Extant manuscripts

Extant manuscripts

In total there are about 400 surviving manuscripts containing Old English text, 189 of them considered major. These manuscripts have been highly prized by collectors since the 16th century, both for their historic value and for their aesthetic beauty of uniformly spaced letters and decorative elements.

There are four major manuscripts:

· The Junius manuscript, also known as the Caedmon manuscript, which is an illustrated poetic anthology.

· The Exeter Book, also an anthology, located in the Exeter Cathedral since it was donated there in the 11th century.

· The Vercelli Book, a mix of poetry and prose; how it came to be in Vercelli, Italy, no one knows, and is a matter of debate.

· The Nowell Codex, also a mixture of poetry and prose. This is the manuscript that contains Beowulf.

Research in the 20th century has focused on dating the manuscripts (19th-century scholars tended to date them older than modern scholarship has found); locating where the manuscripts were created—there were seven major scriptoria from which they originate: Winchester, Exeter, Worcester, Abingdon, Durham, and two Canterbury houses Christ Church and St. Augustine; and identifying the regional dialects used: Northumbrian, Mercian, Kentish, West Saxon (the last being the main dialect).

Not all of the texts can be fairly called literature; some are merely lists of names or aborted pen trials. However those that can present a sizable body of work, listed here in descending order of quantity: sermons and saints' lives (the most numerous), biblical translations; translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers; Anglo-Saxon chronicles and narrative history works; laws, wills and other legal works; practical works on grammar, medicine, geography; lastly, but not least important, poetry.

English Literature

English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was born in Poland, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad, Vladimir Nabokov was Russian. In other words, English literature is as diverse as the verities & dialects of English spoken around the world. In academia, the term often labels departments & programs practicing English studies in secondary & tertiary educational systems. Despite the variety of authors of English literature, works of William Shakespeare remain paramount throughout the English speaking world.

Old English Literature

Old English literature encompasses literature written in Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon), during the 600-year Anglo-Saxon period of England, from the mid-5th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066. These works include genres such as epic poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible translations, legal works, chronicles, riddles, and others. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period, a significant corpus of both popular interest and specialist research.

Literature and Life

Literature is a criticism of life seen through a temperament, hence the study of literature is a study of various temperaments, life is variegated, its facets and problems are multifarious and a study of literature gives us life freely and abundantly. The questions about the technical side of this study, the methods of study, etc. do not concern us. We approach the subject on a broader basis. Thus regarded, literature is a pleasant pastime, an enjoyable companion in all ages and conditions of health. When we relax in an armchair after the day’s work, a story or a poem soon lulls our fagged brains to refreshing ease and slumber. We are hurrying in an express train, a novel is our companion. Out on a picnic we soon are a-piece with Nature. A book is our tonic in attacks of illness and despondence when life hangs heavy on our hands. Books have become an integral part of modern life; we do not know what we shall do without them. Time is money but even then sometimes it becomes irksome.