Transcript FOLKLORE. “BEOWULF”- THE FIRST EPIC POEM

FOLKLORE.
“BEOWULF”THE FIRST EPIC POEM
Lecture 2
С. А. Трякина,
учитель английского языка
ГОУ СОШ №1232, г. Москва
During the period from the 6th to the 3d century BC
Celtic tribes invaded Britain.
Celtic tribes
The Picts
(penetrated to the
mountains in the
North)
The Scots
(went to the North of
Great Britain and
crossed over to Ireland)
The Britons
( held most of the
country)
About 3,000 years BC the British Isles were inhabited by
the Iberians. We do not know much about them as history
was not written at that time.
During the period from the 6th to the 3d century BC
Celtic tribes invaded Britain.
Celtic tribes
The Picts
(penetrated to the
mountains in the
North)
The Scots
(went to the North of
Great Britain and
crossed over to Ireland)
The Britons
( held most of the
country)
In the 4th century the Germanic tribes
of the Angles, the Saxons and
the Jutes came to the British Isles.
The people who inhabited the British
Isles could not yet write. Writing came
much later, together with Christianity.
But these people were gifted and
talented both in handicrafts and in
verbal art.
FOLKLORE
• From time immemorial people composed
songs, legends, fairy tales and riddles.
• They passed them on from generation to
generation by word of mouth. In this way
they reflected their joys and fears, their
wisdom and history.
As folk poems and legends existed in the
oral form and had to be remembered,
there had to be some devices in a
folklore text which would serve as aids
to memory.
These could be
rhymes,
repetitions of sounds,
rhythmical pattern.
“BEOWULF”
“Beowulf” is the oldest known English epic
poem, the foundation-stone of all British
poetry.
We would like to know but probably we
would never discover the exact answers to
the questions:
• Who wrote it?
• When?
• Where?
Scholars came to the conclusion
that perhaps “Beowulf” was
composed during the 7th or the 8th
century.
The author of the poem drew his
story from old pagan legends
brought over from the continent.
The scene is set among the Geats
(the Jutes) who lived on the
southern coast of Scandinavia, and
their neighbours across the strait,
the Danes.
The character of Beowulf is a combination of
features of a nephew of the king of Jutes and of
various mythical heroes
The theme of the poem is the story of
a great leader who saves or tries to save
people in danger.
Beowulf who is a strong and fearless
advocate of freedom and justice,
expresses the Anglo- Saxon ideals of
personal conduct.
The characters of villains who are opposed to Beowulf are:
the fire-drake or dragon , the cannibal – ogre Grendel and
his mother- a water-witch.
The dragon
Grendel
The water-witch
The tone of the poem is dark,
melancholy and austere. In
simple, direct and majestic
verse an exciting story of
adventure and heroism is
told.
Beowulf comes victor of all the battles
he has to fight, and his victory over the
monsters symbolizes the triumph of
Man over powers of darkness, evil and
death.
Источники:
• Волосова Т.Д., Геккер М.Ю. “English
Literature” ч.1,изд-во «Просвещение»,
М. 1977г.
• Кукурян И.Л. “An Outline of English
Literature”, изд-во МГУ, М. 1997г.
• Иллюстрации: www.twirpx.com