Anglo-Saxon World View and Key Themes

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Anglo-Saxon World View and Key Themes
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What is World View?

• How a person/group of people feels about and
  interacts with the world, nature, and God
• Anglo-Saxon worldview- grim, negative- they lived
  harsh lives full of war and hard work
• Saw nature as the enemy no concept of happy
  afterlife or loving God

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WYRD

• Anglo-Saxon concept of FATE.
• They believed their lives were ruled by FATE (or
  wyrd).

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LOF

• Because the Anglo-Saxons did not believe in an
  afterlife, they sought immortality through a
  concept called LOF (or FAME)

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COMITATUS

• Again, because life was so harsh, they made life
  meaningful through relationships with one another
  and the king.
• Comitatus means COMPANIONSHIP- loyalty and love
  to your kinsmen, friends, and king

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What made life worth living?

• LOF (FAME)- for the afterlife
• COMITATUS (COMPANIONSHIP)- for now
• MEAD HALL- the king lived in a great hall called
  the mead hall where warriors would gather and
  tell stories and drink mead

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SCOPS

• Pronounced SHOPES
• Storytellers and poets
• Entertainers

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Conversion

• St. Augustine and St. Patrick are two famous
  missionaries who brought Christianity to Great
  Britain.
• Christianity offered a happy afterlife, a loving
  God, and ideas like forgiveness and hope that
  their religion had not.
• Celtic Cross Pagan Celtic SundialChristian Cross

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Make a chart listing the differences in Pagan and
Christian Values
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Pagan vs. Christian

• Monsters and supernatural beings
• Lof (Fame)
• Warrior- Physical Strength
• Courage
• Pride (Heroic Boasts)
• Revenge (Weregild)
• Riches/Gold
• Loyalty
• Signs, Superstition, Wyrd (fate)
• Valhalla
• Sacrifice

• The Almighty
• Love
• Compassion
• Humility- the meek shall inherit the earth
• Forgiveness love your enemies
• Riches are in heaven, not on earth
• Sacrifice
• Heaven

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Characteristics of Writing

• Kenning- a metaphorical two word compound
• Caesura- a pause in the middle of a line
• Alliteration- repetition of initial consonant
  sounds

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Reasons for these Characteristics

• Euphony pleasing to the ear it sounds good!!
• Memory rhythm and repetition help it make things
  easier to remember- the scops had to tell all of
  their stories from memory so caesura and
  alliteration helped