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Hello everybody, underline
Here is a precious find I stumbled upon a while ago. It is a collection of poems written by
The Alfred The Great (translated from anglo-saxon to english by the poet M.F.Tupper). If you don’t know much about Alfred the Great, let me fill you in. Alfred the Great was the king of Wessex when the Vikings attempted to take over the whole island of Britain. In short order they swooped down from (I believe it was east anglia, but don’t quote me on that.) down into the heart of Britain, conquering every kingdom they set their minds to. Only Wessex remained. Alfred put up a strong fight, but was nonetheless defeated and forced into hiding. From his hiding though, he eventually emerged, drove the Vikings out of his kingdom, drove the out of the surrounding kingdom, and generally made himself one of the greatest comeback stories in the history of the world (if not the greatest). Not only was he a military hero who just so happened to have saved all of Britain from the Vikings, but he was also a record setting social and religious reformer. He completely reestablished the whole social system of England (based upon the bible). His greatest success though, was overseeing the translation of large portions of scripture into the vernacular and spreading literacy throughout his kingdom. So, with that introduction, enjoy the poetical outpourings of this amazing man.See Alfred’s Poems f=”https://books.google.com/books?id=6h5eAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP14&lpg=PP14&dq=Poetry+by+M.F.Tupper&source=bl&ots=HFImGoA2Ij&sig=O9Zus8nHSvt4wFZuRFb_2l5x_zo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMI3syHisPtxgIV1y2ICh3wdg4a#v=onepage&q=Poetry%20by%20M.F.Tupper&f=false”>See Alfred’s Poems
Just in case this link doesn’t work, here is the url.
https://books.google.com/books?id=6h5eAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP14&lpg=PP14&dq=Poetry+by+M.F.Tupper&source=bl&ots=HFImGoA2Ij&sig=O9Zus8nHSvt4wFZuRFb_2l5x_zo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMI3syHisPtxgIV1y2ICh3wdg4a#v=onepage&q=Poetry%20by%20M.F.Tupper&f=false🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢
Oops, the “underline” in the first line was not supposed to be there. Oh, well.
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@daeus Okay, I know this topic is ancient (it’s the second oldest in “recent forum topics” at the moment), but this is actually pretty cool! Alfred the Great sounds like a good guy, and his poems are pretty good. I was skimming through the book, and I found it interesting that the translator inserted notes about Anglo-Saxon language. I have always been curious as to how we got from Old English to Modern English and how they can even be considered different versions the same language when we can’t read Old English.
Anyways… maybe some other people will check this out if it is brought to the top of recent topics.
A Kapeefer for life!
Compendium of KP Literature: kapeeferliterature.wordpress.com@supermonkey42 Wow. You ventured deep into the ancient, spooky cave of old, dusty topics and found a treasure! I’m impressed! I can’t let this turn back to dust…
@daeus I just read the poem Of Fame and Death on page 41, and WOW. Just wow. I had no idea Alfred the Great was such a talented and deep poet. I especially liked the first seven stanzas where it talked about the vain rewards of fame, and how small the world actually is compared to the Universe. That clicked true to me. I think we need this poem even today! Everyone’s so self-centered and chasing vanity (including myself) and don’t usually look up at the divinity and majesty of God. That is just what we need to do — recognize Jesus as the King of all. And the ultimate sacrifice, of course.Hope you don’t mind my little ranting phase there… Such a great poem!!
You can pronounce it however you want.
@supermonkey42 @dekreel Glad you enjoyed these. 😀
Reeding the advertisement in this and the notes on some of the poems, I’m actually getting the impression with this book, that it was not the original poetry of Alfred, but translated for Boethius, a Latin poet. However, it seems that Alfred was liberal with his translation and he made some alterations and substitution according to his own tastes and philosophy.
Don’t quote me on this, but that’s at least how it seems.
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@supermonkey42 Thanks for resurrecting this. Kinda ironic that you did it just now, because I just found it the other day and bookmarked the web paged that the poems were on. I haven’t read many of them, but what I’ve read are really interesting. 🙂
@daeus Right. As soon as I posted my topic, I was like, “Wait, Alfred didn’t write this directly…” So, oops! XD STILL, amazing poetry!
You can pronounce it however you want.
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