COURSE SYLLABUS
Old English For Beginners
This course-series was developed and taught by Conan T. Doyle under the title Early English Language and Literature I and II at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University.
By the end of the first semester, students will have developed
By completion of the entire course students will have developed
Moodle quizzes on individual grammar points (20%)
Two translation homework assignments (20%)
A language assessment in Week 12 (30%)
A short essay on Old English literature (30%)
Course description:
This course will introduce students to the oldest form of the English language, spoken between ca. 600 and 1100 AD. The course aims to introduce the basics of the language and develop familiarity with some of the prose works written in it. This part of the course introduces basic grammar and vocabulary through prose texts, assisted by two frequency based lexical resources: This course is intended to help students understand basic concepts in Old English grammar and vocabulary, to the extent that they can read straightforward prose, with the aid of a dictionary, and translate simple sentences, providing insight into the historical development of the English language over time, and potentially demystifying many seeming ‘irregularities’ in English grammar as relics, or fossils of an older grammatical system. The course will also introduce students to the culture and history of the peoples who spoke Old English, and prepare them to take a further course which considers the more complex poetry recorded in the same language.
This first semester focuses on language acquisition, and therefore grammar exercises (in the form of Moodle quizzes) and translations practice exercises are assigned instead of weekly literature readings.
Week 1 Introduction to Old English
In this class we have an extremely brief history of the peoples who spoke Old English, and begin reading a very simple text: Ælfric‘s Colloquy on the occupations.
Week 2 The Politics of Translation
In this class we learn about how Old English authors thought about translating from Latin, and why they did it. We cover some grammar points on verbs, and keep reading Ælfric‘s Colloquy
Week 3 Finding Meaning in dead languages: Medical Vocabulary
This week we consider how we determine the meaning of a word we don’t know in a language no-one speaks any more. I illustrate this process with examples from my own research into medical vocabulary. We cover additional grammar points, and then continue to read the Colloquy. Whatever we haven’t read after this becomes your first translation homework
Week 4 Martyrs and Subjunctives
We look at hagiography as a genre, with two examples, the extremely short entries of the Old English Martyrology and Ælfric of Eynsham’s translation of Abbo of Fleury’s, Passion of St Edmund. I also explain the subjunctive mood and certain sound changes relevant to strong verbs.
Week 5 St Edmund (A Patron Saint for England?)
This week more properly introduces the Passion of St Edmund, which we are now reading, in its historic context, i.e. the arrival of the Great Heathen Army in 865.
Week 6 Paganism and Christianity
This lecture considers the problems of The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism, as it was called by Prof. Eric Stanley. I use examples from the so-called ‘metrical charms’ relating to my recent research. We continue to read the Passion of St Edmund
Week 7 Tubthumping
In this lecture we learn about Wulfstan of York’s ‘tub-thumping’ sermon known by it’s Latin title ‘Sermo Lupi ad Anglos’ (The sermon of “Wulf” to the English), and the rhetorical tropes of Old English. I hope my dramatic reading doesn’t carry through to the adjacent classrooms!
Week 8 Grimm stuff: Consonant sound changes in Old English and Indo-European
In this lecture I will attempt to explain Grimm’s law and Verner’s Law. And yes, Jacob Grimm was one of the ‘Brothers Grimm’ who compiled fairy tales, or should I say Kinder- und Hausmärchen. We also consider anonymous Old English life of St Eustace as an example of the porosity of genre between hagiography and late antique prose romance.
Week 9 Ancient Orientalism I: Alexander the Great in Old English
This lecture introduces the reception of the Alexander romance tradition in Old English, considering the Old English translation of the apocryphal Letter of Alexander to Aristotle.
Week 10 Ancient Orientalism II: The Wonders of the East
This lecture continues the Alexander tradition in Old English by considering the text known as ‘The Wonders of the East’, it’s problematic orientalism, and the historical context of English contact with India at the time of Alfred the Great.
Week 11 Is that an onion in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?
This lecture introduces some of the conventions for Old English verse, mostly through the Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book, which are notorious for their sexually suggestive innuendos, and mostly represent translations of the Latin riddle collection by Symphosius
Week 12 Language Assessment
A written assessment will be given in-class to eliminate anxieties over generative AI-use.
Primary Sources (for translation exercises and in-class reading)
Ælfric of Eynsham, Colloquy on the Occupations
Ælfric of Eynsham, ‚Passion of St Edmund, King and Martyr‘, ed. and trans. W. W. Skeat
Ælfric of Eynsham, ‚De falsiis deis‘ (on false gods)
Wulfstan of York, ‘Sermo Lupi ad Anglos’ (sermon of “The Wolf” to the English)
Selected excerpts of various prose texts.
Bosworth, Joseph. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, edited by Thomas Northcote Toller, Christ Sean, and Ondřej Tichy. Prague: Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2014. https://bosworthtoller.com/
Cichosz, Anna, Piotr Pęzik, Maciej Grabski, Sylwia Karasińska, Michał Adamczyk, Paulina Rybińska, Aneta Ostrowska, A frequency dictionary of Old English prose for learners of Old English and historical linguistics ISBN-13 (15): 978-83-8220-899-3; ISBN-13 (15): 978-83-8220-900-6; DOI: https://doi.org/10.18778/8220-899-3
Godden M, Lapidge M, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. (Cambridge University Press; 1991) https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521374383
St Andrews Old English Core Vocabulary List https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~cr30/vocabulary/
Mitchell, B. and F. C. Robinson, A Guide to Old English, (Blackwell, 1992)
Students are free to use any edition of this introductory text.
Marsden R. The Cambridge Old English Reader, (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Stanley, E. ‘Introduction’ in The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism;
in Imagining the Anglo-Saxon Past: The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism and Anglo-Saxon Trial by Jury. Boydell & Brewer, 2000. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt81h08.
This course is intended to follow directly from ‘Old English for Beginners I’, insofar as it introduces the rules of Old English poetic meter and begins to consider the broad range of poetic texts written in Old English. In sharp contrast to later periods of English verse texts, neither the number of syllables in a line nor the capacity of words to rhyme was of interest to ancient Germanic poets. Instead, they employed the alliteration of stressed syllables to propel the rhythm of their ancient songs. From short, pithy riddles of the ‘Exeter Book’ to extended epics like Beowulf, Old English poetry can be approached from a huge number of perspectives, and this course is intended to explain just a few of them to you. This course also considers the modern reception of Old English literature in works such as J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
Successful completion of ‘Old English for Beginners I’ is a desideratum, but not an absolute prerequisite for Erasmus or other exchange students who can demonstrate familiarity with Old English.
Because this course involves the study of literary criticism and ideas, students are required to read at least one piece of secondary literature per week, in preparation for in class discussions.
Week 1 Introducing Alliterative Verse
This lecture introduces the Old English alliterative verse corpus, and the rules of alliteration, mostly illustrated from the Exeter Book riddles.
Required reading:
Scragg DG. The nature of Old English verse. In: Godden M, Lapidge M, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature. Cambridge Companions to Literature. Cambridge University Press; 2013:50-65.
Recommended reading:
Rulon-Miller N. Sexual Humor and Fettered Desire in Exeter Book Riddle 12. In: Wilcox J, ed. Humour in Anglo-Saxon Literature. Boydell & Brewer; 2000:99-126.
Week 2 The Manuscript Basis of the Old English Corpus
Introduces basic ideas of manuscript studies and editorial intervention, and an extremely basic version of script history necessary for the transcription of tenth and eleventh century Old English manuscript texts.
Required reading:
Bischoff, Bernhard, Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Trans D. O’Cróinin and D. Ganz, trans. (Cambridge University Press; 1990). (selected chapters)
Week 3 Shorter Elegies (The Wife’s Lament, The Husband’s Message, Wulf and Eadwacer)
The interpretation of the elegiac poems of the Exeter Book has been a subject of debate since their first publication. These short poems have a riddling quality, and hints of prosopopoeia where the speaking voice has variously been interpreted as an inscribed rune-stick sent from a man to his wife, a vixen in her den, a corpse in a grave and a scorned woman cursing her former lover. The most important question is what these poems mean to you, the reader.
Required reading:
Adams, John F. “‘Wulf and Eadwacer’: An Interpretation.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 73, no. 1, 1958, pp. 1–5. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3043274. Accessed 23 Apr. 2026.
Greenfield SB. The Wife’s Lament Reconsidered. PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America. 1953;68(4-Part1):907-912. doi:10.2307/459806
Recommended reading:
Straus, Barrie Ruth. “Women’s Words as Weapons: Speech as Action in ‘The Wife’s Lament.’” Texas Studies in Literature and Language, vol. 23, no. 2, 1981, pp. 268–85. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40754647. Accessed 23 Apr. 2026.
Week 4 Where are all the good men gone? The Seafarer, and the Ruin and their modern reception.
This lecture considers the longer elegies of the Exeter Book and the theme of the ubi sunt motif in Old English poetry and its modern reception.
Required reading:
Fell, C. ‘Perceptions of Transience’ in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature
Recommended reading:
Wilcox, Miranda. "Exilic Imagining in The Seafarer and The Lord of the Rings." Tolkien the Medievalist. Routledge, 2003. 133-154.
Week 5 The Dream of the Rood
Physical, tangible heritage collides with textual scholarship as we consider a text which survives (partially) inscribed on a physical stone cross in Ruthwell, and also as a text in a manuscript which has been edited and translated many times. We also consider the agentive changes inherent to this poem, reframing Christ as victor in the moment of his crucifixion.
Required reading:
Wolf, Carol Jean. “CHRIST AS HERO IN ‘THE DREAM OF THE ROOD.’” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, vol. 71, no. 2, 1970, pp. 202–10. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43342587.
Recommended reading:
Szarmach, P.E., 2007. The Dream of the Rood as ekphrasis. In Text, Image, Interpretation: (pp. 267-288).
Week 6 Triumphal Verses: Poems in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Typically prose genres like chronicles sometimes contained poetic interjections and insertions, such as the triumphalist poem on the ‘capture of the 5 boroughs’ in 942.
Week 7 Marginal verses and magical spells: The metrical charms (again)
Reconsidering the role of the editor in the reception of text, we again reconsider the manuscript context of poetic texts which are frequently considered magical, pagan or otherwise heterodox.
Required reading:
Olsen, K. E. E. (2007). The Lacnunga and its Sources: The Nine Herbs Charm and Wið Færstice Reconsidered. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 55, 23 - 31.
Recommended reading:
Arthur C. “Charms”, Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England. Boydell & Brewer; 2018. (selected chapters)
Week 8 Beowulf I: The Merovingians
We consider J. R. R. Tolkien’s seminal essay ‘Beowulf, The Monsters and the Critics’, and how to approach this most celebrated work of Old English Literature. Was it history, or archaeology, or ethnography? No, it was a work of literary genius.
Required reading:
Tolkien, J. R. R. Beowulf, The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays (Harper Collins, 1997) ISBN 0-261-10263-X
Week 9 Beowulf II: The Monsters
We continue our exploration of Beowulf by considering the monstrosity of the titular character compared to the monstrosity of the antagonists (Grendel, Grendel’s mother and the unnamed dragon)
Required reading:
Orchard, Andy. Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript. University of Toronto Press, 1995. (selected chapters) http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt1287xc6.
Week 10 Andreas and Beowulf
Did the Andreas poet plagiarise Beowulf, or the other way around? This lecture considers the Old English translation of a late antique apocryphal romance about the mission of the apostles Andrew and Matthias to a fictional land of cannibalistic pagans.
Required reading:
North, R. (2018). "Meet the pagans: On the misuse of Beowulf in Andreas". In Aspects of knowledge. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press. Retrieved Apr 25, 2026, from https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526107015.00018
Orchard, Andy. "The originality of Andreas." Old English philology: Studies in honour of RD Fulk (2016): 331-70.
Week 11 Judith, Warrior Princess
Curiously, a poetic and cultural translation of the deuterocanonical Book of Judith exists in Old English, in the same manuscript as the epic poem Beowulf. In this poem, Judith’s seduction of the Assyrian general Holofernes is reframed as the act of a heroic, anachronistically Christian warrior.
Required reading:
Magennis, Hugh. "Gender and heroism in the Old English Judith." Essays and Studies (2002): 5-19.
Recommended reading:
Thijs, Christine B. "Feminine Heroism in the Old English Judith." Leeds Studies in English (2006): 41-62.
Week 12 Elene, or the Finding of the True Cross
The story of Elene, often known as St Helena, is the apocryphal story that the mother of Constantine the Great journeyed to Jerusalem to locate the cross on which Jesus had been crucified. This lecture considers the Old English poetic treatment of this myth, which is associated with the religious poet Cynewulf
Recommended reading:
Hill TD. Sapiential Structure and Figural Narrative in the Old English ‘Elene.’ Traditio. 1971;27:159-177. doi:10.1017/S0362152900005304
Zollinger, C. W. (2004). Cynewulf's" Elene" and the Patterns of the Past. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 103(2), 180-196.
In addition to the literature from Part I of the course, the following items are recommended:
Websites:
The Riddle Ages: https://theriddleages.bham.ac.uk/
The Consolidated Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry: https://clasp.ell.ox.ac.uk/db-latest/
Old English Poetry in Facsimile: https://oepoetryfacsimile.org/
Kiernan, Kevin, Electronic Beowulf 4th Edition https://ebeowulf.uky.edu/
Additional short articles relevant to each topic will be uploaded via Moodle for each topic covered.
Reference Works
Campbell, A., Old English Grammar (Clarendon Press, 1959)
Mitchell, B., Old English Syntax (Clarendon Press, 1985)
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