Excerpt from Lessons in Literature: With Illustrative Selections; A Text-Book for Schools and Academies Anglo=saxon Works - ithe earliest Specimens of English literature are two Anglo Saxon poems, Written probably 1n the tenth century. One of these the ballad epic, Beowulf is the most ancient and the most inter esting of the old English poems, presenting, as it does, characters instinct With chivalry and generosity. The au thor' s name is unk', nown= but the manuscript still kept in the British Museum IS undoubtedly the work of a monk. It is written continuously in Danish characters, resem bling our man'uscript'of prose. The poem'contains more than-six thousand lines, andit/he scene of its action indi cates that it was composed by Saxons who lived before. The invasion of England. Beowulf was a hero: somewhat like Th'eseus among the Greeks. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.