THE OE ALPHABETS. OE MAJOR WRITTEN RECORDS IN OE.

The first OE written records are considered to be the runic inscriptions. To make these inscriptions people used the Runes/the Runic Alphabet – the first original Germanic Alphabet.

Runes/Runic Alphabet: appeared in the 3^rd – 4^th c. A.D.; it was also called Futhark (after the first 6 letters of this alphabet); the word “rune” meant “secret, mystery” and was used to denote magic inscriptions on objects made of wood, stone, metal; each symbol indicated a separate sound (one symbol = one sound);

OE Alphabet- The OE Alphabet was borrowed from Latin, but there were also some letters that were borrowed from the Runic Alphabet.Most of the OE manuscripts were written in Latin characters. The Latin Alphabet was modified by the scribes to suit the English L (some letters were changed and some new letters were added).

The peculiarities of OE poetry:

– written in Old Germanic alliterative verse:

- the lines are not rhymed;

- the number of the syllables in a line is free;

- the number of stressed syllables in a line is fixes;

- the line is usually divided into 2 halves, each half starts with one and the same sound; this sound may be repeated also in the middle of each half

Among the earliest textual insertion is “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People” written in Latin in the 8^th c. by Bede the Venerable, an English monk. The topics of OE poetry: heroic epic (“Beowulf”); lyrical poems (“The Wanderer”, “The Seafarer”); religious poems (“Fate of the Apostles” , “Dream of the Rood”).

Major written records in ME.

The flourishing of literature, which marks the second half of the 14th c. This period of literary florescence is known as the "age of Chaucer", the greatest name in English literature before Shakespeare. His work is «Canterbury Tales», «A Legend of Good Women». John Wyclif (1324—1384), the forerunner of the English Reformation. His most important contribution to English prose was his translation of the BIBLE completed in 1384. The London Dialect of the beginning of the XIV cent. is represented by Adam Devi’s poems; the second half of the cent. by works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 'John Gower and 'John Wicliff. The literary texts of the late 14th c. preserved in numerous manuscripts, belong to a variety of genres. Translation continued, but original compositions were produced in abundance; poetry was more prolific than prose.

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