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Title: Halleck's New English Literature

Author: Reuben P. Halleck

Release Date: January 8, 2004 [EBook #10631]

Language: English

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HALLECKS'S NEW ENGLISH LITERATURE

by REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A., LL.D.

Author of "History of English Literature" and "History of American
Literature"


PREFACE

In this _New English Literature_ the author endeavors to preserve the
qualities that have caused his former _History of English Literature_
to be so widely used; namely, suggestiveness, clearness, organic
unity, interest, and the power to awaken thought and to stimulate the
student to further reading.

The book furnishes a concise account of the history and growth of
English literature from the earliest times to the present day. It lays
special emphasis on literary movements, on the essential qualities
that differentiate one period from another, and on the spirit that
animates each age. Above all, the constant purpose has been to arouse
in the student an enthusiastic desire to read the works of the authors
discussed. Because of the author's belief in the guide-book function
of a history of literature, he has spent much time and thought in
preparing the unusually detailed _Suggested Readings_ that follow each
chapter.

It was necessary for several reasons to prepare a new book. Twentieth
century research has transformed the knowledge of the Elizabethan
theater and has brought to light important new facts relating to the
drama and to Shakespeare. The new social spirit has changed the
critical viewpoint concerning authors as different as Wordsworth,
Keats, Ruskin, Dickens, and Tennyson. Wordsworth's treatment of
childhood, for instance, now requires an amount of space that would a
short time ago have seemed disproportionate. Later Victorian writers,
like Meredith, Hardy, Swinburne, and Kipling, can no longer be
accorded the usual brief perfunctory treatment. Increased modern
interest in contemporary life is also demanding some account of the
literature already produced by the twentieth century. An entire
chapter is devoted to showing how this new literature reveals the
thought and ideals of this generation.

Other special features of this new work are the suggestions and
references for a literary trip through England, the historical
introductions to the chapters, the careful treatment of the modern
drama, the latest bibliography, and the new illustrations, some of
which have been specially drawn for this work, while others have been
taken from original paintings in the National Portrait Gallery,
London, and elsewhere. The illustrations are the result of much
individual research by the author during his travels in England.

The greater part of this book was gradually fashioned in the
classroom, during the long period that the author has taught this
subject. Experience with his classes has proved to him the
reasonableness of the modern demand that a textbook shall be definite
and stimulating.

The author desires to thank the large number of teachers who have
aided him by their criticism. Miss Elizabeth Howard Spaulding and Miss
Sarah E. Simons deserve special mention for valuable assistance. The
entire treatment of Rudyard Kipling is the work of Miss Mary Brown
Humphrey. The greater part of the chapter, _Twentieth-Century
Literature_, was prepared by Miss Anna Blanche McGill. Some of the
best and most difficult parts of the book were written by the author's
wife. R.P.H.


CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION--LITERARY ENGLAND

CHAPTERS:

   I.  FROM 449 A.D. TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066

  II.  FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066, TO CHAUCER'S DEATH 1400

 III.  FROM CHAUCER'S DEATH 1400, TO THE ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH, 1558

  IV.  THE AGE OF ELIZABETH 1558-1603

   V.  THE PURITAN AGE, 1603-1660

  VI.  FROM THE RESTORATION, 1660, TO THE PUBLICATION OF PAMELA, 1740

 VII.  THE SECOND FORTY YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 1740-1780

VIII.  THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM, 1780-1837

  IX.  THE VICTORIAN AGE, 1837-1900

   X.  TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE


SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS AND THEIR CHIEF WORKS

INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS:

  1. Woden.
  2. Exeter Cathedral.
  3. Anglo-Saxon Gleeman. (From the tapestry designed by H.A. Bone).
  4. Facsimile of beginning of Cotton MS. of Beowulf.(British Museum).
  5. Facsimile of Beginning of Junian MS. of Caedmon.
  6. Anglo-Saxon Musicians. (From illuminated MS., British Museum).
  7. The Beginning of Alfred's Laws. (From illuminated MS., British
     Museum).
  8. The Death of Harold at Hastings. (From the Bayeux tapestry).
  9. What Mandeville Saw. (From Edition of 1725).
 10. John Wycliffe. (From an old print).
 11. Treuthe's Pilgryme atte Plow. (From a MS. in Trinity College,
     Cambridge).
 12. Gower Hearing the Confession of a Lover. (From Egerton MS.,
     British Museum).
 13. Geoffrey Chaucer. (From an old drawing in the MS. of Occleve's
     Poems, British Museum).
 14. Canterbury Cathedral.
 15. Pilgrims Leaving the Tabard Inn. (From Urry's Chaucer).
 16. Facsimile of Lines Describing the Franklyn. (From the Cambridge
     University MS.).
 17. Franklyn, Friar, Knight, Prioress, Squire, Clerk of Oxford. (From
     the Ellesmere MS.).
 18. Morris Dancers. (From MS. of Chaucer's Time).
 19. Henry VIII, giving Bibles to Clergy and Laity. (From frontispiece
     to Coverdale Bible).
 20. Book Illustration, Early Fifteenth Century. (British Museum).
 21. Facsimile of Caxton's Advertisement of his Books. (Bodleian
     Library, Oxford).
 22. Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_. (From DeWorde's Edition, 1529).
 23. Early Title Page of _Robin Hood_. (Copland Edition, 1550).
 24. William Tyndale. (From an old print).
 25. Sir Thomas Wyatt. (After Holbein).
 26. Facsimile of Queen Elizabeth's Signature.
 27. Sir Philip Sidney. (After the miniature by Isaac Oliver, Windsor
     Castle).
 28. Francis Bacon. (From the painting by Van Somer, National Portrait
     Gallery).
 29. Title page of _Bacon's Essays_, 1597.
 30. John Donne. (From the painting by Jansen, South Kensington
      Museum).
 31. Edmund Spenser. (From a painting in Dublin Castle).
 32. Miracle Play at Coventry. (From an old print).
 33. Hell Mouth in the Old Miracle Play. From a Columbia University
     Model.
 34. Fool's Head.
 35. Air-Bag Flapper and Lath Dagger.
 36. Fool of the Old Play.
 37. Thomas Sackville.
 38. Theater in Inn Yard. (From Columbia University model).
 39. Reconstructed Globe Theater, Earl's Court, London.
 40. The Bankside and its Theaters. (From the Hollar engraving, about
     1620).
 41. Contemporary Drawing of Interior of an Elizabethan Theater.
 42. Marlowe's Memorial Statue at Canterbury.
 43. William Shakespeare. (From the Chandos portrait, National
     Portrait Gallery).
 44. Shakespeare's Birthplace. Stratford-on-Avon.
 45. Classroom in Stratford Grammar School.
 46. Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Shottery.
 47. View of Stratford-on-Avon.
 48. Inscription over Shakespeare's Tomb.
 49. Shakespeare--The D'Avenant Bust. (Discovered in 1845).
 50. Henry Irving as Hamlet.
 51. Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (From the painting by Sargent).
 52. Falstaff and his Page. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott).
 53. Ben Jonson. (From the portrait by Honthorst, National Portrait
     Gallery).
 54. Ben Jonson's Tomb in Westminster Abbey.
 55. Francis Beaumont.
 56. John Fletcher.
 57. Cromwell Dictating Dispatches to Milton. (From the painting by
     Ford Maddox Brown).
 58. Thomas Fuller.
 59. Izaak Walton.
 60. Jeremy Taylor.
 61. John Bunyan. (From the painting by Sadler, National Portrait
     Gallery).
 62. Bedford Bridge, Showing Gates and Jail. (From an old print).
 63. Bunyan's Dream. (From Fourth Edition _Pilgrim's Progress_, 1680).
 64. Woodcut from the First Edition of Mr. Badman.
 65. Robert Herrick.
 66. John Milton. (After a drawing by W. Faithorne, at Bayfordbury).
 67. John Milton, AEt. 10.
 68. Milton's Visit to Galileo in 1638. (From the painting by T.
     Lessi).
 69. Facsimile of Milton's Signature. 1663.
 70. Title Page to _Comus_, 1637.
 71. Milton's Motto from _Comus_, with Autograph, 1639.
 72. Milton Dictating _Paradise Lost_ to his Daughter. (From the
     painting by Munkacsy).
 73. Samuel Butler.
 74. John Dryden. (From the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller, National
     Portrait Gallery).
 75. Birthplace of Dryden. (From a print).
 76. Daniel Defoe. (From a print by Vandergucht).
 77. Jonathan Swift. (From the painting by C. Jervas, National
     Portrait Gallery).
 78. Moor Park. (From a drawing).
 79. Swift and Stella. (From the painting by Dicksee).
 80. Joseph Addison. (From the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller,
     National Portrait Gallery.)
 81. Birthplace of Addison.
 82. Richard Steele.
 83. Sir Roger de Coverley in Church. (From a drawing by B.
     Westmacott).
 84. Alexander Pope. (From the portrait by William Hoare).
 85. Pope's Villa at Twickenham. (From an old print).
 86. Rape of the Lock. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott).
 87. Alexander Pope. (From a contemporary portrait).
 88. Horace Walpole.
 89. Thomas Gray.
 90. Stoke Poges Churchyard.
 91. A Blind Beggar Robbed of his Drink. (From a British Museum MS.)
 92. Samuel Richardson. (From an original drawing).
 93. Henry Fielding. (From the drawing by Hogarth).
 94. Laurence Sterne.
 95. Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott).
 96. Tobias Smollett.
 97. Edward Gibbon. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds).
 98. Edmund Burke. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, National
     Portrait Gallery).
 99. Oliver Goldsmith. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds,
     National Portrait Gallery).
100. Goldsmith and Dr. Johnson. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott).
101. Goldsmith's Lodgings, Canonbury Tower, London.
102. Dr. Primrose and his Family. (From a drawing by G. Patrick
     Nelson).
103. Samuel Johnson. (From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds).
104. Samuel Johnson's Birthplace. (From an old print).
105. James Boswell.
106. Cheshire Cheese Inn To-day.
107. Robert Southey.
108. Charles Lamb. (From a drawing by Maclise).
109. Bo-Bo and Roast Pig. (From a drawing by B. Westmacott).
110. William Cowper. (From the portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence).
111. Cowper's cottage at Weston.
112. John Gilpin's Ride. (From a drawing by R. Caldecott).
113. Robert Burns. (From the painting by Nasmyth National Portrait
     Gallery).
114. Birthplace of Burns.
115. Burns and Highland Mary. (From the painting by James Archer).
116. Sir Walter Scott. (From the painting by William Nicholson).
117. Abbotsford, Home of Sir Walter Scott.
118. Scott's Grave in Dryburgh Abbey.
119. Loch Katrine and Ellen's Isle.
120. Walter Scott. (From a life sketch by Maclise).
121. Scott's Desk and "Elbow Chair" at Abbotsford.
122. Jane Austen. (From an original family portrait).
123. Jane Austen's Desk.
124. William Wordsworth. (From the portrait by B.R. Haydon).
125. Boy of Winander. (From the painting by H.O. Walker, Congressional
     Library).
126. Wordsworth's Home at Grasmere--Dove Cottage.
127. Grasmere Lake.
128. William Wordsworth. (From a sketch in _Fraser's Magazine_).
129. Rydal Mount near Ambleside.
130. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (From a pencil sketch by C.R. Leslie).
131. Coleridge's Cottage at Nether-Stowey.
132. Coleridge as a Young Man. (From a sketch made in Germany).
133. Lord Byron. (From a portrait by Kramer).
134. Byron at Seventeen. (From a painting).
135. Newstead Abbey, Byron's Home.
136. Castle of Chillon.
137. Byron's Home at Pisa.
138. Percy Bysshe Shelley. (From the portrait by Amelia Curran,
     National Portrait Gallery).
139. Shelley's Birthplace, Field Place.
140. Grave of Shelley, Protestant Cemetery, Rome.
141. Facsimile of Stanza from _To a Skylark_.
142. John Keats. (From the painting by Hilton, National Portrait
     Gallery).
143. Keats's Home, Wentworth Place.
144. Grave of Keats, Rome.
145. Facsimile of Original MS. of _Endymion_.
146. Endymion. (From the painting by H.O. Walker, Congressional
     Library).
147. Thomas de Quincy. (From the painting by Sir J.W. Gordon, National
     Portrait Gallery).
148. Room in Dove Cottage.
149. Charles Darwin.
150. John Tyndall.
151. Thomas Huxley. (From the painting by John Collier, National
     Portrait Gallery).
152. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (From the drawing by himself, National
     Portrait Gallery).
153. Thomas Babington Macaulay. (From the painting by Sir. F. Grant,
     National Portrait Gallery).
154. Cardinal Newman. (From the painting by Emmeline Deane).
155. Thomas Carlyle. (From the painting by James McNeill Whistler).
156. Craigenputtock.
157. Mrs. Carlyle. (From a miniature portrait).
158. John Ruskin. (From a photograph).
159. Charles Dickens. (From a photograph taken in America, 1868).
160. Dicken's Home, Gads Hill.
161. Facsimile of MS. of _A Christmas Carol_.
162. William Makepeace Thackeray. (From the painting by Samuel
     Laurence, National Portrait Gallery).
163. Caricature of Thackeray by Himself.
164. Thackeray's Home where _Vanity Fair_ was Written.
165. George Eliot. (From a drawing by Sir F.W. Burton, National
     Portrait Gallery).
166. George Eliot's Birthplace.
167. Robert Louis Stevenson. (From a photograph).
168. Stevenson as a Boy.
169. Edinburgh Memorial of Robert Louis Stevenson. (By St. Gaudens).
170. George Meredith. (From the painting by G.F. Watts, National
     Portrait Gallery).
171. Thomas Hardy. (From the painting by Winifred Thompson).
172. Max Gate. (The Home of Hardy).
173. Matthew Arnold. (From the painting by G.F. Watts, National
     Portrait Gallery).
174. Robert Browning. (From the painting by G.F. Watts, National
     Portrait Gallery).
175. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. (From the painting by Field Talfourd,
     National Portrait Gallery).
176. Facsimile of MS. from _Pippa Passes_.
177. Alfred Tennyson. (From a photograph by Mayall).
178. Farringford.
179. Facsimile of MS. of _Crossing the Bar_.
180. Algernon Charles Swinburne. (From the painting by Dante Gabriel
     Rossetti).
181. Rudyard Kipling. (From the painting by John Collier).
182. Mowgli and his Brothers. (From _The Jungle Book_).
183. The Cat That Walked. (From Kipling's drawing for _Just-So
     Stories_).
184. Joseph Conrad.
185. Arnold Bennett.
186. John Galsworthy.
187. Herbert George Wells.
188. William Butler Yeats.
189. John Masefield.
190. Alfred Noyes.
191. Henry Arthur Jones.
192. Arthur Wing Pinero.
193. George Bernard Shaw. (From the bust by Rodin).
194. James Matthew Barrie.
195. Stephen Phillips.
196. Lady Gregory.
197. John Synge.

[Illustration: LITERARY MAP OF ENGLAND]

[Illustration: LITERARY MAP OF ENGLAND]

NEW ENGLISH LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION

LITERARY ENGLAND

Some knowledge of the homes and haunts of English authors is necessary
for an understanding of their work. We feel in much closer touch with
Shakespeare after merely reading about Stratford-on-Avon; but we seem
to share his experiences when we actually walk from Stratford-on-Avon
to Shottery and Warwick. The scenery and life of the Lake Country are
reflected in Wordsworth's poetry. Ayr and the surrounding country
throw a flood of light on the work of Burns. The streets of London are
a commentary on the novels of Dickens. A journey to Canterbury aids us
in recreating the life of Chaucer's Pilgrims.

Much may be learned from a study of literary England. Whether one does
or does not travel, such study is necessary. Those who hope at some
time to visit England should acquire in advance as much knowledge as
possible about the literary associations of the places to be visited;
for when the opportunity for the trip finally comes, there is usually
insufficient time for such preparation as will enable the traveler to
derive the greatest enjoyment from a visit to the literary centers in
which Great Britain abounds.

Whenever an author is studied, his birthplace should be located on the
literary map. Baedeker's _Great Britain_ will be indispensable in
making an itinerary. The _Reference List for Literary England_ is
sufficiently comprehensive to enable any one to plan an enjoyable
literary pilgrimage through Great Britain and to learn the most
important facts about the places connected with English authors.

The following suggestions from the author's experience are intended to
serve merely as an illustration of how to begin an itinerary. The
majority of east-bound steamships call at Plymouth, a good place to
disembark for a literary trip. From Plymouth, the traveler may go to
Exeter (a quaint old town with a fine cathedral, the home of _Exeter
Book_,) thence by rail to Camelford in Cornwall and by coach four
miles to the fascinating Tintagel (King Arthur), where, as Tennyson
says in his _Idylls of the King_:--

  "All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos,
  There came a day as still as heaven, and then
  They found a naked child upon the sands
  Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea,
  And that was Arthur."

Next, the traveler may go by coach to Bude (of which Tennyson
remarked, "I hear that there are larger waves at Bude than at any
other place. I must go thither and be alone with God") and to unique
Clovelly and Bideford (Kingsley), by rail to Ilfracombe, by coach to
Lynton (Lorna Doone), and the adjacent Lynmouth (where Shelley passed
some of his happiest days and alarmed the authorities by setting
afloat bottles containing his _Declaration of Rights_), by coach to
Minehead, by rail to Watchet, driving past Alfoxden (Wordsworth) to
Nether-Stowey (Coleridge) and the Quantock Hills, by motor and rail to
Glastonbury (Isle of Avalon, burial place of King Arthur and Queen
Guinevere), by rail to Wells (cathedral), to Bath (many literary
associations), to Bristol (Chatterton, Southey), to Gloucester (fine
cathedral, tomb of Edward II), and to Ross, the starting point for a
remarkable all day's row down the river Wye to Tintern Abbey
(Wordsworth), stopping for dinner at Monmouth (Geoffrey of Monmouth).

After a start similar to the foregoing, the traveler should begin to
make an itinerary of his own. He will enjoy a trip more if he has a
share in planning it. From Tintern Abbey he might proceed, for
instance, to Stratford-on-Avon (Shakespeare); then to Warwick,
Kenilworth, and the George Eliot Country in North Warwickshire and
Staffordshire.

Far natural beauty, there is nothing in England that is more
delightful than a coaching trip through Wordsworth's Lake Country
(Cumberland and Westmoreland). From there it is not far to the Carlyle
Country (Ecclefechan, Craigenputtock), to the Burns Country (Dumfries,
Ayr), and to the Scott Country (Loch Katrine, The Trossachs,
Edinburgh, and Abbotsford). In Edinburgh, William Sharp's statement
about Stevenson should be remembered, "One can, in a word, outline
Stevenson's own country as all the region that on a clear day one may
in the heart of Edinburgh descry from the Castle walls."

If the traveler lands at Southampton, he is on the eastern edge of
Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Dorchester in Dorsetshire being the center. The
Jane Austen Country (Steventon, Chawton) is in Hampshire. To the east,
in Surrey, is Burford Bridge near Dorking, where Keats wrote part of
his _Endymion_, where George Meredith had his summer home, and where
"the country of his poetry" is located.

In London, it is a pleasure to trace some of the greatest literary
associations in the world. We may stand at the corner of Monkwell and
Silver streets, on the site of a building in which Shakespeare wrote
some of his greatest plays. Milton lived in the vicinity and is buried
not far distant in St. Giles Church. In Westminster Abbey we find the
graves of many of the greatest authors, from Chaucer to Tennyson.
London is not only Dickens Land and Thackeray Land, but also the
"Land" of many other writers. We may still eat in the Old Cheshire
Cheese, where Johnson and Goldsmith dined.

Those interested in literary England ought to include the cathedral
towns in their itinerary, so that they may visit the wonderful "poems
in stone," some of which, _e.g_., Canterbury (Chaucer), Winchester
(Izaak Walton, Jane Austen), Lichfield (Johnson), have literary
associations. For this reason, all of the cathedral towns in England
have been included in the literary map.

REFERENCE LIST FOR LITERARY ENGLAND:

Baedeker's _Great Britain_ (includes England and Scotland).

Baedeker's _London and its Environs_.

Adcock's _Famous Houses and Literary Shrines of London_.

Lang's _Literary London_.

Hutton's _Literary Landmarks in London_.

Lucas's _A Wanderer in London_.

Shelley's _Literary By-Paths in Old England_.

Baildon's _Homes and Haunts of Famous Authors_.

Bates's _From Gretna Green to Land's End_.

Masson's _In the Footsteps of the Poets_.

Wolfe's _A Literary Pilgrimage among the Haunts of Famous British
Authors_.

Salmon's _Literary Rambles in the West of England_.

Hutton's _A Book of the Wye_.

Headlam's _Oxford (Medieval Towns Series)_.

Winter's _Shakespeare's England_.

Murray's _Handbook of Warwickshire_.

Lee's _Stratford-on-Avon, from the Earliest Times to the Death of
Shakespeare_.

Tompkins's _Stratford-on-Avon_ (Dent's _Temple Topographies_).

Brassington's _Shakespeare's Homeland_.

Winter's _Grey Days and Gold_ (Shakespeare).

Collingwood's _The Lake Counties_ (Dent's County Guides).

Wordsworth's _The Prelude_ (Books I.-V.).

Rawnsley's _Literary Associations of the English Lakes_.

Knight's _Through the Wordsworth Country_.

Bradley's _Highways and Byways in the English Lakes_.

Jerrold's _Surrey_ (Dent's County Guides).

Dewar's _Hampshire with Isle of Wight_ (Dent's County Guides).

Ward's _The Canterbury Pilgrimage_.

Harper's _The Hardy Country_.

Snell's _The Blackmore Country_.

Melville's _The Thackeray Country_.

Kitton's _The Dickens Country_.

Sloan's _The Carlyle Country_.

Dougall's _The Burns Country_.

Crockett's _The Scott Country_.

Hill's _Jane Austen: Her Homes and Her Friends_.

Cook's _Homes and Haunts of John Ruskin_.

William Sharp's _Literary Geography and Travel Sketches_ (Vol. IV. of
_Works_) contains chapters on _The Country of Stevenson, The Country
of George Meredith, The Country of Carlyle, The Country of George.

Eliot, The Brontė Country, Thackeray Land_, The Thames from Oxford to
the Nore_.

Hutton's _Literary Landmarks of Edinburgh_.

Stevenson's _Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh_.

Loftie's _Brief Account of Westminster Abbey_.

Parker's _Introduction to the Study of Gothic Architecture_.

Stanley's _Memorials of Westminster Abbey_.

Kimball's _An English Cathedral Journey_.

Singleton's _How to Visit the English Cathedrals_.

Bond's _The English Cathedrals_ (200 illustrations).

Cram's _The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain_ (6 illustrations).

Home's _What to See in England_.

Boynton's _London in English Literature_.

GENERAL REFERENCE LIST FOR THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE[1]:

_Cambridge History of English Literature_, 14 vols.

Garnett and Gosse's _English Literature_, 4 vols.

Morley's _English Writers_, 11 vols.

Jusserand's _Literary History of the English People_.

Taine's _English Literature_.

Courthope's _History of English Poetry_, 6 vols.

Stephens and Lee's _Dictionary of National Biography_ (dead authors).

_New International Cyclopedia_ (living and dead authors).

_English Men of Letters Series_ (abbreviated reference, E.M.L.)

_Great Writers' Series_ (abbreviated reference. G.W.).

Poole's _Index_ (and continuation volumes for reference to critical
articles in periodicals).

_The United States Catalogue_ and _Cumulative Book Index_.

SELECTIONS FROM ENGLISH LITERATURE[2]:

*Pancoast and Spaeth's _Early English Poems_. (P. & S.)[3]

*Warren's _Treasury of English Literature, Part I_. (Origins to
Eleventh Century: London, One Shilling.) (Warren.)

*Ward's _English Poets_, 4 vols. (Ward.)

*Bronson's _English Poems_, 4 vols. (Bronson.)

_Oxford Treasury of English Literature_, Vol. I., _Beowulf to
Jacobean_;

*Vol. II., _Growth of the Drama_; Vol. III., _Jacobean to Victorian_.
    (Oxford Treasury.)

*_Oxford Book of English Verse_. (Oxford.)

*Craik's _English Prose_, 5 vols. (Craik.)

*Page's _British Poets of the Nineteenth Century_. (Page.)

Chambers's _Cyclopedia of English Literature_. (Chambers.)

Manly's _English Poetry_ (from 1170). (Manly I.)

Manly's _English Prose_ (from 1137). (Manly II.)

_Century Readings for a Course in English Literature_. (Century.)


CHAPTER I: FROM 449 A.D. TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066

Subject Matter and Aim.--The history of English literature traces
the development of the best poetry and prose written in English by the
inhabitants of the British Isles. For more than twelve hundred years
the Anglo-Saxon race has been producing this great literature, which
includes among its achievements the incomparable work of Shakespeare.

This literature is so great in amount that the student who approaches
the study without a guide is usually bewildered. He needs a history of
English literature for the same reason that a traveler in England
requires a guidebook. Such a history should do more than indicate
where the choicest treasures of literature may be found; it should
also show the interesting stages of development; it should emphasize
some of the ideals that have made the Anglo-Saxons one of the most
famous races in the world; and it should inspire a love for the
reading of good literature.

No satisfactory definition of "literature" has ever been framed.
Milton's conception of it was "something so written to after times, as
they should not willingly let it die." Shakespeare's working
definition of literature was something addressed not to after times
but to an eternal present, and invested with such a touch of nature as
to make the whole world kin. When he says of Duncan:--

  "After life's fitful fever he sleeps well,"

he touches the feelings of mortals of all times and opens the door for
imaginative activity, causing us to wonder why life should be a fitful
fever, followed by an incommunicable sleep. Much of what we call
literature would not survive the test of Shakespeare's definition; but
true literature must appeal to imagination and feeling as well as to
intellect. No mere definition can take the place of what may be called
a feeling for literature. Such a feeling will develop as the best
English poetry and prose: are sympathetically read. Wordsworth had
this feeling when he defined the poets as those:--

  "Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares."

The Mission of English Literature.--It is a pertinent question to
ask, What has English literature to offer?

In the first place, to quote Ben Jonson:--

  "The thirst that from the soul cloth rise
  Doth ask a drink divine."

English literature is of preėminent worth in helping to supply that
thirst. It brings us face to face with great ideals, which increase
our sense of responsibility for the stewardship of life and tend to
raise the level of our individual achievement. We have a heightened
sense of the demands which life makes and a better comprehension of
the "far-off divine event" toward which we move, after we have heard
Swinburne's ringing call:--

  "...this thing is God,
  To be man with thy might,
  To grow straight in the strength
    of thy spirit, and live out thy life
    as the light."

We feel prompted to act on the suggestion of--

        "...him who sings
    To one clear harp in divers tones,
    That men may rise on striping-stones
  Of their dead selves to higher things."[4]

In the second place, the various spiritual activities demanded for the
interpretation of the best things in literature add to enjoyment. This
pleasure, unlike that which arises from physical gratification,
increases with age, and often becomes the principal source of
entertainment as life advances. Shakespeare has Prospero say:--

      "...my library
  Was dukedom large enough."

The suggestions from great minds disclose vistas that we might never
otherwise see. Browning truly says:--

      "...we're made so that we love
  First when we see them painted, things we have passed
  Perhaps a hundred tunes nor cared to see."

Sometimes it is only after reading Shakespeare that we can see--

  "...winking Mary buds begin
    To ope their golden eyes.
  With everything that pretty is."

and only after spending some time in Wordsworth's company that the
common objects of our daily life become invested with--

  "The glory and the freshness of a dream."

In the third place, we should emphasize the fact that one great
function of English literature is to bring deliverance to souls weary
with routine, despondent, or suffering the stroke of some affliction.
In order to transfigure the everyday duties of life, there is need of
imagination, of a vision such as the poets give. Without such a vision
the tasks of life are drudgery. The dramas of the poets bring relief
and incite to nobler action.

  "The soul hath need of prophet and redeemer.
    Her outstretched wings against her prisoning bars
  She waits for truth, and truth is with the dreamer
    Persistent as the myriad light of stars."[5]

We need to listen to a poet like Browning, who--

  "Never doubted clouds would break,
    Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph.
  Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
        Sleep to wake."

In the fourth place, the twentieth century is emphasizing the fact
that neither happiness nor perpetuity of government is possible
without the development of a spirit of service,--a truth long since
taught by English literature. We may learn this lesson from _Beowulf_,
the first English epic, from Alfred the Great, from William Langland,
and from Chaucer's _Parish Priest_. All Shakespeare's greatest and
happiest characters, all the great failures of his dramas, are sermons
on this text. In _The Tempest_ he presents Ariel, tendering his
service to Prospero:--

  "All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
  To answer thy best pleasure."

Shakespeare delights to show Ferdinand winning Miranda through
service, and Caliban remaining an abhorred creature because he
detested service. Much of modern literature is an illuminated text on
the glory of service. Coleridge voiced for all the coming years what
has grown to be almost an elemental feeling to the English-speaking
race:--

  "He prayeth best who loveth best
  All things both great and small."

The Home and Migrations of the Anglo-Saxon Race.--Just as there was
a time when no English foot had touched the shores of America, so
there was a period when the ancestors of the English lived far away
from the British Isles. For nearly four hundred years prior to the
coming of the Anglo-Saxons, Britain had been a Roman province. In 410
A.D. the Romans withdrew their legions from Britain to protect Rome
herself against swarms of Teutonic invaders. About 449 a band of
Teutons, called Jutes, left Denmark, landed on the Isle of Thanet (in
the north-eastern part of Kent), and began the conquest of Britain.
Warriors from the tribes of the Angles and the Saxons soon followed,
and drove westward the original inhabitants, the Britons or Welsh,
_i.e._ foreigners, as the Teutons styled the natives.

Before the invasion of Britain, the Teutons inhabited the central part
of Europe as far south as the Rhine, a tract which in a large measure
coincides with modern Germany. The Jutes, Angles, and Saxons were
different tribes of Teutons. These ancestors of the English dwelt in
Denmark and in the lands extending southward along the North Sea.

The Angles, an important Teutonic tribe, furnished the name for the
new home, which was called Angle-land, afterward shortened into
England. The language spoken by these tribes is generally called
Anglo-Saxon or Saxon.

The Training of the Race.--The climate is a potent factor in
determining the vigor and characteristics of a race. Nature reared the
Teuton like a wise but not indulgent parent. By every method known to
her, she endeavored to render him fit to colonize and sway the world.
Summer paid him but a brief visit. His companions were the frost, the
fluttering snowflake, the stinging hail. For music, instead of the
soft notes of a shepherd's pipe under blue Italian or Grecian skies,
he listened to the north wind whistling among the bare branches, or to
the roar of an angry northern sea upon the bleak coast.

The feeble could not withstand the rigor of such a climate, in the
absence of the comforts of civilization. Only the strongest in each
generation survived; and these transmitted to their children
increasing vigor. Warfare was incessant not only with nature but also
with the surrounding tribes. Nature kept the Teuton in such a school
until he seemed fit to colonize the world and to produce a literature
that would appeal to humanity in every age.

The Early Teutonic Religion.--In the early days on the continent,
before the Teuton had learned of Christianity, his religious beliefs
received their most pronounced coloring from the rigors of his
northern climate, from the Frost Giants, the personified forces of
evil, with whom he battled. The kindly, life-bringing spring and
summer, which seemed to him earth's redeeming divinity, were soon
slain by the arrows that came from the winter's quivers. Not even
Thor, the wielder of the thunderbolt, nor Woden, the All-Father,
delayed the inevitable hour when the dusk of winter came, when the
voice of Baldur could no longer be heard awaking earth to a new life.
The approach of the "twilight of the gods," the _Götterdämmerung_, was
a stern reality to the Teuton.

[Illustration: WODEN.]

Although instinct with gloomy fatalism, this religion taught bravery.
None but the brave were invited to Valhalla to become Woden's guest.
The brave man might perish, but even then he won victory; for he was
invited to sit with heroes at the table of the gods. "None but the
brave deserves the fair," is merely a modern softened rendering of the
old spirit.

The Christian religion, which was brought to the Teuton after he had
come to England, found him already cast in a semi-heroic mold. But
before he could proceed on his matchless career of world conquest,
before he could produce a Shakespeare and plant his flag in the
sunshine of every land, it was necessary for this new faith to develop
in him the belief that a man of high ideals, working in unison with
the divinity that shapes his end, may rise superior to fate and be
given the strength to overcome the powers of evil and to mold the
world to his will. The intensity of this faith, swaying an energetic
race naturally fitted to respond to the great moral forces of the
universe, has enabled the Anglo-Saxon to produce the world's greatest
literature, to evolve the best government for developing human
capabilities, and to make the whole world feel the effect of his
ideals and force of character. At the close of the nineteenth century,
a French philosopher wrote a book entitled _Anglo-Saxon Superiority,
In What Does it Consist?_ His answer was, "In self-reliance and in the
happiness found in surmounting the material and moral difficulties of
life." A study of the literature in which the ideals of the race are
most artistically and effectively embodied will lead to much the same
conclusion.

The History of Anglo-Saxon England.--The first task of the
Anglo-Saxons after settling in England was to subdue the British, the
race that has given King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table to
English literature. By 600 A.D., after a century and a half of
struggle, the Anglo-Saxons had probably occupied about half of
England.

They did not build on the civilization that Rome had left when she
withdrew in 410, but destroyed the towns and lived in the country. The
typical Englishman still loves to dwell in a country home. The work of
Anglo-Saxon England consisted chiefly in tilling the soil and in
fighting.

The year 597 marks an especially important date, the coming of St.
Augustine, who brought the Christian faith to the Anglo-Saxons.
Education, literature, and art followed finding their home in the
monasteries.

For nearly 400 years after coming to England, the different tribes
were not united under one ruler. Not until 830 did Egbert, king of the
West Saxons, become overlord of England. Before and after this time,
the Danes repeatedly plundered the land. They finally settled in the
eastern part above the Thames. Alfred (849-900), the greatest of
Anglo-Saxon rulers, temporarily checked them, but in the latter part
of the tenth century they were more troublesome, and in 1017 they made
Canute, the Dane, king of England. Fortunately the Danes were of the
same race, and they easily amalgamated with the Saxons.

These invasions wasted the energies of England during more than two
centuries, but this long period of struggle brought little change to
the institutions or manner of life in Anglo-Saxon England. The
_witan_, or assembly of wise men, the forerunner of the present
English parliament, met in 1066 and chose Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon
king.

During these six hundred rears, the Anglo-Saxons conquered the
British, accepted Christianity, fought the Danes, finally amalgamating
with them, brought to England a lasting representative type of
government, established the fundamental customs of the race, surpassed
all contemporary western European peoples in the production of
literature, and were ready to receive fresh impetus from the Normans
in 1066.

The Anglo-Saxon Language.--Our oldest English literature is written
in the language spoken by the Angles and the Saxons. This at first
sight looks like a strange tongue to one conversant with modern
English only; but the language that we employ to-day has the
framework, the bone and sinew, of the earlier tongue. Modern English
is no more unlike Anglo-Saxon than a bearded man is unlike his former
childish self. A few examples will show the likeness and the
difference. "The noble queen" would in Anglo-Saxon be _s=eo aešele
cw=en_; "the noble queen's," _š=aere aešelan cw=ene_. _S=eo_ is the
nominative feminine singular, _š=aere_ the genitive, of the definite
article. The adjective and the noun also change their forms with the
varying cases. In its inflections, Anglo-Saxon resembles its sister
language, the modern German.

After the first feeling of strangeness has passed away, it is easy to
recognize many of the old words. Take, for instance, this from
_Beowulf_:--

  "...š=y h=e šone f=eond ofercw=om,
  gehn=aegde helle g=ast."

Here are eight words, apparently strange, but even a novice soon
recognizes five of them: _h=e, f=eond_ (fiend), _ofercw=om_
(overcame), _helle_ (hell), _g=ast_ (ghost). The word _šone_, strange
as it looks, is merely the article "the."

  ...therefore he overcame the fiend,
  Subdued the ghost of hell.

Let us take from the same poem another passage, containing the famous
simile:--

  "...l=eoht inne st=od,
  efne sw=a of hefene h=adre sc=ineš
  rodores candel."

Of these eleven words, seven may be recognized: _l=eoht_ (light),
_inne_ (in), _st=od_ (stood), _of_, _hefene_   (heaven),_sc=ineš_
(shineth), _candel_ (candle).

  ...a light stood within,
  Even so from heaven serenely shineth
  The firmament's candle.

Some prefer to use "Old English" in place of "Anglo-Saxon" in order to
emphasize the continuity of the development of the language. It is,
however, sometimes convenient to employ different terms for different
periods of development of the same entity. We do not insist on calling
a man a "grown boy," although there may be no absolute line of
demarcation between boy and man.

Earliest Anglo-Saxon Literature.--As with the Greeks and Romans, so
with the Teutons, poetry afforded the first literary outlet for the
feelings. The first productions were handed down by memory. Poetry is
easily memorized and naturally lends itself to singing and musical
accompaniment. Under such circumstances, even prose would speedily
fall into metrical form. Poetry is, furthermore, the most suitable
vehicle of expression for the emotions. The ancients, unlike modern
writers, seldom undertook to make literature unless they felt so
deeply that silence was impossible.

The Form of Anglo-Saxon Poetry.--Each line is divided Into two parts
by a major pause. Because each of these parts was often printed as a
complete line in old texts, _Beowulf_ has sometimes been called a poem
of 6368 lines, although it has but 3184.

A striking characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry is consonantal
alliteration; that is, the repetition of the same consonant at the
beginning of words in the same line:--

  "Grendel gongan; Godes yrre baer."
  Grendel going; God's anger bare.

The usual type of Anglo-Saxon poetry has two alliterations in the
first half of the line and one in the second. The lines vary
considerably in the number of syllables. The line from _Beowulf_
quoted just above has nine syllables. The following line from the same
poem has eleven:--

  "Flota f=amig-heals, fugle gel=icost."
  The floater foamy-necked, to a fowl most like.

This line, also from _Beowulf_ has eight syllables:--

  "N=ipende niht, and noršan wind."
  Noisome night, and northern wind.

Vowel alliteration is less common. Where this is employed, the vowels
are generally different, as is shown in the principal words of the
following line:--

  "On =ead, on =aeht, on eorcan st=an."
  On wealth, on goods, on precious stone.

End rime is uncommon, but we must beware of thinking that there is no
rhythm, for that is a pronounced characteristic.

Anglo-Saxon verse was intended to be sung, and hence rhythm and accent
or stress are important. Stress and the length of the line are varied;
but we usually find that the four most important words, two in each
half of the line, are stressed on their most important syllable.
Alliteration usually shows where to place three stresses. A fourth
stress generally falls on a word presenting an emphatic idea near the
end of the line.

[Illustration: EXETER CATHEDRAL.]

The Manuscripts that have handed down Anglo-Saxon Literature.--The
earliest Anglo-Saxon poetry was transmitted by the memories of men.
Finally, with the slow growth of learning, a few acquired the art of
writing, and transcribed on parchment a small portion of the current
songs. The introduction of Christianity ushered in prose translations
and a few original compositions, which were taken down on parchment
and kept in the monasteries.

The study of Anglo-Saxon literature is comparatively recent, for its
treasures have not been long accessible. Its most famous poem,
_Beowulf_, was not printed until the dawn of the nineteenth century.
In 1822 Dr. Blume, a German professor of law, happened to find in a
monastery at Vercelli, Italy, a large volume of Anglo-Saxon
manuscript, containing a number of fine poems and twenty-two sermons.
This is now known as the _Vercelli Book_. No one knows how it happened
to reach Italy. Another large parchment volume of poems and miscellany
was deposited by Bishop Leofric at the cathedral of Exeter in
Devonshire, about 1050 A.D. This collection, one of the prized
treasures of that cathedral, is now called the _Exeter Book_.

Many valuable manuscripts were destroyed at the dissolution of the
monasteries in the time of Henry VIII., between 1535 and 1540. John
Bale, a contemporary writer, says that "those who purchased the
monasteries reserved the books, some to scour their candlesticks, some
to rub their boots, some they sold to the grocers and soap sellers,
and some they sent over sea to the bookbinders, not in small numbers,
but at times whole ships full, to the wonder of foreign nations."

The Anglo-Saxon Scop and Gleeman.--Our earliest poetry was made
current and kept fresh in memory by the singers. The kings and nobles
often attached to them a _scop_, or maker of verses. When the
warriors, after some victorious battle, were feasting at their long
tables, the banquet was not complete without the songs of the _scop_.
While the warriors ate the flesh of boar and deer, and warmed their
blood with horns of foaming ale, the _scop_, standing where the blaze
from a pile of logs disclosed to him the grizzly features of the men,
sang his most stirring songs, often accompanying them with the music
of a rude harp. As the feasters roused his enthusiasm with their
applause, he would sometimes indulge in an outburst of eloquent
extempore song. Not infrequently the imagination of some king or noble
would be fired, and he would sing of his own great deeds.

We read in _Beowulf_ that in Hrothgar's famous hall--

  "...š=aer was hearpan sw=eg,
  swutol sang scopes."

  ...there was sound of harp
  Loud the singing of the scop.

In addition to the _scop_, who was more or less permanently attached
to the royal court or hall of a noble, there was a craft of gleemen
who roved from hall to hall. In the song of _Widsiš_ we catch a
glimpse of the life of a gleeman:--

  "Sw=a scrišende gesceapum hweorfaš
  gl=eomen gumena geond grunda fela."

  Thus roving, with shapéd songs there wander
  The gleemen of the people through many lands.

The _scop_ was an originator of poetry, the gleeman more often a mere
repeater, although this distinction in the use of the terms was not
observed in later times.

The Songs of Scop and Gleeman.--The subject matter of these songs
was suggested by the most common experiences of the time. These were
with war, the sea, and death.

[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON GLEEMAN. _From the tapestry designed by
H.A. Bone_.]

The oldest Anglo-Saxon song known, which is called _Widsiš_ or the
_Far Traveler_, has been preserved in the _Exeter Book_. This song was
probably composed in the older Angle-land on the continent and brought
to England in the memories of the singers. The poem is an account of
the wanderings of a gleeman over a great part of Europe. Such a song
will mean little to us unless we can imaginatively represent the
circumstances under which it was sung, the long hall with its tables
of feasting, drinking warriors, the firelight throwing weird shadows
among the smoky rafters. The imagination of the warriors would be
roused as similar experiences of their own were suggested by these
lines in Widsiš's song:--

  "Ful oft of š=am h=eape hw=inende fl=eag
  giellende g=ar on grome š=eode."

  Full oft from that host hissing flew
  The whistling spear on the fierce folk.

The gleeman ends this song with two thoughts characteristic of the
poets of the Saxon race. He shows his love fur noble deeds, and he
next thinks of the shortness of life, as he sings:--

  "In mortal court his deeds are not unsung,
  Such as a noble man mill show to men,
  Till all doth flit away, both life and light."

A greater _scop_, looking at life through Saxon eyes, sings:--

              "We are such stuff
  As dreams are made on; and our little life
  Is rounded with a sleep."[6]

The _scop_ in the song called _The Wanderer (Exeter Book)_ tells how
fleeting are riches, friend, kinsman, maiden,--all the "earth-stead,"
and he also makes us think of Shakespeare's "insubstantial pageant
faded" which leaves "not a rack behind."

Another old song, also found in the _Exeter Book_, is the _Seafarer_.
We must imagine the _scop_ recalling vivid experiences to our early
ancestors with this song of the sea:--

 "Hail flew in hard showers.
  And nothing I heard
  But the wrath of the waters,
  The icy-cold way
  At times the swan's song;
  In the scream of the gannet
  I sought for my joy,
  In the moan of the sea whelp
  For laughter of men,
  In the song of the sea-mew
  For drinking of mead."[7]

To show that love of the sea yet remains one of the characteristics of
English poetry, we may quote by way of comparison a song sung more
than a thousand years later, in Victoria's reign:--

  "The wind is as iron that rings,
  The foam heads loosen and flee;
  It swells and welters and swings,
  The pulse of the tide of the sea.

  Let the wind shake our flag like a feather,
  Like the plumes of the foam of the sea!
       *       *       *       *       *
  In the teeth of the hard glad a weather,
  In the blown wet face of the sea."[8]

Kipling in _A Song of the English_ says of the sea:--

  "...there's never a wave of all her waves
  But marks our English dead."

Another song from the _Exeter Book_ is called _The Fortunes of Men_.
It gives vivid pictures of certain phases of life among the
Anglo-Saxons:--

 "One shall sharp hunger slay;
  One shall the storms beat down;
  One be destroyed by darts,
  One die in war.
  Orre shall live losing
  The light of his eyes,
  Feel blindly with his fingers;
  And one lame of foot.
  With sinew-wound wearily
  Wasteth away.
  Musing and mourning;
  With death in his mind.
       *       *       *       *       *
  One shall die by the dagger,
  In wrath, drenched with ale,
  Wild through the wine, on the mead bench
  Too swift with his words
  Too swift with his words;
  Shall the wretched one lose."[9]

The songs that we have noted, together with _Beowulf_, the greatest of
them all, will give a fair idea of _scopic_ poetry.

BEOWULF

The Oldest Epic of the Teutonic Race.--The greatest monument of
Anglo-Saxon poetry is called _Beowulf_, from the name of its hero. His
character and exploits give unity and dignity to the poem and raise it
to the rank of an epic.

The subject matter is partly historical and partly mythical. The deeds
and character of an actual hero may have furnished the first
suggestions for the songs, which were finally elaborated into
_Beowulf_, as we now have it. The poem was probably a long time in
process of evolution, and many different _scops_ doubtless added new
episodes to the song, altering it by expansion and contraction under
the inspiration of different times and places. Finally, it seems
probable that some one English poet gave the work its present form,
making it a more unified whole, and incorporating in it Christian
opinions.

We do not know when the first _scop_ sang of Beowulf's exploits; but
he probably began before the ancestors of the English came to England.
We are unable to ascertain how long _Beowulf_ was in process of
evolution; but there is internal evidence for thinking that part of
the poem could not have been composed before 500 A.D. Ten Brink, a
great German authority, thinks that Beowulf was given its present form
not far from 700 A.D. The unique manuscript in the British Museum is
written in the West Saxon dialect of Alfred the Great's time
(849-901).

The characters, scenery, and action of _Beowulf_ belong to the older
Angle-land on the continent of Europe; but the poem is essentially
English, even though the chief action is laid in what is now known as
Denmark and the southern part of Sweden. Hrothgar's hall, near which
the hero performed two of his great exploits, was probably on the
island of Seeland.

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF BEGINNING OF COTTON MS. OF BEOWULF.]

TRANSLATION

  Lo! we, of the Gar-Danes in distant days,
  The folk-kings' fame have found.
  How deeds of daring the aethelings did.
  Oft Scyld-Scefing from hosts of schathers,
  From many men the mead seats [reft].

The student who wishes to enter into the spirit of the poem will do
well to familiarize himself with the position of these coasts, and
with a description of their natural features in winter as well as in
summer. Heine says of the sea which Beowulf sailed:--

  "Before me rolleth a waste of water ... and above me go rolling
  the storm clouds, the formless dark gray daughters of air, which
  from the sea in cloudy buckets scoop up the water, ever wearied
  lifting and lifting, and then pour it again in the sea, a mournful,
  wearisome business. Over the sea, flat on his face, lies the
  monstrous, terrible North Wind, sighing and sinking his voice as in
  secret, like an old grumbler; for once in good humor, unto the ocean
  he talks, and he tells her wonderful stories."

Beowulf's Three Great Exploits.--The hero of the poem engaged in
three great contests, all of which were prompted by unselfishness and
by a desire to relieve human misery. Beowulf had much of the spirit
that animates the social worker to-day. If such a hero should live in
our time, he would probably be distinguished fur social service, for
fighting the forces of evil which cripple or destroy so many human
beings.

Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, built a hall, named Heorot, where his
followers could drink mead, listen to the scop, enjoy the music of the
harp, and find solace in social intercourse during the dreary winter
evenings.

  "So liv'd on all happy the host of the kinsmen
  In game and in glee, until one night began,
  A fiend out of hell-pit, the framing of evil,
  And Grendel forsooth the grim guest was hight,
  The mighty mark-strider the holder of moorland,
  The fen and the fastness."[10]

This monster, Grendel, came from the moors and devoured thirty of the
thanes. For twelve winters he visited Heorot and killed some of the
guests whenever he heard the sound of festivity in the hall, until at
length the young hero Beowulf, who lived a day's sail from Hrothgar,
determined to rescue Heorot from this curse. The youth selected
fourteen warriors and on a "foamy-necked floater, most like to a
bird," he sailed to Hrothgar.

Beowulf stated his mission, and he and his companions determined to
remain in Heorot all night. Grendel heard them and came.

  "...he quickly laid hold of
  A soldier asleep, suddenly tore him,
  Bit his bone-prison, the blood drank in currents,
  Swallowed in mouthfuls."[11]

Bare-handed, Beowulf grappled with the monster, and they wrestled up
and down the hall, which was shaken to its foundations. This terrible
contest ended when Beowulf tore away the arm and shoulder of Grendel,
who escaped to the marshes to die.

In honor of the victory, Hrothgar gave to Beowulf many presents and a
banquet in Heorot. After the feast, the warriors slept in the hall,
but Beowulf went to the palace. He had been gone but a short time,
when in rushed Grendel's mother, to avenge the death of her son. She
seized a warrior, the king's dearest friend, and carried him away. In
the morning, the king said to Beowulf:--

  "My trusty friend AEschere is dead... The cruel hag has wreaked
  on him her vengeance. The country folk said there were two of them,
  one the semblance of a woman; the other the specter of a man. Their
  haunt is in the remote land, in the crags of the wolf, the
  wind-beaten cliffs, and untrodden bogs, where the dismal stream
  plunges into the drear abyss of an awful lake, overhung with a dark
  and grizzly wood rooted down to the water's edge, where a lurid
  flame plays nightly on the surface of the flood--and there lives not
  the man who knows its depth! So dreadful is the place that the
  hunted stag, hard driven by the hounds, will rather die on the bank
  than find a shelter there. A place of terror! When the wind rises,
  the waves mingle hurly-burly with the clouds, the air is stifling
  and rumbles with thunder. To thee alone we look for relief."[12]

Beowulf knew that a second and harder contest was at hand, but without
hesitation he followed the bloody trail of Grendel's mother, until it
disappeared at the edge of a terrible flood. Undaunted by the dragons
and serpents that made their home within the depths, he grasped a
sword and plunged beneath the waves. After sinking what seemed to him
a day's space, he saw Grendel's mother, who came forward to meet him.
She dragged him into her dwelling, where there was no water, and the
fight began. The issue was for a time doubtful; but at last Beowulf
ran her through with a gigantic sword, and she fell dead upon the
floor of her dwelling. A little distance away, he saw the dead body of
Grendel. The hero cut off the head of the monster and hastened away to
Hrothgar's court. After receiving much praise and many presents,
Beowulf and his warriors sailed to their own land, where he ruled as
king for fifty years.

He engaged in his third and hardest conflict when he was old. A
firedrake, angered at the loss of a part of a treasure, which he had
for three hundred years been guarding in a cavern, laid waste the land
in the hero's kingdom. Although Beowulf knew that this dragon breathed
flames of fire and that mortal man could not long withstand such
weapons, he sought the cavern which sheltered the destroyer and fought
the most terrible battle of his life. He killed the dragon, but
received mortal hurt from the enveloping flames. The old hero had
finally fallen; but he had through life fought a good fight, and he
could say as the twilight passed into the dark:--

  "I have ruled the people fifty years; no folk-king was there of them
  that dwelt about me durst touch me with his sword or cow me through
  terror. I bided at home the hours of destiny, guarded well mine own,
  sought not feuds with guile, swore not many an oath unjustly."[13]

The poem closes with this fitting epitaph for the hero:--

  "Quoth they that he was a world-king forsooth,
  The mildest of all men, unto men kindest,
  To his folk the most gentlest, most yearning of fame."[14]

Wherein Beowulf is Typical of the Anglo-Saxon Race.--_Beowulf_ is by
far the most important Anglo-Saxon poem, because it presents in the
rough the persistent characteristics of the race. This epic shows the
ideals of our ancestors, what they held most dear, the way they lived
and died.

I. We note the love of liberty and law, the readiness to fight any
dragon that threatened these. The English _Magna Charta_ and _Petition
of Right_ and the American _Declaration of Independence_ are an
extension of the application of the same principles embodied in
_Beowulf_. The old-time spirit of war still prevails in all branches
of the race; but the contest is to-day directed against dragons of a
different type from Grendel,--against myriad forms of industrial and
social injustice and against those forces which have been securing
special privileges for some and denying equal opportunity for all.

II. _Beowulf_ is a recognition in general of the great moral forces of
the universe. The poem upholds the ideals of personal manliness,
bravery, loyalty, devotion to duty. The hero has the ever-present
consciousness that death is preferable to dishonor. He taught his
thane to sing:--

  "Far better stainless death
  Than life's dishonored breath."

III. In this poem, the action outweighs the words. The keynote to
_Beowulf_ is deeds. In New England, more than a thousand years later,
Thoreau wrote, "Be not simply good; be good for something." In reading
other literatures, for instance the Celtic, we often find that the
words overbalance the action. The Celt tells us that when two bulls
fought, the "sky was darkened by the turf thrown up by their feet and
by the foam from their mouths. The province rang with their roar and
the inhabitants hid in caves or climbed the hills."

Again, more attention is paid to the worth of the subject matter and
to sincerity of utterance than to mere form or polish. The literature
of this race has usually been more distinguished for the value of the
thought than for artistic presentation. Prejudice is felt to-day
against matter that relies mainly on art to secure effects.

IV. Repression of sentiment is a marked characteristic of _Beowulf_
and it still remains a peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon race. Some
people say vastly more than they feel. This race has been inclined to
feel more than it expresses. When it was transplanted to New England,
the same characteristic was prominent, the same apparent contradiction
between sentiment and stern, unrelenting devotion to duty. In _Snow
Bound_, the New England poet, Whittier, paints this portrait of a New
England maiden, still Anglo-Saxon to the core:--

  "A full, rich nature, free to trust,
  Truthful and almost sternly just,
  Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
  And make her generous thought a fact,
  Keeping with many a light disguise
  The secret of self-sacrifice."

No matter what stars now shine over them, the descendants of the
English are still truthful and sternly just; they still dislike to
give full expression to their feelings; they still endeavor to
translate thoughts into deeds, and in this world where all need so
much help, they take self-sacrifice as a matter of course. The spirit
of _Beowulf_, softened and consecrated by religion, still persists in
Anglo-Saxon thought and action.

THE CAEDMONIAN CYCLE

Caedmon.--In 597 St. Augustine began to teach the Christian religion
to the Anglo-Saxons. The results of this teaching were shown in the
subsequent literature. In what is known as Caedmon's _Paraphrase_, the
next great Anglo-Saxon epic, there is no decrease in the warlike
spirit. Instead of Grendel, we have Satan as the arch-enemy against
whom the battle rages.

Caedmon, who died in 680, was until middle life a layman attached to
the monastery at Whitby, on the northeast coast of Yorkshire. Since
the _Paraphrase_ has been attributed to Caedmon on the authority of
the Saxon historian Bede, born in 673, we shall quote Bede himself on
the subject, from his famous _Ecclesiastical History_:--

  "Caedmon, having lived in a secular habit until he was well advanced
  in years, had never learned anything of versifying; for which
  reason, being sometimes at entertainments, where it was agreed for
  the sake of mirth that all present should sing in their turns, when
  he saw the instrument come toward him, he rose from table and
  returned home.

  "Having done so at a certain time, and gone out of the house where
  the entertainment was, to the stable, where he had to take care of
  the horses that night, he there composed himself to rest at the
  proper time; a person appeared to him in his sleep, and, saluting
  him by his name, said, 'Caedmon, sing some song to me.' He answered,
  'I cannot sing; for that was the reason why I left the entertainment
  and retired to this place, because I could not sing.' The other who
  talked to him replied, 'However, you shall sing.' 'What shall I
  sing?' rejoined he. 'Sing the beginning of created beings,' said the
  other. Hereupon he presently began to sing verses to the praise of
  God."

Caedmon remembered the poetry that he had composed in his dreams, and
repeated it in the morning to the inmates of the monastery. They
concluded that the gift of song was divinely given and invited him to
enter the monastery and devote his time to poetry.

Of Caedmon's work Bede says:--

  "He sang the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the
  history of Genesis: and made many verses on the departure of the
  children of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the land of
  promise, with many other histories from Holy Writ; the incarnation,
  passion, resurrection of our Lord, and his ascension into heaven;
  the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the preaching of the Apostles;
  also the terror of future judgment, the horror of the pains of hell,
  and the delights of heaven."

The Authorship and Subject Matter of the Caedmonian Cycle.--The
first edition of the _Paraphrase_ was published in 1655 by Junius, an
acquaintance of Milton. Junius attributed the entire _Paraphrase_ to
Caedmon, on the authority of the above quotations from Bede.

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF BEGINNING OF JUNIAN MANUSCRIPT OF
CAEDMON.]

TRANSLATION

  For us it is mickle right that we should praise with words, love
  with our hearts, the Lord of the heavens, the glorious King of the
  people. He is the mighty power, the chief of all exalted creatures,
  Lord Almighty.

The _Paraphrase_ is really composed of three separate poems: the
_Genesis_, the _Exodus_, and the _Daniel_; and these are probably the
works of different writers. Critics are not agreed whether any of
these poems in their present form can be ascribed to Caedmon. The
_Genesis_ shows internal evidence of having been composed by several
different writers, but some parts of this poem may be Caedmon's own
work. The _Genesis_, like Milton's _Paradise Lost_, has for its
subject matter the fall of man and its consequences. The _Exodus_, the
work of an unknown writer, is a poem of much originality, on the
escape of the children of Israel from Egypt, their passage through the
Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh's host. The _Daniel_, an
uninteresting poem of 765 lines, paraphrases portions of the book of
_Daniel_ relating to Nebuchadnezzar's dreams, the fiery furnace, and
Belshazzar's feast.

Characteristics of the Poetry.--No matter who wrote the
_Paraphrase_, we have the poetry, a fact which critics too often
overlook. Though the narrative sometimes closely follows the Biblical
account in _Genesis_, _Exodus_, and _Daniel_, there are frequent
unfettered outbursts of the imagination. The _Exodus_ rings with the
warlike notes of the victorious Teutonic race.

The _Genesis_ possesses special interest for the student, since many
of its strong passages show a marked likeness to certain parts of
Milton's _Paradise Lost_. As some critics have concluded that Milton
must have been familiar with the Caedmonian _Genesis_, it will be
instructive to note the parallelism between the two poems. Caedmon's
hell is "without light and full of flame." Milton's flames emit no
light; they only make "darkness visible." The following lines are from
the _Genesis_:--

  "The Lord made anguish a reward, a home
  In banishment, hell groans, hard pain, and bade
  That torture house abide the joyless fall.
  When with eternal night and sulphur pains,
  Fullness of fire, dread cold, reek and red flames,
  He knew it filled."[15]

With this description we may compare these lines from Milton:--

  "A dungeon horrible, on all sides round.
  As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
  No light; but rather darkness visible.
                ...a fiery deluge, fed
  With ever burning sulphur unconsumed."[16]

In Caedmon "the false Archangel and his band lay prone in liquid fire,
scarce visible amid the clouds of rolling smoke." In Milton, Satan is
shown lying "prone on the flood," struggling to escape "from off the
tossing of these fiery waves," to a plain "void of light," except what
comes from "the glimmering of these livid flames." The older poet
sings with forceful simplicity:--

  "Then comes, at dawn, the east wind, keen with frost."

Milton writes:--

                     "...the parching air
  Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire."[17]

When Satan rises on his wings to cross the flaming vault, the
_Genesis_ gives in one line an idea that Milton expands into two and a
half:--

  "Swang šaet f=yr on tw=a    f=eondes craefte."
  Struck the fire asunder with fiendish craft.

            "...on each hand the flames,
  Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, rolled
  In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale."[18]

It is not certain that Milton ever knew of the existence of the
Caedmonian _Genesis_; for he was blind three years before it was
published. But whether he knew of it or not, it is a striking fact
that the temper of the Teutonic mind during a thousand years should
have changed so little toward the choice and treatment of the subject
of an epic, and that the first great poem known to have been written
on English soil should in so many points have anticipated the greatest
epic of the English race.

THE CYNEWULF CYCLE

Cynewulf is the only great Anglo-Saxon poet who affixed his name to
certain poems and thus settled the question of their authorship. We
know nothing of his life except what we infer from his poetry. He was
probably born near the middle of the eighth century, and it is not
unlikely that he passed part of his youth as a thane of some noble. He
became a man of wide learning, well skilled in "wordcraft" and in the
Christian traditions of the time. Such learning could then hardly have
been acquired outside of some monastery whither he may have retired.

[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON MUSICIANS. _Illuminated MS., British
Museum._]

In variety, inventiveness, and lyrical qualities, his poetry shows an
advance over the Caedmonian cycle. He has a poet's love for the beauty
of the sun and the moon (_heofon-condelle_), for the dew and the rain,
for the strife of the waves (_holm-šroece_), for the steeds of the sea
(_sund-hengestas_), and for the "all-green" (_eal-gr=ene_) earth. "For
Cynewulf," says a critic, "'earth's crammed with heaven and every
common bush afire with God.'"

Cynewulf has inserted his name in runic characters in four poems:
_Christ_, _Elene_, _Juliana_, a story of a Christian martyr, and the
least important, _The Fates of the Apostles_. The _Christ_, a poem on
the Savior's Nativity, Ascension, and Judgment of the world at the
last day, sometimes suggests Dante's _Inferno_ or _Paradiso_, and
Milton's _Paradise Lost_. We see the--

  "Flame that welters up and of worms the fierce aspect,
  With the bitter-biting jaws--school of burning creatures."[19]

Cynewulf closes the _Christ_ with almost as beautiful a conception of
Paradise as Dante's or Milton's,--a conception that could never have
occurred to a poet of the warlike Saxon race before the introduction
of Christianity:--

  "...Hunger is not there nor thirst,
  Sleep nor heavy sickness, nor the scorching of the Sun;
  Neither cold nor care."[20]

_Elene_ is a dramatic poem, named from its heroine, Helena, the mother
of the Roman emperor Constantine. A vision of the cross bearing the
inscription, "With this shalt thou conquer," appeared to Constantine
before a victorious battle and caused him to send his mother to the
Holy Land to discover the true cross. The story of her successful
voyage is given in the poem _Elene_. The miraculous power of the true
cross among counterfeits is shown in a way that suggests kinship with
the fourteenth century miracle plays. A dead man is brought in contact
with the first and the second cross, but the watchers see no divine
manifestation until he touches the third cross, when he is restored to
life.

_Elene_ and the _Dream of the Road_, also probably written by
Cynewulf, are an Anglo-Saxon apotheosis of the cross. Some of this
Cynewulfian poetry is inscribed on the famous Ruthwell cross in
Dumfriesshire.

Andreas and Phoenix.--Cynewulf is probably the author of _Andreas_,
an unsigned poem of special excellence and dramatic power. The poem,
"a romance of the sea," describes St. Andrew's voyage to Mermedonia to
deliver St. Matthew from the savages. The Savior in disguise is the
Pilot. The dialogue between him and St. Andrew is specially fine. The
saint has all the admiration of a Viking for his unknown Pilot, who
stands at the helm in a gale and manages the vessel as he would a
thought.

Although the poet tells of a voyage in eastern seas, he is describing
the German ocean:--

                    "Then was sorely troubled,
  Sorely wrought the whale-mere. Wallowed there the Horn-fish,
  Glode the great deep through; and the gray-backed gull
  Slaughter-greedy wheeled. Dark the storm-sun grew,
  Waxed the winds up, grinded waves;
  Stirred the surges, groaned the cordage,
  Wet with breaking sea."[21]

Cynewulf is also the probable author of the _Phoenix_, which is in
part an adaptation of an old Latin poem. The _Phoenix_ is the only
Saxon poem that gives us the rich scenery of the South, in place of
the stern northern landscape. He thus describes the land where this
fabulous bird dwells:--

  "Calm and fair this glorious field, flashes there the sunny grove;
  Happy is the holt of trees, never withers fruitage there.
  Bright are there the blossoms...
  In that home the hating foe houses not at all,
       *       *       *       *       *
  Neither sleep nor sadness, nor the sick man's weary bed,
  Nor the winter-whirling snow...
  ...but the liquid streamlets,
  Wonderfully beautiful, from their wells upspringing,
  Softly lap the land with their lovely floods."[22]

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ANGLO-SAXON POETRY

Martial Spirit.--The love of war is very marked in Anglo-Saxon
poetry. This characteristic might have been expected in the songs of a
race that had withstood the well-nigh all-conquering arm of the vast
Roman Empire.

Our study of _Beowulf_ has already shown the intensity of the martial
spirit in heathen times. These lines from the _Fight at Finnsburg_,
dating from about the same time as _Beowulf_, have only the flash of
the sword to lighten their gloom. They introduce the raven, for whom
the Saxon felt it his duty to provide food on the battlefield:--

  "...hraefen wandrode
  sweart and sealo-br=un; swurd-l=eoma st=od
  swylce eal Finns-buruh f=yrenu w=aere."

  ...the raven wandered
  Swart and sallow-brown; the sword-flash stood
  As if all Finnsburg were afire.

The love of war is almost as marked in the Christian poetry. There are
vivid pictures of battle against the heathen and the enemies of God,
as shown by the following selection from one of the poems of the
Caedmonian cycle:--

  "Helmeted men went from the holy burgh,
  At the first reddening of dawn, to fight:
  Loud stormed the din of shields.
  For that rejoiced the lank wolf in the wood,
  And the black raven, slaughter-greedy bird."[23]

_Judith_, a fragment of a religious poem, is aflame with the spirit of
war. One of its lines tells how a bird of prey--

  "Sang with its horny beak the song of war."

This very line aptly characterizes one of the emphatic qualities of
Anglo-Saxon poetry.

The poems often describe battle as if it were an enjoyable game. They
mention the "Play of the spear" and speak of "putting to sleep with
the sword," as if the din of war were in their ears a slumber melody.

One of the latest of Anglo-Saxon poems, _The Battle of Brunanburh_,
937, is a famous example of war poetry. We quote a few lines from
Tennyson's excellent translation:--

  "Grimly with swords that were sharp from the grindstone,
  Fiercely we hack'd at the flyers before us.
       *       *       *       *       *
  Five young kings put asleep by the sword-stroke
  Seven strong earls of the army of Anlaf
  Fell on the war-field, numberless numbers."

Love of the Sea.--The Anglo-Saxon fondness for the sea has been
noted, together with the fact that this characteristic has been
transmitted to the more recent English poetry. Our forefathers rank
among the best seamen that the world has ever known. Had they not
loved to dare an unknown sea, English literature might not have
existed, and the sun might never have risen on any English flag.

The _scop_ sings thus of Beowulf's adventure on the North Sea:--

  "Swoln were the surges, of storms 'twas the coldest,
  Dark grew the night, and northern the wind,
  Rattling and roaring, rough were the billows."[24]

In the _Seafarer_, the _scop_ also sings:--

  "My mind now is set,
  My heart's thought, on wide waters,
  The home of the whale;
  It wanders away
  Beyond limits of land.
       *       *       *       *       *
  And stirs the mind's longing
  To travel the way that is trackless."[25]

In the _Andreas_, the poet speaks of the ship in one of the most
charming of Saxon similes:--

  "Foaming Ocean beats our steed: full of speed this boat is;
  Fares along foam-throated, flieth on the wave,
  Likest to a bird."[26]

Some of the most striking Saxon epithets are applied to the sea. We
may instance such a compound as _=ar-ge-bland_ (_=ar_, "oar";
_blendan_, "to blend"), which conveys the idea of the companionship of
the oar with the sea. From this compound, modern poets have borrowed
their "oar-disturbéd sea," "oaréd sea," "oar-blending sea," and
"oar-wedded sea." The Anglo-Saxon poets call the sun rising or setting
in the sea the _mere-candel_. In Beowulf, _mere-str=aeta_,
"sea-streets," are spoken of as if they were the easily traversed
avenues of a town.

Figures of Rhetoric.--A special characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry
is the rarity of similes. In Homer they are frequent, but Anglo-Saxon
verse is too abrupt and rapid in the succession of images to employ
the expanded simile. The long poem of _Beowulf_ contains only five
similes, and these are of the shorter kind. Two of them, the
comparison of the light in Grendel's dwelling to the beams of the sun,
and of a vessel to a flying bird, have been given in the original
Anglo-Saxon on pages 16, 17. Other similes compare the light from
Grendel's eyes to a flame, and the nails on his fingers to steel:
while the most complete simile says that the sword, when bathed in the
monster's poisonous blood, melted like ice.

On the other hand, this poetry uses many direct and forcible
metaphors, such as "wave-ropes" for ice, the "whale-road" or
"swan-road" for the sea, the "foamy-necked floater" for a ship, the
"war-adder" for an arrow, the "bone-house" for the body. The sword is
said to sing a war song, the slain to be put to sleep with the sword,
the sun to be a candle, the flood to boil. War is appropriately called
the sword-game.

Parallelisms.--The repetition of the same ideas in slightly
differing form, known as parallelism, is frequent. The author, wishing
to make certain ideas emphatic, repeated them with varying
phraseology. As the first sight of land is important to the sailor,
the poet used four different terms for the shore that met Beowulf's
eyes on his voyage to Hrothgar: _land, brimclifu, beorgas,
saen=aessas_ (land, sea-cliffs, mountains, promontories).

This passage from the _Phoenix_ shows how repetition emphasizes the
absence of disagreeable things:--

  "...there may neither snow nor rain,
  Nor the furious air of frost, nor the flare of fire,
  Nor the headlong squall of hail, nor the hoar frost's fall,
  Nor the burning of the sun, nor the bitter cold,
  Nor the weather over-warm, nor the winter shower,
  Do their wrong to any wight."[27]

The general absence of cold is here made emphatic by mentioning
special cold things: "snow," "frost," "hail," "hoar frost," "bitter
cold," "winter shower." The absence of heat is emphasized in the same
way.

Saxon contrasted with Celtic Imagery.--A critic rightly says: "The
gay wit of the Celt would pour into the song of a few minutes more
phrases of ornament than are to be found in the whole poem of
_Beowulf_." In three lines of an old Celtic death song, we find three
similes:--

  "Black as the raven was his brow;
  Sharp as a razor was his spear;
  White as lime was his skin."

We look in Anglo-Saxon poetry in vain for a touch like this:--

  "Sweetly a bird sang on a pear tree above the head of Gwenn before
  they covered him with a turf."[28]

Celtic literature shows more exaggeration, more love of color, and a
deeper appreciation of nature in her gentler aspects. The Celt could
write:--

  "More yellow was her head than the flower of the broom, and her
  skin was whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands
  and fingers than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray
  of the meadow fountain."[29]

King Arthur and his romantic Knights of the Round Table are Celtic
heroes. Possibly the Celtic strain persisting in many of the Scotch
people inspires lines like these in more modern times:--

 "The corn-craik was chirming
  His sad eerie cry [30]
  And the wee stars were dreaming
  Their path through the sky."

In order to produce a poet able to write both _A Midsummer Night's
Dream_ and _Hamlet_, the Celtic imagination must blend with the
Anglo-Saxon seriousness. As we shall see, this was accomplished by the
Norman conquest.

ANGLO-SAXON PROSE

When and where written.--We have seen that poetry normally precedes
prose. The principal part of Anglo-Saxon poetry had been produced
before much prose was written. The most productive poetic period was
between 650 and 825. Near the close of the eighth century, the Danes
began their plundering expeditions into England. By 800 they had
destroyed the great northern monasteries, like the one at Whitby,
where Caedmon is said to have composed the first religious song. As
the home of poetry was in the north of England, these Danish inroads
almost completely silenced the singers. What prose there was in the
north was principally in Latin. On the other hand, the Saxon prose was
produced chiefly in the south of England. The most glorious period of
Anglo-Saxon prose was during Alfred's reign, 871-901.

Bede.--This famous monk (673-735) was probably the greatest teacher
and the best known man of letters and scholar in all contemporary
Europe. He is said to have translated the _Gospel of St. John_ into
Saxon, but the translation is lost. He wrote in Latin on a vast range
of subjects, from the _Scriptures_ to natural science, and from
grammar to history. He has given a list of thirty-seven works of which
he is the author. His most important work is the _Ecclesiastical
History of the English People_, which is really a history of England
from Julius Caesar's invasion to 731. The quotation from Bede's work
relative to Caedmon shows that Bede could relate things simply and
well. He passed almost all his useful life at the monastery of Jarrow
on the Tyne.

Alfred (849-901).--The deeds and thoughts of Alfred, king of the
West Saxons from 871 until his death in 901, remain a strong moral
influence an the world, although he died more than a thousand years
ago. Posterity rightly gave him the surname of "the Great," as he is
one of the comparatively few great men of all time. E.A. Freeman, the
noted historian of the early English period, says of him:--

  "No man recorded in history seems ever to have united so many
  great and good qualities... A great part of his reign was taken up
  with warfare with an enemy [the Danes] who threatened the national
  being; yet he found means personally to do more for the general
  enlightenment of his people than any other king in English history."

After a Danish leader had outrageously broken his oaths to Alfred, the
Dane's two boys and their mother fell into Alfred's hands, and he
returned them unharmed. "Let us love the man," he wrote, "but hate his
sins." His revision of the legal code, known as _Alfred's Laws_, shows
high moral aim. He does not forget the slave, who was to be freed
after six years of service. His administration of the law endeavored
to secure the same justice for the poor as for the rich.

Alfred's example has caused many to stop making excuses for not doing
more for their kind. If any one ever had an adequate excuse for not
undertaking more work than his position absolutely demanded, that man
was Alfred; yet his ill health and the wars with the Danes did not
keep him from trying to educate his people or from earning the title,
"father of English prose." Freeman even says that England owes to
Alfred's prose writing and to the encouragement that he gave to other
writers the "possession of a richer early literature than any other
people of western Europe" and the maintenance of the habit of writing
after the Norman conquest, when English was no longer used in courtly
circles.

[Illustration: THE BEGINNING OF ALFRED'S LAWS. _Illuminated MS.,
British Museum_.]

Although most of his works are translations from the Latin, yet he has
left the stamp of his originality and sterling sense upon them all.
Finding that his people needed textbooks in the native tongue, he
studied Latin so that he might consult all accessible authorities and
translate the most helpful works, making alterations and additions to
suit his plan. For example, he found a Latin work on history and
geography by Orosius, a Spanish Christian of the fifth century; but as
this book contained much material that was unsuited to Alfred's
purposes, he omitted some parts, changed others, and, after
interviewing travelers from the far North, added much original matter.
These additions, which even now are not uninteresting reading, are the
best material in the book. This work is known as Alfred's _Orosius_.

Alfred also translated Pope Gregory's _Pastoral Rule_ in order to show
the clergy how to teach and care for their flocks. Alfred's own words
at the beginning of the volume show how great was the need for the
work. Speaking of the clergy, he says:--

  "There were very few on this side Humber who would know how to
  render their services in English, or so much as translate an epistle
  out of Latin into English; and I ween that not many would be on the
  other side Humber. So few of them were there, that I cannot think of
  so much as a single one, south of Thames, when I took to the
  realm."[31]

Alfred produced a work on moral philosophy, by altering and amending
the _De Consolatione Philosophiae_ of Boethius, a noble Roman who was
brutally thrown into prison and executed about 525 A.D. In simplicity
and moral power, some of Alfred's original matter in this volume was
not surpassed by any English writer for several hundred years. We
frequently find such thoughts as, "If it be not in a man's power to do
good, let him have the good intent." "True high birth is of the mind,
not of the flesh." His _Prayer_ in the same work makes us feel that he
could see the divine touch in human nature:--

  "No enmity hast Thou towards anything... Thou, O Lord,
  bringest together heavenly souls and earthly bodies, and minglest
  them in this world. As they came hither from Thee, even so they also
  seek to go hence to Thee."

AElfric, 955?-1025?--The most famous theologian who followed
Alfred's example in writing native English prose, and who took Alfred
for his model, was a priest named AElfric. His chief works are his
_Homilies_, a series of sermons, and the _Lives of the Saints_.
Although much of his writing is a compilation or a translation from
the Latin Fathers, it is often remarkably vigorous in expression and
stimulating to the reader. We find such thoughts as:--

  "God hath wrought many miracles, and He performs them every day,
  but these miracles have become much less important in the sight of
  men because they are very common... Spiritual miracles are greater
  than the physical ones."

To modern readers the most interesting of Aelfric's writings is his
_Colloquium_, designed to teach Latin in the monastery at Winchester.
The pupils were required to learn the Latin translation of his
dialogues in the Anglo-Saxon vernacular. Some of these dialogues are
today valuable illustrations of the social and industrial life of the
time. The following is part of the conversation between the Teacher
and the Plowman:--

  "_Teacher_. What have you to say, plowman? How do you carry on
  your work?

  "_Plowman_. O master, I work very hard; I go out at dawn, drive
  the oxen to the field, and yoke them to the plow. There is no storm
  so severe that I dare to hide at home, for fear of my lord, but when
  the oxen are yoked, and the share and coulter have been fastened to
  the plow, I must plow a whole acre or more every day.
       *       *       *       *       *
  "_Teacher_. Oh! oh! the labor must be great!

  "_Plowman_. It is indeed great drudgery, because I am not free."[32]

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.--This is the first history of any branch
of the Teutonic people in their own tongue. The _Chronicle_ has come
down to us in several different texts, according as it was compiled or
copied at different monasteries. The _Chronicle_ was probably begun in
Alfred's reign. The entries relating to earlier events were copied
from Bede's _Ecclesiastical History_ and from other Latin authorities.
The _Chronicle_ contains chiefly those events which each year
impressed the clerical compilers as the most important in the history
of the nation. This work is a fountainhead to which writers of the
history of those times must turn.

A few extracts (translated) will show its character:--

  "A.D. 449. This year ... Hengist and Horsa, invited by Vortigern,
  King of Britons, landed in Britain, on the shore which is called
  Wappidsfleet; at first in aid of the Britons, but afterwards they
  fought against them."

  "806. This year the moon was eclipsed on the Kalends of September;
  and Eardulf, King of the Northumbrians. was driven from his
  kingdom; and Eanbert, Bishop of Hexham, died."

Sometimes the narrative is extremely vivid. Those who know the
difficulty of describing anything impressively in a few words will
realize the excellence of this portraiture of William the Conqueror:--

  "1087. If any would know what manner of man King William was,
  the glory that he obtained, and of how many lands he was lord; then
  will we describe him as we have known him... He was mild to
  those good men who loved God, but severe beyond measure to those
  withstood his will... So also was he a very stern and a wrathful
  man, so that none durst do anything against his will, and he kept
  in prison those earls who acted against his pleasure. He removed
  bishops from their sees, and abbots from their offices, and he
  imprisoned thanes, and at length he spared not his own brother.
  Odo... Amongst other things, the good order that William
  established is not to be forgotten; it was such that any man, who
  was himself aught, might travel over the kingdom with a bosom-full
  of gold, unmolested; and no man durst kill another... He made large
  forests for the deer, and enacted laws therewith, so that whoever
  killed a hart or a hind should be blinded ... and he loved the tall
  stags as if he were their father."

SUMMARY

The Anglo-Saxons, a branch of the Teutonic race, made permanent
settlements in England about the middle of the fifth century A.D. Like
modern German, their language is highly inflected. The most
flourishing period of Anglo-Saxon poetry was between 650 and 825 A.D.
It was produced for the most part in the north of England, which was
overrun by the Danes about 800. These marauders destroyed many of the
monasteries and silenced the voices of the singers. The prose was
written chiefly in the south of England after the greatest poetic
masterpieces had been produced. The Norman Conquest of England,
beginning in 1066, brought the period to a close.

Among the poems of this age, we may emphasize: (1) the shorter
_scopic_ pieces, of which the _Far Traveler, The Wanderer, The
Seafarer, The Fortunes of Men_, and _The Battle of Brunanburh_ are
important examples; (2) _Beowulf_, the greatest Anglo-Saxon epic poem,
which describes the deeds of an unselfish hero, shows how the
ancestors of the English lived and died, and reveals the elemental
ideals of the race; (3) the _Caedmonian Cycle_ of scriptural
paraphrases, some of which have Miltonic qualities; and (4) the
_Cynewulf Cycle_, which has the most variety and lyrical excellence.
Both of these _Cycles_ show how the introduction of Christianity
affected poetry.

The subject matter of the poetry is principally war, the sea, and
religion. The martial spirit and love of the sea are typical of the
nation that has raised her flag in every clime. The chief qualities of
the poetry are earnestness, somberness, and strength, rather than
delicacy of touch, exuberance of imagination, or artistic adornment.

The golden period of prose coincides in large measure with Alfred's
reign, 871-901, and he is the greatest prose writer. His translations
of Latin works to serve as textbooks for his people contain excellent
additions by him. AElfric, a tenth century prose writer, has left a
collection of sermons, called _Homilies_, and an interesting
_Colloquium_, which throws strong lights on the social life of the
time. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ is an important record of
contemporaneous events for the historian.

REFERENCES FOR FURTHER STUDY

HISTORICAL

In connection with the progress of literature, students should obtain
for themselves a general idea of contemporary historical events from
any of the following named works:--

Gardiner's_ Students' History of England_.

Green's _Short History of the English People_.

Walker's _Essentials in English History_.

Cheney's _A Short History of England_.

Lingard's _History of England_.

Traill's _Social England_, Vol. I.

Ramsay's _The Foundations of England_.

LITERARY

_Cambridge History of English Literature_, Vol. I.

Brooke's _History of Early English Literature to the Accession of King
Alfred_.

Morley's _English Writers_, Vols. I. and II.

Earle's _Anglo-Saxon Literature_.

Ten Brink's Early English Literature, Vol. I.

_The Exeter Book_, edited and translated, by Gollancz (Early English
Text Society).

Gurteen's _The Epic of the Fall of Man: A Comparative Study of
Caedmon, Dante, and Milton_.

Cook's _The Christ of Cynewulf_. (The _Introduction of 97 pages gives
a valuable account of the life and writings of Cynewulf.)

Kennedy's_ Translation of the Poems of Cynewulf_.

Bede's _Ecclesiastical History of England and the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_, I vol., translated by Giles in Bohn's _Antiquarian
Library_.

Snell's _The Age of Alfred._

Pauli's _Life of Alfred_ (Bohn's Antiquarian Library).

Gem's _An Anglo-Saxon Abbot: AElfric of Eynsham_.

_Mabinogion_ (a collection of Welsh fairy tales and romances,
_Everyman's Library_), translated by Lady Charlotte Guest.

Pancoast and Spaeth's _Early English Poems_ (abbreviated reference)
("P & S.").

Cook and Tinker's _Select Translations from Old English Poetry_ ("C. &
T.").

Cook & Tinker's _Select Translations from Old English Prose_
("C. & T. _Prose_").

SUGGESTED READINGS WITH QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

The student who is not familiar with the original Anglo-Saxon should
read the translations specified below:--

Scopic Poetry.[33]--_Widsiš_ or the _Far Traveler_, translated in
Morley's _English Writers_, Vol. II, 1-11, or in C. & T.,[34] 3-8.

_The Wanderer_, translated in P. & S., 65-68; C. & T., 50-55; Brooke,
364-367.

_The Seafarer_, translated in P. & S., 68-70; C. & T., 44-49; Morley,
II., 21-26; Brooke, 362, 363.

_The Fortunes of Men_, trans. in P. & S., 79-81; Morley, II., 32-37.

_Battle of Brunanburh_, Tennyson's translation.

What were the chief subjects of the songs of the scop? How do they
reveal the life of the time? Is there any common quality running
through them? What qualities of this verse appear in modern poetry?

Beowulf.--This important poem should be read entire in one of the
following translations:

  Child's _Beowulf (Riverside Literature Series)_;

  Earle's _The Deeds of Beowulf, Done into Modern Prose_ (Clarendon
  Press);

  Gummere's _The Oldest English Epic_;

  Morris and Wyatt's _The Tale of Beowulf_;

  Hall's _Beowulf, Translated into Modern Metres_;

  Lumsden's _Beowulf, an Old English Poem, Translated into Modern
  Rhymes_ (the most readable poetic translation).

  Translations of many of the best parts of _Beowulf_ may be found in
  P. & S. 5-29; C. & T., 9-24; Morley, I. 278-310; Brooke 26-73.

Where did the exploits celebrated in the poem take place? Where was
Heorot? What was the probably time of the completion of _Beowulf_?
Describe the hero's three exploits. What analogy is there between the
conflict of natural forces in the Norseland and Beowulf's fight with
Grendel? What different attitude toward nature is manifest in modern
poetry? What is the moral lesson of the poem? Show that its chief
characteristics are typical of the Anglo-Saxon race.

Caedmonian Cycle.--Some of the strongest passages may be found in P.
& S., 30-45; C. & T., 104-120; Morley, II. 81-101; Brooke, 290-340.
Read at the same time from Milton's _Paradise Lost_, Book I., lines
44-74, 169-184, 248-263, and _passim_.

What evidence do we find in this cycle of the introduction of
Christianity? Who takes the place of Grendel? What account of Caedmon
does Bede give? What is the subject matter of this cycle?

Cynewulf Cycle.--_The Poems of Cynewulf_, translated by C.W.
Kennedy. Translations of parts of this cycle may be found in Whitman's
_The Christ of Cynewulf_, and _The Exeter Book_, translated by
Gollancz. Good selections are translated in P. & S., 46-55; C. & T.,
79-103; and 132-142: Morley, II., 206-241; Brooke, 371-443. For
selections from the _Phoenix_, see P & S, 54-65; C.& T., 143-163.

What new qualities does this cycle show? What is the subject matter of
its most important poems? What is especially noticeable about the_
Andreas and the Phoenix_?

_General Characteristics of the Verse._--What is its usual form? What
most striking passages (a) in Beowulf; (b) elsewhere, show the Saxon
love of war and of the sea? Instance some similes and make a list of
vivid metaphors. What are the most striking parallelisms found in your
readings? What conspicuous differences are there between Saxon and
Celtic imagery? (See Morley, l, 165-239, or Guest's _Mabinogion_).
What excellencies and defects seem to you most pronounced in
Anglo-Saxon verse?

Prose_--The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ and Bede's _Ecclesiastical
History_ are both translated in one volume of Bohn's _Antiquarian
Library_. The most interesting part of Bede for the student of
literature is the chapter relating to Caedmon (Chap. XXIV., pp.
217-220).

In the _Chronicle_, read the entries for the years 871, 878, 897, 975,
1087, and 1137.

Alfred's _Orosius_ is translated into modern English in the volume of
Bohn's_ Antiquarian Library_ entitled, _Alfred the Great, his Life and
Anglo-Saxon Works_, by Pauli. Sedgefield's translation of the_
Consolations of Boethius_ distinguishes the original matter by Alfred
from the translation. Selections from Alfred's works are given in C. &
T.(_Prose_), 85-146, and in Earle's _Anglo-Saxon Literature_, 186-206.

For selections from AElfric, see C. & T. (_Prose_), 149-192. Read
especially the _Colloquies_, 177-186.

What was Bede's principal work? Why has Alfred been called the "father
of English prose"? What were his ideals? Mention his chief works and
their object. What is the character of AElfric's work? Why are modern
readers interested in his _Colloquium_?

Why is the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ important?

FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER I:

[Footnote 1: For special references to authors, movements and the
history of the period, see the lists under the heading, _Suggestions
for Further Study_, at the end of each chapter.]

[Footnote 2: School libraries should own books marked *.]

[Footnote 3: The abbreviation in parentheses after titles will be used
in the _Suggested Readings_ in place of the full title.]

[Footnote 4: Tennyson's _In Memoriam_.]

[Footnote 5: Florence Earls Coates's _Dream the Great Dream_.]

[Footnote 6: Shakespeare's _The Tempest_, Act IV., Scene 1.]

[Footnote 7: Morley's translation, _English Writers_, Vol. II., p.
21.]

[Footnote 8: Swinburne's _A Song in Time of Order_.]

[Footnote 9: Morley's _English Writers_, Vol. II., pp. 33, 34.]

[Footnote 10: _Beowulf_, translated by William Morris and A.J. Wyatt.]

[Footnote 11: Translated by J.L. Hall.]

[Footnote 12: Earle's Translation.]

[Footnote 13: Translated by Childs.]

[Footnote 14: Translated by Morris and Wyatt.]

[Footnote 15: Morley's translation.]

[Footnote 16: _Paradise Lost_, Book I., lines 61-69.]

[Footnote 17: _Paradise Lost_, II., 594.]

[Footnote 18: _Ibid_., I., 222-224.]

[Footnotes 19-22: Brooke's translation.]

[Footnote 23: Morley's translation.]

[Footnote 24: Brooke's translation.]

[Footnote 25: Morley's translation.]

[Footnotes 26-27: Brooke's translation.]

[Footnote 28: _Llywarch's Lament for his Son Gwenn_.]

[Footnote 29: Guest's _Mabinogion_.]

[Footnote 30: William Motherwell's _Wearie's Well_.]

[Footnote 31: Earle's translation.]

[Footnote 32: Cook and Tinker's _Select Translations from Old English
Prose.]

[Footnote 33: In his _Education of the Central Nervous System_, Chaps.
VII.-X., the author has endeavored to give some special directions for
securing definite ideas in the study of poetry.]

[Footnote 34: For full titles, see page 50.]


CHAPTER II: FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066, TO CHAUCER'S DEATH, 1400

[Illustration: THE DEATH OF HAROLD AT HASTINGS. _From the Bayeaux
tapestry_.]

The Norman Conquest.--The overthrow of the Saxon rule in England by
William the Conqueror in 1066 was an event of vast importance to
English literature. The Normans (Norsemen or Northmen), as they were
called, a term which shows their northern extraction, were originally
of the same blood as the English race. They settled in France in the
ninth century, married French wives, and adopted the French language.
In 1066 their leader, Duke William, and his army crossed the English
Channel and won the battle of Hastings, in which Harold, the last
Anglo-Saxon king, was killed. William thus became king of England.

Characteristics of the Normans.--The intermixture of Teutonic and
French blood had given to the Normans the best qualities of both
races. The Norman was nimble-witted, highly imaginative, and full of
northern energy. The Saxon possessed dogged perseverance, good common
sense, if he had long enough to think, and but little imagination.
Some one has well said that the union of Norman with Saxon was like
joining the swift spirit of the eagle to the strong body of the ox,
or, again, that the Saxon furnished the dough, and the Norman the
yeast. Had it not been for the blending of these necessary qualities
in one race, English literature could not have become the first in the
world. We see the characteristics of both the Teuton and the Norman in
Shakespeare's greatest plays. A pure Saxon could not have turned from
Hamlet's soliloquy to write:--

  "Where the bee sucks, there suck I."[1]

Progress of the Nation, 1066-1400.--The Normans were specially
successful in giving a strong central government to England. The
feudal system, that custom of parceling out land in return for
service, was so extended by William the Conqueror, that from king
through noble to serf there was not a break in the interdependence of
one human being on another. At first the Normans were the ruling
classes and they looked down on the Saxons; but intermarriage and
community of interests united both races into one strong nation before
the close of the period.

There was great improvement in methods of administering justice.
Accused persons no longer had to submit to the ordeal of the red-hot
iron or to trial by combat, relying on heaven to decide their
innocence. Ecclesiastical courts lost their jurisdiction over civil
cases. In the reign of Henry II. (1154-1189), great grandson of
William the Conqueror, judges went on circuits, and the germ of the
jury system was developed.

Parliament grew more influential, and the first half of the fourteenth
century saw it organized into two bodies,--the Lords and the Commons.
Three kings who governed tyrannically or unwisely were curbed or
deposed. King John (1199-1216) was compelled to sign the _Magna
Charta_, which reduced to writing certain foundation rights of his
subjects. Edward II. (1307-1327) and Richard II. (1377-1399) were both
deposed by Parliament. One of the reasons assigned far the deposition
of Richard II. was his claim that "he alone could change and frame the
laws of the kingdom."

The ideals of chivalry and the Crusades left their impress on the age.
One English Monarch, Richard the Lion-Hearted (1189-1199) was the
popular hero of the Third Crusade. In _Ivanhoe_ and _The Talisman_ Sir
Walter Scott presents vivid pictures of knights and crusaders.

We may form some idea of the religious spirit of the Middle Ages from
the Gothic cathedrals, which had the same relative position in the
world's architecture as Shakespeare's work does in literature.
Travelers often declare that there is to-day nothing in England better
worth seeing than these cathedrals, which were erected in the twelfth,
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries.[2]

The religious, social, and intellectual life of the time was
profoundly affected by the coming of the friars (1220), who included
the earnest followers of St. Francis (1182-1226), that Good Samaritan
of the Middle Ages. The great philosopher and scientist, Roger Bacon
(1214-1294), who was centuries in advance of his time, was a
Franciscan friar. He studied at Oxford University, which had in his
time become one of the great institutions of Europe.

The church fostered schools and learning, while the barons were
fighting. Although William Langland, a fourteenth-century cleric,
pointed out the abuses which had crept into the church, he gave this
testimony in its favor:--

  "For if heaven be on this earth or any ease for the soul, it is in
  cloister or school. For in cloister no man cometh to chide or fight,
  and in school there is lowliness and love and liking to learn."

The rise of the common people was slow. During all this period the
tillers of the soil were legally serfs, forbidden to change their
location. The Black Death (1349) and the Peasants' Revolt (1381),
although seemingly barren of results, helped them in their struggle
toward emancipation. Some bought their freedom with part of their
wages. Others escaped to the towns where new commercial activities
needed more labor. Finally, the common toiler acquired more commanding
influence by overthrowing even the French knights with his long bow.
This period laid the foundation for the almost complete disappearance
of serfdom in the fifteenth century. France waited for the terrible
Revolution of 1789 to free her serfs. England anticipated other great
modern nations in producing a literature of universal appeal because
her common people began to throw off their shackles earlier.

This period opens with a victorious French army in England, followed
by the rule of the conquerors, who made French the language of high
life. It closes with the ascendancy of English government and speech
at home and with the mid-fourteenth century victories of English
armies on French soil, resulting in the rapture of Calais, which
remained for more than two hundred years in the possession of England.

At the close of this period we find Wycliffe, "the morning star of the
Reformation," and Chaucer, the first great singer of the welded
Anglo-Norman race. His wide interest in human beings and his knowledge
of the new Italian literature prefigure the coming to England of the
Revival of Learning in the next age.

It will now be necessary to study the changes in the language, which
were so pronounced between 1066 and Chaucer's death.

THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN ENGLISH

Three Languages used in England--For three hundred years after the
Norman Conquest, three languages were widely used in England. The
Normans introduced French, which was the language of the court and the
aristocracy. William the Conqueror brought over many Norman priests,
who used Latin almost exclusively in their service. The influence of
this book Latin is generally underestimated by those who do not
appreciate the power of the church. The Domesday survey shows that in
1085 the church and her dependents held more than one third of some
counties.

In addition to the Latin and the French (which was itself principally
of Latin origin), there was, thirdly, the Anglo-Saxon, to which the
middle and the lower classes of the English stubbornly adhered. The
Loss of Inflections.--Anglo-Saxon was a language with changing
endings, like modern German. If a Saxon wished to say, "good gifts,"
he had to have the proper case endings for both the adjective and the
noun, and his expression was _g=ode giefa_. For "the good gifts," he
said _š=a g=odan giefa_, inflecting "the" and at the same time
changing the case ending of "good."

The Norman Conquest helped to lop off these endings, which German has
never entirely lost. We, however, no longer decline articles or
ordinary adjectives. Instead of having our attention taken up with
thinking of the proper endings, we are left free to attend to the
thought rather than to the vehicle of its expression. Although our
pronouns are still declined, the sole inflection of our nouns, with
the exception of a few like _ox, oxen_, or _mouse, mice_, is the
addition of _'s, s,_ or _es_ for the possessive and the plural. Modern
German, on the other hand, still retains these troublesome case
endings. How did English have the good fortune to lose them?

Whenever two peoples, speaking different languages, are closely
associated, there is a tendency to drop the terminations and to use
the stem word in all grammatical relations. If an English-speaking
person, who knows only a little German, travels in Germany, he finds
that he can make himself understood by using only one form of the noun
or adjective. If he calls for "two large glasses of hot milk,"
employing the incorrect expression, _zwei gross Glass heiss Milch_, he
will probably get the milk as quickly as if he had said correctly,
_zwei grosse Gläser heisse Milch_. Neglect of the proper case endings
may provoke a smile, but the tourist prefers that to starvation.
Should the Germans and the English happen to be thrown together in
nearly equal numbers on an island, the Germans would begin to drop the
inflections that the English could not understand, and the German
language would undergo a change.

If there were no books or newspapers to circulate a fixed form of
speech, the alteration in the spoken tongue would be comparatively
rapid.

Such dropping of terminations is precisely what did happen before the
Norman Conquest in those parts of England most overrun by the Danes.
There, the adjectives lost their terminations to indicate gender and
case, and the article "the" ceased to be declined.

Even if the Normans had not come to England, the dropping of the
inflections would not have ceased. Many authorities think that the
grammatical structure of English would, even in the absence of that
event, have evolved into something like its present form. Of course
the Norman Conquest hastened many grammatical changes that would
ultimately have resulted from inherent causes, but it did not exercise
as great an influence as was formerly ascribed to it. Philologists
find it impossible to assign the exact amount of change due to the
Conquest and to other causes. Let us next notice some changes other
than the loss of inflections.

Change in Gender.--Before any one could speak Anglo-Saxon correctly,
he had first to learn the fanciful genders that were attached to
nouns: "trousers" was feminine; "childhood," masculine; "child,"
neuter. During this period the English gradually lost these fanciful
genders which the German still retains. A critic thus illustrates the
use of genders in that language: "A German gentleman writes a
masculine letter of feminine love to a neuter young lady with a
feminine pen and feminine ink on masculine sheets of neuter paper, and
incloses it in a masculine envelope with a feminine address to his
darling, though neuter, Gretchen. He has a masculine head, a feminine
hand, and a neuter heart."

Prefixes, Suffixes, and Self-explaining Compounds.--The English
tongue lost much of its power of using prefixes. A prefix joined to a
well-known word changes its meaning and renders the coining of a new
term unnecessary. The Anglo-Saxons, by the use of prefixes, formed ten
compounds from their verb _fl=owan_, "to flow." Of these, only one
survives in our "overflow." From _sittan_, "to sit," thirteen
compounds were thus formed, but every one has perished. A larger
percentage of suffixes was retained, and we still have many words like
"wholesome-ness," "child-hood," "sing-er."

The power of forming self-explaining compounds was largely lost. The
Saxon compounded the words for "tree," and "worker," and said
_tr=eow-wyrhta_, "tree-wright," but we now make use of the single word
"carpenter." We have replaced the Saxon _b=oc-craeft_, "book-art," by
"literature"; _=aefen-gl=om_, "evening-gloom," by "twilight";
mere-sw=in, "sea-swine," by "porpoise"; _=eag-wraec_, "eye-rack," by
"pain in the eye"; _leornung-cild_, "learning-child," by "pupil." The
title of an old work, _Ayen-bite of In-wit_, "Again-bite of In-wit,"
was translated into "Remorse of Conscience." _Grund-weall_ and
_word-hora_ were displaced by "foundation" and "vocabulary." The
German language still retains this power and calls a glove a
"hand-shoe," a thimble a "finger-hat," and rolls up such clumsy
compound expressions as _Unabhängigkeits-erklärung_.

We might lament this loss more if we did not remember that Shakespeare
found our language ample for his needs, and that a considerable number
of the old compounds still survive, as _home-stead, man-hood,
in-sight, break-fast, house-hold, horse-back, ship-man, sea-shore,
hand-work_, and _day-light_.

Introduction of New Words and Loss of Old Ones.--Since the Normans
were for some time the governing race, while many of the Saxons
occupied comparatively menial positions, numerous French words
indicative of rank, power, science, luxury, and fashion were
introduced. Many titles were derived from a French source. English
thus obtained words like "sovereign," "royalty," "duke," "marquis,"
"mayor," and "clerk." Many terms of government are from the French;
for instance, "parliament," "peers," "commons." The language of law
abounds in French terms, like "damage," "trespass," "circuit,"
"judge," "jury," "verdict," "sentence," "counsel," "prisoner." Many
words used in war, architecture, and medicine also have a French
origin. Examples are "fort," "arch," "mason," "surgery." In fact, we
find words from the French in almost every field. "Uncle" and
"cousin," "rabbit" and "falcon," "trot" and "stable," "money" and
"soldier," "reason" and "virtue," "Bible" and "preach," are instances
in point.

French words often displaced Saxon ones. Thus, the Saxon _Haelend_,
the Healer, gave way to the French _Savior_, _wanhope_ and _wonstead_
were displaced by _despair_ and _residence_. Sometimes the Saxon
stubbornly kept its place beside the French term. The English language
is thus especially rich in synonyms, or rather in slightly
differentiated forms of expression capable of denoting the exact shade
of thought and feeling. The following words are instances:--

 SAXON    FRENCH

  body       corpse
  folk       people
  swine      pork
  calf       veal
  worth      value
  green      verdant
  food       nourishment
  wrangle    contend
  fatherly   paternal
  workman    laborer

English was enriched not only by those expressions, gained from the
daily speech of the Normans, but also by words that were added from
literary Latin. Thus, we have the Saxon "ask," the Norman-French
"inquire" and "question," and the Latin "interrogate." "Bold,"
"impudent," "audacious"; "bright," "cheerful," "animated"; "earnings,"
"wages," "remuneration," "short," "brief," "concise," are other
examples of words, largely synonymous, from the Saxon, the
Norman-French, and the Latin, respectively. These facts explain why
modern English has such a wealth of expression, although probably more
than one half of the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary has been lost.

The Superiority of the Composite Tongue.--While we insist on the
truth that Anglo-Saxon gained much of its wonderful directness and
power from standing in close relations to earnest life, it is
necessary to remember that many words of French origin did, by an
apprenticeship at the fireside, in the field, the workshop, and the
laboratory, equally fit themselves for taking their place in the
language.  Such words from French-Latin roots as "faith," "pray,"
"vein," "beast," "poor," "nurse," "flower," "taste," "state," and
"fool" remain in our vocabulary because they were used in everyday
life.

Pure Anglo-Saxon was a forcible language, but it lacked the wealth of
expression and the flexibility necessary to respond to the most
delicate touches of the master-musicians who were to come. When
Shakespeare has Lear say of Cordelia:--

              "Her voice was ever soft,
  Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman,"

we find that ten of the thirteen words are Saxon, but the other three
of Romance (French) origin are as necessary as is a small amount of
tin added to copper to make bronze. Two of these three words express
varying shades of quality.

Lounsbury well says: "There result, indeed, from the union of the
foreign and native elements, a wealth of phraseology and a
many-sidedness in English, which give it in these respects a
superiority over any other modern cultivated tongue. German is
strictly a pure Teutonic speech, but no native speaker of it claims
for it any superiority over the English as an instrument of
expression, while many are willing to concede its inferiority."

The Changes Slowly Accomplished.--For over a hundred years after the
Conquest, but few French words found their way into current English
use. This is shown by the fact that the _Brut_, a poem of 32,250
lines, translated from a French original into English about 1205, has
not more than a hundred words of Norman-French origin.

At first the Normans despised the tongue of the conquered Saxons, but,
as time progressed, the two races intermarried, and the children could
hardly escape learning some Saxon words from their mothers or nurses.
On the other hand, many well-to-do Saxons, like parents in later
times, probably had their children taught French because it was
considered aristocratic.

Until 1204 a knowledge of French was an absolute necessity to the
nobles, as they frequently went back and forth between their estates
in Normandy and in England. In 1204 King John lost Normandy, and in
the next reign both English and French kings decreed that no subject
of the one should hold land in the territory of the other. This
narrowing of the attention of English subjects down to England was a
foundation stone in building up the supremacy of the English tongue.

In 1338 began the Hundred Years' War between France and England. In
Edward the Third's reign (1327-1377), it was demonstrated that one
Englishman could whip six Frenchmen; and the language of a hostile and
partly conquered race naturally began to occupy a less high position.
In 1362 Parliament enacted that English should thereafter be used in
law courts, "because the laws, customs, and statutes of this realm, be
not commonly known in the same realm, for that they be pleaded,
shewed, and judged in the French tongue, which is much unknown in the
said realm."

LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 1066-1400

Metrical Romances.--For nearly three hundred years after the Norman
Conquest the chief literary productions were metrical romances, which
were in the first instance usually written by Frenchmen, but sometimes
by Englishmen (_e.g._ Layamon) under French influence. There were four
main cycles of French romance especially popular in England before the
fifteenth century. These were tales of the remarkable adventures of
King Arthur and his Knights, Charlemagne and his Peers, Alexander the
Great, and the heroes at the siege of Troy. At the battle of Hastings
a French minstrel is said to have sung the _Song of Roland_ from the
Charlemagne cycle.

These long stories in verse usually present the glory of chivalry, the
religious faith, and the romantic loves of a feudal age. In _Beowulf_,
woman plays a very minor part and there is no love story; but in these
romances we often find woman and love in the ascendancy. One of them,
well known today in song, _Tristram and Iseult_ (Wagner's _Tristan und
Isolde_), "a possession of our composite race," is almost entirely a
story of romantic love.

The romances of this age that have most interest for English readers
are those which relate to King Arthur and his Knights of the Round
Table. The foundation suggestions for the most of this cycle are of
British (Welsh) origin. This period would not have existed in vain, if
it had given to the world nothing, but these Arthurian ideals of
generosity, courage, honor, and high endeavour, which are still a
potent influence. In his _Idylls of the King_, Tennyson calls Arthur
and his Knights:--

  "A glorious company, the flower of men,
  To serve as model for the mighty world,
  And be the fair beginning of a time."

The _Quest of the Holy Grail_ belongs to the Arthurian cycle. Percival
(Wagner's Parsifal), the hero of the earlier version and Sir Galahad
of the later, show the same spirit that animated the knights in the
Crusades. Tennyson introduces Sir Galahad as a knight whose strength
is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure, undertaking "the
far-quest after the divine." The American poet Lowell chose Sir
Launfal, a less prominent figure in Arthurian romance, for the hero of
his version of the search for the Grail, and had him find it in every
sympathetic act along the common way of life.

The story of _Gawayne and the Green Knight_, "the jewel of English
medieval literature," tells how Sir Gawayne, Arthur's favorite, fought
with a giant called the Green Knight. The romance might almost be
called a sermon, if it did not reveal in a more interesting way a
great moral truth,--that deception weakens character and renders the
deceiver vulnerable in life's contests. In preparing for the struggle,
Sir Gawayne is guilty of one act of deceit. But for this, he would
have emerged unscathed from the battle. One wound, which leaves a
lasting scar, is the result of an apparently trivial deception. His
purity and honor in all things else save him from death. This story,
which reminds us of Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, presents in a new garb
one of the oft-recurring ideals of the race, "keep troth" (truth).
Chaucer sings in the same key:--

  "Hold the hye wey, and let thy gost thee lede,
  And trouthe shall delivere, it is no drede."

We should remember that these romances are the most characteristic
literary creations of the Middle Ages, that they embody the new spirit
of chivalry, religious faith, and romantic love in a feudal age, that
they had a story to tell, and that some of them have never lost their
influence on human ideals.

A Latin Chronicler.--One chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth,
although he wrote in Latin, must receive some attention because of his
vast influence on English poetry. He probably acquired his last name
from being archdeacon of Monmouth. He was appointed Bishop of St.
Asaph in 1152 and died about 1154. Unlike the majority of the monkish
chroniclers, he possessed a vivid imagination, which he used in his
so-called _History of the Kings of Britain_.

Geoffrey pretended to have found an old manuscript which related the
deeds of all British kings from Brutus, the mythical founder of the
kingdom of Britain, and the great-grandson of Aeneas, to Caesar.
Geoffrey wrote an account of the traditionary British kings down to
Cadwallader in 689 with as much minuteness and gravity as Swift
employed in the _Voyage to Lilliput_. Other chroniclers declared that
Geoffrey lied saucily and shamelessly, but his book became extremely
popular. The monks could not then comprehend that the world's greatest
literary works were to be products of the imagination.

In Geoffrey of Monmouth's _History of the Kings of Britain_ we are
given vivid pictures of King Lear and his daughters, of Cymbeline, of
King Arthur and his Knights, of Guinevere and the rest of that company
whom later poets have immortalized. It is probable that Geoffrey was
not particular whether he obtained his materials from old chroniclers,
Welsh bards, floating tradition, or from his own imagination. His book
left its impress on the historical imagination of the Middle Ages. Had
it not been for Geoffrey's _History_, the dramas of _King Lear_ and
_Cymbeline_ might never have been suggested to Shakespeare.

Layamon's Brut.--About 1155 a Frenchman named Wace translated into
his own language Geoffrey of Monmouth's works. This translation fell
into the hands of Layamon, a priest living in Worcestershire, who
proceeded to render the poem, with additions of his own, into the
Southern English dialect. Wace's _Brut_ has 15,300 lines; Layamon's,
32,250. As the matter which Layamon added is the best in the poem, he
is, in so far, an original author of much imaginative power. He is
certainly the greatest poet between the Conquest and Chaucer's time.

A selection from the _Brut_ will give the student an opportunity of
comparing this transition English with the language in its modern
form:--

  "And Ich wulle varan to Avalun:   And I will fare to Avalon,
  To vairest alre maidene           To the fairest of all maidens,
  To Argante šere quene,            To Argante the queen,
  Alven swiše sceone;               Elf surpassing fair;
  And heo scal mine wunden          And she shall my wounds
  Makien alle isunde,               Make all sound,
  Al hal me makien                  All hale me make
  Mid halweige drenchen.            With healing draughts.
  And seoše Ich cumen wulle         And afterwards I will come
  To mine kineriche                 To my kingdom
  And wunien mid Brutten            And dwell with Britons
  Mid muchelere wunne."             With much joy.

With this, compare the following lines from Tennyson's _The Passing of
Arthur_:--

           "...I am going a long way
       *       *       *       *       *
  To the island-valley of Avilion,
  Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
  Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
  Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns
  And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
  Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.
       *       *       *       *       *
  He passes to be King among the dead,
  And after healing of his grievous wound
  He comes again."

Layamon employed less alliteration than is found in Anglo-Saxon
poetry. He also used an occasional rime, but the accent and rhythm of
his verse are more Saxon than modern. When reading Tennyson's _Idylls
of the King_, we must not forget that Layamon was the first poet to
celebrate in English King Arthur's deeds. The _Brut_ shows little
trace of French influences, not more than a hundred French words being
found in it.

Orm's Ormulum.--A monk named Orm wrote in the Midland dialect a
metrical paraphrase of those parts of the _Gospels_ used in the church
on each service day throughout the year. After the paraphrase comes
his metrical explanation and application of the _Scripture_.

He says:--

  "Diss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum
  Forrši šatt Ormm itt wrohhte."

  This book is named Ormulum
  For that Orm it wrote.

There was no fixed spelling at this time. Orm generally doubled the
consonant after a short vowel, and insisted that any one who copied
his work should be careful to do the same. We shall find on counting
the syllables in the two lines quoted from him that the first line has
eight; the second, seven. This scheme is followed with great precision
throughout the poem, which employs neither rime nor regular
alliteration. Orm used even fewer French words than Layamon. The date
of the _Ormulum_ is probably somewhere between 1200 and 1215.

The Ancren Riwle.--About 1225 appeared the most notable prose work
in the native tongue since the time of Alfred, if we except the
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_. Three young ladies who had secluded
themselves from the world in Dorsetshire, wished rules for guidance in
their seclusion. An unknown author, to oblige them, wrote the _Ancren
Riwle_ (Rule of Anchoresses). This book not only lays down rules for
their future conduct in all the affairs of life, but also offers much
religious consolation.

The following selection shows some of the curious rules for the
guidance of the anchoresses, and furnishes a specimen of the Southern
dialect of transitional English prose in the early part of the
thirteenth century:--

  "ße, mine leoue sustren,
  ne schulen habben no best
  bute kat one... ße schulen
  beon i-dodded four sišen,
  iše ßere, uorto lihten ower
  heaued... Of idel