Download or read book Anglo Saxon Poetry written by S.A.J. Bradley and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2012-04-26 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anglo-saxon poetry was circulated orally in a preliterate society, and gathered at last into books over some six centuries before the Norman Conquest ended English independence. Against the odds some of these books survive today. This anthology of prose translations covers most of the surviving poetry, revealing a tradition which is outstanding among early medieval literatures for its sophisticated exploration of the human condition in a mutable, finite, but wonderfully diverse and meaning-filled world.