The Old English Literature, also called Anglo-Saxon, was the earliest form of English. It is difficult to give exact dates for the rise and development of a language, because it does not change suddenly; but perhaps it is true to say that Old English was spoken from about A. D. 600 to about 1000.

terça-feira, 15 de dezembro de 2009

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldenglish.htm

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldenglish.htm

This site is amazing to know more about the Old English. Old English was sometimes written with a version of the Runic alphabet, brought to Britain by the Anglo-Saxons until about the 11th century. In this site we can visualize this symbols, besides the also English alphabet and pronunciation of the letters. In addition to this, there is an example of an old English text (The prologue of Beowulf) compared with the Modern English version.

http://www.sk.com.br/sk-enhis.html

http://www.sk.com.br/sk-enhis.html

This is a very interesting site because it tells us the story of England territory trough the language developed in the country. Part of the site is dedicated to Old English, which, according to the site, if compared with Modern English, is completely different.

http://www.studyguide.org/beowulf.htm

http://www.studyguide.org/beowulf.htm

In this site we can find some information about the greatest Old English poem: Beowulf. Here, we can find the importance of the poem to English literature, some important terms to try to understand the text, once the old language cannot be read now except by those who have made a special study of it, a list of characters, and we can read the poem’s story.

segunda-feira, 14 de dezembro de 2009

http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/medess.htm

This site is an Anthology of Middle English Literature. It contains many links of Essays and articles about the subject. You have access to a large number of essays which might help you, call your attention or give you ideas about Old English Literature.

http://www.etymonline.com/

This is an on line dictionary with explanations of what the words meant 600 or 2000 years ago. It can be helpful in an Old English text reading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLJGTYkEKLI&feature=PlayList&p=64BB245C83A5679F&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=51

This video was made by Alexander Arguelles and it presents a series of introductory overviews videos about Old English Literature. He contextualizes the text, explains, reads it and also gives a translation. It’s a really interesting series of videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xf_lEFSum8&NR=1

This video is one of the sequence you can find on this link. The host, Richard, is teaching Old English nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, among others. You might find interesting to understand a bit more the Old English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxhJhLOWJxw / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqAA5LgmLrk

These two videos are, in sequence, part 1 and 2 a contextualization of Old and Middle English. It talks about the culture, people, religion, among others. The first video is more interesting because it focuses on how the language came to exist. But it is interesting to watch the second part as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YndfK23P9tY

In this video a guy is trying to read a poem from Old English. It’s his interpretation, as nobody knows how it would sound exactly. However, it’s interesting to watch this video. It’s almost impossible to understand his reading.

http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/engl401/texts/index.htm

In this site from Canada, you can find some old English prose and poetry.

domingo, 13 de dezembro de 2009

http://people.wcsu.edu/jambeckk/glossary/gloss-oe.html

This site is an introductory glossary and a translation guide. It has the word’s classification, its meaning and pronunciation. It might be very helpful to the understanding of the text.

http://libra.englang.arts.gla.ac.uk/oethesaurus/

This is a dictionary of old English words and phrases.

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/oe.htm

This website site from the University of Toronto brings some useful lists with links to databases, webpages and bibliographies on Old English Literature as well as links to learn more about the History and Culture of the time. You will also find links about Old English Language, Old English dictionaries, manuscripts, corpora. It can be a great tool for the study of English Literature.
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/oe.htm

http://classiclit.about.com/od/oldenglishgenera/Old_English_General_Resources.htm

This website brings some interesting articles commenting on Beowulf and on Old English Literature. It might be a good option for those who want to have an overview of the texts and of the time period.
http://classiclit.about.com/od/oldenglishgenera/Old_English_General_Resources.htm

http://www8.georgetown.edu/departments/medieval/labyrinth/library/oe/oe.html

This site is composed by poetry and prose of Old English Literature. There are links to the original texts. In poetry you will find: Beowulf and Judith; The Vercelli Book, etc. In prose, you will find The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, The Laws of Alfred and Ine, etc. There is also available links to reference works that provide further researches.

http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/oecoursepack/

The site is part of a project funded by the English Subject Centre. It is hosted by the English Faculty at Oxford but everyone can use. It works as a coursepack designed to help the study of primary texts included in many Old English Courses. In this site you can find glossary and notes, translations, contextual information, among others.
This site presents a lot of key texts used in the study of Old English at major UK Universities. They are presented as hypertext editions, i.e. links will bring up extra information for the students to read. In addition each text has a link to a discussion board where people can post up further comments, notes, links, etc.