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WHOSE ASSISTANCE IN THE PREPARATION

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HISTORY

OF

ENGLISH LITERATURE

BY

REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A. (YALE)

NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY REUBEN POST HALLECK.

ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL. HAL. ENG. LIT.

W. P. 28

PREFACE

IN the following pages the author aims to furnish a concise and interesting text-book of the history and devel- opment of English literature from the earliest times to the present. Especial attention is paid to literary movements, to the essential qualities which differentiate one period from another, and to showing the animating spirit of each age. It is more important to understand the rela- tion of the age of Pope to that of Wordsworth than to know these two writers merely as individuals. It is bet- ter for the student to catch the general drift of literary thought than to study a large number of comparatively unimportant authors and to ignore the law of the sur- vival of the fittest. The majority of people never have time for the study of any but the masters. Such people need a guide to tell them what to select from each age, just as much as travelers in England require a guidebook to indicate the most interesting places.

The writer has made no attempt to minimize the study of authors as individuals. One of the features of this work consists in devoting a special section to summing up the general characteristics of each of the greatest individual authors. The theory that it is wise to teach the general before the special is now happily going out of fashion. But the moment we know two authors we ought to begin to compare them, to note their likeness and their differ- ence. For the cultivation of the thinking powers, the

5

6 PREFACE

study of the development of English literature may be made as serviceable as mathematics. The individuality and general characteristics of one author present them- selves in sharpest outline only in comparison with those of another author. For instance, Spenser's subjective cast of mind will impress the student more forcibly when contrasted with Chaucer's objective method of regarding the world (see pp. 130-132).

During a long period of teaching English literature and of superintending the instruction of others in that branch, the author has repeatedly found that pupils who have not had consecutive instruction in the history of English litera- ture have the most vague ideas of its development and of the relation of its parts. Various masterpieces seem like unconnected islands in an unexplored ocean. There is no way of making these masterpieces seem otherwise except by teaching the history and development of the literature of which they form a part. Mental association is based primarily on contiguity. Ideas must be grasped by the mind at the same time before they can be known to be related. It is difficult for young minds to knit into one fabric ideas which are presented at considerable intervals and under associations so different as occur in the study of various masterpieces.

In so far as the limits of his space would allow, the author has endeavored to justify his criticisms by quota- tions that show the characteristics attributed to authors. Since it is the object of this work to enable students to read English literature for themselves more intelligently, there have been indicated at the end of each chapter defi- nite Required Readings from the works of the authors discussed. To guard against discouraging students, the writer has tried to call for no more than they may be

PREFACE 7

expected to read as they study this work. There have also been added questions which, it is hoped, will stimulate pupils to do some original thinking and to make a com- parison of different ages and representative authors.

The optional list of Works for Consultation and Further Study has been prepared to guide those who wish to make a more extended study of certain periods and authors. A Supplementary List of Minor Authors and their Chief Works is given on pp. 485-491 for the purpose of aiding those who wish to read the best work of minor authors, as well as for the purpose of serving for convenient reference.

On account of the extent of the field to be covered, the treatment of American literature is left to works dealing especially with that branch.

The pronunciation of difficult names is indicated suffi- ciently in the index.

The student should refer to the Literary Map of Eng- land, pp. 8, 9, to familiarize himself with the location of the birthplaces and homes of eminent authors. Whenever he reads of the Quantock Hills or of the Lake District, of the Exeter Book or of Stoke Poges churchyard, he ought immediately to turn to the map to find the place indicated.

While the writer owes much to the great masters of criticism, he has written this work only after long and careful original study of the authors under discussion. From one source he has received such valuable assistance as to demand emphatic mention. During three years of the time in which this work has been in preparation, he has had the constant assistance of his wife, a critical stu- dent of English literature. To her is due the entire treat- ment of certain authors in periods that she has made the subject of special study.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

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

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

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

ELIZABETH, 1558

IV. THE LITERATURE OF THE AGE OF ELIZABETH

V. THE PURITAN AGE, 1603-1660

VI. THE AGE OF THE RESTORATION, 1660-1700 .

VII. THE FIRST FORTY YEARS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CEN- TURY, 1700-1740 .... .232

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

I\. THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM, 1780-1837

A THE VICTORIAN AGE, 1837-1901

CONCLUSION 479

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF MINOR AUTHORS AND THEIR CHIEF

WORKS ....'.. . -485

INDEX 9 . 491

10

HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

CHAPTER I

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

The Subject Matter. — The history of English literature is a record of the best thoughts that have been expressed in the English language. Literature appeals especially to the imagination and the emotions. Literature aims not so much to state a fact after the manner of a text-book on science as to start imaginative activity and to appeal to the emotions. When Macbeth says of the dead King : —

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

our feelings are touched and the door is opened for imaginative activity, as we wonder why life is called a fitful fever and try to realize the mystery of that long and restful sleep. True literature calls for such activity.

If we would broaden ourselves and increase our capacity for appreciating the manifold sides of the life of the spirit, we must become familiar with the thoughts and ideals of those who have given us our inspiring literature. For nearly fifteen hundred years the Anglo-Saxon race has been producing the greatest of all literatures. The most boastful of other nations make no claim to having a Shakespeare on the list of their immortals.

ii

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

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

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

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

The Training of the Race. — The climate is a potent factor in determining the vigor and characteristics of a race. Nature had reared the Teuton like a wise but not indul- gent parent. By every method known to her, she endeav- ored to render him fit to colonize and sway the world. Summer paid him but a brief visit. His companions were the frost, the fluttering snowflake, the stinging hail. For

THE TEUTONIC RACE 13

music, instead of the soft notes of a shepherd's pipe under blue Italian or Grecian skies, he listened to the north wind whistling among the bare branches, or to the roar of an angry northern sea upon the bleak coast.

The feeble could not withstand the rigor of such a cli- mate in the absence of the comforts of civilization. Only the strongest in each generation survived ; and these trans- mitted to their children increasing vigor. Warfare was incessant, not only with nature but also with the surround- ing tribes. Nature kept the Teuton in such a school until he seemed fit to colonize the world, and to produce a lit- erature which would appeal to humanity in every age.

The Early Teutonic Religion. — Our ancestors were heathen for some time after they came to England. Their principal deity was Woden, the All-father, from whom Wednesday is named. Thunor, the invincible god of thunder, has also given his name to a day of the week. In the old Norse mythology, to which the old Teutonic religions are closely allied, heaven was called Valhal. Woden's daughters were called Valkyries, and it was their mission to ride their cloudlike steeds 'over earthly battlefields, to note the bravest warriors, and to conduct to Valhal such as were selected to fall. Death while courageously fighting on the battlefield made the hero sure of being taken to Valhal to become Woden's guest. There at the table of the gods, the warrior ate of the flesh of the magic boar, drank from a river of ale, and indulged to his heart's content in the sword game. This old Norse religion was instinct with a gloomy fatalism. Upon Val- hal and the throng of heroes whom Woden summoned to help him fight his foes, could be seen a ravenlike shadow, growing ever larger and threatening to wrap all in lasting darkness. Loki, the spirit of evil, was fated to

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

break his chains, and he, with the life-destroying giants of the frost, would devour the very gods.

We cannot say exactly how much of this belief was held by our ancestors in England. They certainly worshiped some gods of the same names and were imbued with the same fatalism. In Beowulf there is allusion to Wyrd (fate), and the web of destiny is mentioned in several old poems.

Somber Cast of the Teutonic Mind. — The early religious beliefs of the Teuton received their gloomy coloring from the rigor of nature's forces, from the frost giants with whom he battled. The winter twilight fell upon him in his northern home about three o'clock in the afternoon. During the long evenings he would often think how the world had promised him much and given him little, and the gloom of this life would cast its shadow upon the next. Even in summer days, his leaden sky was often obscured with rain clouds driven by the restless winds. In wintry nights the hours would drag wearily as he listened to the hail or heard the half-human moaning of the fir trees.

We must remember this cast of the Teutonic mind in order to understand its literature. We find Shakespeare likening life to a fitful fever, and considering the gloomy problem of existence in the person of Hamlet. We listen to Gray, singing that everything we prize " awaits alike the inevitable hour " ; to Burns, comparing pleasure to a snowflake falling in the river ; to Poe, singing the melan- choly song of the Raven ; to Tennyson, sighing : —

" He will not hear the north wind rave, Nor, moaning, household shelter crave From winter rains that beat his grave." J

The Anglo-Saxon Language.. — Our oldest English liter-

1 The Two Voices.

THE ANGLO-SAXON LANGUAGE 15

ature is written in the language spoken by the Angles and the Saxons. This at first sight looks like a strange tongue to one conversant with modern English only; but the lan- guage that we employ to-day has the framework, the bone and sinew, of the earlier tongue. Modern English is no more unlike Anglo-Saxon than a bearded man is unlike his former childish self. A few examples will show the likeness and the difference. " The noble queen " would in Anglo-Saxon be seo alSele cwen ; "the noble queen's," ftare afielan cwene. Seo is the nominative feminine singular, ft^zre the genitive, of the definite article. The adjective and the noun also change their forms with the varying cases. In its inflections Anglo-Saxon resembles its sister language, the modern German.

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

". . . -Sy he $one feond ofercwom, gehnsegde helle gast."

Here are eight words, apparently strange, but even a novice soon recognizes five of them : he, feond (fiend), ofercwom (overcame), helle (hell), gast (ghost). The word "done, strange as it looks, is merely the article " the."

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

Let us take from the same poem another passage, con- taining the famous simile : —

". . . leoht inne stod, efne swa of hefene hadre sclne$ rodores candel."

Of these eleven words, seven may be recognized : leoht

1 6 FROM 449 A.D. TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066

(light), inne (in), stod (stood), of, hefene (heaven), seined (shineth), candel (candle).

... a light stood within,

Even so from heaven serenely shineth

The firmament's candle.

Some object to using the term "Anglo-Saxon," and insist on substituting " Old English," because it might otherwise be thought that modern English is a different language and not merely a growth. They might with equal justice claim that "grown boy" should be used in place of a new term " man," to emphasize the fact that the boy, who has grown into a man, is still the same person.

Earliest Anglo-Saxon Literature. — As in the case of the Greeks and Romans, poetry afforded the first outlet for the feelings of the Teutonic race. The first productions were handed down by memory. Poetry is easily memo- rized and naturally lends itself to singing and musical accompaniment. Under such circumstances, even prose would speedily fall into metrical form. In addition to these reasons, poetry is the most suitable vehicle of expression for the emotions. Unlike modern writers, the ancients seldom undertook to make literature unless they felt so deeply that silence was impossible.

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

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

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

FORM OF ANGLO-SAXON POETRY I?

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

" Flota famig-heals, fugle gellcost."

The floater foamy-necked, to a fowl most like.

This line, also from Beowulf, has eight syllables : —

" NTpende niht, and norSan wind." Noisome night, and northern wind.

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

" On ead, on cent, on eorcan stan.1' On wealth, on goods, on precious stone.

End rhyme is uncommon, but we must beware of think- ing that there is no rhythm, for that is a pronounced char- acteristic. Anglo-Saxon verse was intended to be sung, and hence a fixed number of beats was necessary. There are normally four accents in each line, two in the first half and two in the second. In the first half, the two alliterative syllables are accented ; in the second, besides the allitera- tive syllable, the word corresponding to the most important idea is accented. It should also be observed that allitera- tion seldom falls on any but the most important words.

The Manuscripts that have handed down Anglo-Saxon Literature. — The earliest Anglo-Saxon poetry was trans- mitted by the memories of men. Finally, with the slow growth of learning, a few acquired the art of writing, and transcribed on parchment a small portion of the current songs. The introduction ot 'Christianity ushered in prose

1 8 FROM 449 A.D. TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066

translations and a few original compositions, which were taken down on parchment and kept in the monasteries.

The study of Anglo-Saxon literature is comparatively recent, for its treasures have not been long accessible. Its most famous poem, Beowulf, was not discovered until the close of the eighteenth century. In 1822 Dr. Blume, a German professor of law, happened to find in a monastery at Vercelli, Italy, a large volume of Anglo-Saxon manu- script, containing a number of fine poems and twenty-two sermons. This is now known as the Vercelli Book. No one knows how it happened to reach Italy. Another large

EXETER CATHEDRAL

parchment volume of poems and miscellany was deposited by Bishop Leofric at the cathedral of Exeter in Devon- shire, about 1050 A.D. This collection is now called the Exeter Book, and it is still one of the prized treasures of that cathedral.

THE ANGLO-SAXON SCOP AND GLEEMAN 19

Many valuable manuscripts were destroyed at the dis- solution of the monasteries in the time of Henry VIIL, between 1535 and 1540. John Bale, a contemporary writer, says that " those who purchased the monasteries reserved the books, some to scour their candlesticks, some to rub their boots, some they sold to the grocers and soap- sellers, and some they sent over sea to the bookbinders, not in small numbers, but at times whole ships full, to the wondering of foreign nations." Part of the valuable Anglo-Saxon poem Waldhere was discovered in 1860 on leaves of parchment which had been used in binding another book.

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

We read in Beowulf fad& in Hrothgar's famous hall

"... Sair waes hearpan sweg, swutol sang scopes."

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

2O FROM 449 A.D. TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066

In addition to the scop, who was more or less permanently attached to the royal court or hall of noble/there was a craft of gleemen who roved from hall to hall. In the song of Widsid we catch a glimpse of the life of a glee- man: —

" Swa scriSende gesceapum hweorfaS gleomen gumena geond grunda fela."

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

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

The Songs of Scop and Gleeman. — The subject matter of these s©ngs was suggested by the most common experi- ences of the time. These were with war, the sea, and death.

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

" Ful oft of -Sam heape hwlnende fleag giellende gar on grome t>eode."

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

THE SONGS OF SCOP AND GLEEMAN

21

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

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

A greater sings : —

scop, looking at life through Saxon eyes?

"We are such stuff

As dreams are made on ; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep." l

Another old song, also found in the Exeter Book, is the Seafarer. We must imagine the scop recalling vivid expe- riences to our early ancestors with this song of the sea : —

" Hail flew in hard showers, And nothing I heard But the wrath of the waters, The icy-cold way ; At times the swan's song ; In the scream of the gannet I sought for my joy, In the moan of the sea whelp For laughter of men, In the song of the sea-mew For drinking of mead." 2

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

1 Shakespeare : The Tempest, Act IV., scene i .

2 Motley's translation, English Writers, Vol. II., p. 21.

HAL. ENG. LIT. 2

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

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

" Let the wind shake our flag like a feather, Like the plumes of the foam of the sea !

In the teeth of the hard glad weather, In the blown wet face of the sea." l

Another song from the Exeter Book is called The For- tunes of Men. It gives vivid pictures of certain phases of life among the Anglo-Saxons. The notes of the harp must have sounded sad, as the scop sang : —

" One shall sharp hunger slay ; One shall the storms beat down ; One be destroyed by darts, One die in war. One shall live losing The light of his eyes, Feel blindly with fingers ; And one lame of foot, With sinew-wound wearily Wasteth away, Musing and mourning. With death in his mind.

One shall die by the dagger,

In wrath, drenched with ale,

Wild through wine, on the mead bench

Too swift with his words ;

Too lightly his life

Shall the wretched one lose." 2

The songs that we have noted are only a small fraction of scopic poetry, but they will, together with Beowulf, the greatest of them all, give a fair idea of this type of verse

1 Swinburne's A Song in Time of Order.

2 Morley's English Writers, Vol. II., pp. 33, 34.

THE SONGS OF SCOP AND GLEEMAN 2$

BEOWULF

Evolution of the Poem. — The greatest monument of Anglo-Saxon poetry is called Beowulf, from the name of its hero. It is the oldest epic poem of the Teutonic race. Beowulf was probably a long time in process of evolution. Many different scops added new episodes to the song, altering it by expansion or contraction under the influence of the inspiration of the hour and the circum- stances of place and time. Finally, some monk or monks edited the poem, changing it in various ways, endeavoring especially to introduce into it Christian opinions.

Time and Place of Composition. — Critics are divided about the time and place of the composition of Beowulf. It is possible that some of the songs which enter into its framework were sung by the scop on the continent before any of our ancestors came to England; that is, before 449 A.D. With regard to the form in which we now have the poem, Ten Brink is probably right in saying that it dates from about the beginning of the eighth century. The places mentioned in the poem seem to indicate the correctness of the following statement from Stopford Brooke : " The scenery then is laid on the coast of the North Sea and the Kattegat, the first act of the poem among the Danes in Seeland, the second among the Geats in South Sweden."

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

" Before me rolleth a waste of water . . . and above me go rolling the storm clouds, the formless dark gray daughters of air, which from the

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

sea in cloudy buckets scoop up the water, ever wearied lifting and lift- ing, and then pour it again in the sea, a mournful, wearisome business. Over the sea, flat on his face, lies the monstrous, terrible North Wind, sighing and sinking his voice as in secret, like an old grumbler ; for once in good humor, unto the ocean he talks, and he tells her wonder- ful stories."

The Subject Matter. — This poem of 3 184 lines describes the deeds of the Teutonic hero Beowulf. Hrothgar, the King of the Danes, built a magnificent mead hall to which he gave the name of Heorot.1 While the Danes were eat- ing and drinking their fill in this famous hall, Grendel, a monster half-human, came from the moor, burst in upon them, mangled thirty warriors, and then rushed off into the darkness. For twelve years this monster harried the warriors whenever they feasted in the hall, until the brav- est were afraid to enter it. When Beowulf heard of this, he sailed with his warriors to Heorot, and persuaded the Danes to feast with him in the hall. After they had fallen asleep there, Grendel burst in the door, seized a warrior, and devoured him in a few mouthfuls. Then he grasped Beowulf. The hero, disdaining to use a sword against the dire monster, grappled with him, and together they wrestled up and down the hall. In their mad contest they overturned the tables and made the vast hall tremble as if it were in the throes of an earthquake.

Finally Beowulf, with a grip like that of thirty men, tore away the arm and shoulder of the monster, who rushed out to the marshes to die. The next night a banquet was given in fateful Heorot in honor of the hero. After the

1 The student will do well to note in his atlas the location which authorities have assigned to this hall. Thomas Arnold says : " The view of Sarrazin and Danish scholars that the site of Hrothgar's mansion must be placed in close proximity to that of Leire, near the head of the Roskilde Fiord in Zealand [Seeland] is now generally accepted."

BEOWULF 25

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

" My trusty friend ^schere is dead. . . . The cruel hag has wreaked on him her vengeance. The country folk said there were two of them, one the semblance of a woman ; the other, the specter of a man. Their haunt is in the remote land, in the crags of the wolf, the wind-beaten cliffs, and untrodden bogs, where the dismal stream plunges into the drear abyss of an awful lake, overhung with a dark and grizzly wood rooted down to the water's edge, where a lurid flame plays nightly on the surface of the flood — and there lives not the man who knows its depth ! So dreadful is the place that the hunted stag, hard driven by the hounds, will rather die on the bank than find a shelter there. A place of terror ! When the wind rises, the waves mingle hurly-burly with the clouds, the air is stifling and rumbles with thunder. To thee alone we look for relief.'' 1

This selection shows why the poetry of wild nature was largely a growth of later times. Ignorance peopled unknown places with monsters. Weird scenery, which might to-day move the pen of the poet, was then looked upon as the dwelling place of evil spirits. The very mists took the shape of a Grendel stalking over the moor.

Beowulf followed the bloody trail of Grendel's mother to the terrible flood. Undaunted by the dragons and serpents that made their home within the depths, he grasped a sword and plunged beneath the waves. After sinking what seemed to him a day's space, he saw Grendel's mother, who came forward to meet him. She dragged him into her dwelling, where there was no water, and the fight began. The issue was for a time doubtful,

1 Earle's translation.

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

but at last Beowulf ran her through with a gigantic sword, and she fell dead upon the floor of her dwelling. A little distance away, he saw the dead body of Grendel. The hero cut off the heads of the monster and his mother and hastened away to Hrothgar's court. After receiving much praise and many presents, Beowulf sailed homeward with his warriors, where he ruled as king for fifty years.

The closing part of the poem tells how one of Beowulf's subjects stole some of the treasure which a firedrake had for three hundred years been guarding in a cavern. The enraged monster with his fiery breath laid waste the land. Beowulf sought the dragon in his cavern and after a terri- ble fight slew the monster, but was himself mortally wounded, and died after seeing in the cavern the heaps of treasure which he had won for his people.

So passed away the hero of the earliest epic poem of any branch of the Teutonic race. Beowulf affords valu- able insight into the characteristics of that age. We are given the events of an entire day in the life of our fore- fathers. In Beowulf we look upon the scenery with which they were familiar ; we are brought face to face with their hopes and fears, their ideas of duty, their manner of regarding life, and the way they took their exit from it.

THE CEDMONIAN CYCLE

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

I

THE C^DMONIAN CYCLE 2/

Caedmon, who died in 680, was until middle life a lay- man attached to the monastery at Whitby, on the north- east coast of Yorkshire. Since the Paraphrase has been

RUINS OF WHITBY ABBEY

attributed to Caedmon on the authority of the Saxon his- torian Bede, born 673, we shall quote Bede himself on the subject, from his famous Ecclesiastical History : —

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

" Having done so at a certain time, and gone out of the house where the entertainment was, to the stable, where he had to take care of the horses that night, he there composed himself to rest at the proper time ; a person appeared to him in his sleep, and, saluting him by his name, said, 'Caedmon, sing some song to me.' He answered, ; I can- not sing; for that was the reason why I left the entertainment, and retired to this place, because I could not sing.' The other who talked

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

to him replied, 'However, you shall sing.' < What shall I sing?' re- joined he. < Sing the beginning of created beings,1 said the other. Hereupon he presently began to sing verses to the praise of God."

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

Of Caedmon's work Bede says : -

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

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

The Paraphrase is really composed of three separate poems : the Genesis, the Exodus, and the Daniel ; and these are probably the works of different writers. Crit- ics are not agreed whether any of these poems in their present form can be ascribed to Caedmon. The Genesis shows too much difference in its parts to be produced by one author, but some portions of this poem may be Caedmon's own work. The Genesis, like Milton's Paradise Lost, has for its subject matter the fall of man and its con- sequences. The Exodus, the work of an unknown writer, is a poem of much originality on the escape of the Chil-

THE C/EDMONIAN CYCLE 29

dren of Israel from Egypt, their passage through the Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh's host. The Daniel, an uninteresting poem of 765 lines, paraphrases portions of the book of Daniel, relating to Nebuchadnezzar's dreams, the fiery furnace, and Belshazzar's feast.

Characteristics of the Poetry. — No matter "who wrote the Paraphrase, we have the poetry, a fact which critics too often overlook. Though the narrative sometimes closely follows the Biblical account in Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel, there are frequent unfettered outbursts of the imagination. The Exodus rings with the warlike notes of the victorious Teutonic race.

The Genesis possesses special interest for the student, since many of its strong passages show a marked likeness to certain parts of Milton's Paradise Lost (p. 202). Some critics have concluded that Milton must have been familiar with the Caedmonian Genesis. It will be instructive to note the parallelism between the following passages from the two poems. The earlier poem pictures the home of the fallen angels as a place of

"... eternal night and sulphur pains, Fulness of fire, dread cold, reek, and red flames."

It is further described as a land

"That was without light and full of flame." 1

With this description we may compare these lines from

Milton : —

"A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,

As one great furnace flamed ; yet from those flames

No light ; but rather darkness visible.

... a fiery deluge, fed

With ever burning sulphur unconsumed."2

Morley's translation. 2 Paradise Los/, Book I., lines 61-69.

30 FROM 449 A.D. TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066 ' •

The older poet sings with forceful simplicity : —

"Then comes, at dawn, the east wind, keen with frost.'1

Milton writes : —

•". . . the parching air Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire.1' l

In the Genesis, Satan's description of his new home is as strong as in the Paradise Lost : —

"... Above, below, Here is vast fire, and never have I seen More loathly landscape ; never fade the flames, Hot over Hell.11

Here is the parallel passage from Milton : —

"Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, The seat of desolation, void of light, Save what the glimmering of these livid flames Casts pale and dreadful?112

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

" Swang ftaet fyr on twa feondes craefte."

Struck the fire asunder with fiendish craft.

u ... on each hand the flames,

Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, rolPd In billows, leave i1 th1 midst a horrid vale.11 3

It is not certain that Milton ever knew of the existence of the Caedmonian Genesis ; for he was blind three years before it was published. But whether he knew of it or not, it is a striking fact that the temper of the Teutonic mind during a thousand years should have changed so

1 Paradise Lost, II., 594. 2 Ibid., I., 180-183. 3 Ibid-> L» 222-224.

THE CYNEWULF CYCLE 31

little toward the choice and treatment of the subject of an epic, and that the first great poem known to have been written on English soil should in so many points have anticipated the greatest epic of the English race.

THE CYNEWULF CYCLE

Cynewulf's Work. — Cynewulf is the only great Anglo- Saxon poet who affixed his name to certain poems and thus settled their authorship. We know nothing of his life except what we infer from his poetry. He was born near the middle of the eighth century, and it is not unlikely that he passed part of his youth as a thane of some noble. It is improbable that he was a wandering gleeman. He became a man of wide learning, well skilled in "word- craft." Such learning could then hardly have been ac- quired outside of some monastery whither he may have retired. He shows a poet's love for the beauty of the sun and the moon (heofon-condclle\ aethelings among the constellations, for the dew and the rain, for the strife of the waves (Jwlm-ftrceci), for the steeds of the sea (sund- hengestas\ and for the " all-green " (eal-grene) earth.

The Christ, the Elene, the Juliana, and the Fates of the Apostles contain his runes, which prove that he is the au- thor of these poems. The Christ is a poem on the Savior's Nativity, Ascension, and Judgment of the world at the last day. No other Anglo-Saxon poet better represents the essence and spirit of Christianity. The description of the Last Judgment is specially powerful and dramatic : —

" Lo ! the fire blast, flaming far, fierce and hungry as a sword, Whelms the world withal ! " 1

1 Brooke's translation.

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

Cynewulf closes the poem with a picture of a happy land. This conception would never have occurred to a poet of the warlike Saxon race before the introduction of Christianity.

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

Elene, the story