of the magnanimity of Byrhtnoth who allows his enemies, the invading Danes to cross the river safely out of generosity before the fight begins. Byrhtnoth dies but remains as embodiment of noble swordsmanship. The second half of the poem is concerned with fidelity of his followers who remain determined to avenge their leader’s death.  In another poem Judith we have only the end of it, but that, giving in some 350 lines the slaughter of Holoferness by Judith and the Triumph of the Jews, is the most interesting part of the story.  The Anglo – Saxon heroic poems are vivid description of the battles and struggles, yet, they are allegorical in the inner interpretation to the fight between good and evil, between humanity and the destructive forces and the Wyrd or forces of nature. The imageries in these poems are full of artistry and poetic inspirations for the English poets of next generations.  To conclude, the heroic poetries of the Anglo-Saxon period capture a few moments and thoughts of an age and confers on them the immortality of art.