Earliest Saxon Poem.—The earliest literary monument in the Saxon language is the poem called Beowulf, the author and antiquity of which are alike unknown. It is at once a romantic legend and an instructive portraiture of the earliest Saxon period—"an Anglo-Saxon poetical romance," says Sharon Turner, "true in costume and manners, but with an invented story." Before proceeding to a consideration of this poem, let us look for a moment at some of the characteristics of Saxon poetry. As to its subject-matter, it is not much of a love-song, that sentiment not being one of its chief inspirations. The Saxon imagination was inflamed chiefly by the religious and the heroic in war. As to its handling, it abounded in metaphor and periphrasis, suggestive images, and parables instead of direct narrative.
Metrical Arrangement.—As to metrical arrangement, Saxon poetry differed from our modern English as well as from the classical models, in that their poets followed no laws of metre, but arranged their vernacular verses without any distinct rules, but simply to please the ear. "To such a selection and arrangement of words as produced this effect, they added the habit of frequently omitting the usual particles, and of conveying their meaning in short and contracted phrases. The only artifices they used were those of inversion and transition."[7] It is difficult to give examples to those unacquainted with the language, but the following extract may serve to indicate our meaning: it is taken from Beowulf:
Crist waer a cennijd
Cýninga wuldor
On midne winter:
Mære theoden!
Ece almihtig!
On thij eahteothan daeg
Hael end gehaten
Heofon ricet theard.