Chapter 1: Early and Middle English Period (approximately 450 to 1066)

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:04]Peace be upon you.

[00:00:07]Second year History of English Literature.

[00:00:11]From here, this subject is such a subject that it is an international type subject. All universities have it. It's in all colleges. Not only in our country but also in other countries. In one of our first classes, we learned what the History of English Literature actually was. How is English literature? Its history. There are nine total chapters in the book. Aka 10.

[00:00:32]Some books say 10.

[00:00:37]So what do you think of the 10? A man thinks he has nine children. The last one is twins again. Two heads. You are twins with two heads.

[00:00:48]Two people won't catch an otter. Someone will catch it. If two people catch it, it's 10 chapters. If you catch one, it's chapter nine.

[00:00:54]We will read the first chapter of it today.

[00:00:56]The first chapter is the Early and Middle English Period, or basically we can say the Old English Period.

[00:01:05]What was English literature like in ancient times? Let me tell you again that this book is neither a literature book nor a story book. It is a history book. What is the history of literature? However, the history of literature is about the books and writings that existed from 450 to 1066 in ancient times.

[00:01:30]Today we will learn about them.

[00:01:36]We'll share a little screen share. Let 's talk about the picture.

[00:01:44]I'll enlarge the picture a little. Let me talk a little about the pictures first.

[00:01:57]You are too young to see writing in ancient times. Those of you who are 70 or 80 years old like me, they used to listen to stories from their parents and grandparents.

[00:02:08]When we were young, there were no phones, smartphones, or even button phones. So in the afternoon, we would go to our grandfather or grandmother's house and listen to stories. Tell me a story. In one country, there was a king. That king had 14 queens. 17 queens, 25 queens.

[00:02:27]Okay. The younger queen did this, the older queen did that. All kings must have at least three queens.

[00:02:35]That king would fight in such and such a place, do this in such and such a place, do that in such and such a place. What I mean is that in ancient times, stories meant stories about kings. There is nothing to tell about the poor and miserable. There are no such stories about such and such teachers. That Apu brother, Tamuk brother, Sefuda, Viral brother, these are not there either. So, in Chapter One, we are going to read today from 450 to 1066. Back then, there was no TikTok, no mobile phones, no internet.

[00:03:04]What did people write about back then?

[00:03:07]This king and king are fighting over the idols.

[00:03:12]How were the books written at that time? Look at that, for example, making paper with great difficulty on a piece of leather or on a stone, there was no paper. In fact, there were many stories back then, by word of mouth. I know that many of you know how an epic poem is written and how it is made.

[00:03:31]Today, I will tell you once again in short [sniffing] In ancient times, people used to sing sad poems and sad songs. For example, if you go to our country three to four hundred years ago, you will see that Lalon Fakir used to sing songs.

[00:03:44]Lalon himself did not write them.

[00:03:46]Someone wrote these, perhaps many years after Lalon's death.

[00:03:48]These songs have been rescued.

[00:03:50]So how are these songs that were written or sung 1500 years ago still being heard?

[00:03:58]Someone wrote it down and it spread by word of mouth. For example, we will know the name of a book or the name of a story.

[00:04:05]The name is Belf. It was one of the best epics of this era or time.

[00:04:12]The name of the epic poem is Beowulf. Belf. It doesn't actually have any different meaning, or even if it did, it's a different language.

[00:04:22]We cannot say this is our original English language. Broken English is called Anglo-Saxon or the then Old English language. They have a different name. It is called archaic. No need.

[00:04:32]You will know whatever I tell you to know.

[00:04:33]You just need to know the name. It is a book written approximately around the year 450.

[00:04:41]What book is this? Stories, novels, epics.

[00:04:44]Tell me, what book is this?

[00:04:51]This is a Beauboef story, a novel, an epic poem. What will happen?

[00:05:00]Epic poem, sir. If you say it in English, what is the English of the epic poem?

[00:05:05]Epic is an epic poem.

[00:05:10]It's an epic.

[00:05:14]Epic means a huge story. If the story were started today, it would have started at night and ended in the morning. The purpose of this was to provide entertainment for people all night long.

[00:05:28]Now, there are movies, songs, and dances going on all night long.

[00:05:30]10, 20, 30 years ago, you would see that in rural areas, CDs and DVDs were rented at weddings and movies were shown in the courtyard. Because there were usually 20 to 30 people coming to the wedding. It was impossible to arrange sleeping accommodations for so many people. We would meet up in the yard, with chairs or something like that, and just chat.

[00:05:50]Sometimes I thought about spending the night there. Long ago, when that CDTDU did n't exist, a singer would come with his band of two or four people, and the band would sing songs like this all night long, like songs or poems, like poetry.

[00:06:13]Listen, listen, brothers and sisters, listen, do n't you listen to songs like this? You will see that there has been a novel there for thousands of years.

[00:06:22]So he sang a lot like this. One such poem is called Beowulf. The poem that is huge, huge, huge is called Beowulf.

[00:06:35]Or this type of poetry is basically called epic. A large poem. Imagine reciting poetry all night long. It's not over yet.

[00:06:42]Now the question is, how do you write these?

[00:06:45]They didn't actually write them down, they memorized them. Some wise person has created it in this way with his mind in mind. While she sang, her son sat next to her and listened.

[00:06:56]After that man got old, he would say, "Father, start over." My throat is not feeling well today, Dad. You sing. This is how a son would learn from his father. When the son becomes old again, his son. This is how these songs and poems were passed down from generation to generation.

[00:07:13]One after another, at some point in time, we found that someone wrote these things, but we don't know who actually wrote them, in what year they were written.

[00:07:22]These are such ancient books that we do n't know the name of such a famous book.

[00:07:26]So we know the history of the book.

[00:07:30]Now we will know what story was in this book.

[00:07:33]Because in the final exam from Chapter One, we will get 100% inshaAllah.

[00:07:40]That question is, do you know about the book Beowulf?

[00:07:43]Or how the society of that time was shown in the epic poem Beowulf?

[00:07:50]Explain what the picture of that society was.

[00:07:52]This question is absolutely three stars.

[00:07:55]This question comes in everyone's exam for life.

[00:07:58]Normally, there are two questions, one from a chapter, this year, one next year, another again the year after that, and you can understand the previous one by going back and forth. I mean, if you take the whole book and select 20 important questions, they come from here and come from here, and that's why we also see that everything is common every year from the suggestions. Anyway, we'll write a little about what was in the story of Beowulf.

[00:08:22]Normally, the idea of ​​a low man is present at the beginning of an epic poem.

[00:08:30]Hey, look, I dared today. Dear means to dare. To sing the song of so and so. I mean, I'll sing a song by so-and-so today.

[00:08:39]I will sing the story of such and such a king. O God, give me strength.

[00:08:41]Give me the courage to sing the song all night long and not die of a heart attack. Oh goddess of poetry, help me, oh goddess of poetry. Those who are not free, like Muslims, pray to Allah, like Christians, but in ancient times, religion was a little different, which is called paganism, they used to talk about gods and goddesses.

[00:09:05]This is how the poem begins. The story of a hero begins. The story of a warrior. The name of that warrior is Babel or the name of the epic.

[00:09:14]Bel. The name of the hero of the epic. What is the name of this hero? What is the name of the hero? If you don't talk, I will beat you right in the face. I will throw chocolate on your face.

[00:09:24]The hero's name was also Belf himself. The warrior of this story. That one with a shield and a sword in his hand is looking like this. That is Belf.

[00:09:35][Clears throat.]

[00:09:36]The story begins like this. Belf is a boy who was coming towards the river. While he was coming, a terrible monster from the river attacked him. [Sniffs] He is coming from the place where he comes to a king in the kingdom of a king. Now we will ask you a little bit. Let's see who can tell the name of that king. Who can tell me the parts that the king's name was Radgar? If you have a notebook, write those parts in the comments. If you don't have a notebook, write them in the comments. So, there were many poems that were written at that time. There was only one poem in Bilbe. But in ancient times, many poems were written. But the rest of the poems, those Adumb Bagdum types, are not important to us. Even writers don't think much about them. For example, there was a poem called Dream of the Roots, where Jesus Christ was crucified and killed. He is writing a poem with that wood, that wood, that wood, and what about that wood that is talking about the blood of Jesus touching my body. I'm lucky, that's how it is.

[00:10:47]But when I think of a famous book, the name of that book was Babel. Greatest Poem. What kind of poem is this? Epic poem.

[00:10:57]And normally, most of the poems were written at that time. About war, heroism means bravery, about moral education, about fate, about religion. People used to work with things like industry, politics, these were not there, there was war, okay, one dirty thing was still there, that was foreign affairs.

[00:11:25]Anyway, in this story, we can see that the story starts with Belf showing his bravery, as I'm saying, and this Belf guy comes sailing on the sea. They arrived and stopped in the land of a king.

[00:11:46]I didn't write the original story of Belf here. I will write it in the summary book. You just need to know the story of Belf.

[00:11:51]I'm telling you so myself.

[00:11:55]So that's the name of that king.

[00:11:59]King Rother, I have n't written the story of Rothergar here. It seems that I will find it here.

[00:12:09]No problem. I will write it. I will write it today.

[00:12:15]Short note on Anglo section period.

[00:12:19]King Alfred. Let's see if he is here. This one is here. It is also in Broad.

[00:12:27]This is the name of the king. Who comes to Rothergar's country? Beowulf comes and Beowulf had his own home in Getland.

[00:12:36]His own home was Getland, which we can now call Sweden. He came from Sweden. He came to Rothergar's country. When he came, he was showing his bravery by the sea.

[00:12:47]Rodger had originally sent news and from where the warrior Bilf could also know that there was a danger in the country of King Rodger.

[00:12:59]Belf came here and found out that there was a place in the area of ​​Rodger. The name of the place is Midhall. It was a place of joy. What did they do there? They drank wine and drank wine. They brought all the beautiful girls in the country.

[00:13:22]They danced and sang and made themselves happy. What else did people do back then and this was especially given to warriors, in the past, the job of kings was to attack another kingdom with a force and loot the money and wealth of that kingdom and capture the girls of that kingdom, but you know, I hope the system of war was to loot the wealth and the kings were always bad people. The kings were mostly all the women there, and if you ask what they did to the men, what did they do to the men?

[00:14:05][sniffs] No one can tell you, you are not interactive at all, so many students don't talk, they kill the men, they mostly keep them captive, what else [clears throat] You can hear me talking, you can understand in class, you can talk on the line, yes, if you listen like a robot, you won't understand. You will be more attentive when talking and listening.

[00:14:40]So, when King Rodgar arrives in his country, he sees a giant monster-type warrior who, after fighting, goes to the room where he normally goes to have fun.

[00:14:52]This monster entered the room and dragged two people to pieces and killed them. He kills, jumps, kills, drags away.

[00:14:58]That monster's name was Grendel. This is the name Grendel, which we will have to write on the exam. This is the most important type of question.

[00:15:12]Grundel asks the king what the story is.

[00:15:17]Why does Grendel do this? The king tells Belf that if you can kill Grundel, I will give you one of my wives.

[00:15:24]I will give you my most beautiful wife.

[00:15:28]Okay, he thinks that the reward will give him many more gifts. He had a beautiful wife. The king will give her that wife too. But the king was old. He gave him many other valuable things, gems and jewels.

[00:15:48]Later, we will tell the story of the war.

[00:15:51]We can see that the name of Dutta Dutta is Grendel Dutta. Grendel's face was huge, like a human, with eyes as long as two or three people. His hands and feet were a bit like a human. His eyes were a little big and his ears were a little strange.

[00:16:17]Our eardrums are inside our ears.

[00:16:19]His eardrums are outside like this.

[00:16:22][Sigh][Gasp] So, when they are in that room of joy and happiness, when all the warriors come and shout and dance and play drums, his eardrums are outside and he can't stand the sound of it. Aisa grabs him and screams and beats him up. When he gets two or three of them near him, he leaves them to be killed.

[00:16:43]Meanwhile, the king is killing a friend of his. He is killing a minister. That 's why a warrior from a distant land called out to Birol, "Help me, I can survive this Grendel's tyranny.

[00:16:55]What is this Grendel really like?" This Grendel may actually be a fictional character. The story of that time.

[00:17:04]Okay?

[00:17:06]So how is Grendel portrayed as a monster?

[00:17:07]We can see that Bhil cannot beat Bhilap on the first day.

[00:17:11]But Bihal was very clever. He is wise.

[00:17:14]He notices and understands that when we make noise, his eardrums, like human children, move and thump like this, like a baby's.

[00:17:26]Softer than the palm of your hand. Your eardrum moves like this when you hear that sound. He realizes that he really can't stand the sound.

[00:17:33]Noticing this, another day he set out a bait and tied up some people, made a loud noise with the bait, and scared Grendel away, tearing off one of Grendel's arms.

[00:17:47]Grendel has to be subdued by making a huge noise. It means that one's weakness is not something that people should share with others. Okay? It would be okay if I put headphones on that ear and walked around. [Loud laughter] Weakness and moving forward. So who kills him? Babble. Bell tore his hand away. It does n't kill. He pulled his hand completely apart and threw it against the door. He left, screaming like that, his ears ringing. As he was leaving, it was seen that blood was pouring from his body. It becomes smaller in size.

[00:18:18]Goes home. There is an interesting incident here, Grendel who falls ill at home and dies in his mother's arms. It is sad, but since the gift of the giant is also joyful, I can say that if a child dies in his mother's arms, will the brother and mother sit quietly? We can see that his mother is another terrifying and powerful dragon, okay, Grendel's mother. In the next part, we see Grendel's fight with his mother.

[00:18:57]Grendel's mother was very powerful.

[00:18:59]If you look at the epic poem here, you will see how the battle was fought there.

[00:19:03]From where he attacked Grendel's mother with a sword. The shells on Grendel's mother's body were very hard.

[00:19:09]The sword was not penetrating well.

[00:19:11]This means a lot of detailed discussions.

[00:19:16]But since we need to know the history, we can do it without going into too much detail. So we can see that Bill is a hero and he will even kill Gendel's mother.

[00:19:23]As usual, he also attacks and kills Gandel's mother. The last epic. Many years later.

[00:19:37]Still going on. Many years later. We can see that now the king is also a strong man and he fights for the people of the country and we can see that again a fire breathing dragon attacks their country then the dragon is already old but his strength and youth are not gone yet. In Mannad, an artist Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar will see that he is 80-90 years old and can still sing.

[00:20:14]Okay, we can see that the old man is tired and he is still ready to fight with his sword and we can see that the dragon that breathes fire goes to fight with that dragon because he was a patriot for the welfare of the people of the country. He goes to kill this dragon and kills the dragon but we can see that during the fight he gets seriously injured. Wounded. Wounded. Wounded. Wounded.

[00:20:53]Slowly. The man dies. Our great king, the king or the warrior, can be said to have died. As a result of his death, the epic poem is here. It ends and the story that started at night has become morning. The light of dawn can be seen. They are the Gatti Bati, meaning those who sang these songs or told stories. These were poems. They sang them like songs. What else, rice, rice, rice, money, whatever. The reward came to the house of the landowner who was singing the songs and took it from him and left. This is the extra. What else, but the main story of the Beul epic was this.

[00:21:33]We have left out many small details. We will know more details when we ask for details.

[00:21:35]But normally, they do not read or do not read them in detail like that.

[00:21:40]For example, Grendel's son Radgar repeatedly sensed in advance when the king's country would be attacked.

[00:21:52]Some were getting a hint that some danger was coming to our country.

[00:21:57]For example, sometimes there are no canals in rural areas. A canal is built along a river to provide water to the land.

[00:22:03]The canals are filled. The water overflowed once and came to a greater extent. Now the water got stuck in the water.

[00:22:15]Suddenly, the country of King Rodgar was attacked.

[00:22:18]Grendel came to save Getland from another country.

[00:22:23]Why is Beowulf the man? The reason is shown here.

[00:22:28]Beowulf is a warrior. His father helped his father one day. This King Rodgar helped his father. If he had helped his father, he was his father's friend.

[00:22:39]If you had helped your father, he was coming to repay his father's help. That is, if we see it, we will see what this whole story is actually about.

[00:22:49]Someone says what the themes are. You can see what the content is.

[00:22:58]Try to see. The story is about war, heroism, bravery, and moral education.

[00:23:23]We get moral education in the whole story. Everyone gets heroism. When Grendel is killed or when he wins the war, everyone celebrates him, gives him awards, and gifts.

[00:23:33]Everyone is so happy. What is the moral education that helped your father? If you are ungrateful, we will forget it. We are all ungrateful these days. I will help you.

[00:23:43]Remember, I will give you a Even if you are 0.1% in the exam, I have taught you.

[00:23:48]If you have scored more than me, I have helped you.

[00:23:52]Yes, I have taken money in exchange. The value of education is not like this. So you should be grateful to me even if it is just a little bit.

[00:23:59]You are a human being. There are many. Otherwise, it will spread a bad name in my name. Moreover, we can see that the moral aspect is shown here. The fate of a person is shown. He does what he has to do. In the end, he dies by a dragon.

[00:24:22]And another thing is religion.

[00:24:24]Among the stories written at that time, we do not find much religious aspect in the story of Beowulf.

[00:24:29]We had a question that I asked, what kind of images of that time period are shown?

[00:24:36]This story shows a picture of that time when people lived with war idols. There was morality among people. Humans had to survive by dealing with natural disasters.

[00:24:50]Do you know what water god and water monster mean?

[00:24:53]Do you know what a water monster means? We see water monsters in many ancient stories. There's nothing wrong with the water monster, bro. These storms, these cyclones, I can say that your son has gone out, like you see in Riders to the Sea, when the man goes out to sea for some work, when he dies, some water monster eats him, that's what he means, and what is actually the game of fate [clears throat] So, in our Old English period, we don't have anything like that in detail here.

[00:25:33]Next comes our story of Geoffrey Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales. We'll get to that in the second chapter. Today's story, today's story ends here.

[00:25:44]We have reading in the next class at least. Remember who is the author of the story Beal? None of us know who the author is. This is called anonymous writing. An anonymous writing.

[00:26:02]Duhin keeps the mic on. Okay, this is a famous epic. But we don't know who the author is.

[00:26:09]We will learn about the authors of the remaining famous books we will read.

[00:26:10]So how was today's class? Said.

[00:26:17]Sir, I am asking a question.

[00:26:27]Sir, I am saying that the English suction period or something like that is given here. I do n't understand these things. I mean, I didn't explain the names in the first class. I'll say it again.

[00:26:41][Sniffles] It is very easy to give a few names in Bengali literature. The primitive era, the medieval era, the present era, if we divide it again, we can say the era of such and such a writer, the era of that writer, the era of Rabindranath Tagore, the era of Nazrul. We can do small parts if we want. The first such era in English literature is called the Anglo-Saxon period. Another name for this is the Primitive Era or Old English Period. The question is, why was it named Anglo Secession?

[00:27:10]Then we will know the story of England or the country we are talking about. I mean, there was no such thing as England, England, English.

[00:27:15]Two separate races lived there, the Anglos and the Saxons.

[00:27:17]For example, at one time we were ruled by the Dutch and Dutch people. The British had two different tribes in their country, what was the name of them, Anglo and Sections Angles, and what do we call them Anglo? According to the names of those two nations, the Anglo Sections period means the time, that is, the time of the primitive English. The English, that primitive period of English history, you will find later on, the Victorian Age. The Victorian Age means when Queen Victoria ruled them, the English.

[00:27:52]Then, I will name the simple ones, the modern era, the time of John Milton. Okay, so the Anglo Section is two nations, according to the names of their nations, this period is named the Anglo Section Period.

[00:28:16]I will tell you in detail when I summarize each chapter. So, I want to close today's class here.

[00:28:22]And [snorts] Does anyone have any questions? Do you understand everyone?

[00:28:36]Sir, please don't teach us short questions and broad questions on these subjects next time. Of course, we will teach new short questions and broad questions. Again, if you go down a little, you will see that these short questions and these broad questions have already been taught. There are videos provided. You can also watch them. Again, we will also teach you your homework today. Your homework today is this [snoring] reading of the chapters. Read them again. Look at the questions that have been given here. Look at the questions that have been taken in class.

[00:29:08]I will definitely teach them again.

[00:29:10]Even the old ones. Look at the old ones. These are actually English literature or history. The same thing will continue to happen over and over again. So thank you all so much for doing today's class.