Halleck's New English Literature Part 10

"mayor," and "clerk." Many terms of government are from the French; for instance, "parliament," "peers," "commons." The language of law abounds in French terms, like "damage," "trespa.s.s," "circuit,"

"judge," "jury," "verdict," "sentence," "counsel," "prisoner." Many words used in war, architecture, and medicine also have a French origin. Examples are "fort," "arch," "mason," "surgery." In fact, we find words from the French in almost every field. "Uncle" and "cousin," "rabbit" and "falcon," "trot" and "stable," "money" and "soldier," "reason" and "virtue," "Bible" and "preach," are instances in point.

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

SAXON FRENCH

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

English was enriched not only by those expressions, gained from the daily speech of the Normans, but also by words that were added from literary Latin. Thus, we have the Saxon "ask," the Norman-French "inquire" and "question," and the Latin "interrogate." "Bold,"

"impudent," "audacious"; "bright," "cheerful," "animated"; "earnings,"

"wages," "remuneration," "short," "brief," "concise," are other examples of words, largely synonymous, from the Saxon, the Norman-French, and the Latin, respectively. These facts explain why modern English has such a wealth of expression, although probably more than one half of the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary has been lost.

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

"vein," "beast," "poor," "nurse," "flower," "taste," "state," and "fool" remain in our vocabulary because they were used in everyday life.

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

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

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

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

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

At first the Normans despised the tongue of the conquered Saxons, but, as time progressed, the two races intermarried, and the children could hardly escape learning some Saxon words from their mothers or nurses.

On the other hand, many well-to-do Saxons, like parents in later times, probably had their children taught French because it was considered aristocratic.

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

In 1338 began the Hundred Years' War between France and England. In Edward the Third's reign (1327-1377), it was demonstrated that one Englishman could whip six Frenchmen; and the language of a hostile and partly conquered race naturally began to occupy a less high position.

In 1362 Parliament enacted that English should thereafter be used in law courts, "because the laws, customs, and statutes of this realm, be not commonly known in the same realm, for that they be pleaded, shewed, and judged in the French tongue, which is much unknown in the said realm."

LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD 1066-1400

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chaucer sings in the same key:--

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

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

A Latin Chronicler.--One chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth, although he wrote in Latin, must receive some attention because of his vast influence on English poetry. He probably acquired his last name from being archdeacon of Monmouth. He was appointed Bishop of St.

Asaph in 1152 and died about 1154. Unlike the majority of the monkish chroniclers, he possessed a vivid imagination, which he used in his so-called _History of the Kings of Britain_.

Geoffrey pretended to have found an old ma.n.u.script which related the deeds of all British kings from Brutus, the mythical founder of the kingdom of Britain, and the great-grandson of Aeneas, to Caesar.

Geoffrey wrote an account of the traditionary British kings down to Cadwallader in 689 with as much minuteness and gravity as Swift employed in the _Voyage to Lilliput_. Other chroniclers declared that Geoffrey lied saucily and shamelessly, but his book became extremely popular. The monks could not then comprehend that the world's greatest literary works were to be products of the imagination.

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

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

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

"And Ich wulle varan to Avalun: And I will fare to Avalon, To vairest alre maidene To the fairest of all maidens, To Argante ere quene, To Argante the queen, Alven swie sceone; Elf surpa.s.sing fair; And heo scal mine wunden And she shall my wounds Makien alle isunde, Make all sound, Al hal me makien All hale me make Mid halweige drenchen. With healing draughts.

And seoe Ich c.u.men wulle And afterwards I will come To mine kineriche To my kingdom And wunien mid Brutten And dwell with Britons Mid muchelere wunne." With much joy.

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

"...I am going a long way * * * * *

To the island-valley of Avilion, Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.

He pa.s.ses to be King among the dead, And after healing of his grievous wound He comes again."

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

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

He says:--

"Diss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum Forri att Ormm itt wrohhte."

This book is named Ormulum For that Orm it wrote.

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

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

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

"e, mine leoue sustren, ne schulen habben no best bute kat one... e schulen beon i-dodded four sien, ie ere, uorto lihten ower heaued... Of idelnesse awakene muchel flesshes fondunge...

Iren et li stille gedere sone rust."

Ye, my beloved sisters, shall have no beast but one cat... Ye shall be cropped four times in the year for to lighten your head... Of idleness ariseth much temptation of the flesh...

Iron that lieth still soon gathereth rust.

The keynote of the work is the renunciation of self. Few productions of modern literature contain finer pictures of the divine love and sympathy. The following simile affords an instance of this quality in the work:--

"De sixte kunfort is et ure Louerd, hwon he iol et we beo itented, he plaie mid us, ase e moder mid hire unge deorlinge; vlih from him, and hut hire, and let hit sitten one, and loken eorne abuten, and cleopien Dame! dame! and weopen one hwule; and eonne mid ispredde ermes leape lauhwinde vor, and cluppe and cusse and wipe his eien. Riht so ure Louerd let us one iwuren oer hwules, and widrawe his grace and his kunfort, et we ne ivinde swetnesse in none inge et we wel do, ne savor of heorte; and auh, iet ilke point ne luve he us ure leove veder never e lesce, auh he de hit for muchel luve et he have to us."