ruthless hordes (p. 15),the same who were partly responsible for the falling of the Roman Empire. TheAngle and the Saxons settled in Britainand drove the British (people who lived there before) west. They were notChristian; their gods were old Germanic deities. But they were civilized in thesense that they had their laws, government and even literature, which theybrought with them to England.Burgess elucidates the fact that this literature was recorded when England was,again, Christianized by Irish evangelists and it was discovered only at thetime of Reformation. This literature was passed orally from generation togeneration in verse and almost entirely anonymously. Later on, it was writtendown by monks in the monasteries. Beowulf is theoldest poem written in English and it is a warriors story. Its interesting tohighlight what Burgess points out about this poem. He says that its in no waya crude and primitive composition (p. 18). Beowulf was notwritten in England,it was brought there by the Anglo-Saxons, that is, it was produced by someother barbarous or pagan people. It proves that it is not possible to say, forsure, that these peoples were uncivilized or that they had a poor, undevelopedculture, as we are told by some documentaries and Hollywoodmovies. The poem is well constructed and rich in its images and language,proving to be a product of an advanced pagan civilization (p. 18). Beowulf, and mostof the literature written in Old English, was written in head-rhyme andreflected the strength of the language itself. Another interesting fact thatthe author brings to light is that Old English writers usually had to useuncommon names or to make up new words to be able to create poems usingread-rhyme. Burgess also mentions The Seafarer and The Wanderer asother examples of poems in Old English and suggests that the melancholy ofthese writings could be due to the heaviness of Old English, among otherfactors. The author explains that Northumbrian dialect was used to write poetry in theninth century but that changed when the Danes invaded England and sacked Northumbria. Wessex was, now, Englands cultural center (p. 21).Alfred, the Great, King of Wessex, was responsible for many great deeds, amongthem, for defeating the Danes in 878 and for improving the state of educationin England.He himself was a good prose writer, what he demonstrated through histranslations from Latin. Burgess finishes his overview on the Anglo-Saxonsexplaining that much of the history of that period, especially from the ninthcentury to 1154, is known through the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,written in Old English prose, but already showing signs of the transitiontowards Middle English. Burgess moves on and tells us about the Normans,a gay people whose language was quite different form that of the Anglo-Saxons,reflecting all the lightness and joy of its speakers. Under the leadership ofWilliam, the Conqueror, the Normanstook over the country. After a period of adaptation between the culture of thesouth and that one of the north, brought by the Normans, the literature produced reflectedthe color of Old French literature, with its light melody and its end-rhymepatterns. Something very interesting in Burgess text is that he presents us very usefulinformation about the history of the