A Brief History of the English Language and Literature Part 13

+1688+ 31. +John Bunyan+ writes his 'Pilgrim's Progress'-- a book full of pithy English idiom. "The common folk had the wit at once to see the worth of Bunyan's masterpiece, and the learned long afterwards followed in the wake of the common folk" (+Born 1628+)

+1642+ 32. +Sir Thomas Browne+, the author of 'Urn-Burial' and other works written in a highly Latinised diction, such as the 'Religio Medici,'

written [1642]

+1759+ 33. +Dr Samuel Johnson+ was the chief supporter of the use of "long-tailed words in osity and ation," such as his novel called 'Ra.s.selas,' published [1759]

34. +Tennyson, Poet-Laureate+, a writer of the best English-- "a countryman of Robert Manning's, and a careful student of old Malory, has done much for the revival of pure English among us" (+Born 1809+)

PART IV.

OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

CHAPTER I.

OUR OLDEST ENGLISH LITERATURE.

1. +Literature.+-- The history of English Literature is, in its external aspect, an account of the best books in prose and in verse that have been written by English men and English women; and this account begins with a poem brought over from the Continent by our countrymen in the fifth century, and comes down to the time in which we live. It covers, therefore, a period of nearly fourteen hundred years.

2. +The Distribution of Literature.+-- We must not suppose that literature has always existed in the form of printed books. Literature is a living thing-- a living outcome of the living mind; and there are many ways in which it has been distributed to other human beings. The oldest way is, of course, by one person repeating a poem or other literary composition he has made to another; and thus literature is stored away, not upon book-shelves, but in the memory of living men.

Homer's poems are said to have been preserved in this way to the Greeks for five hundred years. Father chanted them to son; the sons to their sons; and so on from generation to generation. The next way of distributing literature is by the aid of signs called letters made upon leaves, flattened reeds, parchment, or the inner bark of trees. The next is by the help of writing upon paper. The last is by the aid of type upon paper. This has existed in England for more than four hundred years-- since the year 1474; and thus it is that our libraries contain many hundreds of thousands of valuable books. For the same reason is it, most probably, that as our power of retaining the substance and multiplying the copies of books has grown stronger, our living memories have grown weaker. This defect can be remedied only by education-- that is, by training the memories of the young. While we possess so many printed books, it must not be forgotten that many valuable works exist still in ma.n.u.script-- written either upon paper or on parchment.

3. +Verse, the earliest form of Literature.+-- It is a remarkable fact that the earliest kind of composition in all languages is in the form of +Verse+. The oldest books, too, are those which are written in verse.

Thus Homer's poems are the oldest literary work of Greece; the Sagas are the oldest productions of Scandinavian literature; and the Beowulf is the oldest piece of literature produced by the Anglo-Saxon race. It is also from the strong creative power and the lively inventions of poets that we are even now supplied with new thoughts and new language-- that the most vivid words and phrases come into the language; just as it is the ranges of high mountains that send down to the plains the ever fresh soil that gives to them their unending fertility. And thus it happens that our present English speech is full of words and phrases that have found their way into the most ordinary conversation from the writings of our great poets-- and especially from the writings of our greatest poet, Shakespeare. The fact that the life of prose depends for its supplies on the creative minds of poets has been well expressed by an American writer:--

"I looked upon a plain of green, Which some one called the Land of Prose, Where many living things were seen In movement or repose.

I looked upon a stately hill That well was named the Mount of Song, Where golden shadows dwelt at will, The woods and streams among.

But most this fact my wonder bred (Though known by all the n.o.bly wise), It was the mountain stream that fed That fair green plain's amenities."

4. +Our oldest English Poetry.+-- The verse written by our old English writers was very different in form from the verse that appears now from the hands of Tennyson, or Browning, or Matthew Arnold. The old English or Anglo-Saxon writers used a kind of rhyme called +head-rhyme+ or +alliteration+; while, from the fourteenth century downwards, our poets have always employed +end-rhyme+ in their verses.

"{L}ightly down {l}eaping he {l}oosened his helmet."

Such was the rough old English form. At least three words in each long line were alliterative-- two in the first half, and one in the second.

Metaphorical phrases were common, such as _war-adder_ for arrow, _war-shirts_ for armour, _whale's-path_ or _swan-road_ for the sea, _wave-horse_ for a ship, _tree-wright_ for carpenter. Different statements of the same fact, different phrases for the same thing-- what are called +parallelisms+ in Hebrew poetry-- as in the line--

"Then saw they the sea head-lands-- the windy walls,"

were also in common use among our oldest English poets.

5. +Beowulf.+-- The +Beowulf+ is the oldest poem in the English language. It is our "old English epic"; and, like much of our ancient verse, it is a war poem. The author of it is unknown. It was probably composed in the fifth century-- not in England, but on the Continent-- and brought over to this island-- not on paper or on parchment-- but in the memories of the old Jutish or Saxon vikings or warriors. It was not written down at all, even in England, till the end of the ninth century, and then, probably, by a monk of Northumbria. It tells among other things the story of how Beowulf sailed from Sweden to the help of Hrothgar, a king in Jutland, whose life was made miserable by a monster-- half man, half fiend-- named Grendel. For about twelve years this monster had been in the habit of creeping up to the banqueting-hall of King Hrothgar, seizing upon his thanes, carrying them off, and devouring them. Beowulf attacks and overcomes the dragon, which is mortally wounded, and flees away to die. The poem belongs both to the German and to the English literature; for it is written in a Continental English, which is somewhat different from the English of our own island.

But its literary shape is, as has been said, due to a Christian writer of Northumbria; and therefore its written or printed form-- as it exists at present-- is not German, but English. Parts of this poem were often chanted at the feasts of warriors, where all sang in turn as they sat after dinner over their cups of mead round the ma.s.sive oaken table. The poem consists of 3184 lines, the rhymes of which are solely alliterative.

6. +The First Native English Poem.+-- The Beowulf came to us from the Continent; the first native English poem was produced in Yorkshire.

On the dark wind-swept cliff which rises above the little land-locked harbour of +Whitby+, stand the ruins of an ancient and once famous abbey. The head of this religious house was the Abbess Hild or Hilda: and there was a secular priest in it,-- a very shy retiring man, who looked after the cattle of the monks, and whose name was +Caedmon+. To this man came the gift of song, but somewhat late in life. And it came in this wise. One night, after a feast, singing began, and each of those seated at the table was to sing in his turn. Caedmon was very nervous-- felt he could not sing. Fear overcame his heart, and he stole quietly away from the table before the turn could come to him. He crept off to the cowshed, lay down on the straw and fell asleep. He dreamed a dream; and, in his dream, there came to him a voice: "Caedmon, sing me a song!"

But Caedmon answered: "I cannot sing; it was for this cause that I had to leave the feast." "But you must and shall sing!" "What must I sing, then?" he replied. "Sing the beginning of created things!" said the vision; and forthwith Caedmon sang some lines in his sleep, about G.o.d and the creation of the world. When he awoke, he remembered some of the lines that had come to him in sleep, and, being brought before Hilda, he recited them to her. The Abbess thought that this wonderful gift, which had come to him so suddenly, must have come from G.o.d, received him into the monastery, made him a monk, and had him taught sacred history. "All this Caedmon, by remembering, and, like a clean animal, ruminating, turned into sweetest verse." His poetical works consist of a metrical paraphrase of the Old and the New Testament. It was written about the year 670; and he died in 680. It was read and re-read in ma.n.u.script for many centuries, but it was not printed in a book until the year 1655.

7. +The War-Poetry of England.+-- There were many poems about battles, written both in Northumbria and in the south of England; but it was only in the south that these war-songs were committed to writing; and of these written songs there are only two that survive up to the present day. These are the +Song of Brunanburg+, and the +Song of the Fight at Maldon+. The first belongs to the date 938; the second to 991. The Song of Brunanburg was inscribed in the SAXON CHRONICLE-- a current narrative of events, written chiefly by monks, from the ninth century to the end of the reign of Stephen. The song tells the story of the fight of King Athelstan with Anlaf the Dane. It tells how five young kings and seven earls of Anlaf's host fell on the field of battle, and lay there "quieted by swords," while their fellow-Northmen fled, and left their friends and comrades to "the screamers of war-- the black raven, the eagle, the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey wolf in the wood." The Song of the Fight at Maldon tells us of the heroic deeds and death of +Byrhtnoth+, an ealdorman of Northumbria, in battle against the Danes at Maldon, in Ess.e.x. The speeches of the chiefs are given; the single combats between heroes described; and, as in Homer, the names and genealogies of the foremost men are brought into the verse.

8. +The First English Prose.+-- The first writer of English prose was +Baeda+, or, as he is generally called, the +Venerable Bede+. He was born in the year 672 at Monkwearmouth, a small town at the mouth of the river Wear, and was, like Caedmon, a native of the kingdom of Northumbria. He spent most of his life at the famous monastery of Jarrow-on-Tyne. He spent his life in writing. His works, which were written in Latin, rose to the number of forty-five; his chief work being an +Ecclesiastical History+. But though Latin was the tongue in which he wrote his books, he wrote one book in English; and he may therefore be fairly considered the first writer of English prose. This book was a +Translation of the Gospel of St John+-- a work which he laboured at until the very moment of his death. His disciple Cuthbert tells the story of his last hours. "Write quickly!" said Baeda to his scribe, for he felt that his end could not be far off. When the last day came, all his scholars stood around his bed. "There is still one chapter wanting, Master," said the scribe; "it is hard for thee to think and to speak."

"It must be done," said Baeda; "take thy pen and write quickly." So through the long day they wrote-- scribe succeeding scribe; and when the shades of evening were coming on, the young writer looked up from his task and said, "There is yet one sentence to write, dear Master." "Write it quickly!" Presently the writer, looking up with joy, said, "It is finished!" "Thou sayest truth," replied the weary old man; "it is finished: all is finished." Quietly he sank back upon his pillow, and, with a psalm of praise upon his lips, gently yielded up to G.o.d his latest breath. It is a great pity that this translation-- the first piece of prose in our language-- is utterly lost. No MS. of it is at present known to be in existence.

9. +The Father of English Prose.+-- For several centuries, up to the year 866, the valleys and sh.o.r.es of Northumbria were the homes of learning and literature. But a change was not long in coming. Horde after horde of Danes swept down upon the coasts, ravaged the monasteries, burnt the books-- after stripping the beautiful bindings of the gold, silver, and precious stones which decorated them-- killed or drove away the monks, and made life, property, and thought insecure all along that once peaceful and industrious coast. Literature, then, was forced to desert the monasteries of Northumbria, and to seek for a home in the south-- in Wess.e.x, the kingdom over which Alfred the Great reigned for more than thirty years. The capital of Wess.e.x was Winchester; and an able writer says: "As Whitby is the cradle of English poetry, so is Winchester of English prose." King Alfred founded colleges, invited to England men of learning from abroad, and presided over a school for the sons of his n.o.bles in his own Court. He himself wrote many books, or rather, he translated the most famous Latin books of his time into English. He translated into the English of Wess.e.x, for example, the 'Ecclesiastical History' of Baeda; the 'History of Orosius,' into which he inserted geographical chapters of his own; and the 'Consolations of Philosophy,' by the famous Roman writer, Boethius.

In these books he gave to his people, in their own tongue, the best existing works on history, geography, and philosophy.

10. +The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.+-- The greatest prose-work of the oldest English, or purely Saxon, literature, is a work-- not by one person, but by several authors. It is the historical work which is known as +The Saxon Chronicle+. It seems to have been begun about the middle of the ninth century; and it was continued, with breaks now and then, down to 1154-- the year of the death of Stephen and the accession of Henry II.

It was written by a series of successive writers, all of whom were monks; but Alfred himself is said to have contributed to it a narrative of his own wars with the Danes. The Chronicle is found in seven separate forms, each named after the monastery in which it was written. It was the newspaper, the annals, and the history of the nation. "It is the first history of any Teutonic people in their own language; it is the earliest and most venerable monument of English prose." This Chronicle possesses for us a twofold value. It is a valuable storehouse of historical facts; and it is also a storehouse of specimens of the different states of the English language-- as regards both words and grammar-- from the eighth down to the twelfth century.

11. +Layamon's Brut.+-- Layamon was a native of Worcestershire, and a priest of Ernley on the Severn. He translated, about the year 1205, a poem called +Brut+, from the French of a monkish writer named Master Wace. Wace's work itself is little more than a translation of parts of a famous "Chronicle or History of the Britons," written in Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was Bishop of St Asaph in 1152. But Geoffrey himself professed only to have translated from a chronicle in the British or Celtic tongue, called the "Chronicle of the Kings of Britain," which was found in Brittany-- long the home of most of the stories, traditions, and fables about the old British Kings and their great deeds. Layamon's poem called the "Brut" is a metrical chronicle of Britain from the landing of Brutus to the death of King Cadwallader, about the end of the seventh century. Brutus was supposed to be a great-grandson of aeneas, who sailed west and west till he came to Great Britain, where he settled with his followers. --This metrical chronicle is written in the dialect of the West of England; and it shows everywhere a breaking down of the grammatical forms of the oldest English, as we find it in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In fact, between the landing of the Normans and the fourteenth century, two things may be noted: first, that during this time-- that is, for three centuries-- the inflections of the oldest English are gradually and surely stripped off; and, secondly, that there is little or no original English literature given to the country, but that by far the greater part consists chiefly of translations from French or from Latin.

12. +Orm's Ormulum.+-- Less than half a century after Layamon's Brut appeared a poem called the +Ormulum+, by a monk of the name of Orm or Ormin. It was probably written about the year 1215. Orm was a monk of the order of St Augustine, and his book consists of a series of religious poems. It is the oldest, purest, and most valuable specimen of thirteenth-century English, and it is also remarkable for its peculiar spelling. It is written in the purest English, and not five French words are to be found in the whole poem of twenty thousand short lines. Orm, in his spelling, doubles every consonant that has a short vowel before it; and he writes _pann_ for _pan_, but _pan_ for _pane_. The following is a specimen of his poem:--

Ice hafe wennd inntill Ennglissh G.o.ddspelless hallghe lare, Affterr thatt little witt tatt me Min Drihhtin hafethth lenedd.

I have wended (turned) into English Gospel's holy lore, After the little wit that me My Lord hath lent.

Other famous writers of English between this time and the appearance of Chaucer were +Robert of Gloucester+ and +Robert of Brunne+, both of whom wrote Chronicles of England in verse.

CHAPTER II.

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

1. The opening of the fourteenth century saw the death of the great and able king, Edward I., the "Hammer of the Scots," the "Keeper of his word." The century itself-- a most eventful period-- witnessed the feeble and disastrous reign of Edward II.; the long and prosperous rule-- for fifty years-- of Edward III.; the troubled times of Richard II., who exhibited almost a repet.i.tion of the faults of Edward II.; and the appearance of a new and powerful dynasty-- the House of Lancaster-- in the person of the able and ambitious Henry IV. This century saw also many striking events, and many still more striking changes. It beheld the welding of the Saxon and the Norman elements into one-- chiefly through the French wars; the final triumph of the English language over French in 1362; the frequent coming of the Black Death; the victories of Crecy and Poitiers; it learned the universal use of the mariner's compa.s.s; it witnessed two kings-- of France and of Scotland-- prisoners in London; great changes in the condition of labourers; the invention of gunpowder in 1340; the rise of English commerce under Edward III.; and everywhere in England the rising up of new powers and new ideas.

2. The first prose-writer in this century is +Sir John Mandeville+ (who has been called the "Father of English Prose"). King Alfred has also been called by this name; but as the English written by Alfred was very different from that written by Mandeville,-- the latter containing a large admixture of French and of Latin words, both writers are deserving of the epithet. The most influential prose-writer was +John Wyclif+, who was, in fact, the first English Reformer of the Church. In poetry, two writers stand opposite each other in striking contrast-- +Geoffrey Chaucer+ and +William Langlande+, the first writing in courtly "King's English" in end-rhyme, and with the fullest inspirations from the literatures of France and Italy, the latter writing in head-rhyme, and-- though using more French words than Chaucer-- with a style that was always homely, plain, and pedestrian. +John Gower+, in Kent, and +John Barbour+, in Scotland, are also noteworthy poets in this century. The English language reached a high state of polish, power, and freedom in this period; and the sweetness and music of Chaucer's verse are still unsurpa.s.sed by modern poets. The sentences of the prose-writers of this century are long, clumsy, and somewhat helpless; but the sweet homely English rhythm exists in many of them, and was continued, through Wyclif's version, down into our translation of the Bible in 1611.

3. SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE, (+1300-1372+), "the first prose-writer in formed English," was born at St Albans, in Hertfordshire, in the year 1300. He was a physician; but, in the year 1322, he set out on a journey to the East; was away from home for more than thirty years, and died at Liege, in Belgium, in 1372. He wrote his travels first in Latin, next in French, and then turned them into English, "that every man of my nation may understand it." The book is a kind of guide-book to the Holy Land; but the writer himself went much further east-- reached Cathay or China, in fact. He introduced a large number of French words into our speech, such as _cause_, _contrary_, _discover_, _quant.i.ty_, and many hundred others. His works were much admired, read, and copied; indeed, hundreds of ma.n.u.script copies of his book were made. There are nineteen still in the British Museum. The book was not printed till the year 1499-- that is, twenty-five years after printing was introduced into this country.

Many of the Old English inflexions still survive in his style. Thus he says: "Machamete was born in Arabye, that was a pore knave (boy) that kepte cameles that went_en_ with marchantes for marchandise."

4. JOHN WYCLIF (his name is spelled in about forty different ways)-- +1324-1384+-- was born at Hipswell, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, in the year 1324, and died at the vicarage of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, in 1384. His fame rests on two bases-- his efforts as a reformer of the abuses of the Church, and his complete translation of the +Bible+. This work was finished in 1383, just one year before his death. But the translation was not done by himself alone; the larger part of the Old Testament version seems to have been made by Nicholas de Hereford.

Though often copied in ma.n.u.script, it was not printed for several centuries. Wyclif's New Testament was printed in 1731, and the Old Testament not until the year 1850. But the words and the style of his translation, which was read and re-read by hundreds of thoughtful men, were of real and permanent service in fixing the language in the form in which we now find it.

5. JOHN GOWER (+1325-1408+) was a country gentleman of Kent. As Mandeville wrote his travels in three languages, so did Gower his poems.