A Timeline of English Poetry Part I: The Song of Amergin, Caedmon’s Hymn, Bede’s Death Song, Deor’s Lament

By Sandeep Kumar Mishra and Evan Mantyk

English poetry has a rich history dating back at least 1,400 years. Looking at poetry today, it is easy to get trapped into thinking that the flurry of poetic movements of the last one hundred years or so are incredibly important and represent the majority of poetry. In fact, as we can see from this timeline, there is much more to poetry than the modern era. This timeline seeks to put English poetry today into a proper perspective with respect to its own history.

1 – 449 AD: Romano-British Poetry

449 – 1066: Anglo-Saxon or Old English Period

1066 – 1332: Anglo-Norman or Middle English Period

1332 – 1486: Late Medieval or Chaucerian Poetry

1486 – 1603: Early Renaissance Poetry or Elizabethan Poetry

1603 – 1690: Jacobean/Caroline/Restoration Poetry

1690 – 1756: Augustan or Neoclassical Poetry

1756 – 1837: Romantic Poetry

1837 – 1901: Victorian and Pre-Modernism Poetry

1901 – 1910: Early Modernism and the Edwardian Poetry

1910 – 1936: Georgian and the Modern Poetry

1937 – Present: Postmodern Poetry

Romano-British Poetry (1 – 449 AD)

Celtic druid

After the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD, the Romano-British culture emerged. Britannia, as it was called at the time, was divided into two provinces: Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior with the foundation of Londinium (London). The Roman influence was such that many of the natives lost their Celtic language and spoke only Latin. Later it developed into the Provencal languages. The southeast and the highlands of Britain were the most influenced by Latin. But, in the midlands, the Britannic languages, like Welsh and Cornish, still had their sway.

The Song of Amergin or Amairgin is an orally transmitted poem thought to hail from some distant time before the Roman invasion. According to legend, it is the first poem of the British Isles and was created when Amergin first set foot on what is today Ireland. However, some sources put the poem long after the invasion. At any rate, it provides a look at English poetry and culture relatively uninfluenced by Rome or Latin.

The Song of Amergin makes ample use of poetic repetition and metaphor. As one might expect from such a relatively primitive age, the use of nature imagery is extensive. Amergin is a god-like bard in Irish mythology and the poem reflects his supernatural persona:

Song of Amergin

During the Anglo-Roman Period (55 BC – 410 AD), Latin became the primary language of scholars with native poetry being only verbal.

Anglo-Saxon or Old English Period (449-1066)

Caedmon

After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, the invading Germanic tribes, such as the Saxons and Angles, reshaped the cultural makeup of the British Isles. Caedmon, Bede, Cynewulf, and King Alfred the Great are the most well known of the Anglo-Saxon poets.  Their poetry, now known as Old English poetry, is actually Germanic in nature. Poems like “Wulf and Eadwacer,” “Caedmon’s Hymn,” “Bede’s Death Song” and “Beowulf” are fragments of such Old English poetry. These poems have alliterative qualities and usually have four strong stresses per line and some weaker stresses. But, they are lacking in meter and rhyme. These poets were great sources of inspirations for the common folk. (In fact, Celtic kings were fearful of the derision of the Anglo-Saxon poets. At that time, these poets were also known as “scophs,” a German word for jest.) The shape of the English language we know today began in the fifth century as Germanic-Scandinavian and Greco-Roman words and grammar begin to integrate together.

In 657, the first English monastery, Whitby Abbey was founded by Saint Hilda. Hilda encouraged her pupils to pursue the poetic line of literature. As the story goes Caedmon was an illiterate herdsman who was given the gift of poetic creation by an angel and later became a monk. In 664, the Council of Whitby shook hands with the Roman Catholic Church and Whitby Abbey church became the center of education in England and had a major influence on the evolution of English literature and poetry:

Caedmon’s Hymn, written in 658, is the first authoritative English poem. It is the real beginning of English poetry. You can see in the Old English, even without understanding it, the repetition of initial sounds, or alliteration, in the original, which is also captured in the translation: “praise the Prince,” “might of the Maker,” and so forth. The poem is again spiritual, this time Christian, but interestingly there is not much in the way of religious jargon or even a proper name such as Jesus or Mary, but rather metaphors of the family (“Father” “roof” “family”) and even more of the nation (“Prince” “Lord” “Ruler” “Ward”):

Caedmon’s Hymn

Bede (c.672-735) was the great English poet who was later known as the Venerable Bede and the “Father of English History.” Bede’s famous “Death Song” was perhaps written on his deathbed. Again we have alliteration and here a spiritual topic of universal applicability.

Bede’s Death Song

Around 700, a long poem “Beowulf” and a small poem “Widsith” (“the Far Traveler”) by an anonymous minstrel were composed. The “Beowulf” poet is also credited with popularizing “hall-entertainment” poetry accompanied by the music of a harp.

Cynewulf, who lived around 800, wrote four poems: “Juliana,” “Christ II,” “Fates of the Apostles,” and “Elene.”

The first dream poem “The Dream of the Rood” in the English language was carved on the 8th century Ruthwell Cross.

King Alfred the Great (c. 849-899), was one of the first known writers of English prose. He was the first notable poet who wrote and translated poetry of the past era. The poem “Deor’s Lament” (900) penned down by Deor, the poet, during the reign of King Alfred, appeared in the Exeter Book (990), which is the largest known collection of Old English literature still in existence. “Deor’s Lament” is again alliterative but unlike the other poems we’ve looked at is filled with specific allusions, some of which we can only today guess at. The palpable sense of bitterness and suffering is felt in the repeated line: “That has passed over: so this may depart!”

Deor’s Lament

Alfricus of Eynsham (c. 955 – c. 1010) was a prolific writer of biographies, homilies, biblical commentaries, and other genres. He is also known as Alfric, the Grammarian (Alfricus Grammaticus). He was a great writer in the class of Bede. Truly he represents the Anglo-Saxon non-poetry literature as his writing has been described as “rhythmical prose,” which in form is the same as the alliterative poetry we’ve seen here.

Statue of Alfred the Great

The Arundel Psalter (1060) was an Anglo-Saxon prayer book. In it, Saint Godric (1065) wrote many poems and prayers. Reginald of Durham (1190) recorded four songs of St. Godric’s: they are the oldest English songs to retain their original music.

In general, the various forms of poetry all became visible such as proverbs, charms, religious verse, devotional or biblical, elegies like “The Seafarer,” “The Wanderer,” and “The Ruin,” and some daily life riddles.

In 1066, the French Duke of Normandy William (1066), defeated Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings and became King William I of England, better known today as William the Conqueror. Thus, the Norman Conquest of England ended the Anglo-Saxon era. The three major invasions of England—the Romans, the Angles and Saxons, and the French—ultimately provided around 87% of the words of the English language. The language before the 11th century is too difficult for non-scholars to understand. Poetry of this time is classified according to the books in which they are found. The important manuscripts are the Beowulf manuscript, the Cædmon manuscript, the Vercelli Book, and the Exeter Book. Only the long poem “Beowulf” survived as a whole.

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Footnotes for “Deor’s Lament”

Sandeep Kumar Mishra is an International freelance writer, and a lecturer in English with a Master’s in English Literature and Political Science. He has edited a collection of poems by various poets, Pearls (2002), written a professional guidebook How To Be (2016), and a collection of poems and art Feel My Heart (2016).His blog: https://sandeepkumarmishra5574.blogspot.in/

Evan Mantyk teaches history and literature in the Hudson Valley region of New York.

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