Storia dell'Inghilterra: dalla preistoria all'epoca medievale, Schemi e mappe concettuali di Inglese

Scarica Storia dell'Inghilterra: dalla preistoria all'epoca medievale e più Schemi e mappe concettuali in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! PRE CELTIC BRITAIN Six hundred years ago ‘Britain’ was already inhabited. The population started to burn and cut down the forests, grow cereals (like wheat, barley or oats) and to breed (cattle, pigs and sheeps); so over the centuries they changed the landscape. From 3000 BC they built ritual sites (enclosed spaces used for ceremonies and defence > Stonehenge). During the Bronze Age they started metalworking, producing pottery and salt, and manufacturing leather and cloth. THE CELTS Around 700 BC the Celts began to arrive from Northwest Germany and gradually settled down in the country between 500 and 100 BC. Today their language remains in Welsh (Wales) and in Gaelic (Scotland and Ireland). They were tall and muscular, with blue eyes, blond hair and fair skin. The Celts lived on farming, hunting, fishing and metalworking. They introduced the iron plough which made the cultivation of the soil easier. They built massive hill forts on top of hills, they were used as a tribal centre and refuges in times of danger. Women were almost equal to men: they could choose their husband, retain their own property and lead other warriors in war (Boadicea). The Druids were the Celts’ priests; they were important not only in religion, but also in justice, education and medicine. The Celts worshipped the natural elements such as the sun, the moon, trees and rivers. They believed in immortality and in the transmigration of the soul from one person to another. THE ROMANS Britain was conquered in 43-47 AD under Emperor Claudius, but previously even Julius Caesar had tried. Britain was part of the Roman Empire for about 15 generations. The Romans were attracted by the rich agriculture of the South, tin and lead in the West, the availability of slaves and Britain’s strategic importance as an offshore base. The Romans didn’t control the whole island so in 122 AD Emperor Hadrian ordered a wall to be built between Britons and Scots and Pics in the North. They built almost ten thousand kilometres of paved roads and connected the towns that developed as military, amministrative and trading centres. The most important town was Londinium. The Romans also brought their culture, the latin language and Christianity to Britain. Roman control of Britain ended in 409 AD as soldiers were withdrawn to defend Rome against the Barbarian raiders. THE ANGLO SAXONS In the fifth and sixth centuries Jutes, Angles and Saxons (people coming from the North Sea Region of Northern Europe) invaded Britain. They settled south of Hadrian’s Wall because they were lowland people and were looking for farming land. Their society was founded on loyalty to the family or clan and the centre of communal life was the hall. The Anglo-Saxons partly reintroduced pagan values, so in 597 the Pope sent a monk, Augustine, to bring Christianity back to England. Augustine’s mission was successful and he became the first Archbishop of the newly founded Cathedral of Canterbury. England joined Europe’s ecclesiastical culture: the monasteries became important cultural centres, the Church educated the people and offered them efficient public administration. THE DANES The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons’ Scandinavian neighbours, were sea people. They crossed the Atlantic on their longships looking for treasure, cattle and slaves; then they set up colonies creating a Norseman culture round the coasts of Europe. In 793 they sacked Lindisfarne and by the early ninth century the Viking invasion of Britain became an occupation. They began to settle down and intermarry and they established Danelaw (a code of Danish law that also described the area administered by the Danes in northern and eastern England). The endings of Viking place names were -thorpe, -by and -kirk. When Vikings reached Wessex, king Ethelred and his brother Alfred stopped their advance. Alfred became the king and at the Battle of Edington in 878 defeated the Danish commander Gutrum; he built fortresses and planned a navy with longships. Alfred established his capital at Winchester, he opened Church schools, he built fortresses and he introduced a new legal code. In 991 the Vikings organised a further attack but the English responded by paying money to be left alone, then there was another attack in 1015. ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE Anglo-Saxon literature was anonymous and oral, the poet (called a ‘scop’) entertained the nobleman in the halls of kings, often accompanied by a harp. He sang epic celebrating cultural values on occasions of great ceremonies and festivities. Anglo-Saxon poetry was formed in a long process of collective memorisation and in the twelfth century it was written down by church clerks. THE MEDIEVAL BALLAD Popular ballads were composed between the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. They were anonymous and were indeed for singing and dancing. Their language was simple and included formulaic phrases to facilitate the storage and they were transmitted orally. THE EPIC POEM The word ‘epic’ comes from the Greek noun ‘epos’, which means ‘oral exposition’. Examples of epic poems are Iliad and Odyssey (Homer), Virgil’s Aeneid and the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf. The epic poem is a long narrative poetical composition, it deals with the recollection of a glorious past. The scene is often occupied by supernatural creatures, like monsters; the society is aristocratic and military and common people exist because they are related to heroes. The narrative is made up by a series of vivid, pictorial flashes or type scenes (such as the banquet, the battle….) and the narration in objective. The main theme is the nature of heroic life and the function of leadership in heroic society. The style is elevated and the vocabulary is extremely rich and vivid. THE MEDIEVAL BALLAD Ballads have been sung throughout the English-speaking world in different times and places. The Ballad has no moral aim, it tells a dramatic story not as a continuous sequence of events, but a series of rapid flashes. The language is very simple and there is a mixture of dialogue and narration. A four-line stanza is used, often rhyming ABCB, and a refrain, that is, a repeated line or group of lines. Ballads can be classified according to the following themes: >Ballads of magic (about fairies, transformation….) >Border ballads (about the rivalry between the English and the Scottish people) >Ballads of love and domestic tragedy >Ballads of outlaws (with the cycle of Robin Hood) BEOWULF Beowulf is the oldest surviving epic poem in the English language. Originally untitled, it began to be called by the name of its Scandinavian hero in the nineteenth century. Beowulf was probably composed as an elegy for a king who died in the seventh century, and developed through many retellings before it was written down in the eleventh century. Beowulf is strong and he puts people’s welfare before his own. King Hrothgar of Denmark has built a great hall, Heorot, where his warriors can gather. A terrible monster, Grendel, frightens the Danes every night for twelve years, so Beowulf decides to sail to Denmark with a small company of men, determined to defeat Grendel. Beowulf kills him, but Grendel’s mother, who lives in a desolate lake, comes to Heorot seeking revenge for her son, but Beowulf kills her too. Then he sails back to Scandinavia and becomes king of the Geats in Sweden. When he is old he has to fight against a fire-breathing dragon that is trying to destroy the country, he kills the monster but he is mortally wounded; his most heroic trait is that he is not afraid to die. Beowulf describes a warrior society, founded on loyalty; the struggles the poem describes are the classic challenges of good against evil. There is a lot of repetition, the language is elevated, there are long lists and lots of alliteration and stock formulae.