Old English Literature

This book hopes to remove one reason for the neglect of Anglo-Saxon England by a simple historical presentation of the main elements in Anglo-Saxon literature, and especially its poetry, in translation. Although its intentions are scholarly, this history of Old English literature is also an illustrative introduction, assuming little knowledge of this period or its surviving products and none of its language. Literary history should be reasonably inclusive, but in this field even specialist studies have to proceed without the usual dense grid of authors, titles, dates and places. In the present volume, writings without literary interest which happen to have survived, such as charms, wills and recipes, are not discussed. The emphasis falls less upon history than on literature, taken as a qualitative rather than merely a descriptive term.