A Syllabus of English Literature

(0) Balto-Slavic (Russian, Bulgarian, Bohemian, Polish) (h) Teutonic. This branch subdivided into East Germanic (Gothic; chief monument a translation of parts of the Bible by Ulfilas, fourth century); North Germanic (Icelandic, Norse, Swedish, Danish); West Germanic, including English, Frisian, Franconian (Holland, Flanders), Low German, High German. Main characteristics of the Teutonic branch: the great conso- nant shift (Grimm's Law); the division of verbs into strong and weak conjugations; the two-fold declension of adjectives; fixed word accent. References: Emerson, chapters I and II; Lounsbury, introduction; Krapp, pp. 44-55. For Celtic and Latin influence on the English language in the Anglo- Saxon period, see Lounsbury, chapter III; Emerson, chapter IX; Krapp, pp. 211-219. The Literature i. Epic and Lyric (o) Beowulf. MS in West Saxon of the tenth century, but the poem probably dates from the seventh century, while the main incidents in it are much older. Slight historical element in the fact that about 512 A. D. Chochilaicus (Hygelac), king of the Danes, raided the lower Rhine and was defeated by the Franks. On this raid a hero escaped by swimming. (Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum.) The main interest, however, is not in this element but in the hero's contests with uncanny powers: Grendel, Grendel's dam, the fire drake. The poem approaches epic in that it presents a more or less complete biography of its hero; is the product ...