Outlines of English and American Literature Part 3

The eppel that ich loke on is forbode me to etene, and nout forto biholden.'"

"Whoso had said (or, if anyone had said) to Eve when she cast her eye theron (i.e. on the apple) 'Ah! turn thou away; thou castest eyes on thy death!' what would she have answered? 'My dear sir, thou art wrong. Of what blamest thou me? The apple which I look upon is forbidden me to eat, not to behold.'"

Lordynges that be now here, If ye wille listene and lere [1]

All the story of Inglande, Als Robert Mannyng wryten it fand, And on Inglysch has it schewed, Not for the lered [2] but for the lewed, [3]

For tho that on this land wonn [4]

That ne Latin ne Frankys conn, [5]

For to hauf solace and gamen In felauschip when they sitt samen; [6]

And it is wisdom for to wytten [7]

The state of the land, and haf it wryten.

[Footnote 1: learn]

[Footnote 2: learned]

[Footnote 3: simple or ignorant]

[Footnote 4: those that dwell]

[Footnote 5: That neither Latin nor French know]

[Footnote 6: together]

[Footnote 7: know]

THE NORMAN CONQUEST. For a century after the Norman conquest native poetry disappeared from England, as a river may sink into the earth to reappear elsewhere with added volume and new characteristics. During all this time French was the language not only of literature but of society and business; and if anyone had declared at the beginning of the twelfth century, when Norman inst.i.tutions were firmly established in England, that the time was approaching when the conquerors would forget their fatherland and their mother tongue, he would surely have been called dreamer or madman. Yet the unexpected was precisely what happened, and the Norman conquest is remarkable alike for what it did and for what it failed to do.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOMESDAY BOOK From a facsimile edition published in 1862.

The volumes, two in number, were kept in the chest here shown]

It accomplished, first, the nationalization of England, uniting the petty Saxon earldoms into one powerful kingdom; and second, it brought into English life, grown sad and stern, like a man without hope, the spirit of youth, of enthusiasm, of eager adventure after the unknown,--in a word, the spirit of romance, which is but another name for that quest of some Holy Grail in which youth is forever engaged.

NORMAN LITERATURE. One who reads the literature that the conquerors brought to England must be struck by the contrast between the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman-French spirit. For example, here is the death of a national hero as portrayed in _The Song of Roland_, an old French epic, which the Normans first put into polished verse:

Li quens Rollans se jut desuz un pin, Envers Espaigne en ad turnet son vis, De plusurs choscs a remembrer le prist....

"Then Roland placed himself beneath a pine tree. Towards Spain he turned his face. Of many things took he remembrance: of various lands where he had made conquests; of sweet France and his kindred; of Charlemagne, his feudal lord, who had nurtured him. He could not refrain from sighs and tears; neither could he forget himself in need. He confessed his sins and besought the Lord's mercy. He raised his right glove and offered it to G.o.d; Saint Gabriel from his hand received the offering. Then upon his breast he bowed his head; he joined his hands and went to his end. G.o.d sent down his cherubim, and Saint Michael who delivers from peril. Together with Saint Gabriel they departed, bearing the Count's soul to Paradise."

We have not put Roland's ceremonious exit into rime and meter; neither do we offer any criticism of a scene in which the death of a national hero stirs no interest or emotion, not even with the help of Gabriel and the cherubim. One is reminded by contrast of Scyld, who fares forth alone in his Viking s.h.i.+p to meet the mystery of death; or of that last scene of human grief and grandeur in _Beowulf_ where a few thanes bury their dead chief on a headland by the gray sea, riding their war steeds around the memorial mound with a chant of sorrow and victory.

The contrast is even more marked in the ma.s.s of Norman literature: in romances of the maidens that sink underground in autumn, to reappear as flowers in spring; of Alexander's journey to the bottom of the sea in a crystal barrel, to view the mermaids and monsters; of Guy of Warwick, who slew the giant Colbrant and overthrew all the knights of Europe, just to win a smile from his Felice; of that other hero who had offended his lady by forgetting one of the commandments of love, and who vowed to fill a barrel with his tears, and did it. The Saxons were as serious in speech as in action, and their poetry is a true reflection of their daily life; but the Normans, brave and resourceful as they were in war and statesmans.h.i.+p, turned to literature for amus.e.m.e.nt, and indulged their lively fancy in fables, satires, garrulous romances, like children reveling in the lore of elves and fairies. As the prattle of a child was the power that awakened Silas Marner from his stupor of despair, so this Norman element of gayety, of exuberant romanticism, was precisely what was needed to rouse the sterner Saxon mind from its gloom and lethargy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NORMAN STAIR, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL]

THE NEW NATION. So much, then, the Normans accomplished: they brought nationality into English life, and romance into English literature. Without essentially changing the Saxon spirit they enlarged its thought, aroused its hope, gave it wider horizons. They bound England with their laws, covered it with their feudal inst.i.tutions, filled it with their ideas and their language; then, as an anticlimax, they disappeared from English history, and their inst.i.tutions were modified to suit the Saxon temperament. The race conquered in war became in peace the conquerors. The Normans speedily forgot France, and even warred against it. They began to speak English, dropping its c.u.mbersome Teutonic inflections, and adding to it the wealth of their own fine language. They ended by adopting England as their country, and glorifying it above all others. "There is no land in the world," writes a poet of the thirteenth century, "where so many good kings and saints have lived as in the isle of the English. Some were holy martyrs who died cheerfully for G.o.d; others had strength or courage like to that of Arthur, Edmund and c.n.u.t."

This poet, who was a Norman monk at Westminster Abbey, wrote about the glories of England in the French language, and celebrated as the national heroes a Celt, a Saxon and a Dane. [Footnote: The significance of this old poem was pointed out by Jusserand, _Literary History of the English People_, Vol. I, p. 112.]

So in the s.p.a.ce of two centuries a new nation had arisen, combining the best elements of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French people, with a considerable mixture of Celtic and Danish elements. Out of the union of these races and tongues came modern English life and letters.

GEOFFREY AND THE LEGENDS OF ARTHUR. Geoffrey of Monmouth was a Welshman, familiar from his youth with Celtic legends; also he was a monk who knew how to write Latin; and the combination was a fortunate one, as we shall see.

Long before Geoffrey produced his celebrated History (_cir._ 1150), many stories of the Welsh hero Arthur [Footnote: Who Arthur was has never been determined. There was probably a chieftain of that name who was active in opposing the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain, about the year 500; but Gildas, who wrote a Chronicle of Britain only half a century later, does not mention him; neither does Bede, who made study of all available records before writing his History. William of Malmesbury, a chronicler of the twelfth century, refers to "the warlike Arthur of whom the Britons tell so many extravagant fables, a man to be celebrated not in idle tales but in true history." He adds that there were two Arthurs, one a Welsh war-chief (not a king), and the other a myth or fairy creation. This, then, may be the truth of the matter, that a real Arthur, who made a deep impression on the Celtic imagination, was soon hidden in a ma.s.s of spurious legends. That Bede had heard these legends is almost certain; that he did not mention them is probably due to the fact that he considered Arthur to be wholly mythical.] were current in Britain and on the Continent; but they were never written because of a custom of the Middle Ages which required that, before a legend could be recorded, it must have the authority of some Latin ma.n.u.script. Geoffrey undertook to supply such authority in his _Historia regum britanniae_, or History of the Kings of Britain, in which he proved Arthur's descent from Roman ancestors. [Footnote: After the landing of the Romans in Britain a curious mingling of traditions took place, and in Geoffrey's time native Britons considered themselves as children of Brutus of Rome, and therefore as grandchildren of aeneas of Troy.] He quoted liberally from an ancient ma.n.u.script which, he alleged, established Arthur's lineage, but which he did not show to others. A storm instantly arose among the writers of that day, most of whom denounced Geoffrey's Latin ma.n.u.script as a myth, and his History as a shameless invention. But he had shrewdly antic.i.p.ated such criticism, and issued this warning to the historians, which is solemn or humorous according to your point of view:

"I forbid William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon to speak of the kings of Britain, since they have not seen the book which Walter Archdeacon of Oxford [who was dead, of course] brought out of Brittany."

It is commonly believed that Geoffrey was an impostor, but in such matters one should be wary of pa.s.sing judgment. Many records of men, cities, empires, have suddenly arisen from the tombs to put to shame the scientists who had denied their existence; and it is possible that Geoffrey had seen one of the legion of lost ma.n.u.scripts. The one thing certain is, that if he had any authority for his History he embellished the same freely from popular legends or from his own imagination, as was customary at that time.

[Sidenote: ARTHURIAN ROMANCES]

His work made a sensation. A score of French poets seized upon his Arthurian legends and wove them into romances, each adding freely to Geoffrey's narrative. The poet Wace added the tale of the Round Table, and another poet (Walter Map, perhaps) began a cycle of stories concerning Galahad and the quest of the Holy Grail. [Footnote: The Holy Grail, or San Graal, or Sancgreal, was represented as the cup from which Christ drank with his disciples at the Last Supper. Legend said that the sacred cup had been brought to England, and Arthur's knights undertook, as the most compelling of all duties, to search until they found it.]

The origin of these Arthurian romances, which reappear so often in English poetry, is forever shrouded in mystery. The point to remember is, that we owe them all to the genius of the native Celts; that it was Geoffrey of Monmouth who first wrote them in Latin prose, and so preserved a treasure which else had been lost; and that it was the French _trouveres,_ or poets, who completed the various cycles of romances which were later collected in Malory's _Morte d' Arthur._

TYPES OF MIDDLE-ENGLISH LITERATURE. It has long been customary to begin the study of English literature with Chaucer; but that does not mean that he invented any new form of poetry or prose. To examine any collection of our early literature, such as Cook's _Middle-English Reader_, is to discover that many literary types were flouris.h.i.+ng in Chaucer's day, and that some of these had grown old-fas.h.i.+oned before he began to use them.

[Sidenote: METRICAL ROMANCES]

In the thirteenth century, for example, the favorite type of literature in England was the metrical romance, which was introduced by the French poets, and written at first in the French language. The typical romance was a rambling story dealing with the three subjects of love, chivalry and religion; it was filled with adventures among giants, dragons, enchanted castles; and in that day romance was not romance unless liberally supplied with magic and miracle. There were hundreds of such wonder-stories, arranged loosely in three main groups: the so-called "matter of Rome" dealt with the fall of Troy in one part, and with the marvelous adventures of Alexander in the other; the "matter of France" celebrated the heroism of Charlemagne and his Paladins; and the "matter of Britain" wove the magic web of romance around Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.

One of the best of the metrical romances is "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," which may be read as a measure of all the rest. If, as is commonly believed, the unknown author of "Sir Gawain" wrote also "The Pearl" (a beautiful old elegy, or poem of grief, which immortalizes a father's love for his little girl), he was the greatest poet of the early Middle-English period. Unfortunately for us, he wrote not in the king's English or speech of London (which became modern English) but in a different dialect, and his poems should be read in a present-day version; else will the beauty of his work be lost in our effort to understand his language.

Other types of early literature are the riming chronicles or verse histories (such as Layamon's _Brut_, a famous poem, in which the Arthurian legends appear as part of English history), stories of travel, translations, religious poems, books of devotion, miracle plays, fables, satires, ballads, hymns, lullabies, lyrics of love and nature,--an astonis.h.i.+ng collection for so ancient a time, indicative at once of our changing standards of poetry and of our unchanging human nature. For the feelings which inspired or gave welcome to these poems, some five or six hundred years ago, are precisely the same feelings which warm the heart of a poet and his readers to-day. There is nothing ancient but the spelling in this exquisite Lullaby, for instance, which was sung on Christmas eve:

He cam also stylle Ther his moder was As dew in Aprylle That fallyt on the gras; He cam also stylle To his moderes bowr As dew in Aprylle That fallyt on the flour; He cam also stylle Ther his moder lay As dew in Aprylle That fallyt on the spray.

[Footnote: In reading this beautiful old lullaby the _e_ in "stylle"

and "Aprylle" should be lightly sounded, like _a_ in "China."]

Or witness this other fragment from an old love song, which reflects the feeling of one who "would fain make some mirth" but who finds his heart sad within him:

Now wold I fayne som myrthis make All oneli for my ladys sake, When I hir se; But now I am so ferre from hir Hit will nat be.

Thogh I be long out of hir sight, I am hir man both day and night, And so will be; Wherfor, wold G.o.d as I love hir That she lovd me!

When she is mery, then I am glad; When she is sory, then am I sad, And cause whi: For he livith nat that lovith hir So well as I.

She sayth that she hath seen hit wreten That 'seldyn seen is soon foryeten.'

Hit is nat so; For in good feith, save oneli hir, I love no moo.

Wherfor I pray, both night and day, That she may cast al care away, And leve in rest That evermo, where'er she be, I love hir best;

And I to hir for to be trew, And never chaunge her for noon new Unto myne ende; And that I may in hir servise For evyr amend.

[Footnote: The two poems quoted above hardly belong to the Norman-French period proper, but rather to a time when the Anglo-Saxon had a.s.similated the French element, with its language and verse forms. They were written, probably, in the age of Chaucer, or in what is now called the Late Middle-English period.]

SUMMARY OF BEGINNINGS. The two main branches of our literature are the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman-French, both of which received some additions from Celtic, Danish and Roman sources. The Anglo-Saxon literature came to England with the invasion of Teutonic tribes, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes (_cir._ 449). The Norman-French literature appeared after the Norman conquest of England, which began with the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

The Anglo-Saxon literature is cla.s.sified under two heads, pagan and Christian. The extant fragments of pagan literature include one epic or heroic poem, _Beowulf_, and several lyrics and battle songs, such as "Widsith," "Deor's Lament," "The Seafarer," "The Battle of Brunanburh" and "The Battle of Maldon." All these were written at an unknown date, and by unknown poets.

The best Christian literature of the period was written in the Northumbrian and the West-Saxon schools. The greatest names of the Northumbrian school are Bede, Caedmon and Cynewulf. The most famous of the Wess.e.x writers is Alfred the Great, who is called "the father of English prose."

The Normans were originally Northmen, or sea rovers from Scandinavia, who settled in northern France and adopted the Franco-Latin language and civilization. With their conquest of England, in the eleventh century, they brought nationality into English life, and the spirit of romance into English literature.