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Echoes of the Scops: Unraveling Anglo-Saxon Literary Traditions

Explore the ancient oral tradition of Anglo-Saxon literature through scops, caesura, alliteration, and kennings. Learn how information was transmitted and transformed through word-of-mouth storytelling.

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Echoes of the Scops: Unraveling Anglo-Saxon Literary Traditions

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  1. Anglo-Saxon Literary Devices

  2. Oral Tradition • Most people aside from the clergy could not read or write • Information was passed by word of mouth • This lead to omissions, embellishments, or outright changes from the original story

  3. Scops • Stories/poems told by scops (pronounced: shooops) • Were the keepers of stories for hundreds of years • Sang the tales with an accompanying harp or other instrument

  4. Caesura (si-zhooreh) • mid-line pause in Anglo-Saxon poetry • Breaks up long lines and makes the piece more dramatic • It will look like this in the text • (space between the two parts of a line)

  5. Alliteration • Repetition of initial consonant sounds • Helpful to oral stories because • Easy to remember: if one word has a D sound, can remember an alliterative D phrase • Catches listener’s attention

  6. Assonance • Repetition of vowel sounds • Can be at the beginning or middle of words • Ex: lying in waiting, hidden in mist, invisibly following them • The “i” sound is repeated in these lines

  7. Kennings • Poetic synonym; descriptive compound phrase that replaces an ordinary noun with a more interesting one • Example: a kenning for “ocean” could be “whale-road” • Help create mental pictures and aid in memorization

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