Beowulf is the longest epic poem in Old English, written between the 8th Beowulf and the early 11th century. The author was an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet. It is centred around the heroic deeds of a great warrior, who kills monsters and fights all kinds of different enemies, including a dragon.
 The story highlights the values traditionally associated with the epic genre: courage in battle, loyalty to one’s chief and people, strength, generosity and endurance. The poem is set in Scandinavia.
 This adaptation is written in modern narrative form and contains dossiers about epic poetry, the language used, and the historical and cultural context.
 
 Teacher's Resources available online: Answer Key - Audioscripts - Key to Summing-up Activities.
 
 Beowulf è il più lungo poema in Old English. Narra le eroiche imprese di un grande e valoroso guerriero che uccide mostri e combatte contro nemici di ogni genere, tra cui un terribile drago. La storia esalta tutti i valori tradizionalmente associati all’epica: coraggio, lealtà, generosità e resilienza. Una stimolante lettura che offre anche approfondimenti sulla poesia epica, la lingua usata, e riferimenti al periodo storico e culturale.

Beowulf: Presentation

Chapter 1 – Grendel the Monster

Extension: Epic poetry

Chapter 2 – Grendel’s Death

Extension: The Anglo-Saxons

Chapter 3 – The End of the Monster

Extension: The language of Beowulf

Chapter 4 – The King and the Dragon

Extension: Graves and treasure

Chapter 5 – Beowulf’s Barrow

Extension: Beowulf ’s influence

Summing-up activities

Glossary

E X T E N S I O N THE LANGUAGE OF BEOWULF Beowulf was written in Old English. How was this language formed? What were its characteristics? To answer these questions, we must go back to the Neolithic Era. Analysing the similarities among the languages of a great part of Europe and Asia, linguists have formulated the hypothesis that all of them have a common origin. Of course, there is no written record of that language, conventionally called Indo-European, spoken by a single community which later separated into smaller groups. These gradually moved all over Europe and part of Asia. According to this theory, the original Indo-Europeans lived on the mainland1 of Europe and Western Asia and the period of their common life ended between 3500 and 2000 BCE, in the Neolithic Era. When those different groups separated from the Old English manuscript. original one, their language gradually changed, because its development was influenced by their new experiences, situations and contacts. Every language, in fact, changes and develops continuously. The languages deriving from this hypothetical first language can be divided into nine  families , according to their characteristics and similarities.Thus, for example, the Italic family of languages includes Latin and all the Romance languages, like Italian, French, Spanish, while English belongs to the Germanic family of languages, together with German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic. It is evident, then, that the languages spoken by the Anglo-Saxon invaders, though different, had many similarities, because they were all Germanic languages. 1. mainland: the greater part of a territory, which does not include the islands around it. 52 

By the 10th century, there were four main Anglo-Saxon dialects in Britain, but West Saxon, the language spoken in Wessex, had become the most important one. It was the most used language in monasteries for writing or copying manuscripts, practically a literary standard. This language is what we generally call Old English. Its development conventionally goes from 450 to 11002. Old English was completely different from Modern English, and the differences involve all the aspects of the language. First of all, the vocabulary of Old English was nearly all of Germanic origin. Later, after the Christianization of England and the Norman conquest of 1066, most of it was replaced by words of French or Latin origin. Then, it was an inflected language, that is, it had different endings (or inflections) for different cases, like Latin or German (nominative, genitive, dative and accusative). What is more, unlike Modern English, it had grammatical gender and not natural gender.This means that, as in Italian or French, a word was feminine or masculine or neuter in an arbitrary way. Finally, the alphabet contained certain letters that have disappeared from the modern spelling, such as  ,  ,  . Unless it is studied specifically, it is impossible to understand Old English. As an example, you can read the first lines of the poem Beowulf and compare them with a modern translation. Hw t. We Gardena in geardagum,  eodcyninga,  rym gefrunon, hu  a   elingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing scea ena  reatum, monegum m g um, meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorlas. So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by And the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. We have heard of those princes  heroic campaigns. There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes, A wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes. 2. The development of the language can be divided into three periods: Old English (4501100), Middle English (1100-1500) and Modern English (1500-today). Illuminated manuscript. 

"Beowulf," il più lungo poema in Old English, narra le eroiche imprese di un guerriero. Con approfondimenti su epica, lingua, valori tradizionali

Beowulf Collana RAINBOWS

Level B1 • Pre-Intermediate - Collana RAINBOWS

Beowulf

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