43421 (The Development of the Germanic Script), страница 2

In the 10^th century, when the old heroic verses were already declining, some new war poems were composed and inserted in the prose historical chronicles: THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH, THE BATTLE OF MALDON. They bear resemblance to the ancient heroic poems but deal with contemporary events: the wars with the Scots, the Picts and the raiders from Scandinavia.

Another group of poems are OE elegiac (lyrical) poems: WIDSITH (“The Travelle’s Song”), THE WANDERER, THE SEAFARER, and others. THE WANDERER depicts the sorrows and bereavement of a poet in exile: he laments the death of his protectors and friends and expresses his resignation to the gloomy fate. THE SEAFARER is considered to be the most original of the poems; it gives a mournful picture of the dark northen seas and sings joy at the return of the spring. Most of those poems are ascribed to Cynewufl.

Religious poems paraphrase, more or less closely, the books of the Bible – GENESIS, EXODUS (written by Cadmon). ELENE, ANDREAS, CHRIST, FATE OF THE APOSTLES tel the life-stories of apostles and saints or deal with various subjects associated with the Gospels [2, 66].

OE prose is a most valuable sources of information for the history of the language. The earliest samples of continuous prose are the first pages of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles: brief annals of the year’s happenings made at various monasteries. In the 9^th c. the chronicles were unified at Winchester, the capital of Wessex. Though sometimes dropped or started again, the chronicles developed into a fairly complete prose history of England; the Winchester annals were copied and continued in other monasteries.

5. Conclusion

Old English scribes used two kindes of letters: the runes and the letters of the Latin alphabet. The bulk of the OE material – OE manuscripts – is written in the latin script. The use of Latin letters in English differed in some points from their use in Latin, for the scribes made certain modifications and additions in order to indicate OE sounds.

6. Sources

1. Ильиш Б. А. История английского языка. – 5-е издание. – М.: Высшая школа, 1968. – 418с.

2. Расторгуева Т. А. История английского языка. – 2-е изд., стер. – М.: «Изд. Астрель», 2003. – 348с. – на англ. языке.

3. Садовник-Чучвага Н. В. Короткий курс з історії англійської мови. – Чернівці: «Рута», 2009. – 57с.

4. http://article.ranez.ru/id/668/

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rune