it t& e of v^wc am m to jxnuc ^l tdfc ^n to tuv ivir ^fmvit^ fie mi> CANTERBURY PILGRIMS From Royal MS., 18 DM, in the British Museum ENGLISH LITERATURE ITS HISTORY AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE LIFE OF THE ENGLISH- SPEAKING WORLD A TEXT-BOOK FOR SCHOOLS BY WILLIAM J. LONG GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO - LONDON ATLANTA DALLAS COLUMBUS SAN FRANCISCO COPYRIGHT, 1909, 1919, BY WILLIAM J. LONG ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A8 33 .5 gfte fltfretttttttn 35 r egg GINN AND COMPANY PRO- PRIETORS BOSTON U.S.A. TO MY FRIEND C-H-T IN GRATITUDE FOR HIS CONTINUED HELP IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS BOOK \ PREFACE This book, which presents the whole splendid history of English literature from Anglo-Saxon times to the close of the Victorian Era, has three specific aims. The first is to create or to encourage in every student the desire to read the best books, and to know literature itself rather than what has been written about literature. The second is to interpret literature both per- sonally and historically, that is, to show how a great book gen- erally reflects not only the author's life and thought but also the spirit of the age and the ideals of the nation's history. The third aim is to show, by a study of each successive period, how our literature has steadily developed from its first simple songs and stories to its present complexity in prose and poetry. To carry out these aims we have introduced the following features : (1) A brief, accurate summary of historical events and social conditions in each period, and a consideration of the ideals which stirred the whole nation, as in the days of Elizabeth, before they found expression in literature. (2) A study of the various literary epochs in turn, showing what each gained from the epoch preceding, and how each aided in the development of a national literature. (3) A readable biography of every important writer, showing how he lived and worked, how he met success or failure, how he influenced his age, and how his age influenced him. (4) A study and analysis of every author's best works, and of many of the books required for college-entrance examinations. (5) Selections enough especially from earlier writers, and from writers not likely to be found in the home or school library vi ENGLISH LITERATURE to indicate the spirit of each author's work ; and directions as to the best works to read, and where such works may be found in inexpensive editions. (6) A frank, untechnical discussion of each great writer's work as a whole, and a critical estimate of his relative place and influence in our literature. (7) A series of helps to students and teachers at the end of each chapter, including summaries, selections for reading, bibliog- raphies, a list of suggestive questions, and a chronological table of important events in the history and literature of each period. (8) Throughout this book we have remembered Roger Ascham's suggestion, made over three centuries ago and still pertinent, that "'tis a poor way to make a child love study by beginning with the things which he naturally dislikes." We have laid emphasis upon the delights of literature ; we have treated books not as mere instruments of research which is the danger in most of our studies but rather as instruments of enjoyment and of inspiration ; and by making our study as attractive as possible we have sought to encourage the student to read widely for himself, to choose the best books, and to form his own judgment about what our first Anglo-Saxon writers called "the things worthy to be remembered." To those who may use this book in their homes or in their class rooms, the writer ventures to offer one or two friendly sug- gestions out of his own experience as a teacher of young people. First, the amount of space here given to different periods and authors is not an index of the relative amount of time to be spent upon the different subjects. Thus, to tell the story of Spenser's life and ideals requires as much space as to tell the story of Tennyson ; but the average class will spend its time more pleasantly and profitably with the latter poet than with the former. Second, many authors who are and ought to be included in this history need not be studied in the class room. PREFACE vii A text-book is not a catechism but a storehouse, in which one finds what he wants, and some good things beside. Few classes will find time to study Blake or Newman, for instance ; but in nearly every class there will be found one or two students who are attracted by the mysticism of Blake or by the profound spirituality of Newman. Such students should be encouraged to follow their own spirits, and to share with their classmates the joy of their discoveries. And they should find in their text-book the material for their own study and reading. A third suggestion relates to the method of teaching litera- ture ; and here it might be well to consider the word of a great poet, that if you would know where the ripest cherries are, ask the boys and the blackbirds. It is surprising how much a young person will get out of the Merchant of Venice, and some- how arrive at Shakespeare's opinion of Shylock and Portia, if we do not bother him too much with notes and critical direc- tions as to what he ought to seek and find. Turn a child and a donkey loose in the same field, and the child heads straight for the beautiful spots where brooks are running and birds singing, while the donkey turns as naturally to weeds and thistles. In our study of literature we have perhaps too much sympathy with the latter, and we even insist that the child come back from his own quest of the ideal to join us in our critical com- panionship. In reading many text-books of late, and in visiting many class rooms, the writer has received the impression that we lay too much stress on second-hand criticism, passed down from book to book ; and we set our pupils to searching for figures of speech and elements of style, as if the great books of the world were subject to chemical analysis. This seems to be a mistake, for two reasons : first, the average young person has no natural interest in such matters ; and second, he is unable to appreciate them. He feels unconsciously with Chaucer : And as for me, though that my wit be lyte, On booke's for to rede I me delyte. viii ENGLISH LITERATURE Indeed, many mature persons (including the writer of this history) are often unable to explain at first the charm or the style of an author who pleases them ; and the more profound the impression made by a book, the more difficult it is to give expression to our thought and feeling. To read and enjoy good books is with us, as with Chaucer, the main thing ; to analyze the author's style or explain our own enjoyment seems of secondary and small impor- tance. However that may be, we state frankly our own conviction that the detailed study and analysis of a few standard works which is the only literary pabulum given to many young people in our schools bears the same relation to true literature that theol- ogy bears to religion, or psychology to friendship. One is a more or less unwelcome mental 'discipline ; the other is the joy of life. The writer ventures to suggest, therefore, that, since litera- ture is our subject, we begin and end with good books ; and that we stand aside while the great writers speak their own message to our pupils. In studying each successive period, let the stu- dent begin by reading the best that the age produced ; let him feel in his own way the power and mystery of Beowulf, the broad charity of Shakespeare, the sublimity of Milton, the ro- mantic enthusiasm of Scott ; and then, when his own taste is pleased and satisfied, a new one will arise, to know some- thing about the author, the times in which he lived, and finally of criticism, which, in its simplicity, is the discovery that the men and women of other ages were very much like ourselves, loving as we love, bearing the same burdens, and following the same ideals : Lo, with the ancient Roots of man's nature Twines the eternal Passion of song. Ever Love fans it ; Ever Life feeds it ; Time cannot age it ; Death cannot slay. PREFACE ix To answer the questions which arise naturally between teacher and pupil concerning the books that they read, is one object of this volume. It aims not simply to instruct but also to inspire ; to trace the historical development of English literature, and at the same time to allure its readers to the best books and the best writers. And from beginning to end it is written upon the assumption that the first virtue of such a work is to be accurate, and the second to be interesting. The author acknowledges, with gratitude and appreciation, his indebtedness to Professor William Lyon Phelps for the use of his literary map of England, and to the keen critics, teachers of literature and history, who have read the proofs of this book, and have improved it by their good suggestions. WILLIAM J. LONG STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION THE MEANING OF LITERATURE I The Shell and the Book. Qualities of Literature. Tests of Literature. The Object in studying Literature. Importance of Literature. Sum- mary of the Subject. Bibliography. CHAPTER II. THE ANGLO-SAXON OR OLD-ENGLISH PERIOD 10 Our First Poetry. "Beowulf." " Widsith." " Deor's Lament." "The Seafarer." "The Fight at Finnsburgh." " Waldere." Anglo-Saxon Life. Our First Speech. Christian Writers. Northumbrian Literature. Bede. Caedmon. Cynewulf. Decline of Northumbrian Literature. Alfred. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER III. THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD . 46 The Normans. The Conquest. Literary Ideals of the Normans. Geoffrey of Monmouth. Work of the French Waiters. Layamon's " Brut." Metrical Romances. The Pearl. Miscellaneous Literature of the Nor- man Period. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF CHAUCER. ... 67 History of the Period. Five Writers of the Age. Chaucer. Langland. " Piers Plowman." John Wyclif. John Mandeville. Summary. Bibli- ography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER V. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING. . . 89 Political Changes. Literature of the Revival. Wyatt and Surrey. Malory's " Morte d' Arthur." Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER VI. THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. ... 99 Political Summary. Characteristics of the Elizabethan Age. The Non- Dramatic Poets. Edmund Spenser. Minor Poets. Thomas Sackville. Philip Sidney. George Chapman. Michael Dray ton. The Origin of the Drama. The Religious Period of the Drama. Miracle and Mystery Plays. The Moral Period of the Drama. The Interludes. The Artistic Period of the Drama. Classical Influence upon the Drama. Shake- speare's Predecessors in the Drama. Christopher Marlowe. Shakespeare. CONTENTS xi PAGE Decline of the Drama. Shakespeare's Contemporaries and Successors. Ben Jonson. Beaumont and Fletcher. John Webster. Thomas Middle- ton. Thomas Heywood. Thomas Dekker. Massinger. Ford. Shirley. Prose Writers. Francis Bacon. Richard Hooker. Sidney. Raleigh. John Foxe. Camden and Knox. Hakluyt and Purchas. Thomas North. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER VII. THE PURITAN AGE . . . . .186 The Puritan Movement. Changing Ideals. Literary Characteristics. The Transition Poets. Samuel Daniel. The Song Writers. The Spen- serian Poets. The Metaphysical Poets. John Donne. George Herbert. The Cavalier Poets. Thomas Carew. Robert Herrick. Suckling and Lovelace. John Milton. The Prose Writers. John Bunyan. Robert Bur- ton. Thomas Browne. Thomas Fuller. Jeremy Taylor. Richard Baxter. Izaak Walton. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER VIII. PERIOD OF THE RESTORATION 236 History of the Period. Literary Characteristics. John Dryden. Samuel Butler. Hobbes and Locke. Evelyn and Pepys. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER IX. EIGHTEENTH - CENTURY LITERA- TURE 258 History of the Period. Literary Characteristics. The Classic Age. Alexander Pope. Jonathan Swift. Joseph Addison. w The Tatler " and "The Spectator." Samuel Johnson. Boswell's << Life of Johnson." Later Augustan Writers. Edmund Burke. Edward Gibbon. The Revival of Romantic Poetry. Thomas Gray. Oliver Goldsmith. William Cowper. Robert Burns. William Blake. The Minor Poets of the Romantic Revival. James Thomson. William Collins. George Crabbe. James Macpherson. Thomas Chatterton. Thomas Percy. The First English Novelists. Meaning of the Novel. Precursors of the Novel. Discovery of the Modern Novel. Daniel Defoe. Samuel Richardson. Henry Fielding. Smollett and Sterne. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER X. THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM . . .369 Historical Summary. Literary Characteristics of the Age. The Poets of Romanticism. William Wordsworth. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Robert Southey. Walter Scott. Byron. Percy Bysshe Shelley. John Keats. Prose Writers of the Romantic Period. Charles Lamb. Thomas De Quincey. Jane Austen. Walter Savage Landor. Summary. Bibliog- raphy. Questions. Chronology. xii ENGLISH LITERATURE PAGE CHAPTER XI. THE VICTORIAN AGE . . . .452 Historical Summary. Literary Characteristics. Poets of the Victorian Age. Alfred Tennyson. Robert Browning. Minor Poets of the Victorian Age. Elizabeth Barrett. Rossetti. Morris. Swinburne. Novelists of the Victorian Age. Charles Dickens. William Makepeace Thackeray. George Eliot. Minor Novelists of the Victorian Age. Charles Reade. Anthony Trollope. Charlotte Bronte. Bulwer Lytton. Charles Kingsley. Mrs. Gaskell. Blackmore. Meredith. Hardy. Stevenson. Essayists of the Victorian Age. Macaulay. Carlyle. Ruskin. Matthew Arnold. Newman. The Spirit of Modern Literature. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology. CHAPTER XII. AN ESSAY OF RECENT LITERATURE 569 Rudyard Kipling. Some Modern Novelists. The Realists. The Modern Romance. The Poets. Poetry of Everyday Life. The Symbolists. The Celtic Revival. Books of Many Kinds. Books of the War. Bibliography. GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 595 INDEX 599 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS Frontispiece From Royal MS., 18 D.ii, in the British Museum LITERARY MAP OF ENGLAND THE MANUSCRIPT BOOK 30 After the painting in the Congressional Library, by John W. Alexander GEOFFREY CHAUCER 68 After the Rawlinson Pastel Portrait in the Bodleian Library, Oxford PORTIA 150 After the portrait by John Everett Millais. Property of the Metropolitan Museum of Art AMERICAN MEMORIAL WINDOW, STRATFORD 155 EDMUND BURKE 298 From an old print ALFRED TENNYSON 458 After the portrait by George Frederic Watts SIR GALAHAD 465 After the painting by George Frederic Watts CHARLES DICKENS 488 After the portrait by Daniel Maclise THOMAS CARLYLE 528 After the portrait by James McNeil! Whistler LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE A PAGE FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF BEOWULF 19 STONEHENGE, ON SALISBURY PLAIN 28 INITIAL LETTER OF A MS. COPY OF ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL ... 3! RUINS AT WHITBY 32 OEDMON CROSS AT WHITBY ABBEY 39 LEIF ERICSON'S VESSEL 47 CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL AS IT WAS COMPLETED LONG AFTER THE CONQUEST 50 REMAINS OF THE SCRIPTORIUM OF FOUNTAINS ABBEY .... 62 TABARD INN 75 JOHN WYCLIF .84 SPECIMEN OF CAXTON'S PRINTING IN THE YEAR 1486 .... 90 EDMUND SPENSER IO2 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 138 ANNE HATHAWAY COTTAGE 142 BIRTHPLACE OF SHAKESPEARE 145 TRINITY CHURCH, STRATFORD-ON-AVON 147 BEN JONSON 158 JOHN MILTON 204 JOHN BUNYAN 219 LIBRARY AT TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 244 WESTMINSTER 249 JONATHAN SWIFT 270 TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN 272 JOSEPH ADDISON 278 SAMUEL JOHNSON 287 THOMAS GRAY 308 CHURCH AT STOKE POGES 39 xiv ENGLISH LITERATURE xv PAGE OLIVER GOLDSMITH 31 I WILLIAM COWPER 317 ROBERT BURNS 321 BIRTHPLACE OF BURNS 323 THE AULD BRIG, AYR (AYR BRIDGE) 327 DANIEL DEFOE 346 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 376 WORDSWORTH'S HOME AT RYDAL MOUNT 381 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 388 ROBERT SOUTHEY 394 WALTER SCOTT 397 ABBOTSFORD 399 GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON 407 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 41 I CHARLES LAMB 427 CHRIST'S HOSPITAL, LONDON 428 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 433 ROBERT BROWNING 470 MRS. BROWNING 483 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 498 GEORGE ELIOT 506 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 522 UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 528 JOHN RUSKIN 539 QUADRANGLE OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD 553 ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION THE MEANING OF LITERATURE Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede. Chaucer's Truth On, on, you noblest English, . . . Follow your spirit. Shakespeare's Henry V The Shell and the Book. A child and a man were one day walking on the seashore when the child found a little shell and held it to his ear. Suddenly he heard sounds, strange, low, melodious sounds, as if the shell were remembering and repeating to itself the murmurs of its ocean home. The child's face filled with wonder as he listened. Here in the little shell, apparently, was a voice from another world, and he listened with delight to its mystery and music. Then came the man, explaining that the child heard nothing strange ; that the pearly curves of the shell simply caught a multitude of sounds too faint for human ears, and filled the glimmering hollows with the murmur of innumerable echoes. It was not a new world, but only the unnoticed harmony of the old that had aroused the child's wonder. Some such experience as this awaits us when we begin the study of literature, which has always two aspects, one of simple enjoyment and appreciation, the other of analysis and exact description. Let a little song appeal to the ear, or a noble book to the heart, and for the moment, at least, we dis- cover a new world, a world so different from our own that it 2 ENGLISH LITERATURE seems a place of dreams and magic. To enter and enjoy this new world, to love good books for their own sake, is the chief thing ; to analyze and explain them is a less joyous but still an important matter. Behind every book is a man ; behind the man is the race ; and behind the race are the natural and social environments whose influence is unconsciously reflected. Tlifcsjfc also we must know, if the book is to speak its whole message. In a word, we have now reached a point where we wishstty understand as well as to enjoy literature; and the first step, since exact definition is impossible, is to determine some of its essential qualities. Qualities of Literature. The first significant thing is the essentially artistic quality of all literature. All art is the expression of life in forms of truth and beauty ; or rather, it is the reflection of some truth and beauty which are in the world, but which remain unnoticed until brought to our attention by some sensitive human soul, just as the delicate curves of the shell reflect sounds and harmo- nies too faint to be otherwise noticed. A hundred men may pass a hayfield and see only the sweaty toil and the windrows of dried grass ; but here is one who pauses by a Roumanian meadow, where girls are making hay and singing as they work. He looks deeper, sees truth and beauty where we see only dead grass, and he reflects what he sees in a little poem in which the hay tells its own story : Yesterday's flowers am I, And I have drunk my last sweet draught of dew. Young maidens came and sang me to my death ; The moon looks down and sees me in my shroud, The shroud of my last dew. Yesterday's flowers that are yet in me Must needs make way for all to-morrow's flowers. The maidens, too, that sang me to my death Must even so make way for all the maids That are to come. And as my soul, so too their soul will be Laden with fragrance of the days gone by. INTRODUCTION 3 The maidens that tomorrow come this way Will not remember that I once did bloom, For they will only see the new-born flowers. Yet will my perfume-laden soul bring back, As a sweet memory, to women's hearts Their days of maidenhood. And then they will be sorry that they came To sing me to my death ; And all the butterflies will mourn for me. I bear away with me The sunshine's dear remembrance, and the low Soft murmurs of the spring. My breath is sweet as children's prattle is ; I drank in all the whole earth's fruitfulness, To make of it the fragrance of my soul That shall outlive my death. 1 One who reads only that first exquisite line, "Yesterday's flowers am I," can never again see hay without recalling the beauty that was hidden from his eyes until the poet found it. In the same pleasing, surprising way, all artistic work must be a kind of revelation. Thus architecture is probably the oldest of the arts ; yet we still have many builders but few architects, that is, men whose work in wood or stone suggests some hidden truth and beauty to the human senses. So in literature, which is the art that expresses life in words that appeal to our own sense of the beautiful, we have many writers but few artists. In the broadest sense, perhaps, literature means simply the written records of the race, including all its history and sciences, as well as its poems and novels ; in the narrower sense literature is the artistic record of life, and most of our writing is excluded from it, just as the mass of our buildings, mere shelters from storm and from cold, are ex- cluded from architecture. A history or a work of science may be and sometimes is literature, but only as we forget the subject-matter and the presentation of facts in the simple beauty of its expression. 1 From The Bard of the Dimbovitza^ First Series, p. 73. 4 ENGLISH LITERATURE The second quality of literature is its suggestiveness, its appeal to our emotions and imagination rather than to our intellect. It is not so much what it says as what it awakens in us that constitutes its charm. When Milton makes Satan say, " Myself am Hell," he does not state any fact, but rather opens up in these three tremendous words a whole world of speculation and imagination. When Faustus in the presence of Helen asks, "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships ? " he does not state a fact or expect an answer. He opens a door through which our imagination enters a new world, a world of music, love, beauty, heroism, the whole splendid world of Greek litera- ture. Such magic is in words. When Shakespeare describes the young Biron as speaking In such apt and gracious words That aged ears play truant at his tales, he has unconsciously given not only an excellent description of himself, but the measure of all literature, which makes us play truant with the present world and run away to live awhile in the pleasant realm of fancy. The province of all art is not to instruct but to delight ; and only as literature delights us, causing each reader to build in his own soul that "lordly pleasure house " of which Tennyson dreamed in his " Palace of Art," is it worthy of its name. The third characteristic of literature, arising directly from the other two, is its permanence. The world does not live by bread alone. Notwithstanding its hurry and bustle and apparent absorption in material things, it does not willingly let any beautiful thing perish. This is even more true of its songs than of its painting and sculpture ; though permanence is a quality we should hardly expect in the pres- ent deluge of books and magazines pouring day and night from our presses in the name of literature. But this problem of too many books is not modern, as we suppose. It has been a problem ever since Caxton brought the first printing press INTRODUCTION 5 _ from Flanders, four hundred years ago, and in the shadow of Westminster Abbey opened his little shop and advertised his wares as "good and chepe." Even earlier, a thousand years before Caxton and his printing press, the busy scholars of the great library of Alexandria found that the number of parchments was much too great for them to handle ; and now, when we print more in a week than all the Alexandrian scholars could copy in a century, it would seem impossible that any production could be permanent ; that any song or story could live to give delight in future ages. But literature is like a river in flood, which gradually purifies itself in two ways, the mud settles to the bottom, and the scum rises to the top. When we examine the writings that by common con- sent constitute our literature, the clear stream purified of its dross, we find at least two more qualities, which we call the tests of literature, and which determine its permanence. Tests of Literature. The first of these is universality, that is, the appeal to the widest human interests and the sim- plest human emotions. Though we speak of national and race literatures, like the Greek or Teutonic, and though each has certain superficial marks arising out of the peculiar- Universality . ... , , . ities of its own people, it is nevertheless true that good literature knows no nationality, nor any bounds save those of humanity. It is occupied chiefly with elementary passions and emotions, love and hate, joy and sorrow, fear and faith, which are an essential part of our human nature ; and the more it reflects these emotions the more surely does it awaken a response in men of every race. Every father must respond to the parable of the prodigal son ; wherever men are heroic, they will acknowledge the mastery of Homer; wherever a man thinks on the strange phenomenon of evil in the world, he will find his own thoughts in the Book of Job ; in whatever place men love their children, their hearts must be stirred by the tragic sorrow of CEdipus and King Lear. All these are but shining examples of the law that only as a 6 ENGLISH LITERATURE book or a little song appeals to universal human interest does it become permanent. The second test is a purely personal one, and may be ex- pressed in the indefinite word "style." It is only in a mechan- ical sense that style is " the adequate expression of thought," or " the peculiar manner of expressing thought," or any other of the definitions that are found in the rhetorics. In a deeper sense, style is the man, that is, the unconscious expression of the writer's own personality. It is the very soul of one man reflecting, as in a glass, the thoughts and feelings of humanity. As no glass is colorless, but tinges more or less deeply the reflections from its surface, so no author can interpret human life without unconsciously giving to it the native hue of his own soul. It is this intensely per- sonal element that constitutes style. Every permanent book has more or less of these two elements, the objective and the subjective, the universal and the personal, the deep thought and feeling of the race reflected and colored by the writer's own life and experience. The Object in studying Literature. Aside from the pleasure of reading, of entering into a new world and having our imagi- nation quickened, the study of literature has one definite object, and that is to know men. Now man is ever a dual creature ; he has an outward and an inner nature ; he is not only a doer of deeds, but a dreamer of dreams ; and to know him, the man of any age, we must search deeper than his history. History records his deeds, his outward acts largely ; but every great act springs from an ideal, and to understand this we must read his literature, where we find his ideals recorded. When we read a history of the Anglo-Saxons, for instance, we learn that they were sea rovers, pirates, explorers, great eaters and drinkers ; and we know something of their hovels and habits, and the lands which they harried and plun- dered. All that is interesting ; but it does not tell us what most we want to know about these old ancestors of ours, INTRODUCTION 7 not only what they did, but what they thought and felt ; how they looked on life and death ; what they loved, what they feared, and what they reverenced in God and man. Then we turn from history to the literature which they themselves produced, and instantly we become acquainted. These hardy people were not simply fighters and freebooters ; they were men like ourselves ; their emotions awaken instant response in the souls of their descendants. At the words of their gleemen we thrill again to their wild love of freedom and the open sea ; we grow tender at their love of home, and patriotic at their deathless loyalty to their chief, whom they chose for themselves and hoisted on their shields in symbol of his leadership. Once more we grow respectful in the presence of pure womanhood, or melancholy before the sorrows and problems of life, or humbly confident, looking up to the God whom they dared to call the Allfather. All these and many more intensely real emotions pass through our souls as we read the few shining fragments of verses that the jealous ages have left us. It is so with any age or people. To understand them we must read not simply their history, which records their deeds, but their literature, which records the dreams that, made their deeds possible. So Aristotle was profoundly right when he said that "poetry is more serious and philosophical than his- tory"; and Goethe, when he explained literature as "the humanization of the whole world." Importance of Literature. It is a curious and prevalent opinion that literature, like all art, is a mere play of imagina- tion, pleasing enough, like a new novel, but without any seri- ous or practical importance. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Literature preserves the ideals of a people ; and ideals love, faith, duty, friendship, freedom, reverence are the part of human life most worthy of preservation. The Greeks were a marvelous people ; yet of all their mighty works we cherish only a few ideals, ideals of beauty in 8 ENGLISH LITERATURE perishable stone, and ideals of truth in imperishable prose and poetry. It was simply the ideals of the Greeks and Hebrews and Romans, preserved in their literature, which made them what they were, and which determined their value to future generations. Our democracy, the boast of all English- speaking nations, is a dream ; not the doubtful and sometimes disheartening spectacle presented in our legislative halls, but the lovely and immortal ideal of a free and equal manhood, preserved as a most precious heritage in every great literature from the Greeks to the Anglo-Saxons. All our arts, our sci- ences, even our inventions are founded squarely upon ideals ; for under every invention is still the dream of Beowulf, that man may overcome the forces of nature ; and the foundation of all our sciences and discoveries is the immortal dream that men " shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." In a word, our whole civilization, our freedom, our progress, our homes, our religion, rest solidly upon ideals for their foundation. Nothing but an ideal ever endures upon earth. It is therefore impossible to overestimate the practical importance of literature, which preserves these ideals from fathers to sons, while men, cities, governments, civilizations, vanish from the face of the earth. It is only when we remember this that we appreciate the action of the devout Mussulman, who picks up and carefully preserves every scrap of paper on which words are written, because the scrap may perchance contain the name of Allah, and the ideal is too enormously important to be neglected or lost. Summary of the Subject. We are now ready, if not to define, at least to understand a little more clearly the object of our present study. Literature is the expression of life in words of truth and beauty ; it is the written record of man's spirit, of his thoughts, emotions, aspirations ; it is the history, and the only history, of the human soul. It is characterized by its artistic, its suggestive, its permanent qualities. Its two tests are its universal interest and its personal style. Its INTRODUCTION 9 object, aside from the delight it gives us, is to know man, that is, the soul of man rather than his actions ; and since it preserves to the race the ideals upon which all our civilization is founded, it is one of the most important and delightful sub- jects that can occupy the human mind. Bibliography. (NOTE. Each chapter in this book includes a special bibli- ography of historical and literary works, selections for reading, chronology, etc. ; and a general bibliography of texts, helps, and reference books will be found at the end. The following books, which are among the best of their kind, are intended to help the student to a better appreciation of literature and to a better knowledge of literary criticism.) General Works. Woodberry's Appreciation of Literature (Baker & Taylor Co.) ; Gates's Studies in Appreciation (Macmillan) ; Bates's Talks on the Study of Literature (Houghton, Mifflin) ; Worsfold's On the Exercise of Judgment in Literature (Dent) ; Harrison's The Choice of Books (Macmillan) ; Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, Part I ; Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism. Essays. Emerson's Books, in Society and Solitude ; Dowden's The Inter- pretation of Literature, in Transcripts and Studies (Kegan Paul & Co.), and The Teaching of English Literature, in New Studies in Literature (Houghton, Mifflin) ; The Study of Literature, Essays by Morley, Nicolls, and L. Stephen, edited by A. F. Blaisdell (Willard Small). Criticism. Gayley and Scott's An Introduction to the Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism (Ginn and Company) ; Winchester's Principles of Literary Criticism (Macmillan); Worsfold's Principles of Criticism (Longmans); John- son's Elements of Literary Criticism (American Book Company) ; Saintsbury's History of Criticism (Dodd, Mead) . Poetry. Gummere's Handbook of Poetics (Ginn and Company) ; Stedman's The Nature and Elements of Poetry (Houghton, Mifflin) ; Johnson's The Forms of English Poetry (American Book Company) ; Alden's Specimens of English Verse (Holt); Gummere's The Beginnings of Poetry (Macmillan); Saintsbury's History of English Prosody (Macmillan). The Drama. Caffin's Appreciation of the Drama (Baker & Taylor Co.). The Novel. Raleigh's The English Novel (Scribner); Hamilton's The Mate- rials and Methods of Fiction (Baker & Taylor Co.). CHAPTER II THE ANGLO-SAXON OR OLD-ENGLISH PERIOD (450-1050) I. OUR FIRST POETRY Beowulf. Here is the story of Beowulf, the earliest and the greatest epic, or heroic poem, in our literature. It begins with a prologue, which is not an essential part of the story, but which we review gladly for the sake of the splendid poetical conception that produced Scyld, king of the Spear Danes. 1 At a time when the Spear Danes were without a king, a ship came sailing into their harbor. It was filled with treasures and weapons of war ; and in the midst of these warlike things was a baby sleeping. No man sailed the ship ; it came of itself, bringing the child, whose name was Scyld. Now Scyld grew and became a mighty warrior, and led the Spear Danes for many years, and was their king. When his son Beowulf 2 had become strong and wise enough to rule, then Wyrd (Fate), who speaks but once to any man, came and stood at hand ; and it was time for Scyld to go. This is how they buried him : Then Scyld departed, at word of Wyrd spoken, The hero to go to the home of the gods. Sadly they bore him to brink of the ocean, Comrades, still heeding his word of command. There rode in trie harbor the prince's ship, ready, With prow curving proudly and shining sails set. Shipward they bore him, their hero beloved ; The mighty they laid at the foot of the mast. ^Treasures were there from far and near gathered, Byrnies of battle, armor and swords ; Never a keel sailed out of a harbor So splendidly tricked with the trappings of war. 1 There is a mystery about this old hero which stirs our imagination, but which is never explained. It refers, probably, to some legend of the Anglo-Saxons which we have supplied from other sources, aided by some vague suggestions and glimpses of the past in the poem itself. 2 This is not the Beowulf who is hero of the poem. 10 THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD II They heaped on his bosom a hoard of bright jewels To fare with him forth on the flood's great breast. No less gift they gave than the Unknown provided, When alone, as a child, he came in from the mere. High o'er his head waved a bright golden standard Now let the waves bear their wealth to the holm. Sad-souled they gave back its gift to the ocean, Mournful their mood as he sailed out to sea. 1 "And no man," says the poet, "neither counselor nor hero, can tell who received that lading." One of Scyld's descendants was Hrothgar, king of the Danes ; and with him the story of our Beowulf begins. Hrothgar in his old age had built near the sea a mead hall called Heorot, the most splendid hall in the whole world, where the king and his thanes gathered nightly to feast and to listen to the songs of his gleemen. One night, as they were all sleeping, a frightful monster, Grendel, broke into the hall, killed thirty of the sleeping warriors, and carried off their bodies to devour them in his lair under the sea. The appalling visit was speedily repeated, and fear and death reigned in the great hall. The warriors fought at first; but fled when they discovered that no weapon could harm the monster. Heorot was left deserted and silent. For twelve winters Gren- del's horrible raids continued, and joy was changed to mourning among the Spear Danes. At last the rumor of Grendel crossed over the sea to the land of the Geats, where a young hero dwelt in the house of his uncle, King Hygelac. Beowulf was his name, a man of immense strength and courage, and a mighty swimmer who had developed his powers fight- ing the "nickers," whales, walruses and seals, in the icebound northern ocean. When he heard the story, Beowulf was stirred to go and fight the monster and free the Danes, who were his father's friends. With fourteen companions he crosses the sea. There is an excellent bit of ocean poetry here (11. 210-224), and we get a vivid idea of the hospitality of a brave people by following the poet's description of Beowulf's meeting with King Hrothgar and Queen Wealhtheow, and of the joy and feasting and story-telling in Heorot. The picture of Wealhtheow passing the mead cup to the warriors with her own hand is a noble one, and plainly indicates the reverence paid by these strong men to their wives and mothers. Night comes on ; the fear of Grendel is again upon the Danes, and all withdraw after the king has warned Beowulf of the frightful danger of sleeping in the hall. But Beowulf lies down with his warriors, saying proudly that, since weapons will 1 Beowulf, 11. 26-50, a free rendering to suggest the alliteration of the original. 12 ENGLISH LITERATURE not avail against the monster, he will grapple with him bare handed and trust to a warrior's strength. Forth from the fens, from the misty moorlands, Grendel came gliding God's wrath 1 he bore Came under clouds, until he saw clearly, Glittering with gold plates, the mead hall of men. Down fell the door, though fastened with fire bands ; Open it sprang at the stroke of his paw. Swollen with rage burst in the bale-bringer ; Flamed in his eyes a fierce light, likest fire. 2 At the sight of men again sleeping in the hall, Grendel laughs in his heart, thinking of his feast. He seizes the nearest sleeper, crushes his "bone case" with a bite, tears him limb from limb, and swallows him. Then he creeps to the couch of Beowulf and stretches out a claw, only to find it clutched in a grip of steel. A sudden terror strikes the mon- ster's heart. He roars, struggles, tries to jerk his arm free; but Beowulf leaps to his feet and grapples his enemy bare handed. To and fro they surge. Tables are overturned ; golden benches ripped from their fasten- ings ; the whole building quakes, and only its iron bands keep it from falling to pieces. Beowulf's companions are on their feet now, hacking vainly at the monster with swords and battle-axes, adding their shouts to the crashing of furniture and the howling " war song " of Grendel. Outside in the town the Danes stand shivering at the uproar. Slowly the monster struggles to the door, dragging Beowulf, whose fingers crack with the strain, but who never relaxes his first grip. Suddenly a wide wound opens in the monster's side ; the sinews snap ; the whole arm is wrenched off at the shoulder ; and Grendel escapes shrieking across the moor, and plunges into the sea to die. Beowulf first exults in his night's work ; then he hangs the huge arm with its terrible claws from a cross-beam over the king's seat, as one would hang up a bear's skin after a hunt. At daylight came the Danes ; and all day long, in the intervals of singing, story-telling, speech mak- ing, and gift giving, they return to wonder at the mighty "grip of Grendel" and to rejoice in Beowulf's victory. When night falls a great feast is spread in Heorot, and the Danes sleep once more in the great hall. At midnight comes another monster, 1 Grendel, of the Eoten (giant) race, the death shadow, the mark stalker, the shadow ganger, is also variously called god's foe, fiend of hell, Cain's brood, etc. It need hardly be explained that the latter terms are additions to the original poem, made, probably, by monks who copied the manuscript. A belief in Wyrd, the mighty power controlling the destinies of men, is the chief religious motive of the epic. In line 1056 we find a curious blending of pagan and Christian belief, where Wyrd is withstood by the " wise God." 2 Summary of 11. 710-727. We have not indicated in our translation (or in quota- tions from Garnett, Morley, Brooke, etc.) where parts of the text are omitted. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 13 a horrible, half-human creature, 1 mother of Grendel, raging to avenge her offspring. She thunders at the door ; the Danes leap up and grasp their weapons ; but the monster enters, seizes Aeschere, who is friend and adviser of the king, and rushes away with him over the fens. The old scenes of sorrow are reviewed in the morning ; but Beowulf says simply : Sorrow not, wise man. It is better for each That his friend he avenge than that he mourn much. Each of us shall the end await Of worldly life : let him who may gain Honor ere death. That is for a warrior, When he is dead, afterwards best. Arise, kingdom's guardian ! Let us quickly go To view the track of Grendel's kinsman. I promise it thee : he will not escape, Nor in earth's bosom, nor in mountain-wood, Nor in ocean's depths, go where he will. 2 Then he girds himself for the new fight and follows the track of the second enemy across the fens. Here is Hrothgar's description of the place where live the monsters, "spirits of elsewhere," as he calls them: They inhabit The dim land that gives shelter to the wolf, The windy headlands, perilous fen paths, Where, under mountain mist, the stream flows down And floods the ground. Not far hence, but a mile, The mere stands, over which hang death-chill groves, A wood fast-rooted overshades the flood ; There every night a ghastly miracle Is seen, fire in the water. No man knows, Not the most wise, the bottom of that mere. The firm-horned heath-stalker, the hart, when pressed, Wearied by hounds, and hunted from afar, Will rather die of thirst upon its bank Than bend his head to it. It is unholy. Dark to the clouds its yeasty waves mount up When wind stirs hateful tempest, till the air Grows dreary, and the heavens pour down tears. 3 Beowulf plunges into the horrible place, while his companions wait for him on the shore. For a long time he sinks through the flood ; then, 1 Grendel's mother belongs also to the Eoten (giant) race. She is called brim-wylf (sea wolf), merewif (sea woman), gr-und-wyrgen (bottom monster), etc. 2 From Garnett's Beowulf, 11. 1384-1394. 8 From Morley's version, 11. 1357-1376. 14 ENGLISH LITERATURE as he reaches bottom, Grendel's mother rushes out upon him and drags him into a cave, where sea monsters swarm at him from behind and gnash his armor with their tusks. The edge of his sword is turned with the mighty blow he deals the merewif; but it harms not the mon- ster. Casting the weapon aside, he grips her and tries to hurl her down, while her claws and teeth clash upon his corslet but cannot penetrate the steel rings. She throws her bulk upon him, crushes him down, draws a short sword and plunges it at him; but again his splendid byrnie saves him. He is wearied now, and oppressed. Suddenly, as his eye sweeps the cave, he catches sight of a magic sword, made by the giants long ago, too heavy for warriors to wield. Struggling up he seizes the weapon, whirls it and brings down a crashing blow upon the monster's neck. It smashes through the ring bones ; the merewif falls, and the fight is won. The cave is full of treasures ; but Beowulf heeds them not, for near him lies Grendel, dead from the wound received the previous night. Again Beowulf swings the great sword and strikes off his enemy's head ; and lo, as the venomous blood touches the sword blade, the steel melts like ice before the fire, and only the hilt is left in Beowulf's hand. Taking the hilt and the head, the hero enters the ocean and mounts up to the shore. Only his own faithful band were waiting there ; for the Danes, see- ing the ocean bubble with fresh blood, thought it was all over with the hero and had gone home. And there they were, mourning in Heorot, when Beowulf returned with the monstrous head of Grendel carried on a spear shaft by four of his stoutest followers. In the last part of the poem there is another great fight. Beowulf is now an old man ; he has reigned for fifty years, beloved by all his peo- ple. He has overcome every enemy but one, a fire dragon keeping watch over an enormous treasure hidden among the mountains. One day a wanderer stumbles upon the enchanted cave and, entering, takes a jeweled cup while the firedrake sleeps heavily. That same night the dragon, in a frightful rage, belching forth fire and smoke, rushes down upon the nearest villages, leaving a trail of death and terror behind him. Again Beowulf goes forth to champion his people. As he approaches the dragon's cave, he has a presentiment that death lurks within : Sat on the headland there the warrior king ; Farewell he said to hearth-companions true, The gold-friend of the Geats ; his mind was sad, Death-ready, restless. And Wyrd was drawing nigh, Who now must meet and touch the aged man, To seek the treasure that his soul had saved And separate his body from his life. 1 1 Beowulf, 11. 2417-2423, a free rendering. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 15 There is a flash of illumination, like that which comes to a dying man, in which his mind runs back over his long life and sees something of profound meaning in the elemental sorrow moving side by side with magnificent courage. Then follows the fight with the firedrake, in which Beowulf, wrapped in fire and smoke, is helped by the heroism of Wiglaf, one of his companions. The dragon is slain, but the fire has entered Beowulf's lungs and he knows that Wyrd is at hand. This is his thought, while Wiglaf removes his battered armor : " One deep regret I have : that to a son I may not give the armor I have worn, To bear it after me. For fifty years I ruled these people well, and not a king Of those who dwell around me, dared oppress Or meet me with his hosts. At home I waited For the time that Wyrd controls. Mine own I kept, Nor quarrels sought, nor ever falsely swore. Now, wounded sore, I wait for joy to come." x He sends Wiglaf into the firedrake's cave, who finds it filled with rare treasures and, most wonderful of all, a golden banner from which light proceeds and illumines all the darkness. But Wiglaf cares little for the treasures ; his mind is full of his dying chief. He fills his hands with costly ornaments and hurries to throw them at his hero's feet. The old man looks with sorrow at the gold, thanks the "Lord of all" that by death he has gained more riches for his people, and tells his faithful thane how his body shall be burned on the Whale ness, or headland : w My life is well paid for this hoard ; and now Care for the people's needs. I may no more Be with them. Bid the warriors raise a barrow After the burning, on the ness by the sea, On Hronesness, which shall rise high and be For a remembrance to my people. Seafarers Who from afar over the mists of waters Drive foamy keels may call it Beowulf's Mount Hereafter." Then the hero from his neck Put off a golden collar ; to his thane, To the young warrior, gave it with his helm, Armlet and corslet ; bade him use them well. w Thou art the last Waegmunding of our race, For fate has swept my kinsmen all away. Earls in their strength are to their Maker gone, And I must follow them." 2 1 Lines 2729-2740, a free rendering. 2 Morley's version, 11. 2799-2816. 1 6 ENGLISH LITERATURE Beowulf was still living when Wiglaf sent a messenger hurriedly to his people ; when they came they found him dead, and the huge dragon dead on the sand beside him. Then the Goth's people reared a mighty pile With shields and armour hung, as he had asked, And in the midst the warriors laid their lord, Lamenting. Then the warriors on the mount Kindled a mighty bale fire ; the smoke rose Black from the Swedish pine, the sound of flame Mingled with sound of weeping ; . . . while smoke Spread over heaven. Then upon the hill The people of the Weders wrought a mound, High, broad, and to be seen far out at sea. In ten days they had built and walled it in As the wise thought most worthy ; placed in it Rings, jewels, other treasures from the hoard. They left the riches, golden joy of earls, In dust, for earth to hold ; where yet it lies, Useless as ever. Then about the mound The warriors rode, and raised a mournful song For their dead king ; exalted his brave deeds, Holding it fit men honour their liege lord, Praise him and love him when his soul is fled. Thus the [Geat's] people, sharers of his hearth, Mourned their chief's fall, praised him, of kings, of men The mildest and the kindest, and to all His people gentlest, yearning for their praise. 1 One is tempted to linger over the details of the magnificent ending : the unselfish heroism of Beowulf, the great prototype of King Alfred; the generous grief of his people, ignoring gold and jewels in the thought of the greater treasure they had lost ; the memorial mound on the low cliff, which would cause every returning mariner to steer a straight course to harbor in the remembrance of his dead hero ; and the pure poetry which marks every noble line. But the epic is great enough and simple enough to speak for itself. Search the literatures of the world, and you will find no other such picture of a brave man's death. 1 Lines 3156-3182 (Morley's version). THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 17 Concerning the history of Beowulf a whole library has been written, and scholars still differ too radically for us to express Histo and a P os i trve judgment. This much, however, is clear, Meaning of - that there existed, at the time the poem was composed, various northern legends of Beowa, a half-divine hero, and the monster Grendel. The latter has been interpreted in various ways, sometimes as a bear, and again as the malaria of the marsh lands. For those interested in symbols the simplest interpretation of these myths is to regard Beowulf's successive fights with the three dragons as the overcoming, first, of the overwhelming danger of the sea, which was beaten back by the dykes; second, the conquer- ing of the sea itself, when men learned to sail upon it ; and third, the conflict with the hostile forces of nature, which are overcome at last by man's indomitable will and perseverance. All this is purely mythical ; but there are historical inci- dents to reckon with. About the year 520 a certain northern chief, called by the chronicler Chochilaicus (who is generally identified with the Hygelac of the epic), led a huge plundering expedition up the Rhine. After a succession of battles he was overcome by the Franks, but and now we enter a legendary region once more not until a gigantic nephew of Hygelac had performed heroic feats of valor, and had saved the remnants of the host by a marvelous feat of swimming. The majority of scholars now hold that these historical events and personages were celebrated in the epic ; but some still assert that the events which gave a foundation for Beowulf occurred wholly on Eng- lish soil, where the poem itself was undoubtedly written. The rhythm of Beo wulf and indeed of all our earliest poetry depended upon accent and alliteration ; that is, the beginning Poetical of two or more words in the same line with the Form same sound or letter. The lines were made up of two short halves, separated by a pause. No rime was used ; but a musical effect was produced by giving each half line two strongly accented syllables. Each full line, therefore. 1 8 ENGLISH LITERATURE had four accents, three of which (i.e. two in the first half, and one in the second) usually began with the same sound or letter. The musical effect was heightened by the harp with which the gleeman accompanied his singing. The poetical form will be seen clearly in the following selection from the wonderfully realistic description of the fens haunted by Gren- del. It will need only one or two readings aloud to show that many of these strange-looking words are practically the same as those we still use, though many of the vowel sounds were pronounced differently by our ancestors. . . . Hie dygel lond Warigeath, wulf-hleothu, windige naessas, Frecne fen-gelad, thaer fyrgen-stream Under nasssa genipu nither gewiteth, Flod under foldan. Nis thaet feor heonon, Mil-gemearces, thaet se mere standeth, Ofer thaem hongiath hrinde bearwas . . . They (a) darksome land Ward (inhabit), wolf cliffs, windy nesses, Frightful fen paths where mountain stream Under nesses' mists nether (downward) wanders, A flood under earth. It is not far hence, By mile measure, that the mere stands, Over which hang rimy groves. Widsith. The poem "Widsith," the wide goer or wanderer, is in part, at least, probably the oldest in our language. The author and the date of its composition are unknown ; but the personal account of the minstrel's life belongs to the time before the Saxons first came to England. 1 It expresses the wandering life of the gleeman, who goes forth into the world to abide here or there, according as he is rewarded for his singing. From the numerous references to rings and rewards, and from the praise given to generous givers, it would seem 1 Probably to the fourth century, though some parts of the poem must have been added later. Thus the poet says (11. 88-102) that he visited Eormanric, who died dr. 375, and Queen Ealhhild whose father, Eadwin, died dr. 561. The difficulty of fixing a date to the poem is apparent. It contains several references to scenes and characters in Beowulf. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 19 V- -rjufe pf (raw pili ocen png pum pamecofele- ptim 5^^5011 epotflan ion feojio Caxnob e- (c liolc u ^Epnum g o|tfc mec \um fyjican ic e . tiefeJiic men moii^ua co noll^f p>|tpfi4ft: f^Tum . o A PAGE FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF BEOWULF 20 ENGLISH LITERATURE that literature as a paying profession began very early in our history, and also that the pay was barely sufficient to hold soul and body together. Of all our modern poets, Goldsmith wandering over Europe paying for his lodging with his songs is most suggestive of this first recorded singer of our race. His last lines read : Thus wandering, they who shape songs for men Pass over many lands, and tell their need, And speak their thanks, and ever, south or north, Meet someone skilled in songs and free in gifts, Who would be raised among his friends to fame And do brave deeds till light and life are gone. He who has thus wrought himself praise shall have A settled glory underneath the stars. 1 Deor's Lament. In " Deor " we have another picture of the Saxon scop, or minstrel, not in glad wandering, but in manly sorrow. It seems that the scop's living depended entirely upon his power to please his chief, and that at any time he might be supplanted by a better poet. Deor had this experience, and comforts himself in a grim way by recalling various examples of men who have suffered more than himself. The poem is arranged in strophes, each one telling of some afflicted hero and ending with the same refrain : His sorrow passed away ; so will mine. "Deor" is much more poetic than "Widsith," and is the one perfect lyric 2 of the Anglo-Saxon period. Weland for a woman knew too well exile. Strong of soul that earl, sorrow sharp he bore ; To companionship he had care and weary longing, Winter-freezing wretchedness. Woe he found again, again, After that Nithhad in a need had laid him Staggering sinew-wounds sorrow-smitten man ! That he overwent; this also may 7. 3 The Seafarer. The wonderful poem of "The Seafarer" seems to be in two distinct parts. The first shows the hardships 1 Lines 135-143 (Morley's version). 2 A lyric is a short poem reflecting some personal emotion, like love or grief. Two other Anglo-Saxon poems, " The Wife's Complaint " and " The Husband's Message," belong to this class. 8 First strophe of Brooke's version, History of Early English Literature. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 21 of ocean life ; but stronger than hardships is the subtle call of the sea. The second part is an allegory, in which the troubles of the seaman are symbols of the troubles of this life, and the call of the ocean is the call in the soul to be up and away to its true home with God. Whether the last was added by some monk who saw the allegorical possibilities of the first part, or whether some sea-loving Christian scop wrote both, is uncertain. Follow- ing are a few selected lines to show the spirit of the poem : The hail flew in showers about me ; and there I heard only The roar of the sea, ice-cold waves, and the song of the swan ; For pastime the gannets' cry served me ; the kittiwakes' chatter For laughter of men ; and for mead drink the call of the sea mews. When storms on the rocky cliffs beat, then the terns, icy-feathered, Made answer ; full oft the sea eagle forebodingly screamed, The eagle with pinions wave-wet. . . . The shadows of night became darker, it snowed from the north ; The world was enchained by the frost ; hail fell upon earth ; 'T was the coldest of grain. Yet the thoughts of my heart now are throbbing To test the high streams, the salt waves in tumultuous play. Desire in my heart ever urges my spirit to wander, To seek out the home of the stranger in lands afar off. There is no one that dwells upon earth, so exalted in mind, But that he has always a longing, a sea-faring passion For what the Lord God shall bestow, be it honor or death. No heart for the harp has he, nor for acceptance of treasure, No pleasure has he in a wife, no delight in the world, Nor in aught save the roll of the billows ; but always a longing, A yearning uneasiness, hastens him on to the sea. The woodlands are captured by blossoms, the hamlets grow fair, Broad meadows are beautiful, earth again bursts into life, And all stir the heart of the wanderer eager to journey, So he meditates going afar on the pathway of tides. The cuckoo, moreover, gives warning with sorrowful note, Summer's harbinger sings, and forebodes to the heart bitter sorrow. Now my spirit uneasily turns in the heart's narrow chamber, Now wanders forth over the tide, o'er the home of the whale, To the ends of the earth and comes back to me. Eager and greedy, The lone wanderer screams, and resistlessly drives my soul onward, Over the whale-path, over the tracts of the sea. 1 1 Seafarer, Part I, Iddings' version, in Translations from Old English Poetry. 22 ENGLISH LITERATURE The Fight at Finnsburgh and Waldere. Two other of our old* est poems well deserve mention. The "Fight at Finnsburgh'* is a fragment of fifty lines, discovered on the inside of a piece of parchment drawn over the wooden covers of a book of homilies. It is a magnificent war song, describing with Homeric power the defense of a hall by Hnaef l with sixty warriors, against the attack of Finn and his army. At mid- night, when Hnaef and his men are sleeping, they are sur- rounded by an army rushing in with fire and sword. Hnaef springs to his feet at the first alarm and wakens his warriors with a call to action that rings like a bugle blast : This no eastward dawning is, nor is here a dragon flying, Nor of this high hall are the horns a burning ; But they rush upon us here now the ravens sing, Growling is the gray wolf, grim the war-wood rattles, Shield to shaft is answering. 2 The fight lasts five days, but the fragment ends before we learn the outcome. The same fight is celebrated by Hrothgar's gleeman at the feast in Heorot, after the slaying of Grendel. " Waldere " is a fragment of two leaves, from which we get only a glimpse of the story of Waldere (Walter of Aquitaine) and his betrothed bride Hildgund, who were hostages at the court of Attila. They escaped with a great treasure, and in crossing the mountains were attacked by Gunther and his warriors, among whom was Walter's former comrade, Hagen. Walter fights them all and escapes. The same story was written in Latin in the tenth century, and is also part of the old German Nibelungenlied. Though the saga did not origi- nate with the Anglo-Saxons, their version of it is the oldest that has come down to us. The chief significance of these "Waldere" fragments lies in the evidence they afford that our ancestors were familiar with the legends and poetry of other Germanic peoples. 1 It is an open question whether this poem celebrates the fight at which Hnsef, the Danish leader, fell, or a later fight led by Hengist, to avenge Hnaef 's death. 2 Brooke's translation, History of Early English Literature. For another early battle- song see Tennyson's " Battle of Brunanburh." THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 23 II. ANGLO-SAXON LIFE We have now read some of our earliest records, and have been surprised, perhaps, that men who are generally described in the histories as savage fighters and freebooters could pro- duce such excellent poetry. It is the object of the study of all literature to make us better acquainted with men, not simply with their deeds, which is the function of history, but with the dreams and ideals which underlie all their actions. So a reading of this early Anglo-Saxon poetry not only makes us acquainted, but also leads to a profound respect for the men who were our ancestors. Before we study more of their literature it is well to glance briefly at their life and language. The Name. Originally the name Anglo-Saxon denotes two of the three Germanic tribes, Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, who in the middle of the fifth century left their homes on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic to conquer and colonize distant Britain. Angeln was the home of one tribe, and the name still clings to the spot whence some of our forefathers sailed on their momentous voyage. The old Saxon word angul or ongul means a hook, and the English verb angle is used invariably by Walton and older writers in the sense of fishing. We may still think, therefore, of the first Angles as hook-men, possibly because of their fishing, more probably because the shore where they lived, at the foot of the penin- sula of Jutland, was bent in the shape of a fishhook. The name Saxon from seax, sax, a short sword, means the sword- man, and from the name we may judge something of the temper of the hardy fighters who preceded the Angles into Britain. The Angles were the most numerous of the con- quering tribes, and from them the new home was called Anglalond. By gradual changes this became first Englelond and then England. More than five hundred years after the landing of these tribes, and while they called themselves Englishmen, we find the Latin writers of the Middle Ages speaking of the inhabitants 24 ENGLISH LITERATURE of Britain as Anglisaxones, that is, Saxons of England, to distinguish them from the Saxons of the Continent. In the Latin charters of King Alfred the same name appears ; but it is never seen or heard in his native speech. There he always speaks of his beloved "Englelond" and of his brave "Englisc" people. In the sixteenth century, when the old name of Englishmen clung to the new people resulting from the union of Saxon and Norman, the name Anglo-Saxon was first used in the national sense by the scholar Camden * in his History of Britain ; and since then it has been in general use among English writers. In recent years the name has gained a wider significance, until it is now used to denote a spirit rather than a nation, the brave, vigorous, enlarging spirit that character- izes the English-speaking races everywhere, and that has already put a broad belt of English law and English liberty around the whole world. The Life. If the literature of a people springs directly out of its life, then the stern, barbarous life of our Saxon fore- fathers would seem, at first glance, to promise little of good literature. Outwardly their life was a constant hardship, a per- petual struggle against savage nature and savage men. Behind them were gloomy forests inhabited by wild beasts and still wilder men, and peopled in their imagination with dragons and evil shapes. In front of them, thundering at the very dikes for entrance, was the treacherous North Sea, with its fogs and storms and ice, but with that indefinable call of the deep that all men hear who live long beneath its influence. Here they lived, a big, blond, powerful race, and hunted and fought and sailed, and drank and feasted when their labor was done. Almost the first thing we notice about these big, fear- less, childish men is that they love the sea ; and because they love it they hear and answer its call : 1 William Camden (1551-1623), one of England's earliest and greatest antiquarians. His first work, Britannia, a Latin history of England, has been called " the common sun whereat our modern writers have all kindled their little torches." THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 25 ... No delight has he in the world, Nor in aught save the roll of the billows; but always a longing, A yearning uneasiness, hastens him on to the sea. 1 As might be expected, this love of the ocean finds expres- sion in all their poetry. In Beowulf alone there are fifteen names for the sea, from the holm, that is, the horizon sea, the "upmounding," to the brim, which is the ocean flinging its welter of sand and creamy foam upon the beach at your feet. And the figures used to describe or glorify it " the swan road, the whale path, the heaving battle plain " are almost as numerous. In all their poetry there is a magnificent sense of lordship over the wild sea even in its hour of tempest and fury: Often it befalls us, on the ocean's highways, In the boats our boatmen, when the storm is roaring, Leap the billows over, on our stallions of the foam. 2 The Inner Life. A man's life is more than his work ; his dream, is ever greater than his achievement ; and literature reflects not so much man's deed as the spirit which animates him ; not the poor thing that he does, but rather the splendid thing that he ever hopes to do. In no place is this more evi- dent than in the age we are now studying. Those early sea kings were a marvelous mixture of savagery and sentiment, of rough living and of deep feeling, of splendid courage and the deep melancholy of men who know their limitations and have faced the unanswered problem of death. They were not simply fearless freebooters who harried every coast in their war galleys. If that were all, they would have no more his- tory or literature than the Barbary pirates, of whom the same thing could be said. These strong fathers of ours were men of profound emotions. In all their fighting the love of an un- tarnished glory was uppermost ; and under the warrior's savage exterior was hidden a great love of home and homely virtues, 1 From Iddings' version of The Seafarer. 2 From Andreas, 11. 511 ff., a free translation. The whole poem thrills with the old Saxon love of the sea and of ships. zC> ENGLISH LITERATURE and a reverence for the one woman to whom he would pres- ently return in triumph. So when the wolf hunt was over, or the desperate fight was won, these mighty men would gather in the banquet hall, and lay their weapons aside where the open fire would flash upon them, and there listen to the songs of Scop and Gleeman, men who could put into adequate words the emotions and aspirations that all men feel but that only a few can ever express : Music and song where the heroes sat The glee-wood rang, a song uprose When Hrothgar's scop gave the hall good cheer. 1 It is this great and hidden life of the Anglo-Saxons that finds expression in all their literature. Briefly, it is summed up in five great principles, their love of personal freedom, their responsiveness to nature, their religion, their reverence for womanhood, and their struggle for glory as a ruling motive in every noble life. In reading Anglo-Saxon poetry it is well to remember these Springs of ^ ve P rmc ipl es > for tnev are like tne little springs Anglo-Saxon at the head of a great river, clear, pure springs of poetry, and out of them the best of our literature has always flowed. Thus when we read, Blast of the tempest it aids our oars ; Rolling of thunder it hurts us not ; Rush of the hurricane bending its neck To speed us whither our wills are bent, we realize that these sea rovers had the spirit of kinship with the mighty life of nature ; and kinship with nature invariably expresses itself in poetry. Again, when we read, Now hath the man O'ercome his troubles. No pleasure does he lack, Nor steeds, nor jewels, nor the joys of mead, Nor any treasure that the earth can give, O royal woman, if he have but thee, 2 1 From Beowulf, 11. 1063 ^-> a ^ ree translation. 2 Translated from The Husband's Message, written on a piece of bark. With won- derful poetic insight the bark itself is represented as telling its story to the wife, from THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 27 we know we are dealing with an essentially noble man, not a savage ; we are face to face with that profound reverence for womanhood which inspires the greater part of all good poetry, and we begin to honor as well as understand our ancestors. So in the matter of glory or honor ; it was, apparently, not the love of fighting, but rather the love of honor resulting from fighting well, which animated our forefathers in every cam- paign. "He was a man deserving of remembrance " was the highest thing that could be said of a dead warrior ; and "He is a man deserving of praise " was the highest tribute to the living. The whole secret of Beowulf's mighty life is summed up in the last line, " Ever yearning for his people's praise." So every tribe had its scop, or poet, more important than any warrior, who put the deeds of its heroes into the expressive words that constitute literature ; and every banquet hall had its gleeman, who sang the scop's poetry in order that the deed and the man might be remembered. Oriental peoples built monuments to perpetuate the memory of their dead ; but our ancestors made poems, which should live and stir men's souls long after monuments of brick, and stone had crumbled away. It is to this intense love of glory and the desire to be remem- bered that we are indebted for Anglo-Saxon literature. Our First Speech. Our first recorded speech begins with the songs of Widsith and Deor, which the Anglo-Saxons may have brought with them when they first conquered Britain. At first glance these songs in their native dress look strange as a foreign tongue; but when we examine them carefully we find many words that have been familiar since childhood. We have seen this in Beowulf ; but in prose the resemblance the time when the birch tree grew beside the sea until the exiled man found it and stripped the bark and carved on its surface a message to the woman he loved. This first of all English love songs deserves to rank with Valentine's description of Silvia : Why, man, she is mine own, And I as rich in having such a jewel As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, The water nectar and the rocks pure gold. Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, 4. 28 ENGLISH LITERATURE of this old speech to our own is even more striking. Here, for instance, is a fragment of the simple story of the con- quest of Britain by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors : Her Hengest and ^sc his sunu gefuhton with Bryttas, on thaere stowe the is gecweden Creccanford, and thaer ofslogon feower thusenda wera. And tha Bryttas tha forleton Cent-lond, and mid myclum ege flugon to Lundenbyrig. (At this time Hengest and Aesc, his son, fought against STONEHENGE, ON SALISBURY PLAIN Probably the ruins of a temple of the native Britons the Britons at the place which is called Crayford and there slew four thousand men. And then the Britons forsook Kentland, and with much fear fled to London town.) 1 The reader who utters these words aloud a few times will speedily recognize his own tongue, not simply in the words but also in the whole structure of the sentences. From such records we see that our speech is Teutonic in its origin ; and when we examine any Teutonic language we learn that it is only a branch of the great Aryan or Indo- European family of languages. In life and language, there- fore, we are related first to the Teutonic races, and through them to all the nations of this Indo-European family, which, starting with enormous vigor from their original home (prob- ably in central Europe 2 ), spread southward and westward, driv- ing out the native tribes and slowly developing the mighty civilizations of India, Persia, Greece, Rome, and the wilder but more vigorous life of the Celts and Teutons. In all these 1 From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, record of the year 457. 2 According to Sweet the original home of the Aryans is placed in central or northern Europe, rather than in Asia, as was once assumed. See The History of Language, p. 103. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 29 languages Sanskrit, Iranian, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Teutonic we recognize the same root words for father and mother, for God and man, for the common needs and the common rela- tions of life ; and since words are windows through which we see the soul of this old people, we find certain ideals of love, home, faith, heroism, liberty, which seem to have been the very life of our forefathers, and which were inherited by them from their old heroic and conquering ancestors. It was on the borders of the North Sea that our fathers halted for un- numbered centuries on their westward journey, and slowly developed the national life and language which we now call Anglo-Saxon. It is this old vigorous Anglo-Saxon language which forms the basis of our modern English. If we read a paragraph from any good English book, and then analyze it, Dual Charac- ter of our as we would a flower, to see what it contains, we Language find two Distinct classes of words. The first class, containing simple words expressing the common things of life, makes up the strong framework of our language. These words are like the stem and bare branches of a mighty oak, and if we look them up in the dictionary we find that almost invari- ably they come to us from our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. The second and larger class of words is made up of those that give grace, variety, ornament, to our speech. They are like the leaves and blossoms of the same tree, and when we examine their history we find that they come to us from the Celts, Romans, Normans, and other peoples with whom we have been in contact in the long years of our development. The most prominent characteristic of our present language, there- fore, is its dual character. Its best qualities strength, sim- plicity, directness come from Anglo-Saxon sources ; its enormous added wealth of expression, its comprehensiveness, its plastic adaptability to new conditions and ideas, are largely the result of additions from other languages, and especially of its gradual absorption of the French language after the 30 ENGLISH LITERATURE Norman Conquest. It is this dual character, this combination of native and foreign, of innate and exotic elements, which ac- counts for the wealth of our English language and literature. To see it in concrete form, we should read in succession Beowulf and Paradise Lost, the two great epics which show the root and the flower of our literary development. III. CHRISTIAN WRITERS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD The literature of this period falls naturally into two divi- sions, pagan and Christian. The former represents the poetry which the Anglo-Saxons probably brought with them in the form of oral sagas, the crude material out of which literature was slowly developed on English soil ; the latter rep- resents the writings developed under teaching of the monks, after the old pagan religion had vanished, but while it still retained its hold on the life and language of the people. In reading our earliest poetry it is well to remember that all of it was copied by the monks, and seems to have been more or less altered to give it a religious coloring. The coming of Christianity meant not simply a new life and leader for England ; it meant also the wealth of a new language. The scop is now replaced by the literary monk ; and that monk, though he lives among common people and speaks with the English tongue, has behind him all the culture and literary resources of the Latin language. The effect is seen instantly in our early prose and poetry. Northumbrian Literature. In general, two great schools of Christian influence came into England, and speedily put an end to the frightful wars that had waged continually among the various petty kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons. The first of these, under the leadership of Augustine, came from Rome. It spread in the south and center of England, especially in the kingdom of Essex. It founded schools and partially edu- cated the rough people, but it produced no lasting literature. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD The other, under the leadership of the saintly Aidan, came from Ireland, which country had been for centuries a center of reli- gion and education for all western Europe. The monks of this school labored chiefly in Northumbria, and to their influence we owe all that is best in Anglo-Saxon literature. It is called the Northumbrian School ; .f. pieces tmntns 7 its center was the mon- asteries and abbeys, such as Jarrow and Whitby, and its three greatest names are Bede, Caed- mon, and Cynewulf. BEDE (673-735) The Venerable Bede, as he is generally called, our first great scholar and " the father of our English learning," wrote almost exclusively in Latin, his last work, the translation of the Gospel of John into Anglo-Saxon, having been unfortunately lost. Much to our regret, therefore, his books and the story of his gentle, heroic life must be excluded from this history of our literature. His works, over forty in number, covered the whole field of human knowledge in his day, and were so admirably written that they were widely copied as text-books, or rather manuscripts, in nearly all the monastery schools of Europe. The work most important to us is the Ecclesiastical His- tory of the English People. It is a fascinating history to read even now, with its curious combination of accurate scholarship and immense credulity. In all strictly historical matters Bede INITIAL LETTER OF A MS. COPY OF ST. LUKE'S GOSPEL, CIR. 700 A.D. 32 ENGLISH LITERATURE is a model. Every known authority on the subject, from Pliny to Gildas, was carefully considered ; every learned pil- The First grim to Rome was commissioned by Bede to ransack History of the archives and to make copies of papal decrees and royal letters ; and to these were added the tes- timony of abbots who could speak from personal knowledge of events or repeat the traditions of their several monasteries. Side by side with this historical exactness are marvelous stories of saints and missionaries. It was an age of credulity, and miracles were in men's minds continually. The men of RUINS AT WHITBY whom he wrote lived lives more wonderful than any romance, and their courage and gentleness made a tremendous impres- sion on the rough, warlike people to whom they came with open hands and hearts. It is the natural way of all primitive peoples to magnify the works of their heroes, and so deeds of heroism and kindness, which were part of the daily life of the Irish missionaries, were soon transformed into the miracles of the saints. Bede believed these things, as all other men did, and records them with charming simplicity, just as he received them from bishop or abbot. Notwithstanding its errors, we owe to this work nearly all our knowledge of the eight cen- turies of our history following the landing of Caesar in Britain. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 33 C^DMON (Seventh Century) Now must we hymn the Master of heaven, The might of the Maker, the deeds of the Father, The thought of His heart. He, Lord everlasting, Established of old the source of all wonders : Creator all-holy, He hung the bright heaven, A roof high upreared, o'er the children of men ; The King of mankind then created for mortals The world in its beauty, the earth spread beneath them, He, Lord everlasting, omnipotent God. 1 If Beowulf 'and the fragments of our earliest poetry were brought into England, then the hymn given above is the first verse of all native English song that has come down to us, and Caedmon is the first poet to whom we can give a defi- nite name and date. The words were written about 665 A.D. and are found copied at the end of a manuscript of Bede's Ecclesiastical History. Life of Caedmon. What little we know of Caedmon, the Anglo- Saxon Milton, as he is properly called, is taken from Bede's account 2 of the Abbess Hilda and of her monastery at Whitby. Here is a free and condensed translation of Bede's story : There was, in the monastery of the Abbess Hilda, a brother distin- guished by the grace of God, for that he could make poems treating of goodness and religion. Whatever was translated to him (for he could not read) of Sacred Scripture he shortly reproduced in poetic form of great sweetness and beauty. None of all the English poets could equal him, for he learned not the art of song from men, nor sang by the arts of men. Rather did he receive all his poetry as a free gift from God, and for this reason he did never compose poetry of a vain or worldly kind. Until of mature age he lived as a layman and had never learned any poetry. Indeed, so ignorant of singing was he that sometimes, at a feast, where it was the custom that for the pleasure of all each guest should sing in turn, he would rise from the table when he saw the harp coming to him and go home ashamed. Now it happened once that he did this thing at a certain festivity, and went out to the stall to care for the horses, this duty being assigned to him for that night. As he slept at 1 " Caedmon's Hymn," Cook's version, in Translations from Old English Poetry- 2 Ecclesiastical History, IV, xxiv. 34 ENGLISH LITERATURE the usual time, one stood by him saying : " Caedmon, sing me something." " I cannot sing," he answered, " and that is why I came hither from the feast." But he who spake unto him said again, " Caedmon, sing to me." And he said, "What shall I sing?" and he said, "Sing the beginning of created things." Thereupon Caedmon began to sing verses that he had never heard before, of this import : " Now should we praise the power and wisdom of the Creator, the works of the Father." This is the sense but not the form of the hymn that he sang while sleeping. When he awakened, Casdmon remembered the words of the hymn and added to them many more. In the morning he went to the steward of the monastery lands and showed him the gift he had received in sleep. The steward brought him to Hilda, who made him repeat to the monks the hymn he had composed, and all agreed that the grace of God was upon Caedmon. To test him they expounded to him a bit of Scrip- ture from the Latin and bade him, if he could, to turn it into poetry. He went away humbly and returned in the morning with an excellent poem. Thereupon Hilda received him and his family into the monastery, made him one of the brethren, and commanded that the whole course of Bible history be expounded to him. He in turn, reflecting upon what he had heard, transformed it into most delightful poetry, and by echoing it back to the monks in more melodious sounds made his teachers his listeners. In all this his aim was to turn men from wickedness and to help them to the love and practice of well doing. [Then follows a brief record of Caedmon's life and an exquisite picture of his death amidst the brethren.] And so it came to pass [says the simple record] that as he served God while living in purity of mind and serenity of spirit, so by a peaceful death he left the world and went to look upon His face. Caedmon's Works. The greatest work attributed to Caedmon is the so-called Paraphrase. It is the story of Genesis, Exodus, and a part of Daniel, told in glowing, poetic language, with a power of insight and imagination which often raises it from paraphrase into the realm of true poetry. Though we have Bede's assurance that Caedmon " transformed the whole course of Bible history into most delightful poetry," no work known certainly to have been composed by him has come down to us. In the seventeenth century this Anglo-Saxon Paraphrase was discovered and attributed to Caedmon, and his name is still associated with it, though it is now almost certain that the Paraphrase is the work of more than one writer. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 35 Aside from the doubtful question of authorship, even a casual reading of the poem brings us into the presence of a poet rude indeed, but with a genius strongly suggestive at times of the matchless Milton. The book opens with a hymn of praise, and then tells of the fall of Satan and his rebel angels from heaven, which is familiar to us in Milton's Paradise Lost. Then follows the creation of the world, and the Paraphrase be- gins to thrill with the old Anglo-Saxon love of nature. Here first the Eternal Father, guard of all, Of heaven and earth, raised up the firmament, The Almighty Lord set firm by His strong power This roomy land ; grass greened not yet the plain, Ocean far spread hid the wan ways in gloom. Then was the Spirit gloriously bright Of Heaven's Keeper borne over the deep Swiftly. The Life-giver, the Angel's Lord, Over the ample ground bade come forth Light. Quickly the High King's bidding was obeyed, Over the waste there shone light's holy ray. Then parted He, Lord of triumphant might, Shadow from shining, darkness from the light. Light, by the Word of God, was first named day. 1 After recounting the story of Paradise, the Fall, and the Deluge, the Paraphrase is continued in the Exodus, of which the poet makes a noble epic, rushing on with the sweep of a Saxon army to battle. A single selection is given here to show how the poet adapted the story to his hearers : Then they saw, Forth and forward faring, Pharaoh's war array Gliding on, a grove of spears ; glittering the hosts ! Fluttered there the banners, there the folk the march trod. Onwards surged the war, strode the spears along, Blickered the broad shields ; blew aloud the trumpets. . . . Wheeling round in gyres, yelled the fowls of war, Of the battle greedy ; hoarsely barked the raven, Dew upon his feathers, o'er the fallen corpses Swart that chooser of the slain ! Sang aloud the wolves At eve their horrid song, hoping for the carrion. 2 1 Genesis, 112-131 (Morley). 2 Exodus, 155 fif. (Brooke). 36 ENGLISH LITERATURE Besides the Paraphrase we have a few fragments of the same general character which are attributed to the school of Csedmon. The longest of these is Judith, in which the story of an apocryphal book of the Old Testament is done into vigorous poetry. Holofernes is represented as a savage and cruel Viking, reveling in his mead hall ; and when the heroic Judith cuts off his head with his own sword and throws it down before the warriors of her people, rousing them to battle and victory, we reach perhaps the most dramatic and brilliant point of Anglo-Saxon literature. CYNEWULF (Eighth Century) Of Cynewulf, greatest of the Anglo-Saxon poets, excepting only the unknown author of Beowulf, we know very little. Indeed, it was not till 1840, more than a thousand years after his death, that even his name became known. Though he is the only one of our early poets who signed his works, the name was never plainly written, but woven into the verses in the form of secret runes, 1 suggesting a modern charade, but more difficult of interpretation until one has found the key to the poet's signature. Works of Cynewulf. The only signed poems of Cynewulf are The Christ, Juliana, The Fates of the Apostles, and Elene. Unsigned poems attributed to him or his school are Andreas, 1 Runes were primitive letters of the old northern alphabet. In a few passages Cyne- wulf uses each rune to represent not only a letter but a word beginning with that letter. Thus the rune-equivalent of C stands for cene (keen, courageous), Y for yfel (evil, in the sense of wretched), N for nyd (need), W for ivyn (joy), U for ur (our), L for lagu (lake), F for feoh (fee, wealth). Using the runes equivalent to these seven letters, Cynewulf hides and at the same time reveals his name in certain verses of The Christ, for instance: Then the Courage-hearted quakes, when the King (Lord) he hears Speak to those who once on earth but obeyed Him weakly, While as yet their Yearning pain and their Need most easily Comfort might discover. . . . Gone is then the Winsomeness Of the earth's adornments ! What to Us as men belonged Of the joys of life was locked, long ago, in Lake-flood. All the Fee on earth. See Brooke's History of Early English Literature, pp. 377-379, or The Christ of Cynewulf, ed. by Cook, also by Gollancz. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 37 the Phoenix, the Dream of the Rood, the Descent into Hell, Guthlac, the Wanderer, and some of the Riddles. The last are simply literary conundrums in which some well-known object, like the bow or drinking horn, is described in poetic language, and the hearer must guess the name. Some of them, like " The Swan " J and " The Storm Spirit," are unusually beautiful. Of all these works the most characteristic is undoubtedly The Christ, a didactic poem in three parts : the first celebrat- ing the Nativity ; the second, the Ascension ; and The Christ , . , TX -. the third, Doomsday, telling the torments of the wicked and the unending joy of the redeemed. Cynewulf takes his subject-matter partly from the Church liturgy, but more largely from the homilies of Gregory the Great. The whole is well woven together, and contains some hymns of great beauty and many passages of intense dramatic force. Throughout the poem a deep love for Christ and a reverence for the Virgin Mary are manifest. More than any other poem in any language, The Christ reflects the spirit of early Latin Christianity. Here is a fragment comparing life to a sea voyage, a comparison which occurs sooner or later to every thoughtful person, and which finds perfect expression in Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar." Now 't is most like as if we fare in ships On the ocean flood, over the water cold, Driving our vessels through the spacious seas With horses of the deep. A perilous way is this Of boundless waves, and there are stormy seas On which we toss here in this (reeling) world O'er the deep paths. Ours was a sorry plight 1 My robe is noiseless while I tread the earth, Or tarry 'neath the banks, or stir the shallows ; But when these shining wings, this depth of air, Bear me aloft above the bending shores Where men abide, and far the welkin's strength Over the multitudes conveys me, then With rushing whir and clear melodious sound My raiment sings. And like a wandering spirit I float unweariedly o'er flood and field. (Brougham's version, in Transl.from Old Eng. Poetry.) 38 ENGLISH LITERATURE Until at last we sailed unto the land, Over the troubled main. Help came to us That brought us to the haven of salvation, God's Spirit-Son, and granted grace to us That we might know e'en from the vessel's deck Where we must bind with anchorage secure Our ocean steeds, old stallions of the waves. In the two epic poems of Andreas and Elene Cynewulf (if he be the author) reaches the very summit of his poetical Andreas and art. Andreas, an unsigned poem, records the story of St. Andrew, who crosses the sea to rescue his comrade St. Matthew from the cannibals. A young ship- master who sails the boat turns out to be Christ in disguise. Matthew is set free, and the savages are converted by a mir- acle. 1 It is a spirited poem, full of rush and incident, and the descriptions of the sea are the best in Anglo-Saxon poetry. Elene has for its subject-matter the finding of the true cross. It tells of Constantine's vision of the Rood, on the eve of battle. After his victory under the new emblem he sends his mother Helena (Elene) to Jerusalem in search of the original cross and the nails. The poem, which is of very uneven quality, might properly be put at the end of Cynewulf 's works. He adds to the poem a personal note, signing his name in runes ; and, if we accept the wonderful "Vision of the Rood " as Cyne- wulf 's work, we learn how he found the cross at last in his own heart. There is a suggestion here of the future Sir Launfal and the search for the Holy Grail. Decline of Northumbrian Literature. The same northern energy which had built up learning and literature so rapidly in Northumbria was instrumental in pulling it down again. Toward the end of the century in which Cynewulf lived, the Danes swept down on the English coasts and overwhelmed Northumbria. Monasteries and schools were destroyed ; schol- ars and teachers alike were put to the sword, and libraries that 1 The source of Andreas is an early Greek legend of St. Andrew that found its way to England and was probably known to Cynewulf in some brief Latin form, now lost. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 39 had been gathered leaf by leaf with the toil of centuries were scattered to the four winds. So all true Northumbrian litera- ture perished, with the exception of a few fragments, and that which we now possess l is largely a translation in the dialect of the West Saxons. This translation was made by Alfred's scholars, after he had driven back the Danes in an effort to preserve the ideals and the civilization that had been so hardly won. With the conquest of North- umbria ends the poetic period of Anglo-Saxon literature. With Alfred the Great of Wessex our prose litera- ture makes a beginning. ALFRED (848-901) " Every craft and every power soon grows old and is passed over and forgotten, if it be without wisdom. . . . This is now to be said, that whilst I live I wish to live nobly, and after life to leave to the men who come after me a memory of good works." 2 So wrote the great Alfred, looking ^ back over his heroic life. That he lived nobly none can doubt who reads the history of the greatest of Anglo- Saxon kings; and his good works C^DMON CROSS AT WHITBY include, among others, the education of half a country, the salvage of a noble native literature, and the creation of the first English prose. 1 Our two chief sources are the famous Exeter Book, in Exeter Cathedral, a collection of Anglo-Saxon poems presented by Bishop Leofric (*:. 1050), and the Vercelli Book, discovered in the monastery of Vercelli, Italy, in 1822. The only known manuscript of Beowulf 'was discovered c. 1600, and is now in the Cotton Library of the British Museum. All these are fragmentary copies, and show the marks of fire and of hard usage. The Exeter Book contains the Christ, Guthlac, the Phoenix, Juliana, Widsith, The Seafarer, Dear's Lament, The Wife's Complaint, The Lover's Message, ninety-five Riddles, and many short hymns and fragments, an astonishing variety for a single manuscript. 2 From Alfred's Boethius. 40 ENGLISH. LITERATURE Life and Times of Alfred. For the history of Alfred's times, and details of the terrific struggle with the Northmen, the reader must be referred to the histories. The struggle ended with the Treaty of Wedmore, in 878, with the establishment of Alfred not only as king of Wessex, but as overlord of the whole northern country. Then the hero laid down his sword, and set himself as a little child to learn to read and write Latin, so that he might lead his people in peace as he had led them in war. It is then that Alfred began to be the heroic figure in literature that he had formerly been in the wars against the Northmen. With the same patience and heroism that had marked the long struggle for freedom, Alfred set himself to the task of educating his people. First he gave them laws, beginning with the Ten Command- ments and ending with the Golden Rule, and then established courts where laws could be faithfully administered. Safe from the Danes by land, he created a navy, almost the first of the English fleets, to drive them from the coast. Then, with peace and justice established within his borders, he sent to Europe for scholars and teachers, and set them over schools that he established. Hitherto all education had been in Latin ; now he set himself the task, first, of teaching every free-born Englishman to read and write his own language, and second, of translating into English the best books for their instruc- tion. Every poor scholar was honored at his court and was speedily set to work at teaching or translating; every wanderer bringing a book or a leaf of manuscript from the pillaged monasteries of North- umbria was sure of his reward. In this way the few fragments of native Northumbrian literature, which we have been studying, were saved to the world. Alfred and his scholars treasured the rare frag- ments and copied them in the West-Saxon dialect. With the excep- tion of Caedmon's Hymn, we have hardly a single leaf from the great literature of Northumbria in the dialect in which it was first written. Works of Alfred. Aside from his educational work, Alfred is known chiefly as a translator. After fighting his country's battles, and at a time when most men were content with mil- itary honor, he began to learn Latin, that he might translate the works that would be most helpful to his people. His important translations are four in number : Orosius's Univer- sal History and Geography, the leading work in general history THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 41 for several centuries ; Bede's History, 1 the first great histor- ical work written on English soil ; Pope Gregory's Shep- herds Book, intended especially for the clergy ; and Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy, the favorite philosophical work of the Middle Ages. More important than any translation is the English or Saxon Chronicle. This was probably at first a dry record, especially of The Saxon important births and deaths in the West-Saxon Chronicle kingdom. Alfred enlarged this scant record, begin- ning the story with Caesar's conquest. When it touches his own reign the dry chronicle becomes an interesting and connected story, the oldest history belonging to any modern nation in its own language. The record of Alfred's reign, probably by himself, is a splendid bit of writing and shows clearly his claim to a place in literature as well as in history. The Chronicle was continued after Alfred's death, and is the best monument of early English prose that is left to us. Here and there stirring songs are included in the narrative, like "The Battle of Brunanburh" and "The Battle of Maldon." 2 The last, entered 991, seventy-five years before the Norman Conquest, is the swan song of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The Chronicle was continued for a century after the Norman Con- quest, and is extremely valuable not only as a record of events but as a literary monument showing the development of our language. Close of the Anglo-Saxon Period. After Alfred's death there is little to record, except the loss of the two supreme objects of his heroic struggle, namely, a national life and a national literature. It was at once the strength and the weakness of the Saxon that he lived apart as a free man and never joined efforts willingly with any large body of his fellows. The tribe was his largest idea of nationality, and, with all our admiration, 1 It is not certain that the translation of Bede is the work of Alfred. 2 See Translations from Old English Poetry. Only a brief account of the fight is given in the Chronicle. The song known as " The Battle of Maldon," or " Byrhtnoth's Death," is recorded in another manuscript. 42 ENGLISH LITERATURE we must confess as we first meet him that he has not enough sense of unity to make a great nation, nor enough culture to produce a great literature. A few noble political ideals re- peated in a score of petty kingdoms, and a few literary ideals copied but never increased, that is the summary of his liter- ary history. For a full century after Alfred literature was prac- tically at a standstill, having produced the best of which it was capable, and England waited for the national impulse and for the culture necessary for a new and greater art. Both of these came speedily, by way of the sea, in the Norman Conquest. Summary of Anglo-Saxon Period. Our literature begins with songs and stories of a time when our Teutonic ancestors were living on the borders of the North Sea. Three tribes of these ancestors, the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, conquered Britain in the latter half of the fifth century, and laid the founda- tion of the English nation. The first landing was probably by a tribe of Jutes, under chiefs called by the chronicle Hengist and Horsa. The date is doubt- ful ; but the year 449 is accepted by most historians. These old ancestors were hardy warriors and sea rovers, yet were capable of profound and noble emotions. Their poetry reflects this double nature. Its subjects were chiefly the sea and the plunging boats, battles, adventure, brave deeds, the glory of warriors, and the love of home. Accent, alliteration, and an abrupt break in the middle of each line gave their poetry a kind of martial rhythm. In general the poetry is earnest and somber, and pervaded by fatalism and religious feeling. A careful reading of the few remaining fragments of Anglo-Saxon literature reveals five striking characteristics : the love of freedom ; responsiveness to nature, especially in her sterner moods ; strong religious convictions, and a belief in Wyrd, or Fate ; rever- ence for womanhood; and a devotion to glory as the ruling motive in every warrior's life. In our study we have noted: (i) the great epic or heroic poem Beowulf, and a few fragments of our first poetry, such as " Widsith," " Deor's Lament," and " The Seafarer." (2) Characteristics of Anglo-Saxon life ; the form of our first speech. (3) The Northumbrian school of writers. Bede, our first historian, belongs to this school ; but all his extant works are in Latin. The two great poets are Caedmon and Cynewulf. Northumbrian literature flourished between 650 and 850. In the year 867 Northumbria was conquered by the Danes, who destroyed the monasteries and the libraries containing our earliest literature. (4) The beginnings of English prose writing under Alfred (848-901). Our most important prose work of this age is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was revised and enlarged by Alfred, and which was continued for more than two centuries. It is the oldest historical record known to any European nation in its own tongue. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 43 Selections for Reading. Miscellaneoiis Poetry. The Seafarer, Love Letter (Husband's Message), Battle of Brunanburh, Deor's Lament, Riddles, Exodus, The Christ, Andreas, Dream of the Rood, extracts in Cook and Tinker's Translations from Old English Poetry * (Ginn and Company) ; Judith, trans- lation by A. S. Cook. Good selections are found also in Brooke's History of Early English Literature, and Morley's English Writers, vols. i and 2. Beowulf. J. R. C. Hall's prose translation; Child's Beowulf (Riverside Literature Series) ; Morris and Wyatt's The Tale of Beowulf ; Earle's The Deeds of Beowulf; Metrical versions by Garnett, J. L. Hall, Lumsden, etc. Prose. A few paragraphs of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in Manly's English Prose ; translations in Cook and Tinker's Old English Prose. Bibliography. 2 History. For the facts of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England consult first a good text-book : Montgomery, pp. 3157, or Cheyney, pp. 36-84. For fuller treatment see Green, ch. I ; Traill, vol. I ; Ramsey's Foundations of England ; Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons ; Freeman's Old English History ; Allen's Anglo-Saxon England ; Cook's Life of Alfred ; Asser's Life of King Alfred, edited by W. H. Stevenson ; C. Plummer's Life and Times of Alfred the Great ; E. Dale's National Life and Character in the Mirror of Early English Literature ; Rhys's Celtic Britain. Literature. Anglo-Saxon Texts. Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, and Albion Series of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English Poetry (Ginn and Company); Belles Lettres Series of English Classics, sec. I (Heath & Co.) ; J. W. Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader ; Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer, and Anglo-Saxon Reader. General Works. Jusserand, Ten Brink, Cambridge History, Morley (full titles and publishers in General Bibliography). Special Works. Brooke's History of Early English Literature ; Earle's Anglo-Saxon Literature ; Lewis's Beginnings of English Literature ; Arnold's Celtic Literature (for relations of Saxon and Celt) ; Longfellow's Poets and Poetry of Europe; Hall's Old English Idyls; Gayley's Classic Myths, or Guerber's Myths of the Northlands (for Norse Mythology) ; Brother Azarias's Development of Old English Thought. Beowulf, prose translations by Tinker, Hall, Earle, Morris and Wyatt ; metrical versions by Garnett, J. L. Hall, Lumsden, etc. The Exeter Book (a collection of Anglo-Saxon texts), edited and translated by Gollancz. The Christ of Cynewulf, prose translation by Whitman ; the same poem, text and translation, by Gollancz ; text by Cook. Caedmon's Paraphrase, text and trans- lation, by Thorpe. Garnett's Elene, Judith, and other Anglo-Saxon Poems. Translations of Andreas and the Phoenix, in Gollancz's Exeter Book. Bede's History, in Temple Classics ; the same with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (one volume) in Bohn's Antiquarian Library. 1 This is an admirable little book, containing the cream of Anglo-Saxon poetry, in free translations, with notes. Translations from Old English Prose is a companion volume. 2 For full titles and publishers of general reference books, and for a list of inexpen- sive texts and helps, see General Bibliography at the end of this book. 44 ENGLISH LITERATURE Suggestive Questions. 1 i. What is the relation of history and literature? Why should both subjects be studied together? Explain the qualities that characterize all great literature. Has any text-book in history ever appealed to you as a work of literature ? What literary qualities have you noticed in standard historical works, such as those of Macaulay, Prescott, Gibbon, Green, Motley, Parkman, and John Fiske ? 2. Why did the Anglo-Saxons come to England ? What induced them to remain ? Did any change occur in their ideals, or in their manner of life ? Do you know any social or political institutions which they brought, and which we still cherish ? 3. From the literature you have read, what do you know about our Anglo- Saxon ancestors ? What virtues did they admire in men ? How was woman regarded? Can you compare the Anglo-Saxon ideal of woman with that of other nations, the Romans for instance ? 4. Tell in your own words the general qualities of Anglo-Saxon poetry. How did it differ in its metrical form from modern poetry ? What passages seem to you worth learning and remembering ? Can you explain why poetry is more abundant and more interesting than prose in the earliest literature of all nations ? 5. Tell the story of Beowulf. What appeals to you most in the poem ? Why is it a work for all time, or, as the Anglo-Saxons would say, why is it worthy to be remembered ? (Note the permanent quality of literature, and the ideals and emotions which are emphasized in Beowulf?) Describe the burials of Scyld and of Beowulf. Does the poem teach any moral lesson ? Explain the Christian elements in this pagan epic. 6. Name some other of our earliest poems, and describe the one you like best. How does the sea figure in our first poetry ? How is nature regarded ? What poem reveals the life of the scop or poet ? How do you account for the serious character of Anglo-Saxon poetry ? Compare the Saxon and the Celt with regard to the gladsomeness of life as shown in their literature. 7. What useful purpose did poetry serve among our ancestors ? W T hat purpose did the harp serve in reciting their poems ? Would the harp add any- thing to our modern poetry ? 8. What is meant by Northumbrian literature ? Who are the great Northum- brian writers ? What besides the Danish conquest caused the decline of Northumbrian literature ? 9. For what is Bede worthy to be remembered ? Tell the story of Csedmon, as recorded in Bede's History. What new element is introduced in Caedmon's poems ? What effect did Christianity have upon Anglo-Saxon literature ? Can you quote any passages from Caedmon to show that Anglo-Saxon character was not changed but given a new direction ? If you have read Milton's Paradise Lost, what resemblances are there between that poem and Caedmon's Paraphrase? 1 The chief object of these questions is not to serve as a review, or to prepare for examination, but rather to set the student thinking for himself about what he has read. A few questions of an advanced nature are inserted, which call for special study and re- search in interesting fields. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD 45 10. What are the Cynewulf poems ? Describe any that you have read. How do they compare in spirit and in expression with Beowulf? with Caed- mon ? Read The Phoenix (which is a translation from the Latin) in Brooke's History of Early English Literature, or in Gollancz's Exeter Book, or in Cook's Translations from Old English Poetry, and tell what elements you find to show that the poem is not of Anglo-Saxon origin. Compare the views of nature in Beowulf and in the Cynewulf poems. 11. Describe the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. What is its value in our lan- guage, literature, and history ? Give an account of Alfred's life and of his work for literature. How does Anglo-Saxon prose compare in interest with the poetry ? CHRONOLOGY HISTORY LITERATURE 449(?). Landing of Hengist and Horsa in Britain 477. Landing of South Saxons 547. Angles settle Northumbria 597. Landing of Augustine and his monks. Conversion of Kent 617. Eadwine, king of Northumbria 635-665. Coming of St. Aidan. Con- version of Northumbria 867. Danes conquer Northumbria 871. Alfred, king of Wessex 878. Defeat of Danes. Peace of Wedmore 901. Death of Alfred 1013-1042. Danish period 1016. Cnut, king 1042. Edward the Confessor. Saxon period restored 1049. Westminster Abbey begun 1066. Harold, last of Saxon kings. Norman Conquest 547. Gildas's History 664. Caedmon at Whitby 673-735- Bede 7 50 (>.). Cynewulf poems 860. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle begun 991. Last known poem of the Anglo- Saxon period, The Battle of Maldon, otherwise called Byrhtnoth's Death CHAPTER III THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1350) I. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION The Normans. The name Norman, which is a softened form of Northman, tells its own story. The men who bore the name came originally from Scandinavia, bands of big, blond, fearless men cruising after plunder and adventure in their Viking ships, and bringing terror wherever they appeared. It was these same " Chil- dren of Woden " who, under the Danes' raven flag, had blotted out Northumbrian civilization in the ninth century. Later the same race of men came plundering along the French coast and conquered the whole northern country ; but here the results were altogether differ- ent. Instead of blotting out a superior civilization, as the Danes had done, they promptly abandoned their own. Their name of Nor- mandy still clings to the new home; but all else that was Norse disappeared as the conquerors intermarried with the native Franks and accepted French ideals and spoke the French language. So rapidly did they adopt and improve the Roman civilization of the natives that, from a rude tribe of heathen Vikings, they had devel- oped within a single century into the most polished and intellectual people in all Europe. The union of Norse and French (i.e. Roman- Gallic) blood had here produced a race having the best qualities of both, the will power and energy of the one, the eager curiosity and vivid imagination of the other. When these Norman-French people appeared in Anglo-Saxon England they brought with them three noteworthy things : a lively Celtic disposition, a vigorous and pro- gressive Latin civilization, and a Romance language. 1 We are to think of the conquerors, therefore, as they thought and spoke of themselves in the Domesday Book and all their contemporary liter- ature, not as Normans but as Frand, that is, Frenchmen. 1 A Romance language is one whose basis is Latin, not the classic language of litera- ture, but a vulgar or popular Latin spoken in the military camps and provinces. Thus Italian, Spanish, and French were originally different dialects of the vulgar Latin, slightly modified by the mingling of the Roman soldiers with the natives of the conquered provinces, 46 THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD 47 The Conquest. At the battle of Hastings (1066) the power of Harold, last of the Saxon kings, was broken, and William, duke of Normandy, became master of England. Of the completion of that stupendous Conquest which began at Hastings, and which changed the civilization of a whole nation, this is not the place to speak. We simply point out three great results of the Conquest which have a direct bearing on our literature. First, notwithstanding Caesar's legions and Augustine's monks, the Normans were the first to bring the culture and the practical ideals of Roman civilization home to the English people ; and this at a critical time, when England had produced her best, and her own literature and civilization had already begun to decay. Second, they forced upon England the national idea, that is, a strong, centralized government to replace the loose authority of a Saxon chief over his tribesmen. And the world's his- tory shows that without a great nationality a great literature is impossi- ble. Third, they brought to England the wealth of a new language and litera- ture, and our English gradually absorbed both. For three cen- , TT ; LEIF ERICSON'S VESSEL tunes after Hastings French was the language of the upper classes, of courts and schools and literature ; yet so tenaciously did the common people cling to their own strong speech that in the end English absorbed almost the whole body of French words and became the language of the land. It was the welding of Saxon and French into one speech that pro- duced the wealth of our modern English. Naturally such momentous changes in a nation were not brought about suddenly. At first Normans and Saxons lived apart in the rela- tion of masters and servants, with more or less contempt on one side and hatred on the other ; but in an astonishingly short time these two races were drawn powerfully together, like two men of different dis- positions who are often led into a steadfast friendship by the attrac- tion of opposite qualities, each supplying what the other lacks. The 48 ENGLISH LITERATURE Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was continued for a century after Hastings, finds much to praise in the conquerors ; on the other hand the Normans, even before the Conquest, had no great love for the French nation. After conquering England they began to regard it as home and speedily developed a new sense of nationality. Geoffrey's popular History? written less than a century after the Conquest, made conquerors and conquered alike proud of their country by its stories of heroes who, curiously enough, were neither Norman nor Saxon, but creations of the native Celts. Thus does literature, whether in a battle song or a history, often play the chief role in the development of nationality. 2 Once the mutual distrust was overcome the two races gradually united, and out of this union of Saxons and Normans came the new English life and literature. Literary Ideals of the Normans. The change in the life of the con- querors from Norsemen to Normans, from Vikings to Frenchmen, is shown most clearly in the literature which they brought with them to England. The old Norse strength and grandeur, the magnificent sagas telling of the tragic struggles of men and gods, which still stir us profoundly, these have all disappeared. In their place is a bright, varied, talkative literature, which runs to endless verses, and which makes a wonderful romance out of every subject it touches. The theme may be religion or love or chivalry or history, the deeds of Alexander or the misdeeds of a monk ; but the author's purpose never varies. He must tell a romantic story and amuse his audience ; and the more wonders and impossibilities he relates, the more surely is he believed. We are reminded, in reading, of the native Gauls, who would stop every traveler and compel him to tell a story ere he passed on. There was more of the Gaul than of the Norseman in the conquerors, and far more of fancy than of thought or feeling in their literature. If you would see this in concrete form, read the Chanson de Roland, the French national epic (which the Normans 1 See p. 51. 2 It is interesting to note that all the chroniclers of the period, whether of English or Norman birth, unite in admiration of the great figures of English history, as it was then understood. Brutus, Arthur, Hengist, Horsa, Edward the Confessor, and William of Normandy are all alike set down as English heroes. In a French poem of the thirteenth century, for instance, we read that "there is no land in the world where so many good kings and saints have lived as in the isle of the English . . . such as the strong and brave Arthur, Edmund, and Cnut." This national poem, celebrating the English Edward, was written in French by a Norman monk of Westminster Abbey, and its first heroes are a Celt, a Saxon, and a Dane. (See Jusserand, Literary History of the Eng- lish People, I, II2ff.) THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD 49 first put into literary form), in contrast with Beowulf, which voices the Saxon's thought and feeling before the profound mystery of human life. It is not our purpose to discuss the evident merits or the serious defects of Norman-French literature, but only to point out two facts which impress the student, namely, that Anglo-Saxon literature was at one time enormously superior to the French, and that the latter, with its evident inferiority, absolutely replaced the former. "The fact is too often ignored," says Professor Schofield, 1 "that before 1066 the Anglo-Saxons had a body of native literature distinctly superior to any which the Normans or French could boast at that time ; their prose especially was unparalleled for extent and power in any European vernacular." Why, then, does this superior literature disappear and for nearly three centuries French remain supreme, so much so that writers on English soil, even when they do not use the French language, still slavishly copy the French models? To understand this curious phenomenon it is necessary only to remember the relative conditions of the two races who lived side by side in England. On the one hand the Anglo-Saxons were a con- quered people, and without liberty a great literature is impossible. The inroads of the Danes and their own tribal wars had already destroyed much of their writings, and in their new condition of servitude they could hardly preserve what remained. The conquer- ing Normans, on the other hand, represented the civilization of France, which country, during the early Middle Ages, was the literary and educational center of all Europe. They came to England at a time when the idea of nationality was dead, when culture had almost vanished, when Englishmen lived apart in narrow isolation ; and they brought with them law, culture, the prestige of success, and above all the strong impulse to share in the great world's work and to join in the moving currents of the world's history. Small wonder, then, that the young Anglo-Saxons felt the quickening of this new life and turned naturally to the cultured and progressive Normans as their literary models. II. LITERATURE OF THE NORMAN PERIOD In the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh there is a beauti- fully illuminated manuscript, written about 1330, which gives us an excellent picture of the literature of the Norman period. 1 English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer. 50 ENGLISH LITERATURE In examining it we are to remember that literature was in the hands of the clergy and nobles ; that the common people could not read, and had only a few songs and ballads for their literary portion. We are to remember also that parchments were scarce and very expensive, and that a single manuscript often contained all the reading matter of a castle or a village. Hence this old manuscript is as suggestive as a modern library. It contains over forty distinct works, the great bulk of them being romances. There are metrical or verse romances of CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL AS IT WAS COMPLETED LONG AFTER THE CONQUEST French and Celtic and English heroes, like Roland, Arthur and Tristram, and Bevis of Hampton. There are stories of Alexander, the Greek romance of "Flores and Blanchefleur," and a collection of Oriental tales called "The Seven Wise Masters." There are legends of the Virgin and the saints, a paraphrase of Scripture, a treatise on the seven deadly sins, some Bible history, a dispute among birds concerning women, a love song or two, a vision of Purgatory, a vulgar story with a Gallic flavor, a chronicle of English kings and Norman barons, and a political satire. There are a few other works, THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD 51 similarly incongruous, crowded together in this typical manu- script, which now gives mute testimony to the literary taste of the times. Obviously it is impossible to classify such a variety. We note simply that it is mediaeval in spirit, and French in style and expression ; and that sums up the age. All the scholarly works of the period, like William of Malmesbury's History, and Anselm's 1 Cur Deus Homo, and Roger Bacon's Opus Majus, the beginning of modern experimental science, were written in Latin ; while nearly all other works were written in French, or else were English copies or translations of French. originals. Except for the advanced student, therefore, they hardly belong to the story of English literature. We shall note here only one or two marked literary types, like the Rim- ing Chronicle (or verse history) and the Metrical Romance y and a few writers whose work has especial significance. Geoffrey of Monmouth (d. 1 1 54). Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britannia is noteworthy, not as literature, but rather as a source book from which many later writers drew their literary mate- rials. Among the native Celtic tribes an immense number of legends, many of them of exquisite beauty, had been pre- served through four successive conquests of Britain. Geoffrey, a Welsh monk, collected some of these legends and, aided chiefly by his imagination, wrote a complete history of the Britons. His alleged authority was an ancient manuscript in the native Welsh tongue containing the lives and deeds of all their kings, from Brutus, the alleged founder of Britain, down to the coming of Julius Caesar. 2 From this Geoffrey wrote his history, down to the death of Cadwalader in 689. The " History " is a curious medley of pagan and Christian legends, of chronicle, comment, and pure invention, all 1 Anselm was an Italian by birth, but wrote his famous work while holding the see of Canterbury. 2 During the Roman occupancy of Britain occurred a curious mingling of Celtic and Roman traditions. The Welsh began to associate their national hero Arthur with Roman ancestors ; hence the story of Brutus, great-grandson of ^neas, the first king of Britain, as related by Geoffrey and Layamon. 52 ENGLISH LITERATURE recorded in minute detail and with a gravity which makes it clear that Geoffrey had no conscience, or else was a great joker. As history the whole thing is rubbish ; but it was ex- traordinarily successful at the time and made all who heard it, whether Normans or Saxons, proud of their own country. It is interesting to us because it gave a new direction to the literature of England by showing the wealth of poetry and 'romance that lay in its cAvn traditions of Arthur and his knights. Shakespeare's King Lear, Malory's Morte d* Arthur, and Tennyson's Idylls of the King were founded on the work of this monk, who had the genius to put unwritten Celtic tra- dition in the enduring form of Latin prose. Work of the French Writers. The French literature of the Norman period is interesting chiefly because of the avidity with which foreign writers seized upon the native legends and made them popular in England. Until Geoffrey's preposter- ous chronicle appeared, these legends had not been used to any extent as literary material. Indeed, they were scarcely known in England, though familiar to French and Italian minstrels. Legends of Arthur and his court were probably first taken to Brittany by Welsh emigrants in the fifth and sixth centuries. They became immensely popular wherever they were told, and they were slowly carried by minstrels and story-tellers all over Europe. That they had never received literary form or recognition was due to a peculiarity of medi- aeval literature, which required that every tale should have some ancient authority behind it. Geoffrey met this demand by creating an historical manuscript of Welsh history. That was enough for the age. With Geoffrey and his alleged manu- script to rest upon, the Norman-French writers were free to use the fascinating stories which had been for centuries in the possession of their wandering minstrels. Geoffrey's Latin history was put into French verse by Gaimar (c. 1150) and by Wace (c. 1155), and from these French versions the work was first translated into English. From about 1200 onward THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD 53 Arthur and Guinevere and the matchless band of Celtic heroes that we meet later (1470) in Malory's Morte d'A rthur became the permanent possession of our literature. Layamon's Brut (c. 1200). This is the most important of the English riming chronicles, that is, history related in the form of doggerel verse, probably because poetry is more easily memorized than prose. We give here a free rendering of selected lines at the beginning of the poem, which tell us all we know of Layamon, the first who ever wrote as an Englishman for Englishmen, including in the term all who loved England and called it home, no matter where their ancestors were born. Now there was a priest in the land named Layamon. He was son of Leovenath may God be gracious unto him. He dwelt at Ernley, at a noble church on Severn's bank. He read many books, and it came to his mind to tell the noble deeds of the English. Then he began to journey far and wide over the land to procure noble books for authority. He took the English book that Saint Bede made, another in Latin that Saint Albin made, 1 and a third book that a French clerk made, named Wace. 2 Layamon laid these works before him and turned the leaves ; lovingly he beheld them. Pen he took, and wrote on book-skin, and made the three books into one. The poem begins with the destruction of Troy and the flight of "^Eneas the duke" into Italy. Brutus, a great- grandson of ^Eneas, gathers his people and sets out to find a new land in the West. Then follows the founding of the Briton kingdom, and the last third of the poem, which is over thirty thousand lines in length, is taken up with the history of Arthur and his knights. If the Brut had no merits of its own, it would still interest us, for it marks the first appear- ance of the Arthurian legends in our own tongue. A single selection is given here from Arthur's dying speech, familiar to us in Tennyson's Morte d' Arthur. The reader will notice here two things : first, that though the poem is almost pure 1 Probably a Latin copy of Bede. 2 Wace's translation of Geoffrey. 54 ENGLISH LITERATURE -Anglo-Saxon, 1 our first speech has already dropped many in- flections and is more easily read than Beoivulf ; second, that -French influence is already at work in Layamon's rimes and assonances, that is, the harmony resulting from using the same vowel sound in several successive lines : And ich wulle varen to Avalun : To vairest alre maidene, To Argante there quene, Alven swithe sceone. And heo seal mine wunden Makien alle isunde, Al hal me makien Mid haleweiye drenchen. And seothe ich cumen wulle To mine kineriche And wunien mid Brutten Mid muchelere wunne. >Efne than worden Ther com of se wenden That wes an sceort bat lithen, Sceoven mid uthen, And twa wimmen ther inne, Wunderliche idihte. And heo nomen Arthur anan And an eovste hine vereden And softe hine adun leiden, And forth gunnen lithen. And I will fare to Avalun, To fairest of all maidens, To Argante the queen, An elf very beautiful. And she shall my wounds Make all sound ; All whole me make With healing drinks. And again will I come To my kingdom And dwell with Britons With mickle joy. Even (with) these words There came from the sea A short little boat gliding, Shoved by the waves ; And two women therein, Wondrously attired. And they took Arthur anon And bore him hurriedly, And softly laid him down, And forth gan glide. Metrical Romances. Love, chivalry, and religion, all per- vaded by the spirit of romance, these are the three great literary ideals which find expression in the metrical romances. Read these romances now, with their knights and fair ladies, their perilous adventures and tender love-making, their min- strelsy and tournaments and gorgeous cavalcades, as if humanity were on parade, and life itself were one tumultuous holiday in the open air, and you have an epitome of the whole childish, credulous soul of the Middle Ages. The 1 Only one word in about three hundred and fifty is of French origin. A century later Robert Mannyng uses one French word in eighty, while Chaucer has one in six or seven. This includes repetitions, and is a fair estimate rather than an exact computation. THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD 55 Normans first brought this type of romance into England, and so popular did it become, so thoroughly did it express the romantic spirit of the time, that it speedily overshadowed all other forms of literary expression. Though the metrical romances varied much in form and subject-matter, the general type remains the same, a long rambling poem or series of poems treating of love or knightly adventure or both. Its hero is a knight ; its characters are fair ladies in distress, warriors in armor, giants, dragons, enchanters, and various enemies of Church and State ; and its emphasis is almost invariably on love, religion, and duty as defined by chivalry. In the French originals of these romances the lines were a definite length, the meter exact, and rimes and assonances were both used to give melody. In England this metrical system came in con- tact with the uneven lines, the strong accent and alliteration of the native songs ; and it is due to the gradual union of the two systems, French and Saxon, that our English became capable of the melody and amazing variety of verse forms which first find expression in Chaucer's poetry. In the enormous number of these verse romances we note three main divisions, according to subject, into the romances Cycles of ( or the so-called matter) of France, Rome, and Romances Britain. 1 The matter of France deals largely with the exploits of Charlemagne and his peers, and the chief of these Carlovingian cycles is the Chanson de Roland, the national epic, which celebrates the heroism of Roland in his last fight against the Saracens at Ronceval. Originally these romances were called Chansons de Geste ; and the name is significant as indicating that the poems were originally short songs 2 celebrating the deeds (gesta) of well-known heroes. 1 The matter of Britain refers strictly to the Arthurian, i.e. the Welsh romances; and so another division, the matter of England, may be noted. This includes tales of popu- lar English heroes, like Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick, Horn Child, etc. 2 According to mediaeval literary custom these songs were rarely signed. Later, when many songs were made over into a long poem, the author signed his name to the entire work, without indicating what he had borrowed. 56 ENGLISH LITERATURE Later the various songs concerning one hero were gathered together and the Geste became an epic, like the Chanson de Roland, or a kind of continued ballad story, hardly deserving the name of epic, like the Geste of Robin Hood}- The matter of Rome consisted largely of tales from Greek and Roman sources ; and the two great cycles of these romances deal with the deeds of Alexander, a favorite hero, and the siege of Troy, with which the Britons thought they had some historic connection. To these were added a large number of tales from Oriental sources ; and in the exuberant imagination of the latter we see the influence which the Saracens those nimble wits who gave us our first modern sciences and who still reveled in the Arabian Nights had begun to exercise on the literature of Europe. To the English reader, at least, the most interesting of the romances are those which deal with the exploits of Arthur The Matter an d his Knights of the Round Table, the rich- of Britain es t storehouse of romance which our literature has ever found. There were many cycles of Arthurian romances, chief of which are those of Gawain, Launcelot, Merlin, the Quest of the Holy Grail, and the Death of Arthur. In pre- ceding sections we have seen how these fascinating romances were used by Geoffrey and the French writers, and how, through the French, they found their way into English, ap- pearing first in our speech in Layamon's Brut. The point to remember is that, while the legends are Celtic in origin, their literary form is due to French poets, who originated the met- rical romance. All our early English romances are either copies or translations of the French ; and this is true not only of the matter of France and Rome, but of Celtic heroes like Arthur, and English heroes like Guy of Warwick and Robin Hood. 1 An English book in which such romances were written was called a Gest or Jest Book. So also at the beginning of Cursor Mundi (c. 1320) we read : Men yernen jestis for to here And romaunce rede in diverse manere, and then follows a summary of the great cycles of romance, which we are considering. THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD 57 The most interesting of all Arthurian romances are those of the Gawain cycle, 1 and of these the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is best worth reading, for and the Green many reasons. First, though the material is taken from French sources, 2 the English workmanship is the finest of our early romances. Second, the unknown author of this romance probably wrote also "The Pearl," and is the greatest English poet of the Norman period. Third, the poem itself with its dramatic interest, its vivid descriptions, and its moral purity, is one of the most delightful old romances in any language. In form Sir Gawain is an interesting combination of French and Saxon elements. It is written in an elaborate stanza combining meter and alliteration. At the end of each stanza is a rimed refrain, called by the French a "tail rime." We give here a brief outline of the story ; but if the reader desires the poem itself, he is advised to begin with a modern version, as the original is in the West Midland dialect and is exceedingly difficult to follow. On New Year's day, while Arthur and his knights are keeping the Yuletide feast at Camelot, a gigantic knight in green enters the banquet hall on horseback and challenges the bravest knight present to an exchange of blows ; that is, he will expose his neck to a blow of his own big battle-ax, if any knight will agree to abide a blow in return. After some natural consternation and a fine speech by Arthur, Gawain accepts the challenge, takes the battle-ax, and with one blow sends the giant's head rolling through the hall. The Green Knight, who is evi- dently a terrible magician, picks up his head and mounts his horse. He holds out his head and the ghastly lips speak, warning Gawain to be faithful to his promise and to seek through the world till he finds the Green Chapel. There, on next New Year's day, the Green Knight will meet him and return the blow. The second canto of the poem describes Gawain's long journey through the wilderness on his steed Gringolet, and his adventures with 1 Tennyson goes farther than Malory in making Gawain false and irreverent. That seems to be a mistake ; for in all the earliest romances Gawain is, next to Arthur, the noblest of knights, the most loved and honored of all the heroes of the Round Table. 2 There were various French versions of the story ; but it came originally from the Irish, where the hero was called Cuchulinn. 58 ENGLISH LITERATURE storm and cold, with wild beasts and monsters, as he seeks in vain for the Green Chapel. On Christmas eve, in the midst of a vast forest, he offers a prayer to " Mary, mildest mother so dear," and is rewarded by sight of a great castle. He enters and is royally entertained by the host, an aged hero, and by his wife, who is the most beautiful woman the knight ever beheld. Gawain learns that he is at last near the Green Chapel, and settles down for a little comfort after his long quest. The next canto shows the life in the castle, and describes a curious compact between the host, who goes hunting daily, and the knight, who- remains in the castle to entertain the young wife. The compact is that at night each man shall give the other whatever good thing he obtains during the day. While the host is hunting, the young woman tries in vain to induce Gawain to make love to her, and ends by giving him a. kiss. When the host returns and gives his guest the game he has killed Gawain returns the kiss. On the third day, her temptations having twice failed, the lady offers Gawain a ring, which he refuses ; but when she offers a magic green girdle that will preserve the wearer from death, Gawain, who remembers the giant's ax so soon to fall on his- neck, accepts the girdle as a "jewel for the jeopardy" and promises the lady to keep the gift secret. Here, then, are two conflicting com- pacts. When the host returns and offers his game, Gawain returns the kiss but says nothing of the green girdle. The last canto brings our knight to the Green Chapel, after he is repeatedly warned to turn back in the face of certain death. The Chapel is a terrible place in the midst of desolation ; and as Gawain approaches he hears a terrifying sound, the grating of steel on stone, where the giant is sharpening a new battle-ax. The Green Knight appears, and Gawain, true to his compact, offers his neck for the blow. Twice the ax swings harmlessly ; the third time it falls on his shoulder and wounds him. Whereupon Gawain jumps for his armor, draws his sword, and warns the giant that the compact calls for only one blow, and that, if another is offered, he will defend himself. Then the Green Knight explains things. He is lord of the castle where Gawain has been entertained for days past. The first two swings of the ax were harmless because Gawain had been true to his compact and twice returned the kiss. The last blow had wounded him because he concealed the gift of the green girdle, which belongs to the Green Knight and was woven by his wife. Moreover, the whole thing has been, arranged by Morgain the fay-woman (an enemy of Queen Guinevere,, who appears often in the Arthurian romances). Full of shame, Gawain. throws back the gift and is ready to atone for his deception ; but the Green Knight thinks he has already atoned, and presents the green girdle as a free gifto Gawain returns to Arthur's court, tells the whole THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD 59 story frankly, and ever after that the knights of the Round Table wear a green girdle in his honor. 1 The Pearl. In the same manuscript with " Sir Gawain " are found three other remarkable poems, written about 1350, and known to us, in order, as "The Pearl," "Cleanness," and " Patience." The first is the most beautiful, and received its name from the translator and editor, Richard Morris, in 1864. "Patience" is a paraphrase of the book of Jonah; .). University of Cambridge chartered 1265. Beginning of House of Com- mons. Simon de Montfort 1272. Edward I 1295. First complete Parliament 1307. Edward .II 1327. Edward III 1338. Beginning of Hundred Years' War with France 1086. Domesday Book completed >.. Anselm's Cur Deus Homo i no. First recorded Miracle play in England (see chapter on the Drama) H37(V.). Geoffrey's History i2Oo(cir.}. Layamon's Brut i225(V.). Ancren Riwle 1267. Roger Bacon's Opus Majus 1300-1400. York and Wakefield. Miracle plays i32o(V.). Cursor Mundi i34o(?). Birth of Chaucer I35o(>.). Sir Gawain. The Pearl CHAPTER IV THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1350-1400) THE NEW NATIONAL LIFE AND LITERATURE History of the Period. Two great movements may be noted in the complex life of England during the fourteenth century. The first is political, and culminates in the reign of Edward III. It shows the growth of the English national spirit following the victories of Edward and the Black Prince on French soil, during the Hundred Years' War. In the rush of this great national movement, separating England from the political ties of France and, to a less degree, from ecclesiastical bondage to Rome, the mutual distrust and jealousy which had divided nobles and commons were momentarily swept aside by a wave of patriotic enthusiasm. The French language lost its official prestige, and English became the speech not only of the common people but of courts and Parliament as well. The second movement is social ; it falls largely within the reign of Edward's successor, Richard II, and marks the growing discon- tent with the contrast between luxury and poverty, between the idle wealthy classes and the overtaxed peasants. Sometimes this move- ment is quiet and strong, as when Wyclif arouses the conscience of England ; again it has the portentous rumble of an approaching tempest, as when John Ball harangues a multitude of discontented peasants on Black Heath commons, using the famous text : When Adam delved and Eve span Who was then the gentleman ? and again it breaks out into the violent rebellion of Wat Tyler. All these things show the same Saxon spirit that had won its freedom in a thousand years' struggle against foreign enemies, and that now felt itself oppressed by a social and industrial tyranny in its own midst. Aside from these two movements, the age was one of unusual stir and progress. Chivalry, that mediaeval institution of mixed good and evil, was in its Indian summer, a sentiment rather than a practical system. Trade, and its resultant wealth and luxury, were increasing 67 68 ENGLISH LITERATURE enormously. Following trade, as the Vikings had followed glory, the English began to be a conquering and colonizing people, like the Anglo- Saxons. The native shed something of his insularity and became a traveler, going first to view the places where trade had opened the way, and returning with wider interests and a larger horizon. Above all, the first dawn of the Renaissance is heralded in England, as in Spain and Italy, by the appearance of a national literature. Five Writers of the Age. The literary movement of the age clearly reflects the stirring life of the times. There is Lang- land, voicing the social discontent, preaching the equality of men and the dignity of labor ; Wyclif, greatest of English religious reformers, giving the Gospel to the people in their own tongue, and the freedom of the Gospel in unnumbered tracts and addresses ; Gower, the scholar and literary man, criticising this vigorous life and plainly afraid of its conse- quences ; and Mandeville, the traveler, romancing about the wonders to be seen abroad. Above all there is Chaucer, scholar, traveler, business man, courtier, sharing in all the stir- ring life of his times, and reflecting it in literature as no other but Shakespeare has ever done. Outside of England the great- est literary influence of the age was that of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, whose works, then at the summit of their influ- ence in Italy, profoundly affected the literature of all Europe. CHAUCER (1340 ?- 1400) f What man artow ? ' quod he 5 f Thou lokest as thou woldest finde an hare, For ever upon the ground I see thee stare. Approche neer, and loke up merily. . . . He semeth elvish by his contenaunce.' (The Host's description of Chaucer, Prologue, Sir Thopas) On reading Chaucer. The difficulties of reading Chaucer are more apparent than real, being due largely to obsolete spelling, and there is small necessity for using any modern versions of the poet's work, which seem to miss the quiet GEOFFREY CHAUCER After the Rawlinson Pastel Portrait, Oxford THE AGE OF CHAUCER 69 charm and dry humor of the original. If the reader will observe the following general rules (which of necessity ignore many differences in pronunciation of fourteenth-century Eng- lish), he may, in an hour or two, learn to read Chaucer almost as easily as Shakespeare : (i) Get the lilt of the lines, and let the meter itself decide how final syllables are to be pro- nounced. Remember that Chaucer is among the most mu- sical of poets, and that there is melody in nearly every line. If the verse seems rough, it is because we do not read it correctly. (2) Vowels in Chaucer have much the same value as in modern German ; consonants are practically the same as in modern English. (3) Pronounce aloud any strange- looking words. Where the eye fails, the ear will often recog- nize the meaning. If eye and ear both fail, then consult the glossary found in every good edition of the poet's works. (4) Final e is usually sounded (like a in Virginia) except where the following word begins with a vowel or with //. In the latter case the final syllable of one word and the first of the word following are run together, as in reading Virgil. At the end of a line the e, if lightly pronounced, adds melody to the verse. 1 In dealing with Chaucer's masterpiece, the reader is urged to read widely at first, for the simple pleasure of the stories, and to remember that poetry and romance are more interesting and important than Middle English. When we like and appre- ciate Chaucer his poetry, his humor, his good stories, his kind heart it will be time enough to study his language. Life of Chaucer. For our convenience the life of Chaucer is divided into three periods. The first, of thirty years, includes his youth and early manhood, in which time he was influenced almost exclusively by French literary models. The second period, of fifteen years, covers Chaucer's active life as diplomat and man of affairs ; and in this the Italian influence seems stronger than the French. The 1 The reader may perhaps be more interested in these final letters, which are some- times sounded and again silent, if he remembers that they represent the decaying inflec- tions of our old Anglo-Saxon speech. 70 ENGLISH LITERATURE third, of fifteen years, generally known as the English period, is the time of Chaucer's richest development. He lives at home, observes life closely but kindly, and while the French influence is still strong, as shown in the Canterbury Tales, he seems to grow more independ- ent of foreign models and is dominated chiefly by the vigorous life of his own English people. Chaucer's boyhood was spent in London, on Thames Street near the river, where the world's commerce was continually coming and going. There he saw daily the shipman of the Canter- First Period * 7 . , / , f- ,, -, , bury 1 ales just home in his good ship Maudelayne, with the fascination of unknown lands in his clothes and conversation. Of his education we know nothing, except that he was a great reader. His father was a wine merchant, purveyor to the royal household, and from this accidental relation between trade and royalty may have arisen the fact that at seventeen years Chaucer was made page to the Princess Elizabeth. This was the beginning of his connection with the brilliant court, which in the next forty years, under three kings, he was to know so intimately. At nineteen he went with the king on one of the many expedi- tions of the Hundred Years' War, and here he saw chivalry and all the pageantry of mediaeval war at the height of their outward splen- dor. Taken prisoner at the unsuccessful siege of Rheims, he is said to have been ransomed by money out of the royal purse. Returning to England, he became after a few years squire of the royal house- hold, the personal attendant and confidant of the king: It was dur- ing this first period that he married a maid of honor to the queen. This was probably Philippa Roet, sister to the wife of John of Gaunt, the famous Duke of Lancaster. From numerous whimsical references in his early poems, it has been thought that this marriage into a noble family was not a happy one ; but this is purely a matter of supposition or of doubtful inference. In 1370 Chaucer was sent abroad on the first of those diplomatic missions that were to occupy the greater part of the next fifteen years. Two years later he made his first official visit to Italy, to arrange a commercial treaty with Genoa, and from this time is Second Period . .. . , , , . . . ..^ noticeable a rapid development in his literary powers and the prominence of Italian literary influences. During the inter- vals between his different missions he filled various offices at home, chief of which was Comptroller of Customs at the port of London. An enormous amount of personal labor was involved ; but Chaucer THE AGE OF CHAUCER 71 seems to have found time to follow his spirit into the new fields of Italian literature : For whan thy labour doon al is. And hast y-maad thy rekeninges, In stede of reste and newe thinges, Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon, And, also domb as any stoon, Thou sittest at another boke Til fully daswed is thy loke, And livest thus as an hermyte. 1 In 1386 Chaucer was elected member of Parliament from Kent, and the distinctly English period of his life and work begins. Though exceedingly busy in public affairs and as receiver of cus- Third Period , . V F . 11 .,,.,, , , . , , toms, his heart was still with his books, from which only nature could win him : And as for me, though that my wit be lyte, On bokes for to rede I me delyte, And to hem yeve I feyth and ful credence, And in myn herte have hem in reverence So hertely, that ther is game noon That fro my bokes maketh me to goon, But hit be seldom, on the holyday ; Save, certeynly, whan that the month of May Is comen, and that I here the foules singe, And that the floures ginnen for to springe Farwel my book and my devocioun ! 2 In the fourteenth century politics seems to have been, for honest men, a very uncertain business. Chaucer naturally adhered to the party of John of Gaunt, and his fortunes rose or fell with those of his leader. From this time until his death he is up and down on the political ladder ; to-day with money and good prospects, to-morrow in poverty and neglect, writing his " Complaint to His Empty Purs," which he humorously calls his " saveour doun in this werlde here." This poem called the king's attention to the poet's need and increased his pension ; but he had but few months to enjoy the effect of this unusual "Complaint." For he died the next year, 1400, and was buried with honor in Westminster Abbey. The last period of his life, though outwardly most troubled, was the most fruitful of all. His 1 House of Fame, II, 652 ff. The passage is more or less autobiographical. 2 Legend of Good Women, Prologue, 11. 29 ff. 72 ENGLISH LITERATURE "Truth," or "Good Counsel," reveals the quiet, beautiful spirit of his life, unspoiled either by the greed of trade or the trickery of politics : Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse, Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal ; For hord l hath hate, and climbing tikelnesse, Prees z hath envye, and wele 3 blent 4 overal ; Savour no more than thee bihove shal ; Werk 5 wel thyself, that other folk canst rede ; And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede. Tempest 6 thee noght al croked to redresse, In trust of hir 7 that turneth as a bal : Gret reste stant in litel besinesse ; And eek be war to sporne 8 ageyn an al 9 ; Stryve noght, as doth the crokke with the wal. Daunte 10 thyself, that dauntest otheres dede ; And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede. That thee is sent, receyve in buxumnesse, The wrastling for this worlde axeth a fal. Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse : Forth, pilgrim, forth ! Forth, beste, out of thy stall Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al ; Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede : And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede. Works of Chaucer, First Period. The works of Chaucer are roughly divided into three classes, corresponding to the three periods of his life. It should be remembered, however, that it is impossible to fix exact dates for most of his works. Some of his Canterbury Tales were written earlier than the English period, and were only grouped with the others in his final arrangement. The best known, though not the best, poem of the first period is the Romaunt of the Rose^- a translation from the French Roman de la Rose, the most popular poem of the 1 wealth. 2 the crowd. 3 success. 4 blinds. 5 act. 6 trouble. 7 i.e. the goddess Fortune. 8 kick. 9 awl. 10 judge. 11 For the typography of titles the author has adopted the plan of putting the titles of all books, and of all important works generally regarded as single books, in italics. Indi- vidual poems, essays, etc., are in Roman letters with quotation marks. Thus we have the " Knight's Tale," or the story of " Palamon and Arcite," in the Canterbury Tales. This system seems on the whole the best, though it may result in some inconsistencies. THE AGE OF CHAUCER 73 Middle Ages, a graceful but exceedingly tiresome allegory of the whole course of love. The Rose growing in its mystic garden is typical of the lady Beauty. Gathering the Rose represents the lover's attempt to win his lady's favor ; and the different feelings aroused Love, Hate, Envy, Jealousy, Idleness, Sweet Looks are the allegorical persons of the poet's drama. Chaucer translated this universal favorite, put- ting in some original English touches ; but of the present Romaunt only the first seventeen hundred lines are believed to be Chaucer's own work. Perhaps the best poem of this period is the "Dethe of Blanche the Duchesse," better known as the " Boke of the Duchesse," a poem of considerable dramatic and emotional power, written after the death of Blanche, wife of Chaucer's patron, John of Gaunt. Additional poems are the "Compleynte to Pite," a graceful love poem; the "A B C," a prayer to the Virgin, translated from the French of a Cistercian monk, its verses beginning with the successive letters of the alphabet ; and a number of what Chaucer calls "ballads, roundels, and virelays," with which, says his friend Gower, "the land was filled." The latter were imitations of the prevailing French love ditties. Second Period. The chief work of the second or Italian period is Troilus and Criseyde, a poem of eight thousand lines. The original story was a favorite of many authors during the Middle Ages, and Shakespeare makes use of it in his Troilus and Cressida. The immediate source of Chaucer's poem is Boccaccio's // Filostrato, "the love-smitten one"; but he uses his material very freely, to reflect the ideals of his own age and society, and so gives to the whole story a dra- matic force and beauty which it had never known before. The " Hous of Fame" is one of Chaucer's unfinished poems, having the rare combination of lofty thought and simple, homely language, showing the influence of the great Italian master. In the poem the author is carried away in a dream 74 ENGLISH LITERATURE by a great eagle from the brittle temple of Venus, in a sandy wilderness, up to the hall of fame. To this house come all rumors of earth, as the sparks fly upward. The house stands on a rock of ice writen ful of names Of folk that hadden grete fames. Many of these have disappeared as the ice melted ; but the older names are clear as when first written. For many of his ideas Chaucer is indebted to Dante, Ovid, and Virgil ; but the unusual conception and the splendid workmanship are all his own. The third great poem of the period is the Legende of Goode Wimmen. As he is resting in the fields among the daisies, he falls asleep and a gay procession draws near. First comes the love god, leading by the hand Alcestis, model of all wifely virtues, whose emblem is the daisy ; and behind them follow a troup of glorious women, all of whom have been faithful in love. They gather about the poet ; the god upbraids him for having translated the Romance of the Rose, and for his early poems reflecting on the vanity and fickleness of women. Alcestis intercedes for him, and offers pardon if he will atone for his errors by writing a "glorious legend of good women." Chaucer promises, and as soon as he awakes sets himself to the task. Nine legends were written, of which "Thisbe" is perhaps the best. It is probable that Chaucer intended to make this his masterpiece, devoting many years to stories of famous women who were true to love ; but either because he wearied of his theme, or because the plan of the Canterbury Tales was growing in his mind, he abandoned the task in the middle of his ninth legend, fortunately, perhaps, for the reader will find the Prologue more interesting than any of the legends. Third Period. Chaucer's masterpiece, the Canterbury Tales, one of the most famous works in all literature, fills the third or English period of his life. The plan of the work is magnifi- cent : to represent the wide sweep of English life by gathering THE AGE OF CHAUCER 75 a motley company together and letting each class of society tell its own favorite stories. Though the great work was never finished, Chaucer succeeded in his purpose so well that in the Canterbury Tales he has given us a picture of contemporary English life, its work and play, its deeds and dreams, its fun and sympathy and hearty joy of living, such as no other single work of literature has ever equaled. Plan of the Canterbury Tales. Opposite old London, at the southern end of London Bridge, once stood the Tabard TABARD INN Inn of Southwark, a quarter made famous not only by the Canterbury Tales, but also by the first playhouses where Shakespeare had his training. This Southwark was the point of departure of all travel to the south of England, especially of those mediaeval pilgrimages to the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. On a spring evening, at the inspiring time of the year when "longen folk to goon on pilgrimages," Chaucer alights at the Tabard Inn, and finds it occupied by a various company of people bent on a pilgrimage. Chance alone had brought them together; for it was the custom of ;6 ENGLISH LITERATURE pilgrims to wait at some friendly inn until a sufficient conv pany were gathered to make the journey pleasant and safe from robbers that might be encountered on the way. Chaucer joins this company, which includes all classes of English soci- ety, from the Oxford scholar to the drunken miller, and accepts gladly their invitation to go with them on the morrow. At supper the jovial host of the Tabard Inn suggests that, to enliven the journey, each of the company shall tell four tales, two going and two coming, on whatever subject shall suit him best. The host will travel with them as master of ceremonies, and whoever tells the best story shall be given a fine supper at the general expense when they all come back again, a shrewd bit of business and a fine idea, as the pil- grims all agree. When they draw lots for the first story the chance falls to the Knight, who tells one of the best of the Canterbury Tales, the chivalric story of " Palamon and Arcite." Then the tales follow rapidly, each with its prologue and epilogue, telling how the story came about, and its effects on the merry company. Interruptions are numerous ; the narrative is full of life and movement, as when the miller gets drunk and insists on tell- ing his tale out of season, or when they stop at a friendly inn for the night, or when the poet with sly humor starts his story of "Sir Thopas," in dreary imitation of the metrical romances of the clay, and is roared at by the host for his "drasty ryming." With Chaucer we laugh at his own expense, and are ready for the next tale. From the number of persons in the company, thirty-two in all, it is evident that Chaucer meditated an immense work of one hundred and twenty-eight tales, which should cover the whole life of England. Only twenty-four were written ; some of these are incomplete, and others are taken from his earlier work to fill out the general plan of the Canterbiiry Tales. Incomplete as they are, they cover a wide range, including stories of love and chivalry, of saints and legends, travels, THE AGE OF CHAUCER 77 adventures, animal fables, allegory, satires, and the coarse humor of the common people. Though all but two are written in verse and abound in exquisite poetical touches, they are stories as well as poems, and Chaucer is to be regarded as our first short-story teller as well as our first modern poet. The work ends with a kindly farewell from the poet to his reader, and so "here taketh the makere of this book his leve." Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. In the famous "Prologue" the poet makes us acquainted with the various characters of his drama. Until Chaucer's day popular literature had been busy chiefly with the gods and heroes of a golden age ; it d been essentially romantic, and so had never attempted o study men and women as they are, or to describe them so :hat the reader recognizes them, not as ideal heroes, but as his own neighbors. Chaucer not only attempted this new real- istic task, but accomplished it so well that his characters were instantly recognized as true to life, and they have since be- come the permanent possession of our literature. Beowulf and Roland are ideal heroes, essentially creatures of the imagina- tion ; but the merry host of the Tabard Inn, Madame Eglan- tyne, the fat monk, the parish priest, the kindly plowman, the poor scholar with his "bookes black and red,"- all seem more like personal acquaintances than characters in a book. Says Dry den : " I see all the pilgrims, their humours, their features and their very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in South wark." Chaucer is the first English writer to bring the atmosphere of romantic interest about the men and women and the daily work of one's own world, which is the aim of nearly all modern literature. The historian of our literature is tempted to linger over this " Prologue " and to quote from it passage after passage to show how keenly and yet kindly our first modern poet observed his fellow-men. The characters, too, attract one like a good play: the "verray parfit gentil knight" and his manly son, the modest prioress, model of sweet piety and 78 ENGLISH LITERATURE society manners, the sporting monk and the fat friar, the dis- creet man of law, the well-fed country squire, the sailor just home from sea, the canny doctor, the lovable parish priest who taught true religion to his flock, but "first he folwed it himselve"; the coarse but good-hearted Wyf of Bath, the thieving miller leading the pilgrims to the music of his bag- pipe, all these and many others from every walk of English life, and all described with a quiet, kindly humor which seeks instinctively the best in human nature, and which has an ample garment of charity to cover even its faults and failings. " Here," indeed, as Dryden says, "is God's plenty." Probably no keener or kinder critic ever described his fellows ; and in this immortal " Prologue " Chaucer is a model for all those who would put our human life into writing. The student should read it entire, as an introduction not only to the poet but to all our modern literature. The Knight's Tale. As a story, " Palamon and Arcite " is, in many respects, the best of the Canterbury Tales, reflecting as it does the ideals of the time in regard to romantic love and knightly duty. Though its dialogues and descriptions are somewhat too long and interrupt the story, yet it shows Chaucer at his best in his dramatic power, his exquisite appreciation of nature, and his tender yet profound philosophy of living, which could overlook much of human frailty in the thought that Infinite been the sorwes and the teres Of olde folk, and folk of tendre yeres. The idea of the story was borrowed from Boccaccio ; but parts of the original tale were much older and belonged to the com- mon literary stock of the Middle Ages. Like Shakespeare, Chaucer took the material for his poems wherever he found it, and his originality consists in giving to an old story some present human interest, making it express the life and ideals of his own age. In this respect the " Knight's Tale " is remark- able. Its names are those of an ancient civilization, but its THE AGE OF CHAUCER 79 characters are men and women of the English nobility as Chaucer knew them. In consequence the story has many anachronisms, such as the mediaeval tournament before the temple of Mars ; but the reader scarcely notices these things, ing absorbed in the dramatic interest of the narrative. Briefly, the " Knight's Tale " is the story of two young men, fast friends, who are found wounded on the battlefield and taken prisoners to Athens. There from their dungeon win- dow they behold the fair maid Emily ; both fall desperately in love with her, and their friendship turns to strenuous rivalry. One is pardoned ; the other escapes ; and then nights, empires, nature, the whole universe follows their desperate efforts to win one small maiden, who prays mean- while to be delivered from both her bothersome suitors. As he best of the Canterbury Tales are now easily accessible, e omit here all quotations. The story must be read entire, ith the Prioress' tale of Hugh of Lincoln, the Clerk's tale Patient Griselda, and the Nun's Priest's merry tale of Chanticleer and the Fox, if the reader would appreciate the variety and charm of our first modern poet and story-teller. Form of Chaucer's Poetry. There are three principal meters to be found in Chaucer's verse. In the Canterbury Tales he uses lines of ten syllables and five accents each, and the lines run in couplets : His eyen twinkled in his heed aright As doon the sterres in the frosty night. The same musical measure, arranged in seven-line stanzas, but with a different rime, called the Rime Royal, is found in its most perfect form in Troilus. O blisful light, of whiche the bemes clere Adorneth al the thridde hevene faire ! O sonnes leef, O Joves doughter dere, Plesaunce of love, O goodly debonaire, In gentil hertes ay redy to repaire ! O verray cause of hele and of gladnesse, Y-heried be thy might and thy goodnesse J 80 ENGLISH LITERATURE In hevene and helle, in erthe and salte see Is felt thy might, if that I wel descerne ; As man, brid, best, fish, herbe and grene tree Thee fele in tymes with vapour eterne. God loveth, and to love wol nought werne ; And in this world no lyves creature, With-outen love, is worth, or may endure. 1 The third meter is the eight-syllable line with four accents, the lines riming in couplets, as in'the " Boke of the Duchesse": Thereto she coude so wel pleye, Whan that hir liste, that I dar seye That she was lyk to torche bright, That every man may take-of light Ynough, and hit hath never the lesse. Besides these principal meters, Chaucer in his short poems used many other poetical forms modeled after the French, who in the fourteenth century were cunning workers in every form of verse. Chief among these are the difficult but exquisite rondel, " Now wel com Somer with thy sonne softe," which closes the "Parliament of Fowls," and the ballad, "Flee fro the prees," which has been already quoted. In the "Monk's Tale" there is a melodious measure which may have furnished the model for Spenser's famous stanza. 2 Chaucer's poetry is extremely musical and must be judged by the ear rather than by the eye. To the modern reader the lines appear broken and uneven ; but if one reads them over a few times, he soon catches the perfect swing of the measure, and finds that he is in the hands of a master whose ear is delicately sensitive to the smallest accent. There is a lilt in all his lines which is marvelous when we consider that he is the first to show us the poetic possibilities of the language. His claim upon our gratitude is twofold : 3 first, for discovering the music that is in our English speech ; and second, for his influence in fixing the Midland dialect as the literary language of England. 1 Troilus and Criseyde, III. 2 See p. 107. 3 For a summary of Chaucer's work and place in our literature, see the Comparison with Spenser, p. in. s an u : THE AGE OF CHAUCER 8 1 CHAUCER'S CONTEMPORARIES WILLIAM LANGLAND (1332? . . . ?) Life. Very little is known of Lan gland. He was born probably near Malvern, in Worcestershire, the son of a poor freeman, and in his early life lived in the fields as a shepherd. Later he went to London with his wife and children, getting a hungry living as clerk in the church. His real life meanwhile was that of a seer, a prophet after Isaiah's own heart, if we may judge by the prophecy which soon found a voice in Piers Plowman. In 1399, after the success of his great work, he was possibly writing another poem called Richard the 'edeless, a protest against Richard II ; but we are not certain of the authorship of this poem, which was left unfinished by the assassina- tion of the king. After 1399 Langland disappears utterly, and the ate of his death is unknown. Piers Plowman. "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord," might well be written at the beginning of this remarkable poem. Truth, sin- cerity, a direct and practical appeal to conscience, and a vision of right triumphant over wrong, these are the elements of all prophecy ; and it was undoubtedly these elements in Piers Plowman that produced such an impression on the people of England. For centuries literature had been busy in pleasing the upper classes chiefly ; but here at last was a great poem which appealed directly to the common people, and its suc- cess was enormous. The whole poem is traditionally attrib- uted to Langland ; but it is now known to be the work of several different writers. It first appeared in 1 362 as a poem of eighteen hundred lines, and this may have been Langland's work. In the next thirty years, during the desperate social conditions which led to Tyler's Rebellion, it was repeatedly revised and enlarged by different hands till it reached its final form of about fifteen thousand lines. The poem as we read it now is in two distinct parts, the first containing the vision, of Piers, the second a series of 82 ENGLISH LITERATURE visions called "The Search for Dowel, Dobet, Dobest " (do well, better, best). The entire poem is in strongly accented, alliter- ative lines, something like Beowulf, and its immense popularity shows that the common people still cherished this easily mem- orized form of Saxon poetry. Its tremendous appeal to justice and common honesty, its clarion call to every man, whether king, priest, noble, or laborer, to do his Christian duty, takes from it any trace of prejudice or bigotry with which such works usually abound. Its loyalty to the Church, while de- nouncing abuses that had crept into it in that period, was one of the great influences which led to the Reformation in England. Its two great principles, the equality of men before God and the dignity of honest labor, roused a whole nation of freemen. Altogether it is one of the world's great works, partly because of its national influence, partly because it is the very best picture we possess of the social life of the four- teenth century : Briefly, Piers Plowman is an allegory of life. In the first vision, that of the "Field Full of Folk," the poet lies down on the Malvern Hills on a May morning, and a vision comes to him in sleep. On the plain beneath him gather a multitude of folk, a vast crowd expressing the varied life of the world. All classes and conditions are there ; workingmen are toiling that others may seize all the first fruits of their labor and live high on the proceeds ; and the genius of the throng is Lady Bribery, a powerfully drawn figure, expressing the corrupt social life of the times. The next visions are those of the Seven Deadly Sins, allegorical fig- ures, but powerful as those of Pilgrim's Progress, making the allegories of the Romaunt of the Rose seem like shadows in comparison. These all came to Piers asking the way to Truth ; but Piers is plowing his half acre and refuses to leave his work and lead them. He sets them all to honest toil as the best possible remedy for their vices, and preaches the gospel of work as a preparation for salvation. Throughout the poem Piers bears strong resemblance to John Baptist preaching to the crowds in the wilderness. The later visions are proclamations of the moral and spiritual life of man. The poem grows dramatic in its intensity, rising to its highest power in Piers's triumph over Death. And then the poet wakes from his vision with the sound of Easter bells ringing in his ears. THE AGE OF CHAUCER 83 Here are a few lines to illustrate the style and language ; but the whole poem must be read if one is to understand its crude strength and prophetic spirit : In a somer sesun, whon softe was the sonne, I schop 1 me into a shroud, as I a scheep were, In habite as an heremite, unholy of werkes, Went wyde in this world, wondres to here. Bote in a Mayes mornynge, on Malverne hulles, Me byfel a ferly, 2 of fairie me thoughte. I was wery, forwandred, and went me to reste Undur a brod banke, bi a bourne 3 side ; And as I lay and lened, and loked on the watres, I slumbred in a slepyng hit swyed 4 so murie. . . . JOHN WYCLIF (i324?-i384) Wyclif, as a man, is by far the most powerful English fig- ure of the fourteenth century. The immense influence of his preaching in the native tongue, and the power of his Lollards to stir the souls of the common folk, are too well known his- torically to need repetition. Though a university man and a profound scholar, he sides with Langland, and his interests are with the people rather than with the privileged classes, for whom Chaucer writes. His great work, which earned him his title of "father of English prose," is the translation of the Bible. Wyclif himself translated the gospels, and much more of the New Testament ; the rest was finished by his followers, especially by Nicholas of Hereford. These translations were made from the Latin Vulgate, not from the original Greek and Hebrew, and the whole work was revised in 1388 by John Purvey, a disciple of Wyclif. It is impossible to over- estimate the influence of this work, both on our English prose and on the lives of the English people. Though Wyclif 's works are now unread, except by occa- sional scholars, he still occupies a very high place in our literature. His translation of the Bible was slowly copied all 1 clad. 2 wonder. 3 brook. 4 sounded. 8 4 ENGLISH LITERATURE over England, and so fixed a national standard of English prose to replace the various dialects. Portions of this translation, in the form of favorite passages from Scripture, were copied by thousands, and for the first time in our history a standard of pure English was established in the homes of the common people. As a suggestion of the language of that day, we quote a few familiar sentences from the Sermon on the Mount, as given in the later version of Wyclif's Gospel : And he openyde his mouth, and taughte hem, and seide, Blessid ben pore men in spirit, for the kyngdom of hevenes is herne. 1 Blessid ben mylde men, for thei schulen welde 2 the erthe. Blessid ben thei that mornen, for thei schulen be coumfortid. Blessid ben thei that hungren and thristen rightwisnesse, 8 for thei schulen be fulfillid. Blessid ben merci- ful men, for thei schulen gete merci. Blessid ben thei that ben of clene herte, for thei schulen se God. Blessid ben pesible men, for thei schulen be clepid 4 Goddis children. Blessid ben thei that suffren persecusioun for rightfulnesse, for the kyngdom of hevenes is herne. 1 . . . Eftsoone ye han herd, that it was seid to elde men, Thou schalt not forswere, but thou schalt yelde 5 thin othis to the Lord. But Y seie 6 to you, that ye swere not for ony thing ; . . . but be youre worde, yhe, yhe ; nay, nay ; and that that is more than these, is of yvel. . . . Ye han herd that it was seid, Thou schalt love thi neighbore, and hate thin enemye. But Y seie to you, love ye youre enemyes, do ye wel to hem 7 that hatiden 8 you, and preye ye for hem that pursuen 9 and sclaundren 10 you; that ye be the sones of youre Fadir that is in hevenes, that makith his sunne to rise upon goode and yvele men, and reyneth n on just men and unjuste. . . . Therefore be ye parfit, as youre hevenli Fadir is parfit. 1 theirs 2 rule 3 righteousness 4 called 5 yield 6 say 7 them 8 hate 9 persecute W slander " rains JOHN WYCLIF THE AGE OF CHAUCER 85 JOHN MANDEVILLE About the year 1356 there appeared in England an extraor- dinary book called the Voyage and Travail of Sir John Maun- Mandeviiie's devil le, written in excellent style in the Midland Travels dialect, which was then becoming the literary lan- guage of England. For years this interesting work and its unknown author were subjects of endless dispute ; but it is now fairly certain that this collection of travelers' tales is simply a compilation from Odoric, Marco Polo, and various other sources. The original work was probably in French, which was speedily translated into Latin, then into English and other languages ; and wherever it appeared it became extremely popular, its marvelous stories of foreign lands being exactly suited to the credulous spirit of the age. 1 At the present time there are said to be three hundred copied manuscripts of " Mandeville " in various languages, more, probably, than of any other work save the gospels. In the prologue of the English version the author calls himself John Maundeville and gives an outline of his wide travels during thirty years ; but the name is probably a " blind," the prologue more or less spurious, and the real compiler is still to be discovered. The modern reader may spend an hour or two very pleas- antly in this old wonderland. On its literary side the book is remarkable, though a translation, as being the first prose 1 In its English form the alleged Mandeville describes the lands and customs he has seen, and brings in all the wonders he has heard about. Many things he has seen himself, he tells us, and these are certainly true : but others he has heard in his travels, and of these the reader must judge for himself. Then he incidentally mentions a desert where he saw devils as thick as grasshoppers. As for things that he has been told by devout travelers, here are the dog-faced men, and birds that carry off elephants, and giants twenty-eight feet tall, and dangerous women who have bright jewels in their heads instead of eyes, " and if they behold any man in wrath, they slay him with a look, as doth the basilisk." Here also are the folk of Ethiopia, who have only one leg, but who hop about with extraordinary rapidity. Their one foot is so big that, when they lie in the sun, they raise it to shade their bodies ; in rainy weather it is as good as an umbrella. At the close of this interesting book of travel, which is a guide for pilgrims, the author promises to all those who say a prayer for him a share in whatever heavenly grace he may himself obtain for all his holy pilgrimages. 86 ENGLISH LITERATURE work in modern English having a distinctly literary style and flavor. Otherwise it is a most interesting commentary on the general culture and credulity of the fourteenth century. Summary of the Age of Chaucer. The fourteenth century is remarkable historically for the decline of feudalism (organized by the Normans), for the growth of the English national spirit during the wars with France, for the prominence of the House of Commons, and for the growing power of the labor- ing classes, who had heretofore been in a condition hardly above that of slavery. The age produced five writers of note, one of whom, Geoffrey Chaucer, is one of the greatest of English writers. His poetry is remarkable for its variety, its story interest, and its wonderful melody. Chaucer's work and Wyclif's translation of the Bible developed the Midland dialect into the national lan- guage of England. In our study we have noted: (i) Chaucer, his life and work; his early or French period, in which he translated " The Romance of the Rose " and wrote many minor poems ; his middle or Italian period, of which the chief poems are"Troilus and Cressida" and "The Legend of Good Women"; his late or English period, in which he worked at his masterpiece, the famous Canter- bury Tales. (2) Langland, the poet and prophet of social reforms. His chief work is Piers Plowman. (3) Wyclif, the religious reformer, who first trans- lated the gospels into English, and by his translation fixed a common standard of English speech. (4) Mandeville, the alleged traveler, who represents the new English interest in distant lands following the development of foreign trade. He is famous for Mandeville's Travels, a book which romances about the wonders to be seen abroad. The fifth writer of the age is Gower, who wrote in three languages, French, Latin, and English. His chief English work is the Confessio Amantis, a long poem containing one hundred and twelve tales. Of these only the " Knight Florent " and two or three others are interesting to a modern reader. Selections for Reading. Chaucer's Prologue, the Knight's Tale, Nun's Priest's Tale, Prioress' Tale, Clerk's Tale. These are found, more or less com- plete, in Standard English Classics, King's Classics, Riverside Literature Series, etc. Skeat's school edition of the Prologue, Knight's Tale, etc., is espe- cially good, and includes a study of fourteenth-century English. Miscellane- ous poems of Chaucer in Manly's English Poetry or Ward's English Poets. Piers Plowman, in King's Classics. Mandeville's Travefe, modernized, in English Classics, and in Cassell's National Library. For the advanced student, and as a study of language, compare selections from Wyclif, Chaucer's prose work, Mandeville, etc., in Manly's English Prose, or Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English, or Craik's English Prose Selections. Selections from Wyclif's Bible in English Classics Series. Bibliography. 1 History. Text-book, Montgomery, pp. 115-149, or Cheyney, pp. 186-263. For fuller treatment, Green, ch. 5; Traill; Gardiner. 1 For titles and publishers of reference works see General Bibliography at the end of this book. THE AGE OF CHAUCER 87 Special Works. Hutton's King and Baronage (Oxford Manuals) ; Jusse- rand's Wayfaring Life in the Fourteenth Century ; Coulton's Chaucer and his England ; Pauli's Pictures from Old England ; Wright's History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages ; Trevelyan's England in the Age of Wyclif ; Jenks's In the Days of Chaucer; Froissart's Chronicle, in Everyman's Library; the same, new edition, 1895 (Macmillan) ; Lanier's Boys' Froissart (i.e. Froissart's Chronicle of Historical Events, 1325- 1400); Newbolt's Stories from Froissart; Bulfinch's Age of Chivalry may be read in connection with this and the preceding periods. Literature. General Works. Jusserand ; Ten Brink ; Mitchell ; Minto's Characteristics of English Poets ; Courthope's History of English Poetry. Chaucer, (i) Life : by Lounsbury, in Studies in Chaucer, vol. I ; by Ward, in English Men of Letters Series ; Pollard's Chaucer Primer. (2) Aids to study: F. J. Snell's The Age of Chaucer; Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer (3 vols.) ; Root's The Poetry of Chaucer; Lowell's Essay, in My Study Win- dows ; Hammond's Chaucer: a Biographical Manual; Hempl's Chaucer's Pronunciation ; Introductions to school editions of Chaucer, by Skeat, Lid- dell, and Mather. (3) Texts and selections : The Oxford Chaucer, 6 vols., edited by Skeat, is the standard; Skeat's Student's Chaucer; The Globe Chaucer (Macmillan) ; Works of Chaucer, edited by Lounsbury (Crowell) ; Pollard's The Canterbury Tales, Eversley edition ; Skeat's Selections from Chaucer (Clarendon Press) ; Chaucer's Prologue, and various tales, in Stand- ard English Classics (Ginn and Company), and in other school series. Minor Writers. Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English Prose. Jusserand's Piers Plowman ; Skeat's Piers Plowman (text, glossary and notes) ; Warren's Piers Plowman in Modern Prose. Arnold's Wyclif's Select English Works ; Sergeant's Wyclif (Heroes of the Nation Series) ; Le Bas's Life of John Wyclif. Travels of Sir John Mandeville (modern spelling), in Library of English Classics ; Macaulay's Gower's English Works. Suggestive Questions. I. What are the chief historical events of the four- teenth century ? What social movement is noticeable ? What writers reflect political and social conditions ? 2. Tell briefly the story of Chaucer's life. What foreign influences are notice- able ? Name a few poems illustrating his three periods of work. What qualities have you noticed in his poetry ? Why is he called our first national poet ? 3. Give the plan of the Canterbiiry Tales. For what is the Prologue re- markable ? What light does it throw upon English life of the fourteenth cen- tury ? Quote or read some passages that have impressed you. Which character do you like best ? Are any of the characters like certain men and women whom you know ? What classes of society are introduced ? Is Chaucer's atti- tude sympathetic or merely critical ? 4. Tell in your own words the tale you like best. Which tale seems truest to life as you know it ? Mention any other poets who tell stories in verse. 5. Quote or read passages which show Chaucer's keenness of observation, his humor, his kindness in judgment, his delight in nature. What side of 88 ENGLISH LITERATURE human nature does he emphasize ? Make a little comparison between Chaucer and Shakespeare, having in mind (i) the characters described by both poets. (2) their knowledge of human nature, (3) the sources of their plots, (4) the interest of their works. 6. Describe briefly Piers Plowman and its author. Why is the poem called "the gospel of the poor"? What message does it contain for daily labor? Does it apply to any modern conditions ? Note any resemblance in ideas between Piers Plowman and such modern works as Carlyle's Past and Pres- ent, Kingsley's Alton Locke, Morris's Dream of John Ball, etc. 7. For what is Wyclif remarkable in literature ? How did his work affect our language ? Note resemblances and differences between Wyclif and the Puritans. 8. What is Mandevillt's Travels ? What light does it throw on the mental condition of the age ? W T hat essential difference do you note between this book and Gulliver's Travels ? CHRONOLOGY, FOURTEENTH CENTURY HISTORY LITERATURE 1327. Edward III 1338. Beginning of Hundred Years' War with France 1347. Capture of Calais 1348-1349. Black Death 1373. Winchester College, first great public school 1377. Richard II. Wyclif and the Lollards begin Reformation in England 1381. Peasant Rebellion. Wat Tyler 1399. Deposition of Richard II. Henry IV chosen by Parliament i34o(?). Birth of Chaucer 1356. Mandeville's Travels 1359. Chaucer in French War 1360-1370. Chaucer's early or French period 1 370-1 385. Chaucer's Middle or Italian period 1362-1395. Piers Plowman 1385-1400. Canterbury Tales 1382. First complete Bible in English 1400. Death of Chaucer (Dante's Divina Commedia, c. 1310; Petrarch's sonnets and poems, 1325-1374; Boccac- cio's tales, c, 1350.) CHAPTER V THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING (1400-1550) I. HISTORY OF THE PERIOD Political Changes. The century and a half following the death of Chaucer (1400-1550) is the most volcanic period of English history. The land is swept by vast changes, inseparable from the rapid accumulation of national power; but since power is the most dan- gerous of gifts until men have learned to control it, these changes seem at first to have no specific aim or direction. Henry V whose erratic yet vigorous life, as depicted by Shakespeare, was typical of the life of his times first let Europe feel the might of the new national spirit. To divert that growing and unruly spirit from rebellion at home, Henry led his army abroad, in the apparently impossible attempt to gain for himself three things : a French wife, a French revenue, and the French crown itself. The battle of Agincourt was fought in 1415, and five years later, by the Treaty of Troyes, France acknowledged his right to all his outrageous demands. The uselessness of the terrific struggle on French soil is shown by the rapidity with which all its results were swept away. When Henry died in 1422, leaving his son heir to the crowns of France and England, a magnificent recumbent statue with head of pure silver was placed in Westminster Abbey to commemorate his victories. The silver head was presently stolen, and the loss is typical of all that he had struggled for. His son, Henry VI, was but the shadow of a king, a puppet in the hands of powerful nobles, who seized the power of England and turned it to self-destruction. Meanwhile all his foreign possessions were won back by the French under the magic leadership of Joan of Arc. Cade's Rebellion (1450) and the bloody Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) are names to show how the energy of England was violently destroying itself, like a great engine that has lost its balance wheel. The frightful reign of Richard III followed, which had, however, this redeeming quality, that it marked the end of civil wars and the self-destruction of feudalism, and made possible a new growth of English national sentiment under the popular Tudors. 89 90 ENGLISH LITERATURE In the long reign of Henry VIII the changes are less violent, but have more purpose and significance. His age is marked by a steady increase in the national power at home and abroad, by the entrance of the Reformation " by a side door," and by the final separation of England from all ecclesiastical bondage in Parliament's famous Act of Supremacy. In previous reigns chivalry and the old feudal sys- tem had practically been banished; now monasticism, the third mediaeval institution with its mixed evil and good, received its death- blow in the wholesale suppression of the monasteries and the re- moval of abbots from the House of Lords. Notwithstanding the evil character of the king and the hypocrisy of proclaiming such a crea- ture the head of any church or the defender of any faith, we acquiesce wij Dag rf^fupn tfr gerc of oiu toft / *nfc fy? fi:8 jroof tip tftpte of hpngljattfcffr tri>Anfc enpign? ftfc ttptj o*B of fljage afery irf SPECIMEN OF CAXTON'S PRINTING IN THE YEAR 1486 silently in Stubb's declaration 1 that "the world owes some of its greatest debts to men from whose memory the world recoils." While England during this period was in constant political strife, yet rising slowly, like the spiral flight of an eagle, to heights of national greatness, intellectually it moved forward with bewildering rapidity. Printing was brought to England by Caxton (c. 1476), and for the first time in history it was possible for a book or an idea to reach the whole nation. Schools and universities were established in place of the old monasteries ; Greek ideas and Greek culture came to England in the Renaissance, and man's spiritual freedom was proclaimed in the Reformation. The great names of the period are numerous and significant, but literature is strangely silent. Proba- bly the very turmoil of the age prevented any literary development, for literature is one of the arts of peace ; it requires quiet and meditation rather than activity, and the stirring life of the Renais- sance had first to be lived before it could express itself in the new literature of the Elizabethan period. 1 Constitutional History of England. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 91 The Revival of Learning. The Revival of Learning denotes, in its broadest sense, that gradual enlightenment of the human mind after the darkness of the Middle Ages. The names Renaissance and Humanism, which are often applied to the same movement, have properly a narrower significance. The term Renaissance, though used by many writers " to denote the whole transition from the Middle Ages to the modern world," l is more correctly applied to the revival of art resulting from the discovery and imitation of classic models in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Humanism applies to the revival of classic literature, and was so called by its leaders, following the example of Petrarch, because they held that the study of the classics, literce humaniores, i.e. the " more human writings," rather than the old theology, was the best means of promoting the largest human interests. We use the term Revival of Learning to cover the whole movement, whose essence was, accord- ing to Lamartine, that " man discovered himself and the universe," and, according to Taine, that man, so long blinded, " had suddenly opened his eyes and seen." We shall understand this better if we remember that in the Middle Ages man's whole world consisted of the narrow Mediterranean and the nations that clustered about it ; and that this little world seemed bounded by impassable barriers, as if God had said to their sailors, " Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther." Man's mind also was bounded by the same narrow lines. His culture as measured by the great deductive system of Scholasticism con- sisted not in discovery, but rather in accepting certain principles and traditions established by divine and ecclesiastical authority as the basis of all truth. These were his Pillars of Hercules, his mental and spiritual bounds that he must not pass, and within these, like a child playing with lettered blocks, he proceeded to build his intellectual system. Only as we remember their limitations can we appreciate the heroism of these toilers of the Middle Ages, giants in intellect, yet playing with children's toys ; ignorant of the laws and forces of the universe, while debating the essence and locomotion of angels ; eager to learn, yet forbidden to enter fresh fields in the right of free exploration and the joy of individual discovery. The Revival stirred these men as the voyages of Da Gama and Columbus stirred the mariners of the Mediterranean. First came the sciences and inventions of the Arabs, making their way slowly 1 Symonds, Revival of Learning. 92 ENGLISH LITERATURE against the prejudice of the authorities, and opening men's eyes to the unexplored realms of nature. Then came the flood of Greek literature which the new art of printing carried swiftly to every school in Europe, revealing a new world of poetry and philosophy. Scholars flocked to the universities, as adventurers to the new world of America, and there the old authority received a deathblow. Truth only was authority ; to search for truth everywhere, as men sought for new lands and gold and the fountain of youth, that was the new spirit which awoke in Europe with the Revival of Learning. II. LITERATURE OF THE REVIVAL The hundred and fifty years of the Revival period are sin- gularly destitute of good literature. Men's minds were too much occupied with religious and political changes and with the rapid enlargement of the mental horizon to find time for that peace and leisure which are essential for literary results. Perhaps, also, the floods of newly discovered classics, which occupied scholars and the new printing presses alike, were by their very power and abundance a discouragement of native talent. Roger Ascham (1515-1568)^ famous classical scholar, who published a book called Toxophilus (School of Shooting) in 1545, expresses in his preface, or "apology," a very wide- spread dissatisfaction over the neglect of native literature when he says, "And as for ye Latin or greke tongue, every thing is so excellently done in them, that none can do better : In the Englysh tonge contrary, every thinge in a maner so meanly, both for the matter and handelynge, that no man can do worse." On the Continent, also, this new interest in the classics served to check the growth of native literatures. In Italy especially, for a full century after the brilliant age of Dante and Petrarch, no great literature was produced, and the Italian language itself seemed to go backward. 1 The truth is that 1 Sismondi attributes this to two causes : first, the lack of general culture ; and second, the absorption of the schools in the new study of antiquity. See Literature of the South j>/ Europe, II, 400 ff. "V So THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 93 these great writers were, like Chaucer, far in advance of their age, and that the mediaeval mind was too narrow, too scantily furnished with ideas to produce a varied literature. The fif- teenth century was an age of preparation, of learning the be- ginnings of science, and of getting acquainted with the great ideals, the stern law, the profound philosophy, the suggestive mythology, and the noble poetry of the Greeks and Romans, the mind was furnished with ideas for a new literature. With the exception of Malory's Morte d'Arthur (which is still mediaeval in spirit) the student will find little of interest in the literature of this period. We give here a brief summary of the men and the books most "worthy of remembrance"; but for the real literature of the Renaissance one must go forward a century and a half to the age of Elizabeth. The two greatest books which appeared in England during this period are undoubtedly Erasmus's 1 Praise of Folly (Enco- Praise of mium Moricz) and More's Utopia, the famous " King- Foll y dom of Nowhere." Both were written in Latin, but were speedily translated into all European languages. The Praise of Folly is like a song of victory for the New Learning, which had driven away vice, ignorance, and superstition, the three foes of humanity. It was published in 1511 after the accession of Henry VIII. Folly is represented as donning cap and bells and mounting a pulpit, where the vice and cruelty of kings, the selfishness and ignorance of the clergy, and the foolish standards of education are satirized without mercy. More's Utopia, published in 1516, is a powerful and origi- nal study of social conditions, unlike anything which had ever appeared in any literature. 2 In our own day we have seen its influence in Bellamy's Looking Backward, an enormously 1 Erasmus, the greatest scholar of the Renaissance, was not an Englishman, but seems to belong to every nation. He was born at Rotterdam (c. 1466), but lived the greater part of his life in France, Switzerland, England, and Italy. His Encomium Morice was sketched on a journey from Italy (1509) and written while he was the guest of Sir Thomas More in London. 2 Unless, perchance, the reader finds some points of resemblance in Plato's ** Republic." 94 ENGLISH LITERATURE successful book, which recently set people to thinking of the unnecessary cruelty of modern social conditions. More learns from a sailor, one of Amerigo Vespucci's compan- ions, of a wonderful Kingdom of Nowhere, in which all questions of labor, government, society, and religion have been easily settled by simple justice and common sense. In this Utopia we find for the first time, as the foundations of civilized society, the three great words, Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, which retained their inspiration through all the vio- lence of the French Revolution and which are still the unreal- ized ideal of every free government. As he hears of this wonderful country More wonders why, after fifteen centuries of Christianity, his own land is so little civilized ; and as we read the book to-day we ask ourselves the same question. The splendid dream is still far from being realized ; yet it seems as if any nation could become Utopia in a single gen- eration, so simple and just are the requirements. Greater than either of these books, in its influence upon the common people, is Tyndale's translation of the New Testament (1525), which fixed a standard of good English, and T ndaie's at t ^ ie same tmie brought that standard not only New Testa- to scholars but to the homes of the common people. Tyndale made his translation from the original Greek, and later translated parts of the Old Testament from the Hebrew. Much of Tyndale's work was included in Cran- mer's Bible, known also as the Great Bible, in 1539, and was read in every parish church in England. It was the founda- tion for the Authorized Version, which appeared nearly a century later and became the standard for the whole English- speaking race. Wyatt and Surrey. In 1557 appeared probably the first printed collection of miscellaneous English poems, known as ToMel's Miscellany. It contained the work of the so-called courtly makers, or poets, which had hitherto circulated in manuscript form for the benefit of the court. About half of THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 95 these poems were the work of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?- 1542) and of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517 P-I547). Both together wrote amorous sonnets modeled after the Ital- ians, introducing a new verse form which, although very dif- ficult, has been a favorite ever since with our English poets. 1 Surrey is noted, not for any especial worth or originality of his own poems, but rather for his translation of two books of Virgil " in strange meter." The strange meter was the blank verse, which had never before appeared in English. The chief literary work of these two men, therefore, is to introduce the sonnet and the blank verse, one the most dainty, the other the most flexible and characteristic form of English poetry, which in the hands of Shakespeare and Milton were used to make the world's masterpieces. Malory's Morte d' Arthur. The greatest English work of this period, measured by its effect on subsequent literature, is undoubtedly the Morte d? Arthur, a collection of the Arthu- rian romances told in simple and vivid prose. Of Sir Thomas Malory, the author, Caxton 2 in his introduction says that he was a knight, and completed his work in 1470, fifteen years before Caxton printed it. The record adds that " he was the servant of Jesu both by day and night." Beyond that we know little 3 except what may be inferred from the splendid work itself. Malory groups the legends about the central idea of the search for the Holy Grail. Though many of the stories, like Tristram and Isolde, are purely pagan, Malory treats them all in such a way as to preserve the whole spirit of mediaeval Christianity as it has been preserved in no other work. It 1 See Wordsworth's sonnet, On the Sonnet. For a detailed study of this most perfect verse form, see Tomlinson's The Sonnet, Its Origin, Structure, and Place in Poetry. 2 William Caxton (c. 1422-1491) was the first English printer. He learned the art abroad, probably at Cologne or Bruges, and about the year 1476 set up the first wooden printing press in England. His influence in fixing a national language to supersede the various dialects, and in preparing the way for the literary renaissance of the Elizabethan age, is beyond calculation. 8 Malory has, in our own day, been identified with an English country gentlemaa and soldier, who was member of Parliament for Warwickshire in 1445. 96 ENGLISH LITERATURE was to Malory rather than to Layamon or to the early French writers that Shakespeare and his contemporaries turned for their material ; and in our own age he has supplied Tennyson and Matthew Arnold and Swinburne and Morris with the inspiration for the "Idylls of the King" and the "Death of Tristram " and the other exquisite poems which center about Arthur and the knights of his Round Table. In subject-matter the book belongs to the mediaeval age ; but Malory himself, with his desire to preserve the literary monuments of the past, belongs to the Renaissance ; and he deserves our lasting gratitude for attempting to preserve the legends and poetry of Britain at a time when scholars were chiefly busy with the classics of Greece and Rome. As the Arthurian legends are one of the great recurring motives of English literature, Malory's work should be better known. His stories may be and should be told to every child as part of his literary inheritance. Then Malory may be read for his style and his English prose and his expression of the mediae- val spirit. And then the stories may be read again, in Tenny- son's "Idylls," to show how those exquisite old fancies appeal to the minds of our modern poets. Summary of the Revival of Learning Period. This transition period is at first one of decline from the Age of Chaucer, and then of intellectual prepara- tion for the Age of Elizabeth. For a century and a half after Chaucer not a single great English work appeared, and the general standard of literature was very low. There are three chief causes to account for this: (i) the long war with France and the civil Wars of the Roses distracted attention from books and poetry, and destroyed or ruined many noble English families who had been friends and patrons of literature ; (2) the Reformation in the latter part of the period filled men's minds with religious questions ; (3) the Revival of Learning set scholars and literary men to an eager study of the classics, rather than to the creation of native literature. Historically the age is noticeable for its intellectual progress, for the introduction of printing, for the discovery of America, for the beginning of the Reformation, and for the growth of political power among the common people. In our study we have noted: (i) the Revival of Learning, what it was, and the significance of the terms Humanism and Renaissance ; (2) three in- fluential literary works, Erasmus's Praise of Folly, More's Utopia, and Tyn- dale's translation of the New Testament; (3) Wyatt and Surrey, and the THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 97 so-called courtly makers or poets; (4) Malory's Morte d" 1 Arthur, a collection of the Arthurian legends in English prose. The Miracle and Mystery Plays were the most popular form of entertainment in this age ; but we have reserved them for special study in connection with the Rise of the Drama, in the following chapter. Selections for Reading. Malory's Morte d'Arthur, selections, in Athenaeum Press Series, etc. (It is interesting to read Tennyson's Passing of Arthur in connection with Malory's account.) Utopia, in Arber's Reprints, Temple Classics, King's Classics, etc. Selections from Wyatt, Surrey, etc., in Manly's English Poetry or Ward's English Poets; Tottel's Miscellany, in Arber's Reprints. Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English, vol. 3, has good selections from this period. Bibliography. 1 History. Text-book, Montgomery, pp. 150-208, or Cheyney, pp. 264-328. Greene, ch. 6 ; Traill ; Gardiner ; Froude ; etc. Special Works. Denton's England in the Fifteenth Century ; Flower's The Century of Sir Thomas More ; The Household of Sir Thomas More, in King's Classics ; Green's Town Life in the Fifteenth Century ; Field's Introduction to the Study of the Renaissance ; Einstein's The Italian Renaissance in England; Seebohm's The Oxford Reformers (Erasmus, More, etc.). Literature. General Works. Jusserand; Ten Brink; Minto's Characteris- tics of English Poets. Special Works. Saintsbury's Elizabethan Literature ; Malory's Morte d'Arthur, edited by Sommer ; the same by Gollancz (Temple Classics) ; Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur; More's Utopia, in Temple Classics, King's Classics, etc. ; Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More, in King's Classics, Temple Classics, etc. ; Ascham's Schoolmaster, in Arber's English Reprints ; Poems of Wyatt and Surrey, in English Reprints and Bell's Aldine Poets ; Simonds's Sir Thomas Wyatt and His Poems; Allen's Selections from Erasmus; Jusse- rand's Romance of a King's Life (James I of Scotland) contains extracts and an admirable criticism of the King's Quair. Suggestive Questions, i. The fifteenth century in English literature is sometimes called " the age of arrest." Can you explain why ? What causes account for the lack of great literature in this period ? Why should the ruin of noble families at this time seriously affect our literature ? Can you recall anything from the Anglo-Saxon period to justify your opinion ? 2. What is meant by Humanism ? What was the first effect of the study of Greek and Latin classics upon our literature ? What excellent literary pur- poses did the classics serve in later periods ? 3. What are the chief benefits to literature of the discovery of printing ? What effect on civilization has the multiplication of books ? 4. Describe More's Utopia. Do you know any modern books like it ? Why should any impractical scheme of progress be still called Utopian ? 1 For titles and publishers of general works see General Bibliography at the end of this book. 9 8 ENGLISH LITERATURE 5. What work of this period had the greatest effect on the English lan- guage ? Explain why. 6. What was the chief literary influence exerted by Wyatt and Surrey ? Do you know any later poets who made use of the verse forms which they introduced ? 7. Which of Malory's stories do you like best ? Where did these stories originate ? Have they any historical foundation ? What two great elements did Malory combine in his work ? What is the importance of his book to later English literature ? Compare Tennyson's " Idylls of the King " and Malory's stories with regard to material, expression, and interest. Note the marked resem- blances and differences between the Morte d* Arthur and the Nibelungen Lied. CHRONOLOGY HISTORY LITERATURE 1413. Henry V 1415. Battle of Agincourt 1422. Henry VI 1428. Siege of Orleans. Joan of Arc 1453. End of Hundred Years' War 1455-1485. Wars of Roses 1461. Edward IV 1483. Richard III 1485. Henry VII 1492. Columbus discovers America 1509. Henry VIII 1534. Act of Supremacy. The Refor- mation accomplished 1547. Edward VI 1553. Mary 1558. Elizabeth 1470. Malory's Morte d' Arthur I474(