Introduction to The Book of

ExeterCreated and Compiled by:

Ms. Nelson

Warm-Up

• When you think of the “Middle Ages,” what comes to mind?

The Middle Ages in 3.5 Minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EAMqKUimr8

World Europe England

• What did you notice differed between the East and West?

• What was happening in Europe?

• Where there any obvious themes?

The Book of Exeter

• Collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry

• Secular poems

• Religious verse

• Riddles

• Heroic narrative

• Largest collection of Old English poetry

• Contains 131 sheets of parchment (roughly the same size as a sheet of paper)

Who was the author?

• Multiple authors (oral tradition)

• ~ 950AD a scribe collected the works

• Compiled them all into one manuscript

• Written in Old English

Then what?

• Leofric, the Bishop of Exeter, originally owned the book

• He donated it to the Cathedral somewhere between 1050-1072

• It was then abandoned for nearly a thousand years…

What happened to it?

• Burned

• Stained

• Loss of binding and/or pages (no one truly knows)

• Knife cuts on pages suggest that the book was possibly used as a cutting board!

Rediscovered

• 1842 – Benjamin Thorpe published the first complete translated compilation (from Old English English)

• Titles were given to poems, like “The Seafarer” and “The Wanderer”

Common Themes

• Loneliness / Isolation

• Danger / Peril

• Disease / Death / War

Sources

• Textbook (in class)

• Online Edition http://www.heritagecollegeready.org/ourpages/auto/2013/9/30/51224870/u1_exeterbk_seafarer_se.pdf

• Images: ClipArt, Microsoft Office, Bing

How to Solve a Poem

• Step One: Read the entire poem. Don’t worry if it’s a mystery; that’s how it feels a lot of times. Look up and define any words you don’t understand.

• Step Two: Re-read the work. This time apply your detective skills by using the TP CAST T method.

TP CAST T

• Title: Ponder on what the title means . Is there any allusion or image presented?

• Paraphrase: Translate the poem stanza by stanza.

• Subject- what is the poet talking about?

• Occasion– what is the occasion or event?

• Audience– is the poem written to a specific audience or person?

• Purpose– why is the poet telling us this?

• Speaker– who is speaking don’t confuse speaker with poet.

TP CAST T

• Connotation: consider the poem’s meaning beyond the obvious. Is the poet really talking only about the subject, or does the meaning extend beyond the literal? Consider work choices and their connotative meanings.

• Attitude: observe the speaker’s attitude and tone

• Shifts: note shifts in speakers, attitudes, and focus of attention

• Title: go back to the title, anything new?

• Theme: determine what the poet is saying, why he or she wrote the poem.

Step 3

• Look for literary devices used in the poem

• Alliteration

• Allusion

• Apostrophe

• Assonance

• Diction

• Parallelism

• Personification

Step 4

• DIDS

• Diction– word choices

• Images– are there any notable images

• Details– how does the poet present images, mood, or patterns

• Structure– what is the form of the poem