THE ANGLO SAXON AND MEDIEVAL PERIODS
It is a fact without reasonable double that old English has made even the avid readers struggle to connect what happens in the story. This is all about the context. Or, in other words, about how the current readers tend to lack the context to both understand as well as appreciate classics. Modern dictionary has defined context as: setting or rather the circumstance in which an idea can be fully understood. It is therefore clear that if a modern reader lacks the context, the likelihood of failing to connect the story with the real world is very high. And we, in our modernity lack the context for many classics in several respects
Context of prose and style
The language has highly evolved, sentence structures shifted and some words felt out of fashion and replaced by others. Even meanings of words have metamorphosed. It therefore only takes a committed English literature reader to comfortably be in a position to read and understand the literature in both eras.
Context of cultural and historical settings
Most authors even to date usually write only for their contemporaries and not considering some future generations which may need to read their literature. The have the assumption that readers know the social as well as the cultural contexts. However, when a book survives the test of time, the assumption definitely fails.
Change from the Old texts to Modern English through Middle.
The old texts used simple and figurative features of the monsters. This made the story more real and easy to connect with world. The complexity of the language used was simple and clear an aspect that makes the story more relevant to large number of the audience.
Middle English
Things changed as the books entered into the middle ages where the language transition also changed. The use of the figurative characters has diminished and the use of technical vocabularies gets deeper. This could mean that the readers or the audience will have to do their own research on what is happening in the story.
Modern English
The variation of the language used in the modern English has totally changed from the Old English. This makes the whole comprehensions difficult to understand and requires the audience to do their own studies so as to get updated with ever changing of the language English. The use of the Figurative features has furnished and today other characters have taken center stage.