Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. According to Seamus Heaney's translation of this long narrative poem, the hero of the tale advises, "Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better / to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning". What hero speaks these words to a king after the mother of a monstrous giant seeks vengeance for the death of her son?
2. What elegiac poem found in the "Exeter Book" from around AD 975 is about a warrior who was once part of a band of fighters, but who is now lost and lamenting the death of his king and friend, the transitory nature of existence, and his lack of purpose?
3. What English Abbot of Eynsham, Oxfordshire, is remembered for his "Lives of the Saints", his homilies, his translations of the Bible, and for his religious commentary, such as his "Preface to Genesis", in which he expressed his hesitation to translate Old Testament books for fear that people would live according to the "Old Law of Moses" rather than the "New Law of Christ"?
4. What is the title of the remnant of an Old English poem written about a battle that occured in England on August 11, A.D. 991, between Viking raiders and the men of Essex who were led by the heroic Englishman Byrhtnoth?
5. This Old English scholar wrote a number of lyrical poems, including "Farewell to His Cell" during which the speaker of the poem is drawn by the beauty of nature but concludes that he must reject the transitory physical world as a prisoner might reject his cell. Who was this man who also accepted Charlemagne's invitation to be the head of his Palace School and later the Abbot of St. Martin's at Tours?
6. Which king of England, the only one ever to receive the epithet of "the Great", is celebrated for, among many other accomplishments, his push for literacy in England and for his own writing and important English translations of such Latin works as the "Cura Pastoralis", which became a standard manual on the conduct of the priesthood for centuries?
7. What Old English poem, sometimes referred to as "The Soul's Voyage", is named after the main character, who begins his evaluation of his life with these words: "I have known my ship as a cell of pain / On a sharp choppy sea. Often my stand / Was the bow of the boat in the black night watches / While we courted the cliffs. Clamped in cold / My feet were frozen. But fiery the pain was-- / Hot in my heart--where a hunger tore through / My shoal-weary spirit"?
8. In what Old English poem would one listen to an individual relate a vision he had of the cross Christ was crucified upon, a cross that shifts from a bloody instrument of torture to a gilded and jewel-encrusted artifact that speaks to the man about the death and resurrection of Christ, whom the cross refers to as the "young warrior" who defeats death?
9. Sometimes referred to as "the father of English history", this monk wrote "The Ecclesiastical History of the English People", which contained several stories of miracles such as the account of Caedmon, an uneducated and illiterate layman who gained the gift of song and poetry through an angelic visitation that occurred in one of his dreams. Who was this "venerable" scholar and author?
10. In Old English poetry, like "Beowulf", a reader will encounter the tradition of forming new words by combining two other words, such as "whale-road" to mean "sea", "ring-giver" for "king", and "word-hoard" for "vocabulary" or "speech". What is the term used by scholars to refer to this word play?
Source: Author
alaspooryoric
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looney_tunes before going online.
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