Seth Lerer from The Great CoursesThe focus of this lecture is the loan words that came into the Germanic languages during the continental and insular periods of borrowing. You'll also see how the first known poet in English, Caedmon, used the resources of his vocabulary and his literary inheritance to give vernacular expression to new Christian concepts.
Compounding
Four kinds
Determinitive compounding
- bone locker
- middle Earth (Tolkien)
Kenning noun metaphor that exppresses a familiar idea
- road of the whale – the sea
- road of the swan
- bath of the gannett
- sea steed – ship
repetitive compounding
going about weaver – the swift moving one – spider in OE
Caedmon’s Hymn
- West Saxon version
- Known as the first English poem
