English literature, in the etymological sense of the word, had, so far as we know, no existence until Christian times. There is no evidence either that the heathen English had adopted the Roman alphabet, or that they had learned to employ their native monumental script (the runes) on materials suitable for the writing of continuous compositions of considerable length. It is, however, certain that in the pre-literary period at least one species of poetic art had attained a high degree of development, and that an extensive body of poetry was handed down not, indeed, with absolute fixity of f…
