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Qualities of Literature. Tests of Literature. The Object in studying Literature. Importance of Literature. Summary of the Subject. Bibliography. Our First Poetry. "Beowulf." "Widsith." "Deor's Lament." "The Seafarer." "The Fight at Finnsburgh." "Waldere." Anglo-Saxon Life. Our First Speech. Christian Writers. Northumbrian Literature. Bede. Cædmon. Cynewulf. Decline of Northumbrian Literature.
The "Fight at Finnsburgh" is a fragment of fifty lines, discovered on the inside of a piece of parchment drawn over the wooden covers of a book of homilies. It is a magnificent war song, describing with Homeric power the defense of a hall by Hnæf with sixty warriors, against the attack of Finn and his army.
Now my spirit uneasily turns in the heart's narrow chamber, Now wanders forth over the tide, o'er the home of the whale, To the ends of the earth and comes back to me. Eager and greedy, The lone wanderer screams, and resistlessly drives my soul onward, Over the whale-path, over the tracts of the sea. THE FIGHT AT FINNSBURGH AND WALDERE. Two other of our oldest poems well deserve mention.
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