Anglo-Saxon Society

King
Earls
Thanes
Churls
Thralls
Hereditary aristocracy, magistrates
and military chiefs of the shires (or
counties)
High-ranking warriors:
hunting, war, taxes, and
administration of justice
Peasants
who were
freemen
Elected by the Witan or council of
wise men an chosen among the
members of the royal family
Slaves by birth,
conquest , or
purchase
Earls
(Hereditary, highest class)
Thanes
(Title as reward for valor in battle)
Churls or Serfs
(Servants )
Thralls
(slaves)
The Old English world centered
around the chieftain, the king
(cynning).
His kinsmen would be noblemen,
thegns or thanes, also called eorls.
Ordinary people of no rank at all
would be ceorls. There were also
slaves.

The few other samples of Old English
poetry that has survived has a lyric quality.
The Wanderer, by an anonymous
poet, is about a persona who has lost
his chieftain and all his friends and
kinsmen. He is exiled from his
homeland, he set out to the cold sea
to find a refuge, but is lost. On the
sea, he hallucinates about his beloved
lord and the dead heroes who were
his friends. He is hopeless and lonely.
All is full of trouble, all this realm of earth.
Doom of weirds is changing all the world below the skies.
Here our foe is fleeting, here the friend is fleeting.
Fleeting here is man, fleeting here is woman;
All the earths foundation is an idle thing become.
Notable Anglo-Saxon
Literary Techniques
1) Alliteration - repetition of beginning
consonant sounds in a line of poetry

Ex: Line 31 - Went wondering what
warriors

Ex: Line 33 - Sprawled in sleep,
suspecting
2) Assonance-Repetition of
vowel sounds in a line of
poetry

Ex: line 30-Then when Grendel

Ex: line 60-One against many
and won so Herot


3) Kenning-a one to three-word
phrase used to rename a person or
object

Swan-road (ocean)
Whale-path (ocean)
Sea-steed (boat)
Swimming wood (boat)
Higlacs follower (Beowulf)
Mankinds enemy (Grendel)

4) Caesura-a mid-line pause or
stop within a line of poetry,
noted by a semi-colon, period,
or dash

Ex: Abels death. The Almighty
Ex: earth. He was..


5) Apposition-grammatical
form in which a thing is
renamed in a different word,
phrase, or clause

Ex: Till the monster stirred,
that demon, that fiend,
Grendel.

Old English poetry had no end-
rhyme. It depended on alliteration
and assonance.

Alliteration is the repetition of
the initial consonant
eg. swift swallow flying to the
south
eg. hlafordes hryre, heorth
geneatas


Assonance is the repetition of
vowels creating a kind of internal
rhyme.
eg. Dead in da middle of little
Italy, little did we know that we
riddled some middle men who
didn't do diddily
Every line consisted of two
verses separated by a ceasura or a
pause:
Swa begnornodon / Gaeta leode
hlafordes hryre, / heorth
geneatas