doubt that this poem gained nothing and lost much in the process
of literary redaction.
The conversion of the people to Christianity necessarily involved the decline of the minstrelsy that celebrated the glories of heathen times. Yet the descendants of Woden, even when they were devout Christians, would not easily lose all interest in the achievements of their kindred of former days. Chaucer’s knowledge of “the song of Wade” is one proof among others that even so late as the 14th century the deeds of Germanic heroes had not ceased to be recited in minstrel verse. The paucity of the extant remains of Old English heroic poetry is no argument to the contrary. The wonder is that any of it has survived at all. We may well believe that the professional reciter would, as a rule, be jealous of any attempt to commit to writing the poems which he had received by tradition or had himself composed. The clergy, to whom we owe the writing and the preservation of the Old English MSS., would only in rare instances be keenly interested in secular poetry. We possess, in fact, portions of four narrative poems, treating of heroic legend—Beowulf, Widsith, Finnesburh and Waldere. The second of these has no poetical merit, but great archaeological interest. It is an enumeration of the famous kings known to German tradition, put into the mouth of a minstrel (named Widsith, “far-travelled”), who claims to have been at many of their courts and to have been rewarded by them for his song. The list includes historical persons such as Ermanaric and Alboin, who really lived centuries apart, but (with the usual chronological vagueness of tradition) are treated as contemporaries. The extant fragment of Finnesburh (50 lines) is a brilliant battle piece, belonging to a story of which another part is introduced episodically in Beowulf. Waldere, of which we have two fragments (together 68 lines) is concerned with Frankish and Burgundian traditions based on events of the 5th century; the hero is the “Waltharius” of Ekkehart’s famous Latin epic. The English poem may possibly be rather a literary composition than a genuine example of minstrel poetry, but the portions that have survived are hardly inferior to the best passages of Beowulf.
It may reasonably be assumed that the same minstrels who entertained the English kings and nobles with the recital of ancient heroic traditions would also celebrate in verse the martial deeds of their own patrons and their immediate ancestors. Probably there may have existed an abundance of poetry commemorative of events in the conquest of Britain and the struggle with the Danes. Two examples only have survived, both belonging to the 10th century: The Battle of Brunanburh, which has been greatly over-praised by critics who were unaware that its striking phrases and compounds are mere traditional echoes; and the Battle of Maldon, the work of a truly great poet, of which unhappily only a fragment has been preserved.
One of the marvels of history is the rapidity and thoroughness with which Christian civilization was adopted by the English. Augustine landed in 597; forty years later was born an Englishman, Aldhelm, who in the judgment of his contemporaries throughout the Christian world was the most accomplished scholar and the finest Latin writer of his time. In the next generation England produced in Bede (Bæda) a man who in solidity and variety of knowledge, and in literary power, had for centuries no rival in Europe. Aldhelm and Bede are known to us only from their Latin writings, though the former is recorded to have written vernacular poetry of great merit. The extant Old English literature is almost entirely Christian, for the poems that belong to an earlier period have been expurgated and interpolated in a Christian sense. From the writings that have survived, it would seem as if men strove to forget that England had ever been heathen. The four deities whose names are attached to the days of the week are hardly mentioned at all. The names Thunor and Tiw are sometimes used to translate the Latin Jupiter and Mars; Woden has his place (but not as a god) in the genealogies of the kings, and his name occurs once in a magical poem, but that is all. Bede, as a historian, is obliged to tell the story of the conversion; but the only native divinities he mentions are the goddesses Hrēth and Eostre, and all we learn about them is that they gave their names to Hrēthemōnath (March) and Easter. That superstitious practices of heathen origin long survived among the people is shown by the acts of church councils and by a few poems of a magical nature that have been preserved; but, so far as can be discovered, the definite worship of the ancient gods quickly died out. English heathenism perished without leaving a record.
The Old English religious poetry was written, probably without exception, in the cloister, and by men who were familiar with the Bible and with Latin devotional literature. Setting aside the wonderful Dream of the Rood, it gives little evidence of high poetic genius, though much of it is marked by a degree of culture and refinement that we should hardly have expected. Its material and thought are mainly derived from Latin sources; its expression is imitated from the native heroic poetry. Considering that a great deal of Latin verse was written by Englishmen in the 7th and succeeding centuries, and that in one or two poems the line is actually composed of an English and a Latin hemistich rhyming together, it seems strange that the Latin influence on Old English versification should have been so small. The alliterative long line is throughout the only metre employed, and although the laws of alliteration and rhythm were less rigorously obeyed in the later than in the earlier poetry, there is no trace of approximation to the structure of Latin verse. It is true that, owing to imitation of the Latin hymns of the church, rhyme came gradually to be more and more frequently used as an ornament of Old English verse; but it remained an ornament only, and never became an essential feature. The only poem in which rhyme is employed throughout is one in which sense is so completely sacrificed to sound that a translation would hardly be possible. It was not only in metrical respects that the Old English religious poetry remained faithful to its native models. The imagery and the diction are mainly those of the old heroic poetry, and in some of the poems Christ and the saints are presented, often very incongruously, under the aspect of Germanic warriors. Nearly all the religious poetry that has any considerable religious value seems to have been written in Northumbria during the 8th century. The remarkably vigorous poem of Judith, however, is certainly much later; and the Exodus, though early, seems to be of southern origin. For a detailed account of the Old English sacred poetry, the reader is referred to the articles on Cædmon and Cynewulf, to one or other of whom nearly every one of the poems, except those of obviously late date, has at some time been attributed.
The Riddles (q.v.) of the Exeter Book resemble the religious poetry in being the work of scholars, but they bear much more decidedly the impress of the native English character. Some of them rank among the most artistic and pleasing productions of Old English poetry. The Exeter Book contains also several pieces of a gnomic character, conveying proverbial instruction in morality and worldly wisdom. Their morality is Christian, but it is not unlikely that some of the wise sayings they contain may have come down by tradition from heathen times. The very curious Dialogue of Solomon and Saturn may be regarded as belonging to the same class.
The most original and interesting portion of the Old English literary poetry is the group of dramatic monologues—The Banished Wife’s Complaint, The Husband’s Message, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Deor and Wulf and Eadwacer. The date of these compositions is uncertain, though their occurrence in the Exeter Book shows that they cannot be later than the 10th century. That they are all of one period is at least unlikely, but they are all marked by the same peculiar tone of pathos. The monodramatic form renders it difficult to obtain a clear idea of the situation of the supposed speakers. It is not improbable that most of these poems may relate to incidents of heroic legend, with which the original readers were presumed to be acquainted. This, however, can be definitely affirmed only in the case of the two short pieces—Deor and Wulf and Eadwacer—which have something of a lyric character, being the only examples in Old English of strophic structure and the use of the refrain. Wulf and Eadwacer, indeed, exhibits a still further
