1.  What is the relation of history and literature?  Why should both subjects be studied together?  Explain the qualities that characterize all great literature.  Has any text-book in history ever appealed to you as a work of literature?  What literary qualities have you noticed in standard historical works, such as those of Macaulay, Prescott, Gibbon, Green, Motley, Parkman, and John Fiske?

2.  Why did the Anglo-Saxons come to England?  What induced them to remain?  Did any change occur in their ideals, or in their manner of life?  Do you know any social or political institutions which they brought, and which, we still cherish?

3.  From the literature you have read, what do you know about our Anglo-Saxon ancestors?  What virtues did they admire in men?  How was woman regarded?  Can you compare the Anglo-Saxon ideal of woman with that of other nations, the Romans for instance?

4.  Tell in your own words the general qualities of Anglo-Saxon poetry.  How did it differ in its metrical form from modern poetry?  What passages seem to you worth learning and remembering?  Can you explain why poetry is more abundant and more interesting than prose in the earliest literature of all nations?

5.  Tell the story of Beowulf.  What appeals to you most in the poem?  Why is it a work for all time, or, as the Anglo-Saxons would say, why is it worthy to be remembered?  Note the permanent quality of literature, and the ideals and emotions which are emphasized in Beowulf.  Describe the burials of Scyld and of Beowulf.  Does the poem teach any moral lesson?  Explain the Christian elements in this pagan epic.

6.  Name some other of our earliest poems, and describe the one you like best.  How does the sea figure in our first poetry?  How is nature regarded?  What poem reveals the life of the scop or poet?  How do you account for the serious character of Anglo-Saxon poetry?  Compare the Saxon and the Celt with regard to the gladsomeness of life as shown in their literature.

7.  What useful purpose did poetry serve among our ancestors?  What purpose did the harp serve in reciting their poems?  Would the harp add anything to our modern poetry?

8.  What is meant by Northumbrian literature?  Who are the great Northumbrian writers?  What besides the Danish conquest caused the decline of Northumbrian literature?

9.  For what is Bede worthy to be remembered?  Tell the story of Caedmon, as recorded in Bede’s History.  What new element is introduced in Caedmon’s poems?  What effect did Christianity have upon Anglo-Saxon literature?  Can you quote any passages from Caedmon to show that Anglo-Saxon character was not changed but given a new direction?  If you have read Milton’s Paradise Lost, what resemblances are there between that poem and Caedmon’s Paraphrase?