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ENGLISH LITERATURE
ITS HISTORY AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE
FOR THE LIFE OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING
WORLD
A TEXT-BOOK FOR SCHOOLS
BY
WILLIAM J. LONG, PH.D. (Heidelberg)
* * * * *
TO
MY FRIEND
C H T
IN GRATITUDE FOR
HIS CONTINUED HELP IN THE
PREPARATION OF
THIS BOOK
* * * * *
PREFACE
This book, which presents the whole splendid history of English literature
from Anglo-Saxon times to the close of the Victorian Era, has three
specific aims. The first is to create or to encourage in every student the
desire to read the best books, and to know literature itself rather than
what has been written about literature. The second is to interpret
literature both personally and historically, that is, to show how a great
book generally reflects not only the author's life and thought but also the
spirit of the age and the ideals of the nation's history. The third aim is
to show, by a study of each successive period, how our literature has
steadily developed from its first simple songs and stories to its present
complexity in prose and poetry.
To carry out these aims we have introduced the following features:
(1) A brief, accurate summary of historical events and social conditions in
each period, and a consideration of the ideals which stirred the whole
nation, as in the days of Elizabeth, before they found expression in
literature.
(2) A study of the various literary epochs in turn, showing what each
gained from the epoch preceding, and how each aided in the development of a
national literature.
(3) A readable biography of every important writer, showing how he lived
and worked, how he met success or failure, how he influenced his age, and
how his age influenced him.
(4) A study and analysis of every author's best works, and of many of the
books required for college-entrance examinations.
(5) Selections enough--especially from earlier writers, and from writers
not likely to be found in the home or school library--to indicate the
spirit of each author's work; and directions as to the best works to read,
and where such works may be found in inexpensive editions.
(6) A frank, untechnical discussion of each great writer's work as a whole,
and a critical estimate of his relative place and influence in our
literature.
(7) A series of helps to students and teachers at the end of each chapter,
including summaries, selections for reading, bibliographies, a list of
suggestive questions, and a chronological table of important events in the
history and literature of each period.
(8) Throughout this book we have remembered Roger Ascham's suggestion, made
over three centuries ago and still pertinent, that "'tis a poor way to make
a child love study by beginning with the things which he naturally
dislikes." We have laid emphasis upon the delights of literature; we have
treated books not as mere instruments of research--which is the danger in
most of our studies--but rather as instruments of enjoyment and of
inspiration; and by making our study as attractive as possible we have
sought to encourage the student to read widely for himself, to choose the
best books, and to form his own judgment about what our first Anglo-Saxon
writers called "the things worthy to be remembered."
To those who may use this book in their homes or in their class rooms, the
writer ventures to offer one or two friendly suggestions out of his own
experience as a teacher of young people. First, the amount of space here
given to different periods and authors is not an index of the relative
amount of time to be spent upon the different subjects. Thus, to tell the
story of Spenser's life and ideals requires as much space as to tell the
story of Tennyson; but the average class will spend its time more
pleasantly and profitably with the latter poet than with the former.
Second, many authors who are and ought to be included in this history need
not be studied in the class room. A text-book is not a catechism but a
storehouse, in which one finds what he wants, and some good things beside.
Few classes will find time to study Blake or Newman, for instance; but in
nearly every class there will be found one or two students who are
attracted by the mysticism of Blake or by the profound spirituality of
Newman. Such students should be encouraged to follow their own spirits, and
to share with their classmates the joy of their discoveries. And they
should find in their text-book the material for their own study and
reading.
A third suggestion relates to the method of teaching literature; and here
it might be well to consider the word of a great poet,--that if you would
know where the ripest cherries are, ask the boys and the blackbirds. It is
surprising how much a young person will get out of the _Merchant of
Venice_, and somehow arrive at Shakespeare's opinion of Shylock and Portia,
if we do not bother him too much with notes and critical directions as to
what he ought to seek and find. Turn a child and a donkey loose in the same
field, and the child heads straight for the beautiful spots where brooks
are running and birds singing, while the donkey turns as naturally to weeds
and thistles. In our study of literature we have perhaps too much sympathy
with the latter, and we even insist that the child come back from his own
quest of the ideal to join us in our critical companionship. In reading
many text-books of late, and in visiting many class rooms, the writer has
received the impression that we lay too much stress on second-hand
criticism, passed down from book to book; and we set our pupils to
searching for figures of speech and elements of style, as if the great
books of the world were subject to chemical analysis. This seems to be a
mistake, for two reasons: first, the average young person has no natural
interest in such matters; and second, he is unable to appreciate them. He
feels unconsciously with Chaucer:
And as for me, though that my wit be lyte,
On bookes for to rede I me delyte.
Indeed, many mature persons (including the writer of this history) are
often unable to explain at first the charm or the style of an author who
pleases them; and the more profound the impression made by a book, the more
difficult it is to give expression to our thought and feeling. To read and
enjoy good books is with us, as with Chaucer, the main thing; to analyze
the author's style or explain our own enjoyment seems of secondary and
small importance. However that may be, we state frankly our own conviction
that the detailed study and analysis of a few standard works--which is the
only literary pabulum given to many young people in our schools--bears the
same relation to true literature that theology bears to religion, or
psychology to friendship. One is a more or less unwelcome mental
discipline; the other is the joy of life.
The writer ventures to suggest, therefore, that, since literature is our
subject, we begin and end with good books; and that we stand aside while
the great writers speak their own message to our pupils. In studying each
successive period, let the student begin by reading the best that the age
produced; let him feel in his own way the power and mystery of _Beowulf_,
the broad charity of Shakespeare, the sublimity of Milton, the romantic
enthusiasm of Scott; and then, when his own taste is pleased and satisfied,
a new one will arise,--to know something about the author, the times in
which he lived, and finally of criticism, which, in its simplicity, is the
discovery that the men and women of other ages were very much like
ourselves, loving as we love, bearing the same burdens, and following the
same ideals:
Lo, with the ancient
Roots of man's nature
Twines the eternal
Passion of song.
Ever Love fans it;
Ever Life feeds it;
Time cannot age it;
Death cannot slay.
To answer the questions which arise naturally between teacher and pupil
concerning the books that they read, is one object of this volume. It aims
not simply to instruct but also to inspire; to trace the historical
development of English literature, and at the same time to allure its
readers to the best books and the best writers. And from beginning to end
it is written upon the assumption that the first virtue of such a work is
to be accurate, and the second to be interesting.
The author acknowledges, with gratitude and appreciation, his indebtedness
to Professor William Lyon Phelps for the use of his literary map of
England, and to the keen critics, teachers of literature and history, who
have read the proofs of this book, and have improved it by their good
suggestions.
WILLIAM J. LONG STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION--THE MEANING OF LITERATURE
The Shell and the Book. Qualities of Literature. Tests of Literature. The
Object in studying Literature. Importance of Literature. Summary of the
Subject. Bibliography.
CHAPTER II. THE ANGLO-SAXON OR OLD-ENGLISH PERIOD
Our First Poetry. "Beowulf." "Widsith." "Deor's Lament." "The Seafarer."
"The Fight at Finnsburgh." "Waldere." Anglo-Saxon Life. Our First Speech.
Christian Writers. Northumbrian Literature. Bede. Caedmon. Cynewulf. Decline
of Northumbrian Literature. Alfred. Summary. Bibliography. Questions.
Chronology.
CHAPTER III. THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD
The Normans. The Conquest. Literary Ideals of the Normans. Geoffrey of
Monmouth. Work of the French Writers. Layamon's "Brut." Metrical Romances.
The Pearl. Miscellaneous Literature of the Norman Period. Summary.
Bibliography. Questions. Chronology.
CHAPTER IV. THE AGE OF CHAUCER
History of the Period. Five Writers of the Age. Chaucer. Langland. "Piers
Plowman." John Wyclif. John Mandeville. Summary. Bibliography. Questions.
Chronology.
CHAPTER V. THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING
Political Changes. Literature of the Revival. Wyatt and Surrey. Malory's
"Morte d'Arthur." Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology.
CHAPTER VI. THE AGE OF ELIZABETH
Political Summary. Characteristics of the Elizabethan Age. The Non-Dramatic
Poets. Edmund Spenser. Minor Poets. Thomas Sackville. Philip Sidney. George
Chapman. Michael Drayton. The Origin of the Drama. The Religious Period of
the Drama. Miracle and Mystery Plays. The Moral Period of the Drama. The
Interludes. The Artistic Period of the Drama. Classical Influence upon the
Drama. Shakespeare's Predecessors in the Drama. Christopher Marlowe.
Shakespeare. Decline of the Drama. Shakespeare's Contemporaries and
Successors. Ben Jonson. Beaumont and Fletcher. John Webster. Thomas
Middleton. Thomas Heywood. Thomas Dekker. Massinger, Ford, Shirley. Prose
Writers. Francis Bacon. Richard Hooker. Sidney and Raleigh. John Foxe.
Camden and Knox. Hakluyt and Purchas. Thomas North. Summary. Bibliography.
Questions. Chronology.
CHAPTER VII. THE PURITAN AGE
The Puritan Movement. Changing Ideals. Literary Characteristics. The
Transition Poets. Samuel Daniel. The Song Writers. The Spenserian Poets.
The Metaphysical Poets. John Donne. George Herbert. The Cavalier Poets.
Thomas Carew. Robert Herrick. Suckling and Lovelace. John Milton. The Prose
Writers. John Bunyan. Robert Burton. Thomas Browne. Thomas Fuller. Jeremy
Taylor. Richard Baxter. Izaak Walton. Summary. Bibliography. Questions.
Chronology.
CHAPTER VIII. PERIOD OF THE RESTORATION
History of the Period. Literary Characteristics. John Dryden. Samuel
Butler. Hobbes and Locke. Evelyn and Pepys. Summary. Bibliography.
Questions. Chronology.
CHAPTER IX. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE
History of the Period. Literary Characteristics. The Classic Age. Alexander
Pope. Jonathan Swift. Joseph Addison. "The Tatler" and "The Spectator."
Samuel Johnson. Boswell's "Life of Johnson." Later Augustan Writers. Edmund
Burke. Edward Gibbon. The Revival of Romantic Poetry. Thomas Gray. Oliver
Goldsmith. William Cowper. Robert Burns. William Blake. The Minor Poets of
the Romantic Revival. James Thomson. William Collins. George Crabbe. James
Macpherson. Thomas Chatterton. Thomas Percy. The First English Novelists.
Meaning of the Novel. Precursors of the Novel. Discovery of the Modern
Novel. Daniel Defoe. Samuel Richardson. Henry Fielding. Smollett and
Sterne. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology.
CHAPTER X. THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM
Historical Summary. Literary Characteristics of the Age. The Poets of
Romanticism. William Wordsworth. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Robert Southey.
Walter Scott. Byron. Percy Bysshe Shelley. John Keats. Prose Writers of the
Romantic Period. Charles Lamb. Thomas De Quincey. Jane Austen. Walter
Savage Landor. Summary. Bibliography. Questions. Chronology.
CHAPTER XI. THE VICTORIAN AGE
Historical Summary. Literary Characteristics. Poets of the Victorian Age.
Alfred Tennyson. Robert Browning. Minor Poets of the Victorian Age.
Elizabeth Barrett. Rossetti. Morris. Swinburne. Novelists of the Victorian
Age. Charles Dickens. William Makepeace Thackeray. George Eliot. Minor
Novelists of the Victorian Age. Charles Reade. Anthony Trollope. Charlotte
Bronte. Bulwer Lytton. Charles Kingsley. Mrs. Gaskell. Blackmore. Meredith.
Hardy. Stevenson. Essayists of the Victorian Age. Macaulay. Carlyle.
Ruskin. Matthew Arnold. Newman. The Spirit of Modern Literature. Summary.
Bibliography. Questions. Chronology.
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION--THE MEANING OF LITERATURE
Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede.
Chaucer's _Truth_
On, on, you noblest English, ...
Follow your spirit.
Shakespeare's _Henry V_
THE SHELL AND THE BOOK. A child and a man were one day walking on the
seashore when the child found a little shell and held it to his ear.
Suddenly he heard sounds,--strange, low, melodious sounds, as if the shell
were remembering and repeating to itself the murmurs of its ocean home. The
child's face filled with wonder as he listened. Here in the little shell,
apparently, was a voice from another world, and he listened with delight to
its mystery and music. Then came the man, explaining that the child heard
nothing strange; that the pearly curves of the shell simply caught a
multitude of sounds too faint for human ears, and filled the glimmering
hollows with the murmur of innumerable echoes. It was not a new world, but
only the unnoticed harmony of the old that had aroused the child's wonder.
Some such experience as this awaits us when we begin the study of
literature, which has always two aspects, one of simple enjoyment and
appreciation, the other of analysis and exact description. Let a little
song appeal to the ear, or a noble book to the heart, and for the moment,
at least, we discover a new world, a world so different from our own that
it seems a place of dreams and magic. To enter and enjoy this new world, to
love good books for their own sake, is the chief thing; to analyze and
explain them is a less joyous but still an important matter. Behind every
book is a man; behind the man is the race; and behind the race are the
natural and social environments whose influence is unconsciously reflected.
These also we must know, if the book is to speak its whole message. In a
word, we have now reached a point where we wish to understand as well as to
enjoy literature; and the first step, since exact definition is impossible,
is to determine some of its essential qualities.
QUALITIES OF LITERATURE. The first significant thing is the essentially
artistic quality of all literature. All art is the expression of life in
forms of truth and beauty; or rather, it is the reflection of some truth
and beauty which are in the world, but which remain unnoticed until brought
to our attention by some sensitive human soul, just as the delicate curves
of the shell reflect sounds and harmonies too faint to be otherwise
noticed. A hundred men may pass a hayfield and see only the sweaty toil and
the windrows of dried grass; but here is one who pauses by a Roumanian
meadow, where girls are making hay and singing as they work. He looks
deeper, sees truth and beauty where we see only dead grass, and he reflects
what he sees in a little poem in which the hay tells its own story:
Yesterday's flowers am I,
And I have drunk my last sweet draught of dew.
Young maidens came and sang me to my death;
The moon looks down and sees me in my shroud,
The shroud of my last dew.
Yesterday's flowers that are yet in me
Must needs make way for all to-morrow's flowers.
The maidens, too, that sang me to my death
Must even so make way for all the maids
That are to come.
And as my soul, so too their soul will be
Laden with fragrance of the days gone by.
The maidens that to-morrow come this way
Will not remember that I once did bloom,
For they will only see the new-born flowers.
Yet will my perfume-laden soul bring back,
As a sweet memory, to women's hearts
Their days of maidenhood.
And then they will be sorry that they came
To sing me to my death;
And all the butterflies will mourn for me.
I bear away with me
The sunshine's dear remembrance, and the low
Soft murmurs of the spring.
My breath is sweet as children's prattle is;
I drank in all the whole earth's fruitfulness,
To make of it the fragrance of my soul
That shall outlive my death.[1]
One who reads only that first exquisite line, "Yesterday's flowers am I,"
can never again see hay without recalling the beauty that was hidden from
his eyes until the poet found it.
In the same pleasing, surprising way, all artistic work must be a kind of
revelation. Thus architecture is probably the oldest of the arts; yet we
still have many builders but few architects, that is, men whose work in
wood or stone suggests some hidden truth and beauty to the human senses. So
in literature, which is the art that expresses life in words that appeal to
our own sense of the beautiful, we have many writers but few artists. In
the broadest sense, perhaps, literature means simply the written records of
the race, including all its history and sciences, as well as its poems and
novels; in the narrower sense literature is the artistic record of life,
and most of our writing is excluded from it, just as the mass of our
buildings, mere shelters from storm and from cold, are excluded from
architecture. A history or a work of science may be and sometimes is
literature, but only as we forget the subject-matter and the presentation
of facts in the simple beauty of its expression.
The second quality of literature is its suggestiveness, its appeal to our
emotions and imagination rather than to our intellect. It is not so much
what it says as what it awakens in us that constitutes its charm. When
Milton makes Satan say, "Myself am Hell," he does not state any fact, but
rather opens up in these three tremendous words a whole world of
speculation and imagination. When Faustus in the presence of Helen asks,
"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" he does not state a
fact or expect an answer. He opens a door through which our imagination
enters a new world, a world of music, love, beauty, heroism,--the whole
splendid world of Greek literature. Such magic is in words. When
Shakespeare describes the young Biron as speaking
In such apt and gracious words
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
he has unconsciously given not only an excellent description of himself,
but the measure of all literature, which makes us play truant with the
present world and run away to live awhile in the pleasant realm of fancy.
The province of all art is not to instruct but to delight; and only as
literature delights us, causing each reader to build in his own soul that
"lordly pleasure house" of which Tennyson dreamed in his "Palace of Art,"
is it worthy of its name.
The third characteristic of literature, arising directly from the other
two, is its permanence. The world does not live by bread alone.
Notwithstanding its hurry and bustle and apparent absorption in material
things, it does not willingly let any beautiful thing perish. This is even
more true of its songs than of its painting and sculpture; though
permanence is a quality we should hardly expect in the present deluge of
books and magazines pouring day and night from our presses in the name of
literature. But this problem of too many books is not modern, as we
suppose. It has been a problem ever since Caxton brought the first printing
press from Flanders, four hundred years ago, and in the shadow of
Westminster Abbey opened his little shop and advertised his wares as "good
and chepe." Even earlier, a thousand years before Caxton and his printing
press, the busy scholars of the great library of Alexandria found that the
number of parchments was much too great for them to handle; and now, when
we print more in a week than all the Alexandrian scholars could copy in a
century, it would seem impossible that any production could be permanent;
that any song or story could live to give delight in future ages. But
literature is like a river in flood, which gradually purifies itself in two
ways,--the mud settles to the bottom, and the scum rises to the top. When
we examine the writings that by common consent constitute our literature,
the clear stream purified of its dross, we find at least two more
qualities, which we call the tests of literature, and which determine its
permanence.
TESTS OF LITERATURE. The first of these is universality, that is, the
appeal to the widest human interests and the simplest human emotions.
Though we speak of national and race literatures, like the Greek or
Teutonic, and though each has certain superficial marks arising out of the
peculiarities of its own people, it is nevertheless true that good
literature knows no nationality, nor any bounds save those of humanity. It
is occupied chiefly with elementary passions and emotions,--love and hate,
joy and sorrow, fear and faith,--which are an essential part of our human
nature; and the more it reflects these emotions the more surely does it
awaken a response in men of every race. Every father must respond to the
parable of the prodigal son; wherever men are heroic, they will acknowledge
the mastery of Homer; wherever a man thinks on the strange phenomenon of
evil in the world, he will find his own thoughts in the Book of Job; in
whatever place men love their children, their hearts must be stirred by the
tragic sorrow of _Oedipus_ and _King Lear_. All these are but shining
examples of the law that only as a book or a little song appeals to
universal human interest does it become permanent.
The second test is a purely personal one, and may be expressed in the
indefinite word "style." It is only in a mechanical sense that style is
"the adequate expression of thought," or "the peculiar manner of expressing
thought," or any other of the definitions that are found in the rhetorics.
In a deeper sense, style is the man, that is, the unconscious expression of
the writer's own personality. It is the very soul of one man reflecting, as
in a glass, the thoughts and feelings of humanity. As no glass is
colorless, but tinges more or less deeply the reflections from its surface,
so no author can interpret human life without unconsciously giving to it
the native hue of his own soul. It is this intensely personal element that
constitutes style. Every permanent book has more or less of these two
elements, the objective and the subjective, the universal and the personal,
the deep thought and feeling of the race reflected and colored by the
writer's own life and experience.
THE OBJECT IN STUDYING LITERATURE. Aside from the pleasure of reading, of
entering into a new world and having our imagination quickened, the study
of literature has one definite object, and that is to know men. Now man is
ever a dual creature; he has an outward and an inner nature; he is not only
a doer of deeds, but a dreamer of dreams; and to know him, the man of any
age, we must search deeper than his history. History records his deeds, his
outward acts largely; but every great act springs from an ideal, and to
understand this we must read his literature, where we find his ideals
recorded. When we read a history of the Anglo-Saxons, for instance, we
learn that they were sea rovers, pirates, explorers, great eaters and
drinkers; and we know something of their hovels and habits, and the lands
which they harried and plundered. All that is interesting; but it does not
tell us what most we want to know about these old ancestors of ours,--not
only what they did, but what they thought and felt; how they looked on life
and death; what they loved, what they feared, and what they reverenced in
God and man. Then we turn from history to the literature which they
themselves produced, and instantly we become acquainted. These hardy people
were not simply fighters and freebooters; they were men like ourselves;
their emotions awaken instant response in the souls of their descendants.
At the words of their gleemen we thrill again to their wild love of freedom
and the open sea; we grow tender at their love of home, and patriotic at
their deathless loyalty to their chief, whom they chose for themselves and
hoisted on their shields in symbol of his leadership. Once more we grow
respectful in the presence of pure womanhood, or melancholy before the
sorrows and problems of life, or humbly confident, looking up to the God
whom they dared to call the Allfather. All these and many more intensely
real emotions pass through our souls as we read the few shining fragments
of verses that the jealous ages have left us.
It is so with any age or people. To understand them we must read not simply
their history, which records their deeds, but their literature, which
records the dreams that made their deeds possible. So Aristotle was
profoundly right when he said that "poetry is more serious and
philosophical than history"; and Goethe, when he explained literature as
"the humanization of the whole world."
IMPORTANCE OF LITERATURE. It is a curious and prevalent opinion that
literature, like all art, is a mere play of imagination, pleasing enough,
like a new novel, but without any serious or practical importance. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. Literature preserves the ideals of a
people; and ideals--love, faith, duty, friendship, freedom, reverence--are
the part of human life most worthy of preservation. The Greeks were a
marvelous people; yet of all their mighty works we cherish only a few
ideals,--ideals of beauty in perishable stone, and ideals of truth in
imperishable prose and poetry. It was simply the ideals of the Greeks and
Hebrews and Romans, preserved in their literature, which made them what
they were, and which determined their value to future generations. Our
democracy, the boast of all English-speaking nations, is a dream; not the
doubtful and sometimes disheartening spectacle presented in our legislative
halls, but the lovely and immortal ideal of a free and equal manhood,
preserved as a most precious heritage in every great literature from the
Greeks to the Anglo-Saxons. All our arts, our sciences, even our inventions
are founded squarely upon ideals; for under every invention is still the
dream of _Beowulf_, that man may overcome the forces of nature; and the
foundation of all our sciences and discoveries is the immortal dream that
men "shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
In a word, our whole civilization, our freedom, our progress, our homes,
our religion, rest solidly upon ideals for their foundation. Nothing but an
ideal ever endures upon earth. It is therefore impossible to overestimate
the practical importance of literature, which preserves these ideals from
fathers to sons, while men, cities, governments, civilizations, vanish from
the face of the earth. It is only when we remember this that we appreciate
the action of the devout Mussulman, who picks up and carefully preserves
every scrap of paper on which words are written, because the scrap may
perchance contain the name of Allah, and the ideal is too enormously
important to be neglected or lost.
SUMMARY OF THE SUBJECT. We are now ready, if not to define, at least to
understand a little more clearly the object of our present study.
Literature is the expression of life in words of truth and beauty; it is
the written record of man's spirit, of his thoughts, emotions, aspirations;
it is the history, and the only history, of the human soul. It is
characterized by its artistic, its suggestive, its permanent qualities. Its
two tests are its universal interest and its personal style. Its object,
aside from the delight it gives us, is to know man, that is, the soul of
man rather than his actions; and since it preserves to the race the ideals
upon which all our civilization is founded, it is one of the most important
and delightful subjects that can occupy the human mind.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. (NOTE. Each chapter in this book includes a special
bibliography of historical and literary works, selections for reading,
chronology, etc.; and a general bibliography of texts, helps, and reference
books will be found at the end. The following books, which are among the
best of their kind, are intended to help the student to a better
appreciation of literature and to a better knowledge of literary
criticism.)
_GENERAL WORKS_. Woodberry's Appreciation of Literature (Baker & Taylor
Co.); Gates's Studies in Appreciation (Macmillan); Bates's Talks on the
Study of Literature (Houghton, Mifflin); Worsfold's On the Exercise of
Judgment in Literature (Dent); Harrison's The Choice of Books (Macmillan);
Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, Part I; Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism.
_ESSAYS_. Emerson's Books, in Society and Solitude; Dowden's The
Interpretation of Literature, in Transcripts and Studies (Kegan Paul &
Co.), and The Teaching of English Literature, in New Studies in Literature
(Houghton, Mifflin); The Study of Literature, Essays by Morley, Nicolls,
and L. Stephen, edited by A.F. Blaisdell (Willard Small).
_CRITICISM_. Gayley and Scott's An Introduction to the Methods and
Materials of Literary Criticism (Ginn and Company); Winchester's Principles
of Literary Criticism (Macmillan); Worsfold's Principles of Criticism
(Longmans); Johnson's Elements of Literary Criticism (American Book
Company); Saintsbury's History of Criticism (Dodd, Mead).
_POETRY_. Gummere's Handbook of Poetics (Ginn and Company); Stedman's The
Nature and Elements of Poetry (Houghton, Mifflin); Johnson's The Forms of
English Poetry (American Book Company); Alden's Specimens of English Verse
(Holt); Gummere's The Beginnings of Poetry (Macmillan); Saintsbury's
History of English Prosody (Macmillan).
_THE DRAMA_. Caffin's Appreciation of the Drama (Baker & Taylor Co.).
_THE NOVEL_. Raleigh's The English Novel (Scribner); Hamilton's The
Materials and Methods of Fiction (Baker & Taylor Co.).
* * * * *
CHAPTER II
THE ANGLO-SAXON OR OLD-ENGLISH PERIOD (450-1050)
I. OUR FIRST POETRY
BEOWULF. Here is the story of Beowulf, the earliest and the greatest epic,
or heroic poem, in our literature. It begins with a prologue, which is not
an essential part of the story, but which we review gladly for the sake of
the splendid poetical conception that produced Scyld, king of the Spear
Danes.[2]
At a time when the Spear Danes were without a king, a ship came sailing
into their harbor. It was filled with treasures and weapons of war; and in
the midst of these warlike things was a baby sleeping. No man sailed the
ship; it came of itself, bringing the child, whose name was Scyld.
Now Scyld grew and became a mighty warrior, and led the Spear Danes for
many years, and was their king. When his son Beowulf[3] had become strong
and wise enough to rule, then Wyrd (Fate), who speaks but once to any man,
came and stood at hand; and it was time for Scyld to go. This is how they
buried him:
Then Scyld departed, at word of Wyrd spoken,
The hero to go to the home of the gods.
Sadly they bore him to brink of the ocean,
Comrades, still heeding his word of command.
There rode in the harbor the prince's ship, ready,
With prow curving proudly and shining sails set.
Shipward they bore him, their hero beloved;
The mighty they laid at the foot of the mast.
Treasures were there from far and near gathered,
Byrnies of battle, armor and swords;
Never a keel sailed out of a harbor
So splendidly tricked with the trappings of war.
They heaped on his bosom a hoard of bright jewels
To fare with him forth on the flood's great breast.
No less gift they gave than the Unknown provided,
When alone, as a child, he came in from the mere.
High o'er his head waved a bright golden standard--
Now let the waves bear their wealth to the holm.
Sad-souled they gave back its gift to the ocean,
Mournful their mood as he sailed out to sea.[4]
"And no man," says the poet, "neither counselor nor hero, can tell who
received that lading."
One of Scyld's descendants was Hrothgar, king of the Danes; and with him
the story of our Beowulf begins. Hrothgar in his old age had built near the
sea a mead hall called Heorot, the most splendid hall in the whole world,
where the king and his thanes gathered nightly to feast and to listen to
the songs of his gleemen. One night, as they were all sleeping, a frightful
monster, Grendel, broke into the hall, killed thirty of the sleeping
warriors, and carried off their bodies to devour them in his lair under the
sea. The appalling visit was speedily repeated, and fear and death reigned
in the great hall. The warriors fought at first; but fled when they
discovered that no weapon could harm the monster. Heorot was left deserted
and silent. For twelve winters Grendel's horrible raids continued, and joy
was changed to mourning among the Spear Danes.
At last the rumor of Grendel crossed over the sea to the land of the Geats,
where a young hero dwelt in the house of his uncle, King Hygelac. Beowulf
was his name, a man of immense strength and courage, and a mighty swimmer
who had developed his powers fighting the "nickers," whales, walruses and
seals, in the icebound northern ocean. When he heard the story, Beowulf was
stirred to go and fight the monster and free the Danes, who were his
father's friends.
With fourteen companions he crosses the sea. There is an excellent bit of
ocean poetry here (ll. 210-224), and we get a vivid idea of the hospitality
of a brave people by following the poet's description of Beowulf's meeting
with King Hrothgar and Queen Wealhtheow, and of the joy and feasting and
story-telling in Heorot. The picture of Wealhtheow passing the mead cup to
the warriors with her own hand is a noble one, and plainly indicates the
reverence paid by these strong men to their wives and mothers. Night comes
on; the fear of Grendel is again upon the Danes, and all withdraw after the
king has warned Beowulf of the frightful danger of sleeping in the hall.
But Beowulf lies down with his warriors, saying proudly that, since weapons
will not avail against the monster, he will grapple with him bare handed
and trust to a warrior's strength.
Forth from the fens, from the misty moorlands,
Grendel came gliding--God's wrath[5] he bore--
Came under clouds, until he saw clearly,
Glittering with gold plates, the mead hall of men.
Down fell the door, though fastened with fire bands;
Open it sprang at the stroke of his paw.
Swollen with rage burst in the bale-bringer;
Flamed in his eyes a fierce light, likest fire.[6]
At the sight of men again sleeping in the hall, Grendel laughs in his
heart, thinking of his feast. He seizes the nearest sleeper, crushes his
"bone case" with a bite, tears him limb from limb, and swallows him. Then
he creeps to the couch of Beowulf and stretches out a claw, only to find it
clutched in a grip of steel. A sudden terror strikes the monster's heart.
He roars, struggles, tries to jerk his arm free; but Beowulf leaps to his
feet and grapples his enemy bare handed. To and fro they surge. Tables are
overturned; golden benches ripped from their fastenings; the whole building
quakes, and only its iron bands keep it from falling to pieces. Beowulf's
companions are on their feet now, hacking vainly at the monster with swords
and battle-axes, adding their shouts to the crashing of furniture and the
howling "war song" of Grendel. Outside in the town the Danes stand
shivering at the uproar. Slowly the monster struggles to the door, dragging
Beowulf, whose fingers crack with the strain, but who never relaxes his
first grip. Suddenly a wide wound opens in the monster's side; the sinews
snap; the whole arm is wrenched off at the shoulder; and Grendel escapes
shrieking across the moor, and plunges into the sea to die.
Beowulf first exults in his night's work; then he hangs the huge arm with
its terrible claws from a cross-beam over the king's seat, as one would
hang up a bear's skin after a hunt. At daylight came the Danes; and all day
long, in the intervals of singing, story-telling, speech making, and gift
giving, they return to wonder at the mighty "grip of Grendel" and to
rejoice in Beowulf's victory.
When night falls a great feast is spread in Heorot, and the Danes sleep
once more in the great hall. At midnight comes another monster, a horrible,
half-human creature,[7] mother of Grendel, raging to avenge her offspring.
She thunders at the door; the Danes leap up and grasp their weapons; but
the monster enters, seizes Aeschere, who is friend and adviser of the king,
and rushes away with him over the fens.
The old scenes of sorrow are reviewed in the morning; but Beowulf says
simply:
Sorrow not, wise man. It is better for each
That his friend he avenge than that he mourn much.
Each of us shall the end await
Of worldly life: let him who may gain
Honor ere death. That is for a warrior,
When he is dead, afterwards best.
Arise, kingdom's guardian! Let us quickly go
To view the track of Grendel's kinsman.
I promise it thee: he will not escape,
Nor in earth's bosom, nor in mountain-wood,
Nor in ocean's depths, go where he will.[8]
Then he girds himself for the new fight and follows the track of the second
enemy across the fens. Here is Hrothgar's description of the place where
live the monsters, "spirits of elsewhere," as he calls them:
They inhabit
The dim land that gives shelter to the wolf,
The windy headlands, perilous fen paths,
Where, under mountain mist, the stream flows down
And floods the ground. Not far hence, but a mile,
The mere stands, over which hang death-chill groves,
A wood fast-rooted overshades the flood;
There every night a ghastly miracle
Is seen, fire in the water. No man knows,
Not the most wise, the bottom of that mere.
The firm-horned heath-stalker, the hart, when pressed,
Wearied by hounds, and hunted from afar,
Will rather die of thirst upon its bank
Than bend his head to it. It is unholy.
Dark to the clouds its yeasty waves mount up
When wind stirs hateful tempest, till the air
Grows dreary, and the heavens pour down tears.[9]
Beowulf plunges into the horrible place, while his companions wait for him
oh the shore. For a long time he sinks through the flood; then, as he
reaches bottom, Grendel's mother rushes out upon him and drags him into a
cave, where sea monsters swarm at him from behind and gnash his armor with
their tusks. The edge of his sword is turned with the mighty blow he deals
the _merewif_; but it harms not the monster. Casting the weapon aside, he
grips her and tries to hurl her down, while her claws and teeth clash upon
his corslet but cannot penetrate the steel rings. She throws her bulk upon
him, crushes him down, draws a short sword and plunges it at him; but again
his splendid byrnie saves him. He is wearied now, and oppressed. Suddenly,
as his eye sweeps the cave, he catches sight of a magic sword, made by the
giants long ago, too heavy for warriors to wield. Struggling up he seizes
the weapon, whirls it and brings down a crashing blow upon the monster's
neck. It smashes through the ring bones; the _merewif_ falls, and the fight
is won.
The cave is full of treasures; but Beowulf heeds them not, for near him
lies Grendel, dead from the wound received the previous night. Again
Beowulf swings the great sword and strikes off his enemy's head; and lo, as
the venomous blood touches the sword blade, the steel melts like ice before
the fire, and only the hilt is left in Beowulf's hand. Taking the hilt and
the head, the hero enters the ocean and mounts up to the shore.
Only his own faithful band were waiting there; for the Danes, seeing the
ocean bubble with fresh blood, thought it was all over with the hero and
had gone home. And there they were, mourning in Heorot, when Beowulf
returned with the monstrous head of Grendel carried on a spear shaft by
four of his stoutest followers.
In the last part of the poem there is another great fight. Beowulf is now
an old man; he has reigned for fifty years, beloved by all his people. He
has overcome every enemy but one, a fire dragon keeping watch over an
enormous treasure hidden among the mountains. One day a wanderer stumbles
upon the enchanted cave and, entering, takes a jeweled cup while the
firedrake sleeps heavily. That same night the dragon, in a frightful rage,
belching forth fire and smoke, rushes down upon the nearest villages,
leaving a trail of death and terror behind him.
Again Beowulf goes forth to champion his people. As he approaches the
dragon's cave, he has a presentiment that death lurks within:
Sat on the headland there the warrior king;
Farewell he said to hearth-companions true,
The gold-friend of the Geats; his mind was sad,
Death-ready, restless. And Wyrd was drawing nigh,
Who now must meet and touch the aged man,
To seek the treasure that his soul had saved
And separate his body from his life.[10]
There is a flash of illumination, like that which comes to a dying man, in
which his mind runs back over his long life and sees something of profound
meaning in the elemental sorrow moving side by side with magnificent
courage. Then follows the fight with the firedrake, in which Beowulf,
wrapped in fire and smoke, is helped by the heroism of Wiglaf, one of his
companions. The dragon is slain, but the fire has entered Beowulf's lungs
and he knows that Wyrd is at hand. This is his thought, while Wiglaf
removes his battered armor:
"One deep regret I have: that to a son
I may not give the armor I have worn,
To bear it after me. For fifty years
I ruled these people well, and not a king
Of those who dwell around me, dared oppress
Or meet me with his hosts. At home I waited
For the time that Wyrd controls. Mine own I kept,
Nor quarrels sought, nor ever falsely swore.
Now, wounded sore, I wait for joy to come."[11]
He sends Wiglaf into the firedrake's cave, who finds it filled with rare
treasures and, most wonderful of all, a golden banner from which light
proceeds and illumines all the darkness. But Wiglaf cares little for the
treasures; his mind is full of his dying chief. He fills his hands with
costly ornaments and hurries to throw them at his hero's feet. The old man
looks with sorrow at the gold, thanks the "Lord of all" that by death he
has gained more riches for his people, and tells his faithful thane how his
body shall be burned on the Whale ness, or headland:
"My life is well paid for this hoard; and now
Care for the people's needs. I may no more
Be with them. Bid the warriors raise a barrow
After the burning, on the ness by the sea,
On Hronesness, which shall rise high and be
For a remembrance to my people. Seafarers
Who from afar over the mists of waters
Drive foamy keels may call it Beowulf's Mount
Hereafter." Then the hero from his neck
Put off a golden collar; to his thane,
To the young warrior, gave it with his helm,
Armlet and corslet; bade him use them well.
"Thou art the last Waegmunding of our race,
For fate has swept my kinsmen all away.
Earls in their strength are to their Maker gone,
And I must follow them."[12]
Beowulf was still living when Wiglaf sent a messenger hurriedly to his
people; when they came they found him dead, and the huge dragon dead on the
sand beside him.
Then the Goth's people reared a mighty pile
With shields and armour hung, as he had asked,
And in the midst the warriors laid their lord,
Lamenting. Then the warriors on the mount
Kindled a mighty bale fire; the smoke rose
Black from the Swedish pine, the sound of flame
Mingled with sound of weeping; ... while smoke
Spread over heaven. Then upon the hill
The people of the Weders wrought a mound,
High, broad, and to be seen far out at sea.
In ten days they had built and walled it in
As the wise thought most worthy; placed in it
Rings, jewels, other treasures from the hoard.
They left the riches, golden joy of earls,
In dust, for earth to hold; where yet it lies,
Useless as ever. Then about the mound
The warriors rode, and raised a mournful song
For their dead king; exalted his brave deeds,
Holding it fit men honour their liege lord,
Praise him and love him when his soul is fled.
Thus the [Geat's] people, sharers of his hearth,
Mourned their chief's fall, praised him, of kings, of men
The mildest and the kindest, and to all
His people gentlest, yearning for their praise.[13]
One is tempted to linger over the details of the magnificent ending: the
unselfish heroism of Beowulf, the great prototype of King Alfred; the
generous grief of his people, ignoring gold and jewels in the thought of
the greater treasure they had lost; the memorial mound on the low cliff,
which would cause every returning mariner to steer a straight course to
harbor in the remembrance of his dead hero; and the pure poetry which marks
every noble line. But the epic is great enough and simple enough to speak
for itself. Search the literatures of the world, and you will find no other
such picture of a brave man's death.
Concerning the history of _Beowulf_ a whole library has been written, and
scholars still differ too radically for us to express a positive judgment.
This much, however, is clear,--that there existed, at the time the poem was
composed, various northern legends of Beowa, a half-divine hero, and the
monster Grendel. The latter has been interpreted in various
ways,--sometimes as a bear, and again as the malaria of the marsh lands.
For those interested in symbols the simplest interpretation of these myths
is to regard Beowulf's successive fights with the three dragons as the
overcoming, first, of the overwhelming danger of the sea, which was beaten
back by the dykes; second, the conquering of the sea itself, when men
learned to sail upon it; and third, the conflict with the hostile forces of
nature, which are overcome at last by man's indomitable will and
perseverance.
All this is purely mythical; but there are historical incidents to reckon
with. About the year 520 a certain northern chief, called by the chronicler
Chochilaicus (who is generally identified with the Hygelac of the epic),
led a huge plundering expedition up the Rhine. After a succession of
battles he was overcome by the Franks, but--and now we enter a legendary
region once more--not until a gigantic nephew of Hygelac had performed
heroic feats of valor, and had saved the remnants of the host by a
marvelous feat of swimming. The majority of scholars now hold that these
historical events and personages were celebrated in the epic; but some
still assert that the events which gave a foundation for _Beowulf_ occurred
wholly on English soil, where the poem itself was undoubtedly written.
The rhythm of _Beowulf_ and indeed of all our earliest poetry depended upon
accent and alliteration; that is, the beginning of two or more words in the
same line with the same sound or letter. The lines were made up of two
short halves, separated by a pause. No rime was used; but a musical effect
was produced by giving each half line two strongly accented syllables. Each
full line, therefore, had four accents, three of which (i.e. two in the
first half, and one in the second) usually began with the same sound or
letter. The musical effect was heightened by the harp with which the
gleeman accompanied his singing.. The poetical form will be seen clearly in
the following selection from the wonderfully realistic description of the
fens haunted by Grendel. It will need only one or two readings aloud to
show that many of these strange-looking words are practically the same as
those we still use, though many of the vowel sounds were pronounced
differently by our ancestors.
... Hie dygel lond
Warigeath, wulf-hleothu, windige naessas,
Frecne fen-gelad, thaer fyrgen-stream
Under naessa genipu nither gewiteth,
Flod under foldan. Nis thaet feor heonon,
Mil-gemearces, thaet se mere standeth,
Ofer thaem hongiath hrinde bearwas
... They (a) darksome land
Ward (inhabit), wolf cliffs, windy nesses,
Frightful fen paths where mountain stream
Under nesses' mists nether (downward) wanders,
A flood under earth. It is not far hence,
By mile measure, that the mere stands,
Over which hang rimy groves.
WIDSITH. The poem "Widsith," the wide goer or wanderer, is in part, at
least, probably the oldest in our language. The author and the date of its
composition are unknown; but the personal account of the minstrel's life
belongs to the time before the Saxons first came to England.[14] It
expresses the wandering life of the gleeman, who goes forth into the world
to abide here or there, according as he is rewarded for his singing. From
the numerous references to rings and rewards, and from the praise given to
generous givers, it would seem that literature as a paying profession began
very early in our history, and also that the pay was barely sufficient to
hold soul and body together. Of all our modern poets, Goldsmith wandering
over Europe paying for his lodging with his songs is most suggestive of
this first recorded singer of our race. His last lines read:
Thus wandering, they who shape songs for men
Pass over many lands, and tell their need,
And speak their thanks, and ever, south or north,
Meet someone skilled in songs and free in gifts,
Who would be raised among his friends to fame
And do brave deeds till light and life are gone.
He who has thus wrought himself praise shall have
A settled glory underneath the stars.[15]
DEOR'S LAMENT. In "Deor" we have another picture of the Saxon scop, or
minstrel, not in glad wandering, but in manly sorrow. It seems that the
scop's living depended entirely upon his power to please his chief, and
that at any time he might be supplanted by a better poet. Deor had this
experience, and comforts himself in a grim way by recalling various
examples of men who have suffered more than himself. The poem is arranged
in strophes, each one telling of some afflicted hero and ending with the
same refrain: _His sorrow passed away; so will mine_. "Deor" is much more
poetic than "Widsith," and is the one perfect lyric[16] of the Anglo-Saxon
period.
Weland for a woman knew too well exile.
Strong of soul that earl, sorrow sharp he bore;
To companionship he had care and weary longing,
Winter-freezing wretchedness. Woe he found again, again,
After that Nithhad in a need had laid him--
Staggering sinew-wounds--sorrow-smitten man!
_That he overwent; this also may I_.[17]
THE SEAFARER. The wonderful poem of "The Seafarer" seems to be in two
distinct parts. The first shows the hardships of ocean life; but stronger
than hardships is the subtle call of the sea. The second part is an
allegory, in which the troubles of the seaman are symbols of the troubles
of this life, and the call of the ocean is the call in the soul to be up
and away to its true home with God. Whether the last was added by some monk
who saw the allegorical possibilities of the first part, or whether some
sea-loving Christian scop wrote both, is uncertain. Following are a few
selected lines to show the spirit of the poem:
The hail flew in showers about me; and there I heard only
The roar of the sea, ice-cold waves, and the song of the swan;
For pastime the gannets' cry served me; the kittiwakes' chatter
For laughter of men; and for mead drink the call of the sea mews.
When storms on the rocky cliffs beat, then the terns, icy-feathered,
Made answer; full oft the sea eagle forebodingly screamed,
The eagle with pinions wave-wet....
The shadows of night became darker, it snowed from the north;
The world was enchained by the frost; hail fell upon earth;
'T was the coldest of grain. Yet the thoughts of my heart now are throbbing
To test the high streams, the salt waves in tumultuous play.
Desire in my heart ever urges my spirit to wander,
To seek out the home of the stranger in lands afar off.
There is no one that dwells upon earth, so exalted in mind,
But that he has always a longing, a sea-faring passion
For what the Lord God shall bestow, be it honor or death.
No heart for the harp has he, nor for acceptance of treasure,
No pleasure has he in a wife, no delight in the world,
Nor in aught save the roll of the billows; but always a longing,
A yearning uneasiness, hastens him on to the sea.
The woodlands are captured by blossoms, the hamlets grow fair,
Broad meadows are beautiful, earth again bursts into life,
And all stir the heart of the wanderer eager to journey,
So he meditates going afar on the pathway of tides.
The cuckoo, moreover, gives warning with sorrowful note,
Summer's harbinger sings, and forebodes to the heart bitter sorrow.
Now my spirit uneasily turns in the heart's narrow chamber,
Now wanders forth over the tide, o'er the home of the whale,
To the ends of the earth--and comes back to me.
Eager and greedy,
The lone wanderer screams, and resistlessly drives my soul onward,
Over the whale-path, over the tracts of the sea.[18]
THE FIGHT AT FINNSBURGH AND WALDERE. Two other of our oldest poems well
deserve mention. The "Fight at Finnsburgh" is a fragment of fifty lines,
discovered on the inside of a piece of parchment drawn over the wooden
covers of a book of homilies. It is a magnificent war song, describing with
Homeric power the defense of a hall by Hnaef[19] with sixty warriors,
against the attack of Finn and his army. At midnight, when Hnaef and his men
are sleeping, they are surrounded by an army rushing in with fire and
sword. Hnaef springs to his feet at the first alarm and wakens his warriors
with a call to action that rings like a bugle blast:
This no eastward dawning is, nor is here a dragon flying,
Nor of this high hall are the horns a burning;
But they rush upon us here--now the ravens sing,
Growling is the gray wolf, grim the war-wood rattles,
Shield to shaft is answering.[20]
The fight lasts five days, but the fragment ends before we learn the
outcome: The same fight is celebrated by Hrothgar's gleeman at the feast in
Heorot, after the slaying of Grendel.
"Waldere" is a fragment of two leaves, from which we get only a glimpse of
the story of Waldere (Walter of Aquitaine) and his betrothed bride
Hildgund, who were hostages at the court of Attila. They escaped with a
great treasure, and in crossing the mountains were attacked by Gunther and
his warriors, among whom was Walter's former comrade, Hagen. Walter fights
them all and escapes. The same story was written in Latin in the tenth
century, and is also part of the old German _Nibelungenlied_. Though the
saga did not originate with the Anglo-Saxons, their version of it is the
oldest that has come down to us. The chief significance of these "Waldere"
fragments lies in the evidence they afford that our ancestors were familiar
with the legends and poetry of other Germanic peoples.
II. ANGLO-SAXON LIFE
We have now read some of our earliest records, and have been surprised,
perhaps, that men who are generally described in the histories as savage
fighters and freebooters could produce such excellent poetry. It is the
object of the study of all literature to make us better acquainted with
men,--not simply with their deeds, which is the function of history, but
with the dreams and ideals which underlie all their actions. So a reading
of this early Anglo-Saxon poetry not only makes us acquainted, but also
leads to a profound respect for the men who were our ancestors. Before we
study more of their literature it is well to glance briefly at their life
and language.
THE NAME Originally the name Anglo-Saxon denotes two of the three Germanic
tribes,--Jutes, Angles, and Saxons,--who in the middle of the fifth
century left their homes on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic to
conquer and colonize distant Britain. Angeln was the home of one tribe, and
the name still clings to the spot whence some of our forefathers sailed on
their momentous voyage. The old Saxon word _angul_ or _ongul_ means a hook,
and the English verb _angle_ is used invariably by Walton and older writers
in the sense of fishing. We may still think, therefore, of the first Angles
as hook-men, possibly because of their fishing, more probably because the
shore where they lived, at the foot of the peninsula of Jutland, was bent
in the shape of a fishhook. The name Saxon from _seax, sax_, a short sword,
means the sword-man, and from the name we may judge something of the temper
of the hardy fighters who preceded the Angles into Britain. The Angles were
the most numerous of the conquering tribes, and from them the new home was
called Anglalond. By gradual changes this became first Englelond and then
England.
More than five hundred years after the landing of these tribes, and while
they called themselves Englishmen, we find the Latin writers of the Middle
Ages speaking of the inhabitants of Britain as _Anglisaxones_,--that is,
Saxons of England,--to distinguish them from the Saxons of the Continent.
In the Latin charters of King Alfred the same name appears; but it is never
seen or heard in his native speech. There he always speaks of his beloved
"Englelond" and of his brave "Englisc" people. In the sixteenth century,
when the old name of Englishmen clung to the new people resulting from the
union of Saxon and Norman, the name Anglo-Saxon was first used in the
national sense by the scholar Camden[21] in his _History of Britain_; and
since then it has been in general use among English writers. In recent
years the name has gained a wider significance, until it is now used to
denote a spirit rather than a nation, the brave, vigorous, enlarging spirit
that characterizes the English-speaking races everywhere, and that has
already put a broad belt of English law and English liberty around the
whole world.
THE LIFE. If the literature of a people springs directly out of its life,
then the stern, barbarous life of our Saxon forefathers would seem, at
first glance, to promise little of good literature. Outwardly their life
was a constant hardship, a perpetual struggle against savage nature and
savage men. Behind them were gloomy forests inhabited by wild beasts and
still wilder men, and peopled in their imagination with dragons and evil
shapes. In front of them, thundering at the very dikes for entrance, was
the treacherous North Sea, with its fogs and storms and ice, but with that
indefinable call of the deep that all men hear who live long beneath its
influence. Here they lived, a big, blond, powerful race, and hunted and
fought and sailed, and drank and feasted when their labor was done. Almost
the first thing we notice about these big, fearless, childish men is that
they love the sea; and because they love it they hear and answer its call:
... No delight has he in the world,
Nor in aught save the roll of the billows; but always a longing,
A yearning uneasiness, hastens him on to the sea.[22]
As might be expected, this love of the ocean finds expression in all their
poetry. In _Beowulf_ alone there are fifteen names for the sea, from the
_holm_, that is, the horizon sea, the "upmounding," to the _brim_, which is
the ocean flinging its welter of sand and creamy foam upon the beach at
your feet. And the figures used to describe or glorify it--"the swan road,
the whale path, the heaving battle plain"--are almost as numerous. In all
their poetry there is a magnificent sense of lordship over the wild sea
even in its hour of tempest and fury:
Often it befalls us, on the ocean's highways,
In the boats our boatmen, when the storm is roaring,
Leap the billows over, on our stallions of the foam.[23]
THE INNER LIFE. A man's life is more than his work; his dream is ever
greater than his achievement; and literature reflects not so much man's
deed as the spirit which animates him; not the poor thing that he does, but
rather the splendid thing that he ever hopes to do. In no place is this
more evident than in the age we are now studying. Those early sea kings
were a marvelous mixture of savagery and sentiment, of rough living and of
deep feeling, of splendid courage and the deep melancholy of men who know
their limitations and have faced the unanswered problem of death. They were
not simply fearless freebooters who harried every coast in their war
galleys. If that were all, they would have no more history or literature
than the Barbary pirates, of whom the same thing could be said. These
strong fathers of ours were men of profound emotions. In all their fighting
the love of an untarnished glory was uppermost; and under the warrior's
savage exterior was hidden a great love of home and homely virtues, and a
reverence for the one woman to whom he would presently return in triumph.
So when the wolf hunt was over, or the desperate fight was won, these
mighty men would gather in the banquet hall, and lay their weapons aside
where the open fire would flash upon them, and there listen to the songs of
Scop and Gleeman,--men who could put into adequate words the emotions and
aspirations that all men feel but that only a few can ever express:
Music and song where the heroes sat--
The glee-wood rang, a song uprose
When Hrothgar's scop gave the hall good cheer.[24]
It is this great and hidden life of the Anglo-Saxons that finds expression
in all their literature. Briefly, it is summed up in five great
principles,--their love of personal freedom, their responsiveness to
nature, their religion, their reverence for womanhood, and their struggle
for glory as a ruling motive in every noble life.
In reading Anglo-Saxon poetry it is well to remember these five principles,
for they are like the little springs at the head of a great river,--clear,
pure springs of poetry, and out of them the best of our literature has
always flowed. Thus when we read,
Blast of the tempest--it aids our oars;
Rolling of thunder--it hurts us not;
Rush of the hurricane--bending its neck
To speed us whither our wills are bent,
we realize that these sea rovers had the spirit of kinship with the mighty
life of nature; and kinship with nature invariably expresses itself in
poetry. Again, when we read,
Now hath the man
O'ercome his troubles. No pleasure does he lack,
Nor steeds, nor jewels, nor the joys of mead,
Nor any treasure that the earth can give,
O royal woman, if he have but thee,[25]
we know we are dealing with an essentially noble man, not a savage; we are
face to face with that profound reverence for womanhood which inspires the
greater part of all good poetry, and we begin to honor as well as
understand our ancestors. So in the matter of glory or honor; it was,
apparently, not the love of fighting, but rather the love of honor
resulting from fighting well, which animated our forefathers in every
campaign. "He was a man deserving of remembrance" was the highest thing
that could be said of a dead warrior; and "He is a man deserving of praise"
was the highest tribute to the living. The whole secret of Beowulf's mighty
life is summed up in the last line, "Ever yearning for his people's
praise." So every tribe had its scop, or poet, more important than any
warrior, who put the deeds of its heroes into the expressive words that
constitute literature; and every banquet hall had its gleeman, who sang the
scop's poetry in order that the deed and the man might be remembered.
Oriental peoples built monuments to perpetuate the memory of their dead;
but our ancestors made poems, which should live and stir men's souls long
after monuments of brick and stone had crumbled away. It is to this intense
love of glory and the desire to be remembered that we are indebted for
Anglo-Saxon literature.
OUR FIRST SPEECH. Our first recorded speech begins with the songs of
Widsith and Deor, which the Anglo-Saxons may have brought with them when
they first conquered Britain. At first glance these songs in their native
dress look strange as a foreign tongue; but when we examine them carefully
we find many words that have been familiar since childhood. We have seen
this in _Beowulf_; but in prose the resemblance of this old speech to our
own is even more striking. Here, for instance, is a fragment of the simple
story of the conquest of Britain by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors:
Her Hengest and AEsc his sunu gefuhton with Bryttas, on thaere
stowe the is gecweden Creccanford, and thaer ofslogon feower thusenda wera.
And tha Bryttas tha forleton Cent-lond, and mid myclum ege flugon to
Lundenbyrig. (At this time Hengest and Aesc, his son, fought against the
Britons at the place which is called Crayford and there slew four thousand
men. And then the Britons forsook Kentland, and with much fear fled to
London town.)[26]
The reader who utters these words aloud a few times will speedily recognize
his own tongue, not simply in the words but also in the whole structure of
the sentences.
From such records we see that our speech is Teutonic in its origin; and
when we examine any Teutonic language we learn that it is only a branch of
the great Aryan or Indo-European family of languages. In life and language,
therefore, we are related first to the Teutonic races, and through them to
all the nations of this Indo-European family, which, starting with enormous
vigor from their original home (probably in central Europe)[27] spread
southward and westward, driving out the native tribes and slowly developing
the mighty civilizations of India, Persia, Greece, Rome, and the wilder but
more vigorous life of the Celts and Teutons. In all these
languages--Sanskrit, Iranian, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Teutonic--we recognize
the same root words for father and mother, for God and man, for the common
needs and the common relations of life; and since words are windows through
which we see the soul of this old people, we find certain ideals of love,
home, faith, heroism, liberty, which seem to have been the very life of our
forefathers, and which were inherited by them from their old heroic and
conquering ancestors. It was on the borders of the North Sea that our
fathers halted for unnumbered centuries on their westward journey, and
slowly developed the national life and language which we now call Anglo-
Saxon.
It is this old vigorous Anglo-Saxon language which forms the basis of our
modern English. If we read a paragraph from any good English book, and then
analyze it, as we would a flower, to see what it contains, we find two
distinct classes of words. The first class, containing simple words
expressing the common things of life, makes up the strong framework of our
language. These words are like the stem and bare branches of a mighty oak,
and if we look them up in the dictionary we find that almost invariably
they come to us from our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. The second and larger class
of words is made up of those that give grace, variety, ornament, to our
speech. They are like the leaves and blossoms of the same tree, and when we
examine their history we find that they come to us from the Celts, Romans,
Normans, and other peoples with whom we have been in contact in the long
years of our development. The most prominent characteristic of our present
language, therefore, is its dual character. Its best qualities--strength,
simplicity, directness--come from Anglo-Saxon sources; its enormous added
wealth of expression, its comprehensiveness, its plastic adaptability to
new conditions and ideas, are largely the result of additions from other
languages, and especially of its gradual absorption of the French language
after the Norman Conquest. It is this dual character, this combination of
native and foreign, of innate and exotic elements, which accounts for the
wealth of our English language and literature. To see it in concrete form,
we should read in succession _Beowulf_ and _Paradise Lost_, the two great
epics which show the root and the flower of our literary development.
III. CHRISTIAN WRITERS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD
The literature of this period falls naturally into two divisions,--pagan
and Christian. The former represents the poetry which the Anglo-Saxons
probably brought with them in the form of oral sagas,--the crude material
out of which literature was slowly developed on English soil; the latter
represents the writings developed under teaching of the monks, after the
old pagan religion had vanished, but while it still retained its hold on
the life and language of the people. In reading our earliest poetry it is
well to remember that all of it was copied by the monks, and seems to have
been more or less altered to give it a religious coloring.
The coming of Christianity meant not simply a new life and leader for
England; it meant also the wealth of a new language. The scop is now
replaced by the literary monk; and that monk, though he lives among common
people and speaks with the English tongue, has behind him all the culture
and literary resources of the Latin language. The effect is seen instantly
in our early prose and poetry.
NORTHUMBRIAN LITERATURE. In general, two great schools of Christian
influence came into England, and speedily put an end to the frightful wars
that had waged continually among the various petty kingdoms of the
Anglo-Saxons. The first of these, under the leadership of Augustine, came
from Rome. It spread in the south and center of England, especially in the
kingdom of Essex. It founded schools and partially educated the rough
people, but it produced no lasting literature. The other, under the
leadership of the saintly Aidan, came from Ireland, which country had been
for centuries a center of religion and education for all western Europe.
The monks of this school labored chiefly in Northumbria, and to their
influence we owe all that is best in Anglo-Saxon literature. It is called
the Northumbrian School; its center was the monasteries and abbeys, such as
Jarrow and Whitby, and its three greatest names are Bede, Caedmon, and
Cynewulf.
BEDE (673-735)
The Venerable Bede, as he is generally called, our first great scholar and
"the father of our English learning," wrote almost exclusively in Latin,
his last work, the translation of the Gospel of John into Anglo-Saxon,
having been unfortunately lost. Much to our regret, therefore, his books
and the story of his gentle, heroic life must be excluded from this history
of our literature. His works, over forty in number, covered the whole field
of human knowledge in his day, and were so admirably written that they were
widely copied as text-books, or rather manuscripts, in nearly all the
monastery schools of Europe.
The work most important to us is the _Ecclesiastical History of the English
People_. It is a fascinating history to read even now, with its curious
combination of accurate scholarship and immense credulity. In all strictly
historical matters Bede is a model. Every known authority on the subject,
from Pliny to Gildas, was carefully considered; every learned pilgrim to
Rome was commissioned by Bede to ransack the archives and to make copies of
papal decrees and royal letters; and to these were added the testimony of
abbots who could speak from personal knowledge of events or repeat the
traditions of their several monasteries.
Side by side with this historical exactness are marvelous stories of saints
and missionaries. It was an age of credulity, and miracles were in men's
minds continually. The men of whom he wrote lived lives more wonderful than
any romance, and their courage and gentleness made a tremendous impression
on the rough, warlike people to whom they came with open hands and hearts.
It is the natural way of all primitive peoples to magnify the works of
their heroes, and so deeds of heroism and kindness, which were part of the
daily life of the Irish missionaries, were soon transformed into the
miracles of the saints. Bede believed these things, as all other men did,
and records them with charming simplicity, just as he received them from
bishop or abbot. Notwithstanding its errors, we owe to this work nearly all
our knowledge of the eight centuries of our history following the landing
of Caesar in Britain.
CAEDMON (Seventh Century)
Now must we hymn the Master of heaven,
The might of the Maker, the deeds of the Father,
The thought of His heart. He, Lord everlasting,
Established of old the source of all wonders:
Creator all-holy, He hung the bright heaven,
A roof high upreared, o'er the children of men;
The King of mankind then created for mortals
The world in its beauty, the earth spread beneath them,
He, Lord everlasting, omnipotent God.[28]
If _Beowulf_ and the fragments of our earliest poetry were brought into
England, then the hymn given above is the first verse of all native English
song that has come down to us, and Caedmon is the first poet to whom we can
give a definite name and date. The words were written about 665 A.D. and
are found copied at the end of a manuscript of Bede's _Ecclesiastical
History_.
LIFE OF CaeDMON. What little we know of Caedmon, the Anglo-Saxon Milton, as
he is properly called, is taken from Bede's account[29] of the Abbess Hilda
and of her monastery at Whitby. Here is a free and condensed translation of
Bede's story:
There was, in the monastery of the Abbess Hilda, a brother distinguished by
the grace of God, for that he could make poems treating of goodness and
religion. Whatever was translated to him (for he could not read) of Sacred
Scripture he shortly reproduced in poetic form of great sweetness and
beauty. None of all the English poets could equal him, for he learned not
the art of song from men, nor sang by the arts of men. Rather did he
receive all his poetry as a free gift from God, and for this reason he did
never compose poetry of a vain or worldly kind.
Until of mature age he lived as a layman and had never learned any poetry.
Indeed, so ignorant of singing was he that sometimes, at a feast, where it
was the custom that for the pleasure of all each guest should sing in turn,
he would rise from the table when he saw the harp coming to him and go home
ashamed. Now it happened once that he did this thing at a certain
festivity, and went out to the stall to care for the horses, this duty
being assigned to him for that night. As he slept at the usual time, one
stood by him saying: "Caedmon, sing me something." "I cannot sing," he
answered, "and that is why I came hither from the feast." But he who spake
unto him said again, "Caedmon, sing to me." And he said, "What shall I
sing?" and he said, "Sing the beginning of created things." Thereupon
Caedmon began to sing verses that he had never heard before, of this import:
"Now should we praise the power and wisdom of the Creator, the works of the
Father." This is the sense but not the form of the hymn that he sang while
sleeping.
When he awakened, Caedmon remembered the words of the hymn and added to them
many more. In the morning he went to the steward of the monastery lands and
showed him the gift he had received in sleep. The steward brought him to
Hilda, who made him repeat to the monks the hymn he had composed, and all
agreed that the grace of God was upon Caedmon. To test him they expounded to
him a bit of Scripture from the Latin and bade him, if he could, to turn it
into poetry. He went away humbly and returned in the morning with an
excellent poem. Thereupon Hilda received him and his family into the
monastery, made him one of the brethren, and commanded that the whole
course of Bible history be expounded to him. He in turn, reflecting upon
what he had heard, transformed it into most delightful poetry, and by
echoing it back to the monks in more melodious sounds made his teachers his
listeners. In all this his aim was to turn men from wickedness and to help
them to the love and practice of well doing.
[Then follows a brief record of Caedmon's life and an exquisite picture of
his death amidst the brethren.] And so it came to pass [says the simple
record] that as he served God while living in purity of mind and serenity
of spirit, so by a peaceful death he left the world and went to look upon
His face.
CaeDMON'S WORKS. The greatest work attributed to Caedmon is the so-called
_Paraphrase_. It is the story of Genesis, Exodus, and a part of Daniel,
told in glowing, poetic language, with a power of insight and imagination
which often raises it from paraphrase into the realm of true poetry. Though
we have Bede's assurance that Caedmon "transformed the whole course of Bible
history into most delightful poetry," no work known certainly to have been
composed by him has come down to us. In the seventeenth century this
Anglo-Saxon _Paraphrase_ was discovered and attributed to Caedmon, and his
name is still associated with it, though it is now almost certain that the
_Paraphrase_ is the work of more than one writer.
Aside from the doubtful question of authorship, even a casual reading of
the poem brings us into the presence of a poet rude indeed, but with a
genius strongly suggestive at times of the matchless Milton. The book opens
with a hymn of praise, and then tells of the fall of Satan and his rebel
angels from heaven, which is familiar to us in Milton's _Paradise Lost_.
Then follows the creation of the world, and the _Paraphrase_ begins to
thrill with the old Anglo-Saxon love of nature.
Here first the Eternal Father, guard of all,
Of heaven and earth, raised up the firmament,
The Almighty Lord set firm by His strong power
This roomy land; grass greened not yet the plain,
Ocean far spread hid the wan ways in gloom.
Then was the Spirit gloriously bright
Of Heaven's Keeper borne over the deep
Swiftly. The Life-giver, the Angel's Lord,
Over the ample ground bade come forth Light.
Quickly the High King's bidding was obeyed,
Over the waste there shone light's holy ray.
Then parted He, Lord of triumphant might,
Shadow from shining, darkness from the light.
Light, by the Word of God, was first named day.[30]
After recounting the story of Paradise, the Fall, and the Deluge, the
_Paraphrase_ is continued in the Exodus, of which the poet makes a noble
epic, rushing on with the sweep of a Saxon army to battle. A single
selection is given here to show how the poet adapted the story to his
hearers:
Then they saw,
Forth and forward faring, Pharaoh's war array
Gliding on, a grove of spears;--glittering the hosts!
Fluttered there the banners, there the folk the march trod.
Onwards surged the war, strode the spears along,
Blickered the broad shields; blew aloud the trumpets....
Wheeling round in gyres, yelled the fowls of war,
Of the battle greedy; hoarsely barked the raven,
Dew upon his feathers, o'er the fallen corpses--
Swart that chooser of the slain! Sang aloud the wolves
At eve their horrid song, hoping for the carrion.[31]
Besides the _Paraphrase_ we have a few fragments of the same general
character which are attributed to the school of Caedmon. The longest of
these is _Judith_, in which the story of an apocryphal book of the Old
Testament is done into vigorous poetry. Holofernes is represented as a
savage and cruel Viking, reveling in his mead hall; and when the heroic
Judith cuts off his head with his own sword and throws it down before the
warriors of her people, rousing them to battle and victory, we reach
perhaps the most dramatic and brilliant point of Anglo-Saxon literature.
CYNEWULF (Eighth Century)
Of Cynewulf, greatest of the Anglo-Saxon poets, excepting only the unknown
author of _Beowulf_, we know very little. Indeed, it was not till 1840,
more than a thousand years after his death, that even his name became
known. Though he is the only one of our early poets who signed his works,
the name was never plainly written, but woven into the verses in the form
of secret runes,[32] suggesting a modern charade, but more difficult of
interpretation until one has found the key to the poet's signature.
WORKS OF CYNEWULF. The only signed poems of Cynewulf are _The Christ,
Juliana, The Fates of the Apostles_, and _Elene_. Unsigned poems attributed
to him or his school are _Andreas_, the _Phoenix_, the _Dream of the Rood_,
the _Descent into Hell_, _Guthlac_, the _Wanderer_, and some of the
Riddles. The last are simply literary conundrums in which some well-known
object, like the bow or drinking horn, is described in poetic language, and
the hearer must guess the name. Some of them, like "The Swan"[33] and "The
Storm Spirit," are unusually beautiful.
Of all these works the most characteristic is undoubtedly _The Christ_, a
didactic poem in three parts: the first celebrating the Nativity; the
second, the Ascension; and the third, "Doomsday," telling the torments of
the wicked and the unending joy of the redeemed. Cynewulf takes his
subject-matter partly from the Church liturgy, but more largely from the
homilies of Gregory the Great. The whole is well woven together, and
contains some hymns of great beauty and many passages of intense dramatic
force. Throughout the poem a deep love for Christ and a reverence for the
Virgin Mary are manifest. More than any other poem in any language, _The
Christ_ reflects the spirit of early Latin Christianity.
Here is a fragment comparing life to a sea voyage,--a comparison which
occurs sooner or later to every thoughtful person, and which finds perfect
expression in Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar."
Now 'tis most like as if we fare in ships
On the ocean flood, over the water cold,
Driving our vessels through the spacious seas
With horses of the deep. A perilous way is this
Of boundless waves, and there are stormy seas
On which we toss here in this (reeling) world
O'er the deep paths. Ours was a sorry plight
Until at last we sailed unto the land,
Over the troubled main. Help came to us
That brought us to the haven of salvation,
God's Spirit-Son, and granted grace to us
That we might know e'en from the vessel's deck
Where we must bind with anchorage secure
Our ocean steeds, old stallions of the waves.
In the two epic poems of _Andreas_ and _Elene_ Cynewulf (if he be the
author) reaches the very summit of his poetical art. _Andreas_, an unsigned
poem, records the story of St. Andrew, who crosses the sea to rescue his
comrade St. Matthew from the cannibals. A young ship-master who sails the
boat turns out to be Christ in disguise, Matthew is set free, and the
savages are converted by a miracle.[34] It is a spirited poem, full of rush
and incident, and the descriptions of the sea are the best in Anglo-Saxon
poetry.
_Elene_ has for its subject-matter the finding of the true cross. It tells
of Constantine's vision of the Rood, on the eve of battle. After his
victory under the new emblem he sends his mother Helena (Elene) to
Jerusalem in search of the original cross and the nails. The poem, which is
of very uneven quality, might properly be put at the end of Cynewulf's
works. He adds to the poem a personal note, signing his name in runes; and,
if we accept the wonderful "Vision of the Rood" as Cynewulf's work, we
learn how he found the cross at last in his own heart. There is a
suggestion here of the future Sir Launfal and the search for the Holy
Grail.
DECLINE OF NORTHUMBRIAN LITERATURE. The same northern energy which had
built up learning and literature so rapidly in Northumbria was instrumental
in pulling it down again. Toward the end of the century in which Cynewulf
lived, the Danes swept down on the English coasts and overwhelmed
Northumbria. Monasteries and schools were destroyed; scholars and teachers
alike were put to the sword, and libraries that had been gathered leaf by
leaf with the toil of centuries were scattered to the four winds. So all
true Northumbrian literature perished, with the exception of a few
fragments, and that which we now possess[35] is largely a translation in
the dialect of the West Saxons. This translation was made by Alfred's
scholars, after he had driven back the Danes in an effort to preserve the
ideals and the civilization that had been so hardly won. With the conquest
of Northumbria ends the poetic period of Anglo-Saxon literature. With
Alfred the Great of Wessex our prose literature makes a beginning.
ALFRED (848-901)
"Every craft and every power soon grows
old and is passed over and forgotten, if it
be without wisdom.... This is now to be
said, that whilst I live I wish to live nobly,
and after life to leave to the men who come
after me a memory of good works."[36]
So wrote the great Alfred, looking back over his heroic life. That he lived
nobly none can doubt who reads the history of the greatest of Anglo-Saxon
kings; and his good works include, among others, the education of half a
country, the salvage of a noble native literature, and the creation of the
first English prose.
LIFE AND TIMES OF ALFRED. For the history of Alfred's times, and details of
the terrific struggle with the Northmen, the reader must be referred to the
histories. The struggle ended with the Treaty of Wedmore, in 878, with the
establishment of Alfred not only as king of Wessex, but as overlord of the
whole northern country. Then the hero laid down his sword, and set himself
as a little child to learn to read and write Latin, so that he might lead
his people in peace as he had led them in war. It is then that Alfred began
to be the heroic figure in literature that he had formerly been in the wars
against the Northmen.
With the same patience and heroism that had marked the long struggle for
freedom, Alfred set himself to the task of educating his people. First he
gave them laws, beginning with the Ten Commandments and ending with the
Golden Rule, and then established courts where laws could be faithfully
administered. Safe from the Danes by land, he created a navy, almost the
first of the English fleets, to drive them from the coast. Then, with peace
and justice established within his borders, he sent to Europe for scholars
and teachers, and set them over schools that he established. Hitherto all
education had been in Latin; now he set himself the task, first, of
teaching every free-born Englishman to read and write his own language, and
second, of translating into English the best books for their instruction.
Every poor scholar was honored at his court and was speedily set to work at
teaching or translating; every wanderer bringing a book or a leaf of
manuscript from the pillaged monasteries of Northumbria was sure of his
reward. In this way the few fragments of native Northumbrian literature,
which we have been studying, were saved to the world. Alfred and his
scholars treasured the rare fragments and copied them in the West-Saxon
dialect. With the exception of Caedmon's Hymn, we have hardly a single leaf
from the great literature of Northumbria in the dialect in which it was
first written.
WORKS OF ALFRED. Aside from his educational work, Alfred is known chiefly
as a translator. After fighting his country's battles, and at a time when
most men were content with military honor, he began to learn Latin, that he
might translate the works that would be most helpful to his people. His
important translations are four in number: Orosius's _Universal History and
Geography_, the leading work in general history for several centuries;
Bede's _History_,[37] the first great historical work written on English
soil; Pope Gregory's _Shepherds' Book_, intended especially for the clergy;
and Boethius's _Consolations of Philosophy_, the favorite philosophical
work of the Middle Ages.
More important than any translation is the _English_ or _Saxon Chronicle_.
This was probably at first a dry record, especially of important births and
deaths in the West-Saxon kingdom. Alfred enlarged this scant record,
beginning the story with Caesar's conquest. When it touches his own reign
the dry chronicle becomes an interesting and connected story, the oldest
history belonging to any modern nation in its own language. The record of
Alfred's reign, probably by himself, is a splendid bit of writing and shows
clearly his claim to a place in literature as well as in history. The
_Chronicle_ was continued after Alfred's death, and is the best monument of
early English prose that is left to us. Here and there stirring songs are
included in the narrative, like "The Battle of Brunanburh" and "The Battle
of Maldon."[38] The last, entered 991, seventy-five years before the Norman
Conquest, is the swan song of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The _Chronicle_ was
continued for a century after the Norman Conquest, and is extremely
valuable not only as a record of events but as a literary monument showing
the development of our language.
CLOSE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. After Alfred's death there is little to
record, except the loss of the two supreme objects of his heroic struggle,
namely, a national life and a national literature. It was at once the
strength and the weakness of the Saxon that he lived apart as a free man
and never joined efforts willingly with any large body of his fellows. The
tribe was his largest idea of nationality, and, with all our admiration, we
must confess as we first meet him that he has not enough sense of unity to
make a great nation, nor enough culture to produce a great literature. A
few noble political ideals repeated in a score of petty kingdoms, and a few
literary ideals copied but never increased,--that is the summary of his
literary history. For a full century after Alfred literature was
practically at a standstill, having produced the best of which it was
capable, and England waited for the national impulse and for the culture
necessary for a new and greater art. Both of these came speedily, by way of
the sea, in the Norman Conquest.
SUMMARY OF ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. Our literature begins with songs and stories
of a time when our Teutonic ancestors were living on the borders of the
North Sea. Three tribes of these ancestors, the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons,
conquered Britain in the latter half of the fifth century, and laid the
foundation of the English nation. The first landing was probably by a tribe
of Jutes, under chiefs called by the chronicle Hengist and Horsa. The date
is doubtful; but the year 449 is accepted by most historians.
These old ancestors were hardy warriors and sea rovers, yet were capable of
profound and noble emotions. Their poetry reflects this double nature. Its
subjects were chiefly the sea and the plunging boats, battles, adventure,
brave deeds, the glory of warriors, and the love of home. Accent,
alliteration, and an abrupt break in the middle of each line gave their
poetry a kind of martial rhythm. In general the poetry is earnest and
somber, and pervaded by fatalism and religious feeling. A careful reading
of the few remaining fragments of Anglo-Saxon literature reveals five
striking characteristics: the love of freedom; responsiveness to nature,
especially in her sterner moods; strong religious convictions, and a belief
in Wyrd, or Fate; reverence for womanhood; and a devotion to glory as the
ruling motive in every warrior's life.
In our study we have noted: (1) the great epic or heroic poem _Beowulf_,
and a few fragments of our first poetry, such as "Widsith," "Deor's
Lament," and "The Seafarer." (2) Characteristics of Anglo-Saxon life; the
form of our first speech. (3) The Northumbrian school of writers. Bede, our
first historian, belongs to this school; but all his extant works are in
Latin. The two great poets are Caedmon and Cynewulf. Northumbrian literature
flourished between 650 and 850. In the year 867 Northumbria was conquered
by the Danes, who destroyed the monasteries and the libraries containing
our earliest literature. (4) The beginnings of English prose writing under
Alfred (848-901). Our most important prose work of this age is the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which was revised and enlarged by Alfred, and which
was continued for more than two centuries. It is the oldest historical
record known to any European nation in its own tongue.
SELECTIONS FOR READING. _Miscellaneous Poetry_. The Seafarer, Love Letter
(Husband's Message), Battle of Brunanburh, Deor's Lament, Riddles, Exodus,
The Christ, Andreas, Dream of the Rood, extracts in Cook and Tinker's
Translations from Old English Poetry[39] (Ginn and Company); Judith,
translation by A.S. Cook. Good selections are found also in Brooke's
History of Early English Literature, and Morley's English Writers, vols. 1
and 2.
_Beowulf_. J.R.C. Hall's prose translation; Child's Beowulf (Riverside
Literature Series); Morris and Wyatt's The Tale of Beowulf; Earle's The
Deeds of Beowulf; Metrical versions by Garnett, J.L. Hall, Lumsden, etc.
_Prose_. A few paragraphs of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in Manly's English
Prose; translations in Cook and Tinker's Old English Prose.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.[40]
_HISTORY_. For the facts of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England consult
first a good text-book: Montgomery, pp. 31--57, or Cheyney, pp. 36-84. For
fuller treatment see Green, ch. 1; Traill, vol. 1; Ramsey's Foundations of
England; Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons; Freeman's Old English
History; Allen's Anglo-Saxon England; Cook's Life of Alfred; Asser's Life
of King Alfred, edited by W.H. Stevenson; C. Plummer's Life and Times of
Alfred the Great; E. Dale's National Life and Character in the Mirror of
Early English Literature; Rhys's Celtic Britain.
_LITERATURE. Anglo-Saxon Texts_. Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, and Albion
Series of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English Poetry (Ginn and Company); Belles
Lettres Series of English Classics, sec. 1 (Heath & Co.); J.W. Bright's
Anglo-Saxon Reader; Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer, and Anglo-Saxon Reader.
_General Works_. Jusserand, Ten Brink, Cambridge History, Morley (full
titles and publishers in General Bibliography).
_Special Works_. Brooke's History of Early English Literature; Earle's
Anglo-Saxon Literature; Lewis's Beginnings of English Literature; Arnold's
Celtic Literature (for relations of Saxon and Celt); Longfellow's Poets and
Poetry of Europe; Hall's Old English Idyls; Gayley's Classic Myths, or
Guerber's Myths of the Northlands (for Norse Mythology); Brother Azarias's
Development of Old English Thought.
Beowulf, prose translations by Tinker, Hall, Earle, Morris and Wyatt;
metrical versions by Garnett, J.L. Hall, Lumsden, etc. The Exeter Book (a
collection of Anglo-Saxon texts), edited and translated by Gollancz. The
Christ of Cynewulf, prose translation by Whitman; the same poem, text and
translation, by Gollancz; text by Cook. Caedmon's Paraphrase, text and
translation, by Thorpe. Garnett's Elene, Judith, and other Anglo-Saxon
Poems. Translations of Andreas and the Phoenix, in Gollancz's Exeter Book.
Bede's History, in Temple Classics; the same with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
(one volume) in Bohn's Antiquarian Library.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS.[41]
1. What is the relation of history and literature? Why should both subjects
be studied together? Explain the qualities that characterize all great
literature. Has any text-book in history ever appealed to you as a work of
literature? What literary qualities have you noticed in standard historical
works, such as those of Macaulay, Prescott, Gibbon, Green, Motley, Parkman,
and John Fiske?
2. Why did the Anglo-Saxons come to England? What induced them to remain?
Did any change occur in their ideals, or in their manner of life? Do you
know any social or political institutions which they brought, and which, we
still cherish?
3. From the literature you have read, what do you know about our Anglo-
Saxon ancestors? What virtues did they admire in men? How was woman
regarded? Can you compare the Anglo-Saxon ideal of woman with that of other
nations, the Romans for instance?
4. Tell in your own words the general qualities of Anglo-Saxon poetry. How
did it differ in its metrical form from modern poetry? What passages seem
to you worth learning and remembering? Can you explain why poetry is more
abundant and more interesting than prose in the earliest literature of all
nations?
5. Tell the story of _Beowulf_. What appeals to you most in the poem? Why
is it a work for all time, or, as the Anglo-Saxons would say, why is it
worthy to be remembered? Note the permanent quality of literature, and the
ideals and emotions which are emphasized in _Beowulf_. Describe the burials
of Scyld and of Beowulf. Does the poem teach any moral lesson? Explain the
Christian elements in this pagan epic.
6. Name some other of our earliest poems, and describe the one you like
best. How does the sea figure in our first poetry? How is nature regarded?
What poem reveals the life of the scop or poet? How do you account for the
serious character of Anglo-Saxon poetry? Compare the Saxon and the Celt
with regard to the gladsomeness of life as shown in their literature.
7. What useful purpose did poetry serve among our ancestors? What purpose
did the harp serve in reciting their poems? Would the harp add anything to
our modern poetry?
8. What is meant by Northumbrian literature? Who are the great Northumbrian
writers? What besides the Danish conquest caused the decline of
Northumbrian literature?
9. For what is Bede worthy to be remembered? Tell the story of Caedmon, as
recorded in Bede's History. What new element is introduced in Caedmon's
poems? What effect did Christianity have upon Anglo-Saxon literature? Can
you quote any passages from Caedmon to show that Anglo-Saxon character was
not changed but given a new direction? If you have read Milton's _Paradise
Lost_, what resemblances are there between that poem and Caedmon's
_Paraphrase?_
10. What are the Cynewulf poems? Describe any that you have read. How do
they compare in spirit and in expression with _Beowulf_? with Caedmon? Read
_The Phoenix_ (which is a translation from the Latin) in Brooke's History
of Early English Literature, or in Gollancz's Exeter Book, or in Cook's
Translations from Old English Poetry, and tell what elements you find to
show that the poem is not of Anglo-Saxon origin. Compare the views of
nature in Beowulf and in the Cynewulf poems.
11. Describe the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. What is its value in our language,
literature, and history? Give an account of Alfred's life and of his work
for literature. How does Anglo-Saxon prose compare in interest with the
poetry?
CHRONOLOGY
=====================================================================
HISTORY | LITERATURE
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
449(?). Landing of Hengist and |
Horsa in Britain |
|
477. Landing of South Saxons |
|
547. Angles settle Northumbria | 547. Gildas's History
|
597. Landing of Augustine and his |
monks. Conversion of Kent |
|
617. Eadwine, king of Northumbria |
|
635-665. Coming of St. Aidan. |
Conversion of Northumbria | 664. Caedmon at Whitby
|
| 673-735. Bede
|
| 750 (_cir_.). Cynewulf
| poems
867. Danes conquer Northumbria |
|
871. Alfred, king of Wessex | 860. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle begun
|
878. Defeat of Danes. Peace of |
Wedmore |
|
901. Death of Alfred | 991. Last known poem of the
| Anglo-Saxon
| period, The Battle of
| Maldon, otherwise called
| Byrhtnoth's Death
1013-1042. Danish period |
|
1016. Cnut, king |
|
1042. Edward the Confessor. Saxon |
period restored |
|
1049. Westminster Abbey begun |
|
1066. Harold, last of Saxon kings. |
Norman Conquest |
=====================================================================
* * * * *
CHAPTER III
THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD (1066-1350)
I. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
THE NORMANS. The name Norman, which is a softened form of Northman, tells
its own story. The men who bore the name came originally from
Scandinavia,--bands of big, blond, fearless men cruising after plunder and
adventure in their Viking ships, and bringing terror wherever they
appeared. It was these same "Children of Woden" who, under the Danes' raven
flag, had blotted out Northumbrian civilization in the ninth century. Later
the same race of men came plundering along the French coast and conquered
the whole northern country; but here the results were altogether different.
Instead of blotting out a superior civilization, as the Danes had done,
they promptly abandoned their own. Their name of Normandy still clings to
the new home; but all else that was Norse disappeared as the conquerors
intermarried with the native Franks and accepted French ideals and spoke
the French language. So rapidly did they adopt and improve the Roman
civilization of the natives that, from a rude tribe of heathen Vikings,
they had developed within a single century into the most polished and
intellectual people in all Europe. The union of Norse and French (i.e.
Roman-Gallic) blood had here produced a race having the best qualities of
both,--the will power and energy of the one, the eager curiosity and vivid
imagination of the other. When these Norman-French people appeared in
Anglo-Saxon England they brought with them three noteworthy things: a
lively Celtic disposition, a vigorous and progressive Latin civilization,
and a Romance language.[42] We are to think of the conquerors, therefore,
as they thought and spoke of themselves in the Domesday Book and all their
contemporary literature, not as Normans but as _Franci_, that is,
Frenchmen.
THE CONQUEST. At the battle of Hastings (1066) the power of Harold, last of
the Saxon kings, was broken, and William, duke of Normandy, became master
of England. Of the completion of that stupendous Conquest which began at
Hastings, and which changed the civilization of a whole nation, this is not
the place to speak. We simply point out three great results of the Conquest
which have a direct bearing on our literature. First, notwithstanding
Caesar's legions and Augustine's monks, the Normans were the first to bring
the culture and the practical ideals of Roman civilization home to the
English people; and this at a critical time, when England had produced her
best, and her own literature and civilization had already begun to decay.
Second, they forced upon England the national idea, that is, a strong,
centralized government to replace the loose authority of a Saxon chief over
his tribesmen. And the world's history shows that without a great
nationality a great literature is impossible. Third, they brought to
England the wealth of a new language and literature, and our English
gradually absorbed both. For three centuries after Hastings French was the
language of the upper classes, of courts and schools and literature; yet so
tenaciously did the common people cling to their own strong speech that in
the end English absorbed almost the whole body of French words and became
the language of the land. It was the welding of Saxon and French into one
speech that produced the wealth of our modern English.
Naturally such momentous changes in a nation were not brought about
suddenly. At first Normans and Saxons lived apart in the relation of
masters and servants, with more or less contempt on one side and hatred on
the other; but in an astonishingly short time these two races were drawn
powerfully together, like two men of different dispositions who are often
led into a steadfast friendship by the attraction of opposite qualities,
each supplying what the other lacks. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which was
continued for a century after Hastings, finds much to praise in the
conquerors; on the other hand the Normans, even before the Conquest, had no
great love for the French nation. After conquering England they began to
regard it as home and speedily developed a new sense of nationality.
Geoffrey's popular _History_,[43] written less than a century after the
Conquest, made conquerors and conquered alike proud of their country by its
stories of heroes who, curiously enough, were neither Norman nor Saxon, but
creations of the native Celts. Thus does literature, whether in a battle
song or a history, often play the chief role in the development of
nationality.[44] Once the mutual distrust was overcome the two races
gradually united, and out of this union of Saxons and Normans came the new
English life and literature.
LITERARY IDEALS OF THE NORMANS. The change in the life of the conquerors
from Norsemen to Normans, from Vikings to Frenchmen, is shown most clearly
in the literature which they brought with them to England. The old Norse
strength and grandeur, the magnificent sagas telling of the tragic
struggles of men and gods, which still stir us profoundly,--these have all
disappeared. In their place is a bright, varied, talkative literature,
which runs to endless verses, and which makes a wonderful romance out of
every subject it touches. The theme may be religion or love or chivalry or
history, the deeds of Alexander or the misdeeds of a monk; but the author's
purpose never varies. He must tell a romantic story and amuse his audience;
and the more wonders and impossibilities he relates, the more surely is he
believed. We are reminded, in reading, of the native Gauls, who would stop
every traveler and compel him to tell a story ere he passed on. There was
more of the Gaul than of the Norseman in the conquerors, and far more of
fancy than of thought or feeling in their literature. If you would see this
in concrete form, read the _Chanson de Roland_, the French national epic
(which the Normans first put into literary form), in contrast with
_Beowulf_, which voices the Saxon's thought and feeling before the profound
mystery of human life. It is not our purpose to discuss the evident merits
or the serious defects of Norman-French literature, but only to point out
two facts which impress the student, namely, that Anglo-Saxon literature
was at one time enormously superior to the French, and that the latter,
with its evident inferiority, absolutely replaced the former. "The fact is
too often ignored," says Professor Schofield,[45] "that before 1066 the
Anglo-Saxons had a body of native literature distinctly superior to any
which the Normans or French could boast at that time; their prose
especially was unparalleled for extent and power in any European
vernacular." Why, then, does this superior literature disappear and for
nearly three centuries French remain supreme, so much so that writers on
English soil, even when they do not use the French language, still
slavishly copy the French models?
To understand this curious phenomenon it is necessary only to remember the
relative conditions of the two races who lived side by side in England. On
the one hand the Anglo-Saxons were a conquered people, and without liberty
a great literature is impossible. The inroads of the Danes and their own
tribal wars had already destroyed much of their writings, and in their new
condition of servitude they could hardly preserve what remained. The
conquering Normans, on the other hand, represented the civilization of
France, which country, during the early Middle Ages, was the literary and
educational center of all Europe. They came to England at a time when the
idea of nationality was dead, when culture had almost vanished, when
Englishmen lived apart in narrow isolation; and they brought with them law,
culture, the prestige of success, and above all the strong impulse to share
in the great world's work and to join in the moving currents of the world's
history. Small wonder, then, that the young Anglo-Saxons felt the
quickening of this new life and turned naturally to the cultured and
progressive Normans as their literary models.
II. LITERATURE OF THE NORMAN PERIOD
In the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh there is a beautifully illuminated
manuscript, written about 1330, which gives us an excellent picture of the
literature of the Norman period. In examining it we are to remember that
literature was in the hands of the clergy and nobles; that the common
people could not read, and had only a few songs and ballads for their
literary portion. We are to remember also that parchments were scarce and
very expensive, and that a single manuscript often contained all the
reading matter of a castle or a village. Hence this old manuscript is as
suggestive as a modern library. It contains over forty distinct works, the
great bulk of them being romances. There are metrical or verse romances of
French and Celtic and English heroes, like Roland, Arthur and Tristram, and
Bevis of Hampton. There are stories of Alexander, the Greek romance of
"Flores and Blanchefleur," and a collection of Oriental tales called "The
Seven Wise Masters." There are legends of the Virgin and the saints, a
paraphrase of Scripture, a treatise on the seven deadly sins, some Bible
history, a dispute among birds concerning women, a love song or two, a
vision of Purgatory, a vulgar story with a Gallic flavor, a chronicle of
English kings and Norman barons, and a political satire. There are a few
other works, similarly incongruous, crowded together in this typical
manuscript, which now gives mute testimony to the literary taste of the
times.
Obviously it is impossible to classify such a variety. We note simply that
it is mediaeval in spirit, and French in style and expression; and that sums
up the age. All the scholarly works of the period, like William of
Malmesbury's _History_, and Anselm's[46] _Cur Deus Homo_, and Roger Bacon's
_Opus Majus_, the beginning of modern experimental science, were written in
Latin; while nearly all other works were written in French, or else were
English copies or translations of French originals. Except for the advanced
student, therefore, they hardly belong to the story of English literature.
We shall note here only one or two marked literary types, like the Riming
Chronicle (or verse history) and the Metrical Romance, and a few writers
whose work has especial significance.
GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH. (d. 1154). Geoffrey's _Historia Regum Britanniae_ is
noteworthy, not as literature, but rather as a source book from which many
later writers drew their literary materials. Among the native Celtic tribes
an immense number of legends, many of them of exquisite beauty, had been
preserved through four successive conquests of Britain. Geoffrey, a Welsh
monk, collected some of these legends and, aided chiefly by his
imagination, wrote a complete history of the Britons. His alleged authority
was an ancient manuscript in the native Welsh tongue containing the lives
and deeds of all their kings, from Brutus, the alleged founder of Britain,
down to the coming of Julius Caesar.[47] From this Geoffrey wrote his
history, down to the death of Cadwalader in 689.
The "History" is a curious medley of pagan and Christian legends, of
chronicle, comment, and pure invention,--all recorded in minute detail and
with a gravity which makes it clear that Geoffrey had no conscience, or
else was a great joker. As history the whole thing is rubbish; but it was
extraordinarily successful at the time and made all who heard it, whether
Normans or Saxons, proud of their own country. It is interesting to us
because it gave a new direction to the literature of England by showing the
wealth of poetry and romance that lay in its own traditions of Arthur and
his knights. Shakespeare's _King Lear_, Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, and
Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_ were founded on the work of this monk, who
had the genius to put unwritten Celtic tradition in the enduring form of
Latin prose.
WORK OF THE FRENCH WRITERS. The French literature of the Norman period is
interesting chiefly because of the avidity with which foreign writers
seized upon the native legends and made them popular in England. Until
Geoffrey's preposterous chronicle appeared, these legends had not been used
to any extent as literary material. Indeed, they were scarcely known in
England, though familiar to French and Italian minstrels. Legends of Arthur
and his court were probably first taken to Brittany by Welsh emigrants in
the fifth and sixth centuries. They became immensely popular wherever they
were told, and they were slowly carried by minstrels and story-tellers all
over Europe. That they had never received literary form or recognition was
due to a peculiarity of mediaeval literature, which required that every tale
should have some ancient authority behind it. Geoffrey met this demand by
creating an historical manuscript of Welsh history. That was enough for the
age. With Geoffrey and his alleged manuscript to rest upon, the Norman-
French writers were free to use the fascinating stories which had been-for
centuries in the possession of their wandering minstrels. Geoffrey's Latin
history was put into French verse by Gaimar _(c_. 1150) and by Wace (_c_.
1155), and from these French versions the work was first translated into
English. From about 1200 onward Arthur and Guinevere and the matchless band
of Celtic heroes that we meet later (1470) in Malory's _Morte d' Arthur_
became the permanent possession of our literature.
LAYAMON'S BRUT (_c_. 1200). This is the most important of the English
riming chronicles, that is, history related in the form of doggerel verse,
probably because poetry is more easily memorized than prose. We give here a
free rendering of selected lines at the beginning of the poem, which tell
us all we know of Layamon, the first who ever wrote as an Englishman for
Englishmen, including in the term all who loved England and called it home,
no matter where their ancestors were born.
Now there was a priest in the land named Layamon. He was son of Leovenath
--may God be gracious unto him. He dwelt at Ernley, at a noble church on
Severn's bank. He read many books, and it came to his mind to tell the
noble deeds of the English. Then he began to journey far and wide over the
land to procure noble books for authority. He took the English book that
Saint Bede made, another in Latin that Saint Albin made,[48] and a third
book that a French clerk made, named Wace.[49] Layamon laid these works
before him and turned the leaves; lovingly he beheld them. Pen he took, and
wrote on book-skin, and made the three books into one.
The poem begins with the destruction of Troy and the flight of "AEneas the
duke" into Italy. Brutus, a great-grandson of AEneas, gathers his people and
sets out to find a new land in the West. Then follows the founding of the
Briton kingdom, and the last third of the poem, which is over thirty
thousand lines in length, is taken up with the history of Arthur and his
knights. If the _Brut_ had no merits of its own, it would still interest
us, for it marks the first appearance of the Arthurian legends in our own
tongue. A single selection is given here from Arthur's dying speech,
familiar to us in Tennyson's _Morte d'Arthur_. The reader will notice here
two things: first, that though the poem is almost pure Anglo-Saxon,[50] our
first speech has already dropped many inflections and is more easily read
than _Beowulf_; second, that French influence is already at work in
Layamon's rimes and assonances, that is, the harmony resulting from using
the same vowel sound in several successive lines:
And ich wulle varen to Avalun: And I will fare to Avalun,
To vairest alre maidene, To fairest of all maidens,
To Argante there quene, To Argante the queen,
Alven swithe sceone. An elf very beautiful.
And heo seal mine wunden And she shall my wounds
Makien alle isunde, Make all sound;
Al hal me makien All whole me make
Mid haleweiye drenchen. With healing drinks.
And seothe ich cumen wulle And again will I come
To mine kiueriche To my kingdom
And wunien mid Brutten And dwell with Britons
Mid muchelere wunne. With mickle joy.
Aefne than worden Even (with) these words
Ther com of se wenden There came from the sea
That wes an sceort bat lithen, A short little boat gliding,
Sceoven mid uthen, Shoved by the waves;
And twa wimmen ther inne, And two women therein,
Wunderliche idihte. Wondrously attired.
And heo nomen Arthur anan And they took Arthur anon
And an eovste hine vereden And bore him hurriedly,
And softe hine adun leiden, And softly laid him down,
And forth gunnen lithen. And forth gan glide.
METRICAL ROMANCES. Love, chivalry, and religion, all pervaded by the spirit
of romance,--these are the three great literary ideals which find
expression in the metrical romances. Read these romances now, with their
knights and fair ladies, their perilous adventures and tender love-making,
their minstrelsy and tournaments and gorgeous cavalcades,--as if humanity
were on parade, and life itself were one tumultuous holiday in the open
air,--and you have an epitome of the whole childish, credulous soul of the
Middle Ages. The Normans first brought this type of romance into England,
and so popular did it become, so thoroughly did it express the romantic
spirit of the time, that it speedily overshadowed all other forms of
literary expression.
Though the metrical romances varied much in form and subject-matter, the
general type remains the same,--a long rambling poem or series of poems
treating of love or knightly adventure or both. Its hero is a knight; its
characters are fair ladies in distress, warriors in armor, giants, dragons,
enchanters, and various enemies of Church and State; and its emphasis is
almost invariably on love, religion, and duty as defined by chivalry. In
the French originals of these romances the lines were a definite length,
the meter exact, and rimes and assonances were both used to give melody. In
England this metrical system came in contact with the uneven lines, the
strong accent and alliteration of the native songs; and it is due to the
gradual union of the two systems, French and Saxon, that our English became
capable of the melody and amazing variety of verse forms which first find
expression in Chaucer's poetry.
In the enormous number of these verse romances we note three main
divisions, according to subject, into the romances (or the so-called
matter) of France, Rome, and Britain.[51] The matter of France deals
largely with the exploits of Charlemagne and his peers, and the chief of
these Carlovingian cycles is the _Chanson de Roland_, the national epic,
which celebrates the heroism of Roland in his last fight against the
Saracens at Ronceval. Originally these romances were called _Chansons de
Geste_; and the name is significant as indicating that the poems were
originally short songs[52] celebrating the deeds _(gesta)_ of well-known
heroes. Later the various songs concerning one hero were gathered together
and the _Geste_ became an epic, like the _Chanson de Roland_, or a kind of
continued ballad story, hardly deserving the name of epic, like the _Geste
of Robin Hood_.[53]
The matter of Rome consisted largely of tales from Greek and Roman sources;
and the two great cycles of these romances deal with the deeds of
Alexander, a favorite hero, and the siege of Troy, with which the Britons
thought they had some historic connection. To these were added a large
number of tales from Oriental sources; and in the exuberant imagination of
the latter we see the influence which the Saracens--those nimble wits who
gave us our first modern sciences and who still reveled in the _Arabian
Nights_--had begun to exercise on the literature of Europe.
To the English reader, at least, the most interesting of the romances are
those which deal with the exploits of Arthur and his Knights of the Round
Table,--the richest storehouse of romance which our literature has ever
found. There were many cycles of Arthurian romances, chief of which are
those of Gawain, Launcelot, Merlin, the Quest of the Holy Grail, and the
Death of Arthur. In preceding sections we have seen how these fascinating
romances were used by Geoffrey and the French writers, and how, through the
French, they found their way into English, appearing first in our speech in
Layamon's _Brut_. The point to remember is that, while the legends are
Celtic in origin, their literary form is due to French poets, who
originated the metrical romance. All our early English romances are either
copies or translations of the French; and this is true not only of the
matter of France and Rome, but of Celtic heroes like Arthur, and English
heroes like Guy of Warwick and Robin Hood.
The most interesting of all Arthurian romances are those of the Gawain
cycle,[54] and of these the story of _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ is
best worth reading, for many reasons. First, though the material is taken
from French sources,[55] the English workmanship is the finest of our early
romances. Second, the unknown author of this romance probably wrote also
"The Pearl," and is the greatest English poet of the Norman period. Third,
the poem itself with its dramatic interest, its vivid descriptions, and its
moral purity, is one of the most delightful old romances in any language.
In form _Sir Gawain_ is an interesting combination of French and Saxon
elements. It is written in an elaborate stanza combining meter and
alliteration. At the end of each stanza is a rimed refrain, called by the
French a "tail rime." We give here a brief outline of the story; but if the
reader desires the poem itself, he is advised to begin with a modern
version, as the original is in the West Midland dialect and is exceedingly
difficult to follow.
On New Year's day, while Arthur and his knights are keeping the Yuletide
feast at Camelot, a gigantic knight in green enters the banquet hall on
horseback and challenges the bravest knight present to an exchange of
blows; that is, he will expose his neck to a blow of his own big battle-ax,
if any knight will agree to abide a blow in return. After some natural
consternation and a fine speech by Arthur, Gawain accepts the challenge,
takes the battle-ax, and with one blow sends the giant's head rolling
through the hall. The Green Knight, who is evidently a terrible magician,
picks up his head and mounts his horse. He holds out his head and the
ghastly lips speak, warning Gawain to be faithful to his promise and to
seek through the world till he finds the Green Chapel. There, on next New
Year's day, the Green Knight will meet him and return the blow.
The second canto of the poem describes Gawain's long journey through the
wilderness on his steed Gringolet, and his adventures with storm and cold,
with, wild beasts and monsters, as he seeks in vain for the Green Chapel.
On Christmas eve, in the midst of a vast forest, he offers a prayer to
"Mary, mildest mother so dear," and is rewarded by sight of a great castle.
He enters and is royally entertained by the host, an aged hero, and by his
wife, who is the most beautiful woman the knight ever beheld. Gawain learns
that he is at last near the Green Chapel, and settles down for a little
comfort after his long quest.
The next canto shows the life in the castle, and describes a curious
compact between the host, who goes hunting daily, and the knight, who
remains in the castle to entertain the young wife. The compact is that at
night each man shall give the other whatever good thing he obtains during
the day. While the host is hunting, the young woman tries in vain to induce
Gawain to make love to her, and ends by giving him a kiss. When the host
returns and gives his guest the game he has killed Gawain returns the kiss.
On the third day, her temptations having twice failed, the lady offers
Gawain a ring, which he refuses; but when she offers a magic green girdle
that will preserve the wearer from death, Gawain, who remembers the giant's
ax so soon to fall on his neck, accepts the girdle as a "jewel for the
jeopardy" and promises the lady to keep the gift secret. Here, then, are
two conflicting compacts. When the host returns and offers his game, Gawain
returns the kiss but says nothing of the green girdle.
The last canto brings our knight to the Green Chapel, after he is
repeatedly warned to turn back in the face of certain death. The Chapel is
a terrible place in the midst of desolation; and as Gawain approaches he
hears a terrifying sound, the grating of steel on stone, where the giant is
sharpening a new battle-ax. The Green Knight appears, and Gawain, true to
his compact, offers his neck for the blow. Twice the ax swings harmlessly;
the third time it falls on his shoulder and wounds him. Whereupon Gawain
jumps for his armor, draws his sword, and warns the giant that the compact
calls for only one blow, and that, if another is offered, he will defend
himself.
Then the Green Knight explains things. He is lord of the castle where
Gawain has been entertained for days past. The first two swings of the ax
were harmless because Gawain had been true to his compact and twice
returned the kiss. The last blow had wounded him because he concealed the
gift of the green girdle, which belongs to the Green Knight and was woven
by his wife. Moreover, the whole thing has been arranged by Morgain the
fay-woman (an enemy of Queen Guinevere, who appears often in the Arthurian
romances). Full of shame, Gawain throws back the gift and is ready to atone
for his deception; but the Green Knight thinks he has already atoned, and
presents the green girdle as a free gift. Gawain returns to Arthur's court,
tells the whole story frankly, and ever after that the knights of the Round
Table wear a green girdle in his honor.[56]
THE PEARL. In the same manuscript with "Sir Gawain" are found three other
remarkable poems, written about 1350, and known to us, in order, as "The
Pearl," "Cleanness," and "Patience." The first is the most beautiful, and
received its name from the translator and editor, Richard Morris, in 1864.
"Patience" is a paraphrase of the book of Jonah; "Cleanness" moralizes on
the basis of Bible stories; but "The Pearl" is an intensely human and
realistic picture of a father's grief for his little daughter Margaret, "My
precious perle wythouten spot." It is the saddest of all our early poems.
On the grave of his little one, covered over with flowers, the father pours
out his love and grief till, in the summer stillness, he falls asleep,
while we hear in the sunshine the drowsy hum of insects and the faraway
sound of the reapers' sickles. He dreams there, and the dream grows into a
vision beautiful. His body lies still upon the grave while his spirit goes
to a land, exquisite beyond all words, where he comes suddenly upon a
stream that he cannot cross. As he wanders along the bank, seeking in vain
for a ford, a marvel rises before his eyes, a crystal cliff, and seated
beneath it a little maiden who raises a happy, shining face,--the face of
his little Margaret.
More then me lyste my drede aros,
I stod full stylle and dorste not calle;
Wyth yghen open and mouth ful clos,
I stod as hende as hawk in halle.
He dares not speak for fear of breaking the spell; but sweet as a lily she
comes down the crystal stream's bank to meet and speak with him, and tell
him of the happy life of heaven and how to live to be worthy of it. In his
joy he listens, forgetting all his grief; then the heart of the man cries
out for its own, and he struggles to cross the stream to join her. In the
struggle the dream vanishes; he wakens to find his eyes wet and his head on
the little mound that marks the spot where his heart is buried.
From the ideals of these three poems, and from peculiarities of style and
meter, it is probable that their author wrote also _Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight_. If so, the unknown author is the one genius of the age whose
poetry of itself has power to interest us, and who stands between Cynewulf
and Chaucer as a worthy follower of the one and forerunner of the other.
MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE OF THE NORMAN PERIOD. It is well-nigh impossible
to classify the remaining literature of this period, and very little of it
is now read, except by advanced students. Those interested in the
development of "transition" English will find in _the Ancren Riwle_, i.e.
"Rule of the Anchoresses" (_c_. 1225), the most beautiful bit of old
English prose ever written. It is a book of excellent religious advice and
comfort, written for three ladies who wished to live a religious life,
without, however, becoming nuns or entering any religious orders. The
author was Bishop Poore of Salisbury, according to Morton, who first edited
this old classic in 1853. Orm's _Ormulum_, written soon after the _Brut_,
is a paraphrase of the gospel lessons for the year, somewhat after the
manner of Caedmon's _Paraphrase_, but without any of Caedmon's poetic fire
and originality. _Cursor Mundi_ (_c_. 1320) is a very long poem which makes
a kind of metrical romance out of Bible history and shows the whole dealing
of God with man from Creation to Domesday. It is interesting as showing a
parallel to the cycles of miracle plays, which attempt to cover the same
vast ground. They were forming in this age; but we will study them later,
when we try to understand the rise of the drama in England.
Besides these greater works, an enormous number of fables and satires
appeared in this age, copied or translated from the French, like the
metrical romances. The most famous of these are "The Owl and the
Nightingale,"--a long debate between the two birds, one representing the
gay side of life, the other the sterner side of law and morals,--and "Land
of Cockaygne," i.e. "Luxury Land," a keen satire on monks and monastic
religion.[57]
While most of the literature of the time was a copy of the French and was
intended only for the upper classes, here and there were singers who made
ballads for the common people; and these, next to the metrical romances,
are the most interesting and significant of all the works of the Norman
period. On account of its obscure origin and its oral transmission, the
ballad is always the most difficult of literary subjects.[58] We make here
only three suggestions, which may well be borne in mind: that ballads were
produced continually in England from Anglo-Saxon times until the
seventeenth century; that for centuries they were the only really popular
literature; and that in the ballads alone one is able to understand the
common people. Read, for instance, the ballads of the "merrie greenwood
men," which gradually collected into the _Geste of Robin Hood_, and you
will understand better, perhaps, than from reading many histories what the
common people of England felt and thought while their lords and masters
were busy with impossible metrical romances.
In these songs speaks the heart of the English folk. There is lawlessness
indeed; but this seems justified by the oppression of the times and by the
barbarous severity of the game laws. An intense hatred of shams and
injustice lurks in every song; but the hatred is saved from bitterness by
the humor with which captives, especially rich churchmen, are solemnly
lectured by the bandits, while they squirm at sight of devilish tortures
prepared before their eyes in order to make them give up their golden
purses; and the scene generally ends in a bit of wild horse-play. There is
fighting enough, and ambush and sudden death lurk at every turn of the
lonely roads; but there is also a rough, honest chivalry for women, and a
generous sharing of plunder with the poor and needy. All literature is but
a dream expressed, and "Robin Hood" is the dream of an ignorant and
oppressed but essentially noble people, struggling and determined to be
free.
Far more poetical than the ballads, and more interesting even than the
romances, are the little lyrics of the period,--those tears and smiles of
long ago that crystallized into poems, to tell us that the hearts of men
are alike in all ages. Of these, the best known are the "Luve Ron" (love
rune or letter) of Thomas de Hales _(c_. 1250); "Springtime" _(c_. 1300),
beginning "Lenten (spring) ys come with luve to toune"; and the melodious
love song "Alysoun," written at the end of the thirteenth century by some
unknown poet who heralds the coming of Chaucer:
Bytuene Mersh and Averil,
When spray biginneth to springe
The lutel foul[59] hath hire wyl
On hyre lud[60] to synge.
Ich libbe[61] in love longinge
For semlokest[62] of all thinge.
She may me blisse bringe;
Icham[63] in hire baundoun.[64]
An hendy hap ichabbe yhent,[65]
Ichot[66] from hevene it is me sent,
From alle wymmen mi love is lent[67]
And lyht[68] on Alysoun.
SUMMARY OF THE NORMAN PERIOD. The Normans were originally a hardy race of
sea rovers inhabiting Scandinavia. In the tenth century they conquered a
part of northern France, which is still called Normandy, and rapidly
adopted French civilization and the French language. Their conquest of
Anglo-Saxon England under William, Duke of Normandy, began with the battle
of Hastings in 1066. The literature which they brought to England is
remarkable for its bright, romantic tales of love and adventure, in marked
contrast with the strength and somberness of Anglo-Saxon poetry. During the
three centuries following Hastings, Normans and Saxons gradually united.
The Anglo-Saxon speech simplified itself by dropping most of its Teutonic
inflections, absorbed eventually a large part of the French vocabulary, and
became our English language. English literature is also a combination of
French and Saxon elements. The three chief effects of the conquest were
_(1)_ the bringing of Roman civilization to England; _(2)_ the growth of
nationality, i.e. a strong centralized government, instead of the loose
union of Saxon tribes; _(3)_ the new language and literature, which were
proclaimed in Chaucer.
At first the new literature was remarkably varied, but of small intrinsic
worth; and very little of it is now read. In our study we have noted: (1)
Geoffrey's History, which is valuable as a source book of literature, since
it contains the native Celtic legends of Arthur. (2) The work of the French
writers, who made the Arthurian legends popular. (3) Riming Chronicles,
i.e. history in doggerel verse, like Layamon's _Brut_. (4) Metrical
Romances, or tales in verse. These were numerous, and of four classes: (a)
the Matter of France, tales centering about Charlemagne and his peers,
chief of which is the Chanson de Roland; (b) Matter of Greece and Rome, an
endless series of fabulous tales about Alexander, and about the Fall of
Troy; (c) Matter of England, stories of Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick,
Robin Hood, etc.; (d) Matter of Britain, tales having for their heroes
Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. The best of these romances is
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. (5) Miscellaneous literature,--the Ancren
Riwle, our best piece of early English prose; Orm's Ormulum; Cursor Mundi,
with its suggestive parallel to the Miracle plays; and ballads, like King
Horn and the Robin Hood songs, which were the only poetry of the common
people.
SELECTIONS FOR READING. For advanced students, and as a study of language,
a few selections as given in Manly's English Poetry and in Manly's English
Prose; or selections from the Ormulum, Brut, Ancren Riwle, and King Horn,
etc., in Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English. The ordinary
student will get a better idea of the literature of the period by using the
following: Sir Gawain, modernized by J. L. Weston, in Arthurian Romances
Series (Nutt); The Nun's Rule (Ancren Riwle), modern version by J. Morton,
in King's Classics; Aucassin and Nicolete, translated by A. Lang (Crowell &
Co.); Tristan and Iseult, in Arthurian Romances; Evans's The High History
of the Holy Grail, in Temple Classics; The Pearl, various modern versions
in prose and verse; one of the best is Jewett's metrical version (Crowell &
Co.); The Song of Roland, in King's Classics, and in Riverside Literature
Series; Evans's translation of Geoffrey's History, in Temple Classics;
Guest's The Mabinogion, in Everyman's Library, or S. Lanier's Boy's
Mabinogion (i.e. Welsh fairy tales and romances); Selected Ballads, in
Athenaeum Press Series, and in Pocket Classics; Gayley and Flaherty's Poetry
of the People; Bates's A Ballad Book.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.[69]
_HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 58-86, or Cheyney, pp. 88-144. For
fuller treatment, Green, ch. 2; Traill; Gardiner, etc. Jewett's Story of
the Normans (Stories of the Nations Series); Freeman's Short History of the
Norman Conquest; Hutton's King and Baronage (Oxford Manuals of English
History).
_LITERATURE. General Works_. Jusserand; Ten Brink; Mitchell, vol. I, From
Celt to Tudor; The Cambridge History of English Literature.
_Special Works_. Schofield's English Literature from the Norman Conquest to
Chaucer; Lewis's Beginnings of English Literature; Ker's Epic and Romance;
Saintsbury's The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory; Newell's
King Arthur and the Round Table; Maynadier, The Arthur of the English
Poets; Rhys's Studies in the Arthurian Legends.
_Ballads_. Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads; Gummere's Old
English Ballads (one volume); Hazlitt's Early Popular Poetry of England;
Gayley and Flaherty's Poetry of the People; Percy's Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry, in Everyman's Library.
_Texts, Translations, etc_. Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English;
Morris's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in Early English Text Series;
Madden's Layamon's Brut, text and translation (a standard work, but rare);
The Pearl, text and translation, by Gollancz; the same poem, prose version,
by Osgood, metrical versions by Jewett, Weir Mitchell, and Mead; Geoffrey's
History, translation, in Giles's Six Old English Chronicles (Bohn's
Antiquarian Library); Morley's Early English Prose Romances; Joyce's Old
Celtic Romances; Guest's The Mabinogion; Lanier's Boy's Mabinogion;
Arthurian Romances Series (translations). The Belles Lettres Series, sec. 2
(announced), will contain the texts of a large number of works of this
period, with notes and introductions.
_Language_. Marsh's Lectures on the English Language; Bradley's Making of
English; Lounsbury's History of the English Language; Emerson's Brief
History of the English Language; Greenough and Kittredge's Words and their
Ways in English Speech; Welsh's Development of English Literature and
Language.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What did the Northmen originally have in common
with the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes? What brought about the remarkable
change from Northmen to Normans? Tell briefly the story of the Norman
Conquest. How did the Conquest affect the life and literature of England?
2. What types of literature were produced after the Conquest? How do they
compare with Anglo-Saxon literature? What works of this period are
considered worthy of a permanent place in our literature?
3. What is meant by the Riming Chronicles? What part did they play in
developing the idea of nationality? What led historians of this period to
write in verse? Describe Geoffrey's History. What was its most valuable
element from the view point of literature?
4. What is Layamon's _Brut?_ Why did Layamon choose this name for his
Chronicle? What special literary interest attaches to the poem?
5. What were the Metrical Romances? What reasons led to the great interest
in three classes of romances, i.e. Matters of France, Rome, and Britain?
What new and important element enters our literature in this type? Read one
of the Metrical Romances in English and comment freely upon it, as to
interest, structure, ideas, and literary quality.
6. Tell the story of _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_. What French and
what Saxon elements are found in the poem? Compare it with _Beowulf_ to
show the points of inferiority and superiority. Compare Beowulf's fight
with Grendel or the Fire Drake and Sir Gawain's encounter with the Green
Knight, having in mind (1) the virtues of the hero, (2) the qualities of
the enemy, (3) the methods of warfare, (4) the purpose of the struggle.
Read selections from _The Pearl_ and compare with _Dear's Lament_. What are
the personal and the universal interests in each poem?
7. Tell some typical story from the Mabinogion. Where did the Arthurian
legends originate, and how did they become known to English readers? What
modern writers have used these legends? What fine elements do you find in
them that are not found in Anglo-Saxon poetry?
8. What part did Arthur play in the early history of Britain? How long did
the struggle between Britons and Saxons last? What Celtic names and
elements entered into English language and literature?
9. What is a ballad, and what distinguishes it from other forms of poetry?
Describe the ballad which you like best. Why did the ballad, more than any
other form of literature, appeal to the common people? What modern poems
suggest the old popular ballad? How do these compare in form and subject
matter with the Robin Hood ballads?
CHRONOLOGY
=============================================================================
HISTORY | LITERATURE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
912. Northmen settle in Normandy |
1066. Battle of Hastings. William, |
king of England |
| 1086. Domesday Book completed
1087. William Rufus |
1093. Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury |
| 1094(_cir._). Anselem's Cur Deus Homo
1096. First Crusade |
1100. Henry I |
| 1110. First recorded Miracle play in
| England (see chapter on the
| Drama)
1135. Stephen |
| 1137(_cir_.). Geoffrey's History
1147. Second Crusade |
1154. Henry II |
1189. Richard I. Third Crusade |
1199. John |
| 1200 (_cir_.). Layamon's Brut
1215. Magna Charta |
1216. Henry III |
| 1225 (_cir_.). Ancren Riwle
1230 (_cir._). University of Cambridge |
chartered |
1265. Beginning of House of Commons. |
Simon de Montfort |
| 1267. Roger Bacon's Opus Majus
1272. Edward I |
1295. First complete Parliament |
| 1300-1400. York and Wakefield.
| Miracle plays
1307. Edward II |
| 1320 (_cir_.). Cursor Mundi
1327. Edward III |
1338. Beginning of Hundred Years' War |
with France |
| 1340 (?). Birth of Chaucer
| 1350 (_cir_.). Sir Gawain. The Pearl
=======================================+====================================
* * * * *
CHAPTER IV
THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1350-1400)
THE NEW NATIONAL LIFE AND LITERATURE
HISTORY OF THE PERIOD. Two great movements may be noted in the complex life
of England during the fourteenth century. The first is political, and
culminates in the reign of Edward III. It shows the growth of the English
national spirit following the victories of Edward and the Black Prince on
French soil, during the Hundred Years' War. In the rush of this great
national movement, separating England from the political ties of France
and, to a less degree, from ecclesiastical bondage to Rome, the mutual
distrust and jealousy which had divided nobles and commons were momentarily
swept aside by a wave of patriotic enthusiasm. The French language lost its
official prestige, and English became the speech not only of the common
people but of courts and Parliament as well.
The second movement is social; it falls largely within the reign of
Edward's successor, Richard II, and marks the growing discontent with the
contrast between luxury and poverty, between the idle wealthy classes and
the overtaxed peasants. Sometimes this movement is quiet and strong, as
when Wyclif arouses the conscience of England; again it has the portentous
rumble of an approaching tempest, as when John Ball harangues a multitude
of discontented peasants on Black Heath commons, using the famous text:
When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then the gentleman?
and again it breaks out into the violent rebellion of Wat Tyler. All these
things show the same Saxon spirit that had won its freedom in a thousand
years' struggle against foreign enemies, and that now felt itself oppressed
by a social and industrial tyranny in its own midst.
Aside from these two movements, the age was one of unusual stir and
progress. Chivalry, that mediaeval institution of mixed good and evil, was
in its Indian summer,--a sentiment rather than a practical system. Trade,
and its resultant wealth and luxury, were increasing enormously. Following
trade, as the Vikings had followed glory, the English began to be a
conquering and colonizing people, like the Anglo-Saxons. The native shed
something of his insularity and became a traveler, going first to view the
places where trade had opened the way, and returning with wider interests
and a larger horizon. Above all, the first dawn of the Renaissance is
heralded in England, as in Spain and Italy, by the appearance of a national
literature.
FIVE WRITERS OF THE AGE. The literary movement of the age clearly reflects
the stirring life of the times. There is Langland, voicing the social
discontent, preaching the equality of men and the dignity of labor; Wyclif,
greatest of English religious reformers, giving the Gospel to the people in
their own tongue, and the freedom of the Gospel in unnumbered tracts and
addresses; Gower, the scholar and literary man, criticising this vigorous
life and plainly afraid of its consequences; and Mandeville, the traveler,
romancing about the wonders to be seen abroad. Above all there is
Chaucer,--scholar, traveler, business man, courtier, sharing in all the
stirring life of his times, and reflecting it in literature as no other but
Shakespeare has ever done. Outside of England the greatest literary
influence of the age was that of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, whose
works, then at the summit of their influence in Italy, profoundly affected
the literature of all Europe.
CHAUCER (1340?-1400)
'What man artow?' quod he;
'Thou lokest as thou woldest finde an hare,
For ever upon the ground I see thee stare.
Approche neer, and loke up merily....
He semeth elvish by his contenaunce.'
(The Host's description of Chaucer,
Prologue, _Sir Thopas_)
ON READING CHAUCER. The difficulties of reading Chaucer are more apparent
than real, being due largely to obsolete spelling, and there is small
necessity for using any modern versions of the poet's work, which seem to
miss the quiet charm and dry humor of the original. If the reader will
observe the following general rules (which of necessity ignore many
differences in pronunciation of fourteenth-century English), he may, in an
hour or two, learn to read Chaucer almost as easily as Shakespeare: (1) Get
the lilt of the lines, and let the meter itself decide how final syllables
are to be pronounced. Remember that Chaucer is among the most musical of
poets, and that there is melody in nearly every line. If the verse seems
rough, it is because we do not read it correctly. (2) Vowels in Chaucer
have much the same value as in modern German; consonants are practically
the same as in modern English. (3) Pronounce aloud any strange-looking
words. Where the eye fails, the ear will often recognize the meaning. If
eye and ear both fail, then consult the glossary found in every good
edition of the poet's works. (4) Final _e_ is usually sounded (like _a_ in
Virginia) except where the following word begins with a vowel or with _h_.
In the latter case the final syllable of one word and the first of the word
following are run together, as in reading Virgil. At the end of a line the
_e_, if lightly pronounced, adds melody to the verse.[70]
In dealing with Chaucer's masterpiece, the reader is urged to read widely
at first, for the simple pleasure of the stories, and to remember that
poetry and romance are more interesting and important than Middle English.
When we like and appreciate Chaucer--his poetry, his humor, his good
stories, his kind heart---it will be time enough to study his language.
LIFE OF CHAUCER. For our convenience the life of Chaucer is divided into
three periods. The first, of thirty years, includes his youth and early
manhood, in which time he was influenced almost exclusively by French
literary models. The second period, of fifteen years, covers Chaucer's
active life as diplomat and man of affairs; and in this the Italian
influence seems stronger than the French. The third, of fifteen years,
generally known as the English period, is the time of Chaucer's richest
development. He lives at home, observes life closely but kindly, and while
the French influence is still strong, as shown in the _Canterbury Tales_,
he seems to grow more independent of foreign models and is dominated
chiefly by the vigorous life of his own English people.
Chaucer's boyhood was spent in London, on Thames Street near the river,
where the world's commerce was continually coming and going. There he saw
daily the shipman of the _Canterbury Tales_ just home in his good ship
Maudelayne, with the fascination of unknown lands in his clothes and
conversation. Of his education we know nothing, except that he was a great
reader. His father was a wine merchant, purveyor to the royal household,
and from this accidental relation between trade and royalty may have arisen
the fact that at seventeen years Chaucer was made page to the Princess
Elizabeth. This was the beginning of his connection with the brilliant
court, which in the next forty years, under three kings, he was to know so
intimately.
At nineteen he went with the king on one of the many expeditions of the
Hundred Years' War, and here he saw chivalry and all the pageantry of
mediaeval war at the height of their outward splendor. Taken prisoner at the
unsuccessful siege of Rheims, he is said to have been ransomed by money out
of the royal purse. Returning to England, he became after a few years
squire of the royal household, the personal attendant and confidant of the
king. It was during this first period that he married a maid of honor to
the queen. This was probably Philippa Roet, sister to the wife of John of
Gaunt, the famous Duke of Lancaster. From numerous whimsical references in
his early poems, it has been thought that this marriage into a noble family
was not a happy one; but this is purely a matter of supposition or of
doubtful inference.
In 1370 Chaucer was sent abroad on the first of those diplomatic missions
that were to occupy the greater part of the next fifteen years. Two years
later he made his first official visit to Italy, to arrange a commercial
treaty with Genoa, and from this time is noticeable a rapid development in
his literary powers and the prominence of Italian literary influences.
During the intervals between his different missions he filled various
offices at home, chief of which was Comptroller of Customs at the port of
London. An enormous amount of personal labor was involved; but Chaucer
seems to have found time to follow his spirit into the new fields of
Italian literature:
For whan thy labour doon al is,
And hast y-maad thy rekeninges,
In stede of reste and newe thinges,
Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon,
And, also domb as any stoon,
Thou sittest at another boke
Til fully daswed is thy loke,
And livest thus as an hermyte.[71]
In 1386 Chaucer was elected member of Parliament from Kent, and the
distinctly English period of his life and work begins. Though exceedingly
busy in public affairs and as receiver of customs, his heart was still with
his books, from which only nature could win him:
And as for me, though that my wit be lyte,
On bokes for to rede I me delyte,
And to hem yeve I feyth and ful credence,
And in myn herte have hem in reverence
So hertely, that ther is game noon
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon,
But hit be seldom, on the holyday;
Save, certeynly, whan that the month of May
Is comen, and that I here the foules singe,
And that the floures ginnen for to springe--
Farwel my book and my devocioun![72]
In the fourteenth century politics seems to have been, for honest men, a
very uncertain business. Chaucer naturally adhered to the party of John of
Gaunt, and his fortunes rose or fell with those of his leader. From this
time until his death he is up and down on the political ladder; to-day with
money and good prospects, to-morrow in poverty and neglect, writing his
"Complaint to His Empty Purs," which he humorously calls his "saveour doun
in this werlde here." This poem called the king's attention to the poet's
need and increased his pension; but he had but few months to enjoy the
effect of this unusual "Complaint." For he died the next year, 1400, and
was buried with honor in Westminster Abbey. The last period of his life,
though outwardly most troubled, was the most fruitful of all. His "Truth,"
or "Good Counsel," reveals the quiet, beautiful spirit of his life,
unspoiled either by the greed of trade or the trickery of politics:
Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse,
Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal;
For hord[73] hath hate, and climbing tikelnesse,
Prees[74] hath envye, and wele[75] blent[76] overal;
Savour no more than thee bihove shal;
Werk[77] wel thyself, that other folk canst rede;
And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.
Tempest[78] thee noght al croked to redresse,
In trust of hir[79] that turneth as a bal:
Gret reste stant in litel besinesse;
And eek be war to sporne[80] ageyn an al[81];
Stryve noght, as doth the crokke with the wal.
Daunte[82] thyself, that dauntest otheres dede;
And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.
That thee is sent, receyve in buxumnesse,
The wrastling for this worlde axeth a fal.
Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse:
Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stall,
Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al;
Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede:
And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.
WORKS OF CHAUCER, FIRST PERIOD. The works of Chaucer are roughly divided
into three classes, corresponding to the three periods of his life. It
should be remembered, however, that it is impossible to fix exact dates for
most of his works. Some of his _Canterbury Tales_ were written earlier than
the English period, and were only grouped with the others in his final
arrangement.
The best known, though not the best, poem of the first period is the
_Romaunt of the Rose_,[83] a translation from the French _Roman de la
Rose_, the most popular poem of the Middle Ages,--a graceful but
exceedingly tiresome allegory of the whole course of love. The Rose growing
in its mystic garden is typical of the lady Beauty. Gathering the Rose
represents the lover's attempt to win his lady's favor; and the different
feelings aroused--Love, Hate, Envy, Jealousy, Idleness, Sweet Looks--are
the allegorical persons of the poet's drama. Chaucer translated this
universal favorite, putting in some original English touches; but of the
present _Romaunt_ only the first seventeen hundred lines are believed to be
Chaucer's own work.
Perhaps the best poem of this period is the "Dethe of Blanche the
Duchesse," better known, as the "Boke of the Duchesse," a poem of
considerable dramatic and emotional power, written after the death of
Blanche, wife of Chaucer's patron, John of Gaunt. Additional poems are the
"Compleynte to Pite," a graceful love poem; the "A B C," a prayer to the
Virgin, translated from the French of a Cistercian monk, its verses
beginning with the successive letters of the alphabet; and a number of what
Chaucer calls "ballads, roundels, and virelays," with which, says his
friend Gower, "the land was filled." The latter were imitations of the
prevailing French love ditties.
SECOND PERIOD. The chief work of the second or Italian period is _Troilus
and Criseyde_, a poem of eight thousand lines. The original story was a
favorite of many authors during the Middle Ages, and Shakespeare makes use
of it in his _Troilus and Cressida_. The immediate source of Chaucer's poem
is Boccaccio's _Il Filostrato,_ "the love-smitten one"; but he uses his
material very freely, to reflect the ideals of his own age and society, and
so gives to the whole story a dramatic force and beauty which it had never
known before.
The "Hous of Fame" is one of Chaucer's unfinished poems, having the rare
combination of lofty thought and simple, homely language, showing the
influence of the great Italian master. In the poem the author is carried
away in a dream by a great eagle from the brittle temple of Venus, in a
sandy wilderness, up to the hall of fame. To this house come all rumors of
earth, as the sparks fly upward. The house stands on a rock of ice
writen ful of names
Of folk that hadden grete fames.
Many of these have disappeared as the ice melted; but the older names are
clear as when first written. For many of his ideas Chaucer is indebted to
Dante, Ovid, and Virgil; but the unusual conception and the splendid
workmanship are all his own.
The third great poem of the period is the _Legende of Goode Wimmen_. As he
is resting in the fields among the daisies, he falls asleep and a gay
procession draws near. First comes the love god, leading by the hand
Alcestis, model of all wifely virtues, whose emblem is the daisy; and
behind them follow a troup of glorious women, all of whom have been
faithful in love. They gather about the poet; the god upbraids him for
having translated the _Romance of the Rose_, and for his early poems
reflecting on the vanity and fickleness of women. Alcestis intercedes for
him, and offers pardon if he will atone for his errors by writing a
"glorious legend of good women." Chaucer promises, and as soon as he awakes
sets himself to the task. Nine legends were written, of which "Thisbe" is
perhaps the best. It is probable that Chaucer intended to make this his
masterpiece, devoting many years to stories of famous women who were true
to love; but either because he wearied of his theme, or because the plan of
the _Canterbury Tales_ was growing in his mind, he abandoned the task in
the middle of his ninth legend,--fortunately, perhaps, for the reader will
find the Prologue more interesting than any of the legends.
THIRD PERIOD. Chaucer's masterpiece, the _Canterbury Tales_, one of the
most famous works in all literature, fills the third or English period of
his life. The plan of the work is magnificent: to represent the wide sweep
of English life by gathering a motley company together and letting each
class of society tell its own favorite stories. Though the great work was
never finished, Chaucer succeeded in his purpose so well that in the
_Canterbury Tales_ he has given us a picture of contemporary English life,
its work and play, its deeds and dreams, its fun and sympathy and hearty
joy of living, such as no other single work of literature has ever equaled.
PLAN OF THE CANTERBURY TALES. Opposite old London, at the southern end of
London Bridge, once stood the Tabard Inn of Southwark, a quarter made
famous not only by the _Canterbury Tales_, but also by the first playhouses
where Shakespeare had his training. This Southwark was the point of
departure of all travel to the south of England, especially of those
mediaeval pilgrimages to the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. On a
spring evening, at the inspiring time of the year when "longen folk to goon
on pilgrimages," Chaucer alights at the Tabard Inn, and finds it occupied
by a various company of people bent on a pilgrimage. Chance alone had
brought them together; for it was the custom of pilgrims to wait at some
friendly inn until a sufficient company were gathered to make the journey
pleasant and safe from robbers that might be encountered on the way.
Chaucer joins this company, which includes all classes of English society,
from the Oxford scholar to the drunken miller, and accepts gladly their
invitation to go with them on the morrow.
At supper the jovial host of the Tabard Inn suggests that, to enliven the
journey, each of the company shall tell four tales, two going and two
coming, on whatever subject shall suit him best. The host will travel with
them as master of ceremonies, and whoever tells the best story shall be
given a fine supper at the general expense when they all come back
again,--a shrewd bit of business and a fine idea, as the pilgrims all
agree.
When they draw lots for the first story the chance falls to the Knight, who
tells one of the best of the _Canterbury Tales_, the chivalric story of
"Palamon and Arcite." Then the tales follow rapidly, each with its prologue
and epilogue, telling how the story came about, and its effects on the
merry company. Interruptions are numerous; the narrative is full of life
and movement, as when the miller gets drunk and insists on telling his tale
out of season, or when they stop at a friendly inn for the night, or when
the poet with sly humor starts his story of "Sir Thopas," in dreary
imitation of the metrical romances of the day, and is roared at by the host
for his "drasty ryming." With Chaucer we laugh at his own expense, and are
ready for the next tale.
From the number of persons in the company, thirty-two in all, it is evident
that Chaucer meditated an immense work of one hundred and twenty-eight
tales, which should cover the whole life of England. Only twenty-four were
written; some of these are incomplete, and others are taken from his
earlier work to fill out the general plan of the _Canterbury Tales_.
Incomplete as they are, they cover a wide range, including stories of love
and chivalry, of saints and legends, travels, adventures, animal fables,
allegory, satires, and the coarse humor of the common people. Though all
but two are written in verse and abound in exquisite poetical touches, they
are stories as well as poems, and Chaucer is to be regarded as our first
short-story teller as well as our first modern poet. The work ends with a
kindly farewell from the poet to his reader, and so "here taketh the makere
of this book his leve."
PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES. In the famous "Prologue" the poet makes
us acquainted with the various characters of his drama. Until Chaucer's day
popular literature had been busy chiefly with the gods and heroes of a
golden age; it had been essentially romantic, and so had never attempted to
study men and women as they are, or to describe them so that the reader
recognizes them, not as ideal heroes, but as his own neighbors. Chaucer not
only attempted this new realistic task, but accomplished it so well that
his characters were instantly recognized as true to life, and they have
since become the permanent possession of our literature. Beowulf and Roland
are ideal heroes, essentially creatures of the imagination; but the merry
host of the Tabard Inn, Madame Eglantyne, the fat monk, the parish priest,
the kindly plowman, the poor scholar with his "bookes black and red,"--all
seem more like personal acquaintances than characters in a book. Says
Dryden: "I see all the pilgrims, their humours, their features and their
very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in
Southwark." Chaucer is the first English writer to bring the atmosphere of
romantic interest about the men and women and the daily work of one's own
world,--which is the aim of nearly all modern literature.
The historian of our literature is tempted to linger over this "Prologue"
and to quote from it passage after passage to show how keenly and yet
kindly our first modern poet observed his fellow-men. The characters, too,
attract one like a good play: the "verray parfit gentil knight" and his
manly son, the modest prioress, model of sweet piety and society manners,
the sporting monk and the fat friar, the discreet man of law, the well-fed
country squire, the sailor just home from sea, the canny doctor, the
lovable parish priest who taught true religion to his flock, but "first he
folwed it himselve"; the coarse but good-hearted Wyf of Bath, the thieving
miller leading the pilgrims to the music of his bagpipe,--all these and
many others from every walk of English life, and all described with a
quiet, kindly humor which seeks instinctively the best in human nature, and
which has an ample garment of charity to cover even its faults and
failings. "Here," indeed, as Dryden says, "is God's plenty." Probably no
keener or kinder critic ever described his fellows; and in this immortal
"Prologue" Chaucer is a model for all those who would put our human life
into writing. The student should read it entire, as an introduction not
only to the poet but to all our modern literature.
THE KNIGHT'S TALE. As a story, "Palamon and Arcite" is, in many respects,
the best of the _Canterbury Tales_, reflecting as it does the ideals of the
time in regard to romantic love and knightly duty. Though its dialogues and
descriptions are somewhat too long and interrupt the story, yet it shows
Chaucer at his best in his dramatic power, his exquisite appreciation of
nature, and his tender yet profound philosophy of living, which could
overlook much of human frailty in the thought that
Infinite been the sorwes and the teres
Of olde folk, and folk of tendre yeres.
The idea of the story was borrowed from Boccaccio; but parts of the
original tale were much older and belonged to the common literary stock of
the Middle Ages. Like Shakespeare, Chaucer took the material for his poems
wherever he found it, and his originality consists in giving to an old
story some present human interest, making it express the life and ideals of
his own age. In this respect the "Knight's Tale" is remarkable. Its names
are those of an ancient civilization, but its characters are men and women
of the English nobility as Chaucer knew them. In consequence the story has
many anachronisms, such as the mediaeval tournament before the temple of
Mars; but the reader scarcely notices these things, being absorbed in the
dramatic interest of the narrative.
Briefly, the "Knight's Tale" is the story of two young men, fast friends,
who are found wounded on the battlefield and taken prisoners to Athens.
There from their dungeon window they behold the fair maid Emily; both fall
desperately in love with her, and their friendship turns to strenuous
rivalry. One is pardoned; the other escapes; and then knights, empires,
nature,--the whole universe follows their desperate efforts to win one
small maiden, who prays meanwhile to be delivered from both her bothersome
suitors. As the best of the _Canterbury Tales_ are now easily accessible,
we omit here all quotations. The story must be read entire, with the
Prioress' tale of Hugh of Lincoln, the Clerk's tale of Patient Griselda,
and the Nun's Priest's merry tale of Chanticleer and the Fox, if the reader
would appreciate the variety and charm of our first modern poet and
story-teller.
FORM OF CHAUCER'S POETRY. There are three principal meters to be found in
Chaucer's verse. In the _Canterbury Tales_ he uses lines of ten syllables
and five accents each, and the lines run in couplets:
His eyen twinkled in his heed aright
As doon the sterres in the frosty night.
The same musical measure, arranged in seven-line stanzas, but with a
different rime, called the Rime Royal, is found in its most perfect form in
_Troilus_.
O blisful light, of whiche the bemes clere
Adorneth al the thridde hevene faire!
O sonnes leef, O Joves doughter dere,
Plesaunce of love, O goodly debonaire,
In gentil hertes ay redy to repaire!
O verray cause of hele and of gladnesse,
Y-heried be thy might and thy goodnesse!
In hevene and helle, in erthe and salte see
Is felt thy might, if that I wel descerne;
As man, brid, best, fish, herbe and grene tree
Thee fele in tymes with vapour eterne.
God loveth, and to love wol nought werne;
And in this world no lyves creature,
With-outen love, is worth, or may endure.[84]
The third meter is the eight-syllable line with four accents, the lines
riming in couplets, as in the "Boke of the Duchesse":
Thereto she coude so wel pleye,
Whan that hir liste, that I dar seye
That she was lyk to torche bright,
That every man may take-of light
Ynough, and hit hath never the lesse.
Besides these principal meters, Chaucer in his short poems used many other
poetical forms modeled after the French, who in the fourteenth century were
cunning workers in every form of verse. Chief among these are the difficult
but exquisite rondel, "Now welcom Somer with thy sonne softe," which closes
the "Parliament of Fowls," and the ballad, "Flee fro the prees," which has
been already quoted. In the "Monk's Tale" there is a melodious measure
which may have furnished the model for Spenser's famous stanza.[85]
Chaucer's poetry is extremely musical and must be judged by the ear rather
than by the eye. To the modern reader the lines appear broken and uneven;
but if one reads them over a few times, he soon catches the perfect swing
of the measure, and finds that he is in the hands of a master whose ear is
delicately sensitive to the smallest accent. There is a lilt in all his
lines which is marvelous when we consider that he is the first to show us
the poetic possibilities of the language. His claim upon our gratitude is
twofold:[86] first, for discovering the music that is in our English
speech; and second, for his influence in fixing the Midland dialect as the
literary language of England.
CHAUCER'S CONTEMPORARIES
WILLIAM LANGLAND (1332? ....?)
LIFE. Very little is known of Langland. He was born probably near Malvern,
in Worcestershire, the son of a poor freeman, and in his early life lived
in the fields as a shepherd. Later he went to London with his wife and
children, getting a hungry living as clerk in the church. His real life
meanwhile was that of a seer, a prophet after Isaiah's own heart, if we may
judge by the prophecy which soon found a voice in _Piers Plowman_. In 1399,
after the success of his great work, he was possibly writing another poem
called _Richard the Redeless_, a protest against Richard II; but we are not
certain of the authorship of this poem, which was left unfinished by the
assassination of the king. After 1399 Langland disappears utterly, and the
date of his death is unknown.
PIERS PLOWMAN. "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye
the way of the Lord," might well be written at the beginning of this
remarkable poem. Truth, sincerity, a direct and practical appeal to
conscience, and a vision of right triumphant over wrong,--these are the
elements of all prophecy; and it was undoubtedly these elements in _Piers
Plowman_ that produced such an impression on the people of England. For
centuries literature had been busy in pleasing the upper classes chiefly;
but here at last was a great poem which appealed directly to the common
people, and its success was enormous. The whole poem is traditionally
attributed to Langland; but it is now known to be the work of several
different writers. It first appeared in 1362 as a poem of eighteen hundred
lines, and this may have been Langland's work. In the next thirty years,
during the desperate social conditions which led to Tyler's Rebellion, it
was repeatedly revised and enlarged by different hands till it reached its
final form of about fifteen thousand lines.
The poem as we read it now is in two distinct parts, the first containing
the vision of Piers, the second a series of visions called "The Search for
Dowel, Dobet, Dobest" (do well, better, best). The entire poem is in
strongly accented, alliterative lines, something like _Beowulf_, and its
immense popularity shows that the common people still cherished this easily
memorized form of Saxon poetry. Its tremendous appeal to justice and common
honesty, its clarion call to every man, whether king, priest, noble, or
laborer, to do his Christian duty, takes from it any trace of prejudice or
bigotry with which such works usually abound. Its loyalty to the Church,
while denouncing abuses that had crept into it in that period, was one of
the great influences which led to the Reformation in England. Its two great
principles, the equality of men before God and the dignity of honest labor,
roused a whole nation of freemen. Altogether it is one of the world's great
works, partly because of its national influence, partly because it is the
very best picture we possess of the social life of the fourteenth century:
Briefly, _Piers Plowman_ is an allegory of life. In the first vision, that
of the "Field Full of Folk," the poet lies down on the Malvern Hills on a
May morning, and a vision comes to him in sleep. On the plain beneath him
gather a multitude of folk, a vast crowd expressing the varied life of the
world. All classes and conditions are there; workingmen are toiling that
others may seize all the first fruits of their labor and live high on the
proceeds; and the genius of the throng is Lady Bribery, a powerfully drawn
figure, expressing the corrupt social life of the times.
The next visions are those of the Seven Deadly Sins, allegorical figures,
but powerful as those of _Pilgrim's Progress_, making the allegories of the
_Romaunt of the Rose_ seem like shadows in comparison. These all came to
Piers asking the way to Truth; but Piers is plowing his half acre and
refuses to leave his work and lead them. He sets them all to honest toil as
the best possible remedy for their vices, and preaches the gospel of work
as a preparation for salvation. Throughout the poem Piers bears strong
resemblance to John Baptist preaching to the crowds in the wilderness. The
later visions are proclamations of the moral and spiritual life of man. The
poem grows dramatic in its intensity, rising to its highest power in
Piers's triumph over Death. And then the poet wakes from his vision with
the sound of Easter bells ringing in his ears.
Here are a few lines to illustrate the style and language; but the whole
poem must be read if one is to understand its crude strength and prophetic
spirit:
In a somer sesun, whon softe was the sonne,
I schop[87] me into a shroud, as I a scheep were,
In habite as an heremite, unholy of werkes,
Went wyde in this world, wondres to here.
Bote in a Mayes mornynge, on Malverne hulles,
Me byfel a ferly,[88] of fairie me thoughte.
I was wery, forwandred, and went me to reste
Undur a brod banke, bi a bourne[89] side;
And as I lay and lened, and loked on the watres,
I slumbred in a slepyng---hit swyed[90] so murie....
JOHN WYCLIF (1324?-1384)
Wyclif, as a man, is by far the most powerful English figure of the
fourteenth century. The immense influence of his preaching in the native
tongue, and the power of his Lollards to stir the souls of the common folk,
are too well known historically to need repetition. Though a university man
and a profound scholar, he sides with Langland, and his interests are with
the people rather than with the privileged classes, for whom Chaucer
writes. His great work, which earned him his title of "father of English
prose," is the translation of the Bible. Wyclif himself translated the
gospels, and much more of the New Testament; the rest was finished by his
followers, especially by Nicholas of Hereford. These translations were made
from the Latin Vulgate, not from the original Greek and Hebrew, and the
whole work was revised in 1388 by John Purvey, a disciple of Wyclif. It is
impossible to overestimate the influence of this work, both on our English
prose and on the lives of the English people.
Though Wyclif's works are now unread, except by occasional scholars, he
still occupies a very high place in our literature. His translation of the
Bible was slowly copied all over England, and so fixed a national standard
of English prose to replace the various dialects. Portions of this
translation, in the form of favorite passages from Scripture, were copied
by thousands, and for the first time in our history a standard of pure
English was established in the homes of the common people.
As a suggestion of the language of that day, we quote a few familiar
sentences from the Sermon on the Mount, as given in the later version of
Wyclif's Gospel:
And he openyde his mouth, and taughte hem, and seide, Blessid ben pore men
in spirit, for the kyngdom of hevenes is herne.[91] Blessid ben mylde men,
for thei schulen welde[92] the erthe. Blessid ben thei that mornen, for
thei schulen be coumfortid. Blessid ben thei that hungren and thristen
rightwisnesse,[93] for thei schulen be fulfillid. Blessid ben merciful men,
for thei schulen gete merci. Blessid ben thei that ben of clene herte, for
thei schulen se God. Blessid ben pesible men, for thei schulen be
clepid[94] Goddis children. Blessid ben thei that suffren persecusioun for
rightfulnesse, for the kyngdom of hevenes is herne.[95] ...
Eftsoone ye han herd, that it was seid to elde men, Thou schalt not
forswere, but thou schalt yelde[96] thin othis to the Lord. But Y seie[97]
to you, that ye swere not for ony thing;... but be youre worde, yhe, yhe;
nay, nay; and that that is more than these, is of yvel....
Ye han herd that it was seid, Thou schalt love thi neighbore, and hate thin
enemye. But Y seie to you, love ye youre enemyes, do ye wel to hem[98] that
hatiden[99] you, and preye ye for hem that pursuen[100] and sclaundren[101]
you; that ye be the sones of youre Fadir that is in hevenes, that makith
his sunne to rise upon goode and yvele men, and reyneth[102] on just men
and unjuste.... Therefore be ye parfit, as youre hevenli Fadir is parfit.
JOHN MANDEVILLE
About the year 1356 there appeared in England an extraordinary book called
the _Voyage and Travail of Sir John Maundeville_, written in excellent
style in the Midland dialect, which was then becoming the literary language
of England. For years this interesting work and its unknown author were
subjects of endless dispute; but it is now fairly certain that this
collection of travelers' tales is simply a compilation from Odoric, Marco
Polo, and various other sources. The original work was probably in French,
which was speedily translated into Latin, then into English and other
languages; and wherever it appeared it became extremely popular, its
marvelous stories of foreign lands being exactly suited to the credulous
spirit of the age.[103] At the present time there are said to be three
hundred copied manuscripts of "Mandeville" in various languages,--more,
probably, than of any other work save the gospels. In the prologue of the
English version the author calls himself John Maundeville and gives an
outline of his wide travels during thirty years; but the name is probably a
"blind," the prologue more or less spurious, and the real compiler is still
to be discovered.
The modern reader may spend an hour or two very pleasantly in this old
wonderland. On its literary side the book is remarkable, though a
translation, as being the first prose work in modern English having a
distinctly literary style and flavor. Otherwise it is a most interesting
commentary on the general culture and credulity of the fourteenth century.
SUMMARY OF THE AGE OF CHAUCER. The fourteenth century is remarkable
historically for the decline of feudalism (organized by the Normans), for
the growth of the English national spirit during the wars with France, for
the prominence of the House of Commons, and for the growing power of the
laboring classes, who had heretofore been in a condition hardly above that
of slavery.
The age produced five writers of note, one of whom, Geoffrey Chaucer, is
one of the greatest of English writers. His poetry is remarkable for its
variety, its story interest, and its wonderful melody. Chaucer's work and
Wyclif's translation of the Bible developed the Midland dialect into the
national language of England.
In our study we have noted: (1) Chaucer, his life and work; his early or
French period, in which he translated "The Romance of the Rose" and wrote
many minor poems; his middle or Italian period, of which the chief poems
are "Troilus and Cressida" and "The Legend of Good Women"; his late or
English period, in which he worked at his masterpiece, the famous
_Canterbury Tales_. (2) Langland, the poet and prophet of social reforms.
His chief work is _Piers Plowman_. (3) Wyclif, the religious reformer, who
first translated the gospels into English, and by his translation fixed a
common standard of English speech. (4) Mandeville, the alleged traveler,
who represents the new English interest in distant lands following the
development of foreign trade. He is famous for _Mandeville's Travels_, a
book which romances about the wonders to be seen abroad. The fifth writer
of the age is Gower, who wrote in three languages, French, Latin, and
English. His chief English work is the _Confessio Amantis_, a long poem
containing one hundred and twelve tales. Of these only the "Knight Florent"
and two or three others are interesting to a modern reader.
SELECTIONS FOR READING. Chaucer's Prologue, the Knight's Tale, Nun's
Priest's Tale, Prioress' Tale, Clerk's Tale. These are found, more or less
complete, in Standard English Classics, King's Classics, Riverside
Literature Series, etc. Skeat's school edition of the Prologue, Knight's
Tale, etc., is especially good, and includes a study of fourteenth-century
English. Miscellaneous poems of Chaucer in Manly's English Poetry or Ward's
English Poets. Piers Plowman, in King's Classics. Mandeville's Travels,
modernized, in English Classics, and in Cassell's National Library.
For the advanced student, and as a study of language, compare selections
from Wyclif, Chaucer's prose work, Mandeville, etc., in Manly's English
Prose, or Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English, or Craik's English
Prose Selections. Selections from Wyclif's Bible in English Classics
Series.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.[104]
_HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 115-149, or Cheyney, pp. 186-263. For
fuller treatment, Green, ch. 5; Traill; Gardiner.
_Special Works_. Hutton's King and Baronage (Oxford Manuals); Jusserand's
Wayfaring Life in the Fourteenth Century; Coulton's Chaucer and his
England; Pauli's Pictures from Old England; Wright's History of Domestic
Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages; Trevelyan's
England in the Age of Wyclif; Jenks's In the Days of Chaucer; Froissart's
Chronicle, in Everyman's Library; the same, new edition, 1895 (Macmillan);
Lanier's Boys' Froissart (i.e. Froissart's Chronicle of Historical Events,
1325-1400); Newbolt's Stories from Froissart; Bulfinch's Age of Chivalry
may be read in connection with this and the preceding periods.
_LITERATURE. General Works_. Jusserand; Ten Brink; Mitchell; Minto's
Characteristics of English Poets; Courthope's History of English Poetry.
_Chaucer_, (1) Life: by Lounsbury, in Studies in Chaucer, vol. I; by Ward,
in English Men of Letters Series; Pollard's Chaucer Primer. (2) Aids to
study: F.J. Snell's The Age of Chaucer; Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer (3
vols.); Root's The Poetry of Chaucer; Lowell's Essay, in My Study Windows;
Hammond's Chaucer: a Biographical Manual; Hempl's Chaucer's Pronunciation;
Introductions to school editions of Chaucer, by Skeat, Liddell, and Mather.
(3) Texts and selections: The Oxford Chaucer, 6 vols., edited by Skeat, is
the standard; Skeat's Student's Chaucer; The Globe Chaucer (Macmillan);
Works of Chaucer, edited by Lounsbury (Crowell); Pollard's The Canterbury
Tales, Eversley edition; Skeat's Selections from Chaucer (Clarendon Press);
Chaucer's Prologue, and various tales, in Standard English Classics (Ginn
and Company), and in other school series.
_Minor Writers_. Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English Prose.
Jusserand's Piers Plowman; Skeat's Piers Plowman (text, glossary and
notes); Warren's Piers Plowman in Modern Prose. Arnold's Wyclif's Select
English Works; Sergeant's Wyclif (Heroes of the Nation Series); Le Bas's
Life of John Wyclif. Travels of Sir John Mandeville (modern spelling), in
Library of English Classics; Macaulay's Gower's English Works.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What are the chief historical events of the
fourteenth century? What social movement is noticeable? What writers
reflect political and social conditions?
2. Tell briefly the story of Chaucer's life. What foreign influences are
noticeable? Name a few poems illustrating his three periods of work. What
qualities have you noticed in his poetry? Why is he called our first
national poet?
3. Give the plan of the _Canterbury Tales_. For what is the Prologue
remarkable? What light does it throw upon English life of the fourteenth
century? Quote or read some passages that have impressed you. Which
character do you like best? Are any of the characters like certain men and
women whom you know? What classes of society are introduced? Is Chaucer's
attitude sympathetic or merely critical?
4. Tell in your own words the tale you like best. Which tale seems truest
to life as you know it? Mention any other poets who tell stories in verse.
5. Quote or read passages which show Chaucer's keenness of observation, his
humor, his kindness in judgment, his delight in nature. What side of human
nature does he emphasize? Make a little comparison between Chaucer and
Shakespeare, having in mind (1) the characters described by both poets, (2)
their knowledge of human nature, (3) the sources of their plots, (4) the
interest of their works.
6. Describe briefly _Piers Plowman_ and its author. Why is the poem called
"the gospel of the poor"? What message does it contain for daily labor?
Does it apply to any modern conditions? Note any resemblance in ideas
between _Piers Plowman_ and such modern works as Carlyle's _Past and
Present_, Kingsley's _Alton Locke_, Morris's _Dream of John Ball_, etc.
7. For what is Wyclif remarkable in literature? How did his work affect our
language? Note resemblances and differences between Wyclif and the
Puritans.
8. What is _Mandeville's Travels_? What light does it throw on the mental
condition of the age? What essential difference do you note between this
book and _Gulliver's Travels_?
CHRONOLOGY, FOURTEENTH CENTURY
=======================================================================
HISTORY | LITERATURE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1327. Edward III |
|
1338. Beginning of Hundred Years' |
War with France | 1340(?). Birth of Chaucer
|
1347. Capture of Calais |
|
1348-1349. Black Death | 1356. Mandeville's Travels
|
| 1359. Chaucer in French War
|
| 1360-1370. Chaucer's early
| or French period
|
1373. Winchester College, first |
great public school | 1370-1385. Chaucer's Middle or
| Italian period
1377. Richard II. Wyclif and the |
Lollards begin Reformation | 1362-1395. Piers Plowman
in England |
|
1381. Peasant Rebellion. Wat Tyler | 1385-1400. Canterbury Tales
|
| 1382. First complete Bible in
| English
|
1399. Deposition of Richard II. | 1400. Death of Chaucer
Henry IV chosen by Parliament| (Dante's Divina Commedia,
| _c_. 1310; Petrarch's
| sonnets and poems, 1325-1374;
| Boccaccio's tales, _c_.
| 1350.)
========================================================================
* * * * *
CHAPTER V
THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING (1400-1550)
I. HISTORY OF THE PERIOD
POLITICAL CHANGES. The century and a half following the death of Chaucer
(1400-1550) is the most volcanic period of English history. The land is
swept by vast changes, inseparable from the rapid accumulation of national
power; but since power is the most dangerous of gifts until men have
learned to control it, these changes seem at first to have no specific aim
or direction. Henry V--whose erratic yet vigorous life, as depicted by
Shakespeare, was typical of the life of his times--first let Europe feel
the might of the new national spirit. To divert that growing and unruly
spirit from rebellion at home, Henry led his army abroad, in the apparently
impossible attempt to gain for himself three things: a French wife, a
French revenue, and the French crown itself. The battle of Agincourt was
fought in 1415, and five years later, by the Treaty of Troyes, France
acknowledged his right to all his outrageous demands.
The uselessness of the terrific struggle on French soil is shown by the
rapidity with which all its results were swept away. When Henry died in
1422, leaving his son heir to the crowns of France and England, a
magnificent recumbent statue with head of pure silver was placed in
Westminster Abbey to commemorate his victories. The silver head was
presently stolen, and the loss is typical of all that he had struggled for.
His son, Henry VI, was but the shadow of a king, a puppet in the hands of
powerful nobles, who seized the power of England and turned it to self-
destruction. Meanwhile all his foreign possessions were won back by the
French under the magic leadership of Joan of Arc. Cade's Rebellion (1450)
and the bloody Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) are names to show how the
energy of England was violently destroying itself, like a great engine that
has lost its balance wheel. The frightful reign of Richard III followed,
which had, however, this redeeming quality, that it marked the end of civil
wars and the self-destruction of feudalism, and made possible a new growth
of English national sentiment under the popular Tudors.
In the long reign of Henry VIII the changes are less violent, but have more
purpose and significance. His age is marked by a steady increase in the
national power at home and abroad, by the entrance of the Reformation "by a
side door," and by the final separation of England from all ecclesiastical
bondage in Parliament's famous Act of Supremacy. In previous reigns
chivalry and the old feudal system had practically been banished; now
monasticism, the third mediaeval institution with its mixed evil and good,
received its death-blow in the wholesale suppression of the monasteries and
the removal of abbots from the House of Lords. Notwithstanding the evil
character of the king and the hypocrisy of proclaiming such a creature the
head of any church or the defender of any faith, we acquiesce silently in
Stubb's declaration[105] that "the world owes some of its greatest debts to
men from whose memory the world recoils."
While England during this period was in constant political strife, yet
rising slowly, like the spiral flight of an eagle, to heights of national
greatness, intellectually it moved forward with bewildering rapidity.
Printing was brought to England by Caxton (_c_. 1476), and for the first
time in history it was possible for a book or an idea to reach the whole
nation. Schools and universities were established in place of the old
monasteries; Greek ideas and Greek culture came to England in the
Renaissance, and man's spiritual freedom was proclaimed in the Reformation.
The great names of the period are numerous and significant, but literature
is strangely silent. Probably the very turmoil of the age prevented any
literary development, for literature is one of the arts of peace; it
requires quiet and meditation rather than activity, and the stirring life
of the Renaissance had first to be lived before it could express itself in
the new literature of the Elizabethan period.
THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING. The Revival of Learning denotes, in its broadest
sense, that gradual enlightenment of the human mind after the darkness of
the Middle Ages. The names Renaissance and Humanism, which are often
applied to the same movement, have properly a narrower significance. The
term Renaissance, though used by many writers "to denote the whole
transition from the Middle Ages to the modern world,"[106] is more
correctly applied to the revival of art resulting from the discovery and
imitation of classic models in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Humanism applies to the revival of classic literature, and was so called by
its leaders, following the example of Petrarch, because they held that the
study of the classics, _literae humaniores_,--i.e. the "more human
writings," rather than the old theology,--was the best means of promoting
the largest human interests. We use the term Revival of Learning to cover
the whole movement, whose essence was, according to Lamartine, that "man
discovered himself and the universe," and, according to Taine, that man, so
long blinded, "had suddenly opened his eyes and seen."
We shall understand this better if we remember that in the Middle Ages
man's whole world consisted of the narrow Mediterranean and the nations
that clustered about it; and that this little world seemed bounded by
impassable barriers, as if God had said to their sailors, "Hitherto shalt
thou come, but no farther." Man's mind also was bounded by the same narrow
lines. His culture as measured by the great deductive system of
Scholasticism consisted not in discovery, but rather in accepting certain
principles and traditions established by divine and ecclesiastical
authority as the basis of all truth. These were his Pillars of Hercules,
his mental and spiritual bounds that he must not pass, and within these,
like a child playing with lettered blocks, he proceeded to build his
intellectual system. Only as we remember their limitations can we
appreciate the heroism of these toilers of the Middle Ages, giants in
intellect, yet playing with children's toys; ignorant of the laws and
forces of the universe, while debating the essence and locomotion of
angels; eager to learn, yet forbidden to enter fresh fields in the right of
free exploration and the joy of individual discovery.
The Revival stirred these men as the voyages of Da Gama and Columbus
stirred the mariners of the Mediterranean. First came the sciences and
inventions of the Arabs, making their way slowly against the prejudice of
the authorities, and opening men's eyes to the unexplored realms of nature.
Then came the flood of Greek literature which the new art of printing
carried swiftly to every school in Europe, revealing a new world of poetry
and philosophy. Scholars flocked to the universities, as adventurers to the
new world of America, and there the old authority received a deathblow.
Truth only was authority; to search for truth everywhere, as men sought for
new lands and gold and the fountain of youth,--that was the new spirit
which awoke in Europe with the Revival of Learning.
II. LITERATURE OF THE REVIVAL
The hundred and fifty years of the Revival period are singularly destitute
of good literature. Men's minds were too much occupied with religious and
political changes and with the rapid enlargement of the mental horizon to
find time for that peace and leisure which are essential for literary
results. Perhaps, also, the floods of newly discovered classics, which
occupied scholars and the new printing presses alike, were by their very
power and abundance a discouragement of native talent. Roger Ascham
(1515-1568), a famous classical scholar, who published a book called
_Toxophilus_ (School of Shooting) in 1545, expresses in his preface, or
"apology," a very widespread dissatisfaction over the neglect of native
literature when he says, "And as for ye Latin or greke tongue, every thing
is so excellently done in them, that none can do better: In the Englysh
tonge contrary, every thinge in a maner so meanly, both for the matter and
handelynge, that no man can do worse."
On the Continent, also, this new interest in the classics served to check
the growth of native literatures. In Italy especially, for a full century
after the brilliant age of Dante and Petrarch, no great literature was
produced, and the Italian language itself seemed to go backward.[107] The
truth is that these great writers were, like Chaucer, far in advance of
their age, and that the mediaeval mind was too narrow, too scantily
furnished with ideas to produce a varied literature. The fifteenth century
was an age of preparation, of learning the beginnings of science, and of
getting acquainted with the great ideals,--the stern law, the profound
philosophy, the suggestive mythology, and the noble poetry of the Greeks
and Romans. So the mind was furnished with ideas for a new literature.
With the exception of Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_ (which is still mediaeval in
spirit) the student will find little of interest in the literature of this
period. We give here a brief summary of the men and the books most "worthy
of remembrance"; but for the real literature of the Renaissance one must go
forward a century and a half to the age of Elizabeth.
The two greatest books which appeared in England during this period are
undoubtedly Erasmus's[108] _Praise of Folly_ (_Encomium Moriae_) and More's
_Utopia_, the famous "Kingdom of Nowhere." Both were written in Latin, but
were speedily translated into all European languages. The _Praise of Folly_
is like a song of victory for the New Learning, which had driven away vice,
ignorance, and superstition, the three foes of humanity. It was published
in 1511 after the accession of Henry VIII. Folly is represented as donning
cap and bells and mounting a pulpit, where the vice and cruelty of kings,
the selfishness and ignorance of the clergy, and the foolish standards of
education are satirized without mercy.
More's _Utopia_, published in 1516, is a powerful and original study of
social conditions, unlike anything which had ever appeared in any
literature.[109] In our own day we have seen its influence in Bellamy's
_Looking Backward_, an enormously successful book, which recently set
people to thinking of the unnecessary cruelty of modern social conditions.
More learns from a sailor, one of Amerigo Vespucci's companions, of a
wonderful Kingdom of Nowhere, in which all questions of labor, government,
society, and religion have been easily settled by simple justice and common
sense. In this _Utopia_ we find for the first time, as the foundations of
civilized society, the three great words, Liberty, Fraternity, Equality,
which retained their inspiration through all the violence of the French
Revolution and which are still the unrealized ideal of every free
government. As he hears of this wonderful country More wonders why, after
fifteen centuries of Christianity, his own land is so little civilized; and
as we read the book to-day we ask ourselves the same question. The splendid
dream is still far from being realized; yet it seems as if any nation could
become Utopia in a single generation, so simple and just are the
requirements.
Greater than either of these books, in its influence upon the common
people, is Tyndale's translation of the New Testament (1525), which fixed a
standard of good English, and at the same time brought that standard not
only to scholars but to the homes of the common people. Tyndale made his
translation from the original Greek, and later translated parts of the Old
Testament from the Hebrew. Much of Tyndale's work was included in Cranmer's
Bible, known also as the Great Bible, in 1539, and was read in every parish
church in England. It was the foundation for the Authorized Version, which
appeared nearly a century later and became the standard for the whole
English-speaking race.
WYATT AND SURREY. In 1557 appeared probably the first printed collection of
miscellaneous English poems, known as _Tottel's Miscellany_. It contained
the work of the so-called courtly makers, or poets, which had hitherto
circulated in manuscript form for the benefit of the court. About half of
these poems were the work of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?-1542) and of Henry
Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517?-1547). Both together wrote amorous sonnets
modeled after the Italians, introducing a new verse form which, although
very difficult, has been a favorite ever since with our English poets.[110]
Surrey is noted, not for any especial worth or originality of his own
poems, but rather for his translation of two books of Virgil "in strange
meter." The strange meter was the blank verse, which had never before
appeared in English. The chief literary work of these two men, therefore,
is to introduce the sonnet and the blank verse,--one the most dainty, the
other the most flexible and characteristic form of English poetry,--which
in the hands of Shakespeare and Milton were used to make the world's
masterpieces.
MALORY'S MORTE D'ARTHUR. The greatest English work of this period, measured
by its effect on subsequent literature, is undoubtedly the _Morte
d'Arthur_, a collection of the Arthurian romances told in simple and vivid
prose. Of Sir Thomas Malory, the author, Caxton[111] in his introduction
says that he was a knight, and completed his work in 1470, fifteen years
before Caxton printed it. The record adds that "he was the servant of Jesu
both by day and night." Beyond that we know little[112] except what may be
inferred from the splendid work itself.
Malory groups the legends about the central idea of the search for the Holy
Grail. Though many of the stories, like Tristram and Isolde, are purely
pagan, Malory treats them all in such a way as to preserve the whole spirit
of mediaeval Christianity as it has been preserved in no other work. It was
to Malory rather than to Layamon or to the early French writers that
Shakespeare and his contemporaries turned for their material; and in our
own age he has supplied Tennyson and Matthew Arnold and Swinburne and
Morris with the inspiration for the "Idylls of the King" and the "Death of
Tristram" and the other exquisite poems which center about Arthur and the
knights of his Round Table.
In subject-matter the book belongs to the mediaeval age; but Malory himself,
with his desire to preserve the literary monuments of the past, belongs to
the Renaissance; and he deserves our lasting gratitude for attempting to
preserve the legends and poetry of Britain at a time when scholars were
chiefly busy with the classics of Greece and Rome. As the Arthurian legends
are one of the great recurring motives of English literature, Malory's work
should be better known. His stories may be and should be told to every
child as part of his literary inheritance. Then Malory may be read for his
style and his English prose and his expression of the mediaeval spirit. And
then the stories may be read again, in Tennyson's "Idylls," to show how
those exquisite old fancies appeal to the minds of our modern poets.
SUMMARY OF THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING PERIOD. This transition period is at
first one of decline from the Age of Chaucer, and then of intellectual
preparation for the Age of Elizabeth. For a century and a half after
Chaucer not a single great English work appeared, and the general standard
of literature was very low. There are three chief causes to account for
this: (1) the long war with France and the civil Wars of the Roses
distracted attention from books and poetry, and destroyed of ruined many
noble English families who had been friends and patrons of literature; (2)
the Reformation in the latter part of the period filled men's minds with
religious questions; (3) the Revival of Learning set scholars and literary
men to an eager study of the classics, rather than to the creation of
native literature. Historically the age is noticeable for its intellectual
progress, for the introduction of printing, for the discovery of America,
for the beginning of the Reformation, and for the growth of political power
among the common people.
In our study we have noted: (1) the Revival of Learning, what it was, and
the significance of the terms Humanism and Renaissance; (2) three
influential literary works,--Erasmus's _Praise of Folly_, More's _Utopia_,
and Tyndale's translation of the New Testament; (3) Wyatt and Surrey, and
the so-called courtly makers or poets; (4) Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, a
collection of the Arthurian legends in English prose. The Miracle and
Mystery Plays were the most popular form of entertainment in this age; but
we have reserved them for special study in connection with the Rise of the
Drama, in the following chapter.
SELECTIONS FOR READING. Malory's Morte d'Arthur, selections, in Athenaeum
Press Series, etc. (It is interesting to read Tennyson's Passing of Arthur
in connection with Malory's account.) Utopia, in Arber's Reprints, Temple
Classics, King's Classics, etc. Selections from Wyatt, Surrey, etc., in
Manly's English Poetry or Ward's English Poets; Tottel's Miscellany, in
Arber's Reprints. Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English, vol. 3,
has good selections from this period.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.[113]
_HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 150-208, or Cheyney, pp. 264-328.
Greene, ch. 6; Traill; Gardiner; Froude; etc.
_Special Works_. Denton's England in the Fifteenth Century; Flower's The
Century of Sir Thomas More; The Household of Sir Thomas More, in King's
Classics; Green's Town Life in the Fifteenth Century; Field's Introduction
to the Study of the Renaissance; Einstein's The Italian Renaissance in
England; Seebohm's The Oxford Reformers (Erasmus, More, etc.).
_LITERATURE. General Works_. Jusserand; Ten Brink; Minto's Characteristics
of English Poets.
_Special Works_. Saintsbury's Elizabethan Literature; Malory's Morte
d'Arthur, edited by Sommer; the same by Gollancz (Temple Classics);
Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur; More's Utopia, in Temple Classics, King's
Classics, etc.; Roper's Life of Sir Thomas More, in King's Classics, Temple
Classics, etc.; Ascham's Schoolmaster, in Arber's English Reprints; Poems
of Wyatt and Surrey, in English Reprints and Bell's Aldine Poets; Simonds's
Sir Thomas Wyatt and His Poems; Allen's Selections from Erasmus;
Jusserand's Romance of a King's Life (James I of Scotland) contains
extracts and an admirable criticism of the King's Quair.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. The fifteenth century in English literature is
sometimes called "the age of arrest." Can you explain why? What causes
account for the lack of great literature in this period? Why should the
ruin of noble families at this time seriously affect our literature? Can
you recall anything from the Anglo-Saxon period to justify your opinion?
2. What is meant by Humanism? What was the first effect of the study of
Greek and Latin classics upon our literature? What excellent literary
purposes did the classics serve in later periods?
3. What are the chief benefits to literature of the discovery of printing?
What effect on civilization has the multiplication of books?
4. Describe More's _Utopia_. Do you know any modern books like it? Why
should any impractical scheme of progress be still called Utopian?
5. What work of this period had the greatest effect on the English
language? Explain why.
6. What was the chief literary influence exerted by Wyatt and Surrey? Do
you know any later poets who made use of the verse forms which they
introduced?
7. Which of Malory's stories do you like best? Where did these stories
originate? Have they any historical foundation? What two great elements did
Malory combine in his work? What is the importance of his book to later
English literature? Compare Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" and Malory's
stories with regard to material, expression, and interest. Note the marked
resemblances and differences between the _Morte d'Arthur_ and the
_Nibelungen Lied_.
CHRONOLOGY
===========================================================================
HISTORY | LITERATURE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1413. Henry V |
1415. Battle of Agincourt |
1422. Henry VI | 1470. Malory's Morte d' Arthur
1428. Siege of Orleans. Joan of Arc | 1474(c). Caxton, at Bruges,
1453. End of Hundred Year's War | prints the first book in
1455-1485. War of Roses | English, the Recuyell of the
1461. Edward IV | Histories of Troye
1483. Richard III | 1477. First book printed in
| England
1485. Henry VII | 1485. Morte d'Arthur printed
| by Caxton
1492. Columbus discovers America | 1499. Colet, Erasmus, and More
1509. Henry VIII | bring the New Learning to
| Oxford
| 1509. Erasmus's Praise of
| Folly
| 1516. More's Utopia
| 1525. Tydale's New Testament
1534. Act of Supremacy. The | 1530(c). Introduction of the
Reformation accomplished | sonnet and blank verse by
| Wyatt and Surrey
| 1539. The Great Bible
1547. Edward VI |
1553. Mary | 1557. Tottel's Miscellany
1558. Elizabeth |
===========================================================================
* * * * *
CHAPTER VI
THE AGE OF ELIZABETH (1550-1620)
I. HISTORY OF THE PERIOD
POLITICAL SUMMARY. In the Age of Elizabeth all doubt seems to vanish from
English history. After the reigns of Edward and Mary, with defeat and
humiliation abroad and persecutions and rebellion at home, the accession of
a popular sovereign was like the sunrise after a long night, and, in
Milton's words, we suddenly see England, "a noble and puissant nation,
rousing herself, like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible
locks." With the queen's character, a strange mingling of frivolity and
strength which reminds one of that iron image with feet of clay, we have
nothing whatever to do. It is the national life that concerns the literary
student, since even a beginner must notice that any great development of
the national life is invariably associated with a development of the
national literature. It is enough for our purpose, therefore, to point out
two facts: that Elizabeth, with all her vanity and inconsistency, steadily
loved England and England's greatness; and that she inspired all her people
with the unbounded patriotism which exults in Shakespeare, and with the
personal devotion which finds a voice in the _Faery Queen_. Under her
administration the English national life progressed by gigantic leaps
rather than by slow historical process, and English literature reached the
very highest point of its development. It is possible to indicate only a
few general characteristics of this great age which had a direct bearing
upon its literature.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. The most characteristic feature of
the age was the comparative religious tolerance, which was due largely to
the queen's influence. The frightful excesses of the religious war known as
the Thirty Years' War on the Continent found no parallel in England. Upon
her accession Elizabeth found the whole kingdom divided against itself; the
North was largely Catholic, while the southern counties were as strongly
Protestant. Scotland had followed the Reformation in its own intense way,
while Ireland remained true to its old religious traditions, and both
countries were openly rebellious. The court, made up of both parties,
witnessed the rival intrigues of those who sought to gain the royal favor.
It was due partly to the intense absorption of men's minds in religious
questions that the preceding century, though an age of advancing learning,
produced scarcely any literature worthy of the name. Elizabeth favored both
religious parties, and presently the world saw with amazement Catholics and
Protestants acting together as trusted counselors of a great sovereign. The
defeat of the Spanish Armada established the Reformation as a fact in
England, and at the same time united all Englishmen in a magnificent
national enthusiasm. For the first time since the Reformation began, the
fundamental question of religious toleration seemed to be settled, and the
mind of man, freed from religious fears and persecutions, turned with a
great creative impulse to other forms of activity. It is partly from this
new freedom of the mind that the Age of Elizabeth received its great
literary stimulus.
2. It was an age of comparative social contentment, in strong contrast with
the days of Langland. The rapid increase of manufacturing towns gave
employment to thousands who had before been idle and discontented.
Increasing trade brought enormous wealth to England, and this wealth was
shared to this extent, at least, that for the first time some systematic
care for the needy was attempted. Parishes were made responsible for their
own poor, and the wealthy were taxed to support them or give them
employment. The increase of wealth, the improvement in living, the
opportunities for labor, the new social content--these also are factors
which help to account for the new literary activity.
3. It is an age of dreams, of adventure, of unbounded enthusiasm springing
from the new lands of fabulous riches revealed by English explorers. Drake
sails around the world, shaping the mighty course which English colonizers
shall follow through the centuries; and presently the young philosopher
Bacon is saying confidently, "I have taken all knowledge for my province."
The mind must search farther than the eye; with new, rich lands opened to
the sight, the imagination must create new forms to people the new worlds.
Hakluyt's famous _Collection of Voyages_, and _Purchas, His Pilgrimage_,
were even more stimulating to the English imagination than to the English
acquisitiveness. While her explorers search the new world for the Fountain
of Youth, her poets are creating literary works that are young forever.
Marston writes:[114] "Why, man, all their dripping pans are pure gold. The
prisoners they take are fettered in gold; and as for rubies and diamonds,
they goe forth on holydayes and gather 'hem by the seashore to hang on
their children's coates." This comes nearer to being a description of
Shakespeare's poetry than of the Indians in Virginia. Prospero, in _The
Tempest_, with his control over the mighty powers and harmonies of nature,
is only the literary dream of that science which had just begun to grapple
with the forces of the universe. Cabot, Drake, Frobisher, Gilbert, Raleigh,
Willoughby, Hawkins,--a score of explorers reveal a new earth to men's
eyes, and instantly literature creates a new heaven to match it. So dreams
and deeds increase side by side, and the dream is ever greater than the
deed. That is the meaning of literature.
4. To sum up, the Age of Elizabeth was a time of intellectual liberty, of
growing intelligence and comfort among all classes, of unbounded
patriotism, and of peace at home and abroad. For a parallel we must go back
to the Age of Pericles in Athens, or of Augustus in Rome, or go forward a
little to the magnificent court of Louis XIV, when Corneille, Racine, and
Moliere brought the drama in France to the point where Marlowe,
Shakespeare, and Jonson had left it in England half a century earlier. Such
an age of great thought and great action, appealing to the eyes as well as
to the imagination and intellect, finds but one adequate literary
expression; neither poetry nor the story can express the whole man,--his
thought, feeling, action, and the resulting character; hence in the Age of
Elizabeth literature turned instinctively to the drama and brought it
rapidly to the highest stage of its development.
II. THE NON-DRAMATIC POETS OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE
EDMUND SPENSER (1552-1599)
_(Cuddie)_
"Piers, I have piped erst so long with pain
That all mine oaten reeds been rent and wore,
And my poor Muse hath spent her spared store,
Yet little good hath got, and much less gain.
Such pleasaunce makes the grasshopper so poor,
And ligge so layd[115] when winter doth her strain.
The dapper ditties that I wont devise,
To feed youth's fancy, and the flocking fry
Delghten much--what I the bet forthy?
They han the pleasure, I a slender prize:
I beat the bush, the birds to them do fly:
What good thereof to Cuddie can arise?
(_Piers_)
Cuddie, the praise is better than the price,
The glory eke much greater than the gain:..."
_Shepherd's Calendar_, October
In these words, with their sorrowful suggestion of Deor, Spenser reveals
his own heart, unconsciously perhaps, as no biographer could possibly do.
His life and work seem to center about three great influences, summed up in
three names: Cambridge, where he grew acquainted with the classics and the
Italian poets; London, where he experienced the glamour and the
disappointment of court life; and Ireland, which steeped him in the beauty
and imagery of old Celtic poetry and first gave him leisure to write his
masterpiece.
LIFE. Of Spenser's early life and parentage we know little, except that he
was born in East Smithfield, near the Tower of London, and was poor. His
education began at the Merchant Tailors' School in London and was continued
in Cambridge, where as a poor sizar and fag for wealthy students he earned
a scant living. Here in the glorious world that only a poor scholar knows
how to create for himself he read the classics, made acquaintance with the
great Italian poets, and wrote numberless little poems of his own. Though
Chaucer was his beloved master, his ambition was not to rival the
_Canterbury Tales_, but rather to express the dream of English chivalry,
much as Ariosto had done for Italy in _Orlando Furioso_.
After leaving Cambridge (1576) Spenser went to the north of England, on
some unknown work or quest. Here his chief occupation was to fall in love
and to record his melancholy over the lost Rosalind in the _Shepherd's
Calendar_. Upon his friend Harvey's advice he came to London, bringing his
poems; and here he met Leicester, then at the height of royal favor, and
the latter took him to live at Leicester House. Here he finished the
_Shepherd's Calendar_, and here he met Sidney and all the queen's
favorites. The court was full of intrigues, lying and flattery, and
Spenser's opinion of his own uncomfortable position is best expressed in a
few lines from "Mother Hubbard's Tale":
Full little knowest thou, that has not tried,
What hell it is, in suing long to bide:
To lose good days, that might be better spent;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
* * * * *
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
In 1580, through Leicester's influence, Spenser, who was utterly weary of
his dependent position, was made secretary to Lord Grey, the queen's deputy
in Ireland, and the third period of his life began. He accompanied his
chief through one campaign of savage brutality in putting down an Irish
rebellion, and was given an immense estate with the castle of Kilcolman, in
Munster, which had been confiscated from Earl Desmond, one of the Irish
leaders. His life here, where according to the terms of his grant he must
reside as an English settler, he regarded as lonely exile:
My luckless lot,
That banished had myself, like wight forlore,
Into that waste, where I was quite forgot.
It is interesting to note here a gentle poet's view of the "unhappy
island." After nearly sixteen years' residence he wrote his _View of the
State of Ireland_ (1596),[116] his only prose work, in which he submits a
plan for "pacifying the oppressed and rebellious people." This was to bring
a huge force of cavalry and infantry into the country, give the Irish a
brief time to submit, and after that to hunt them down like wild beasts. He
calculated that cold, famine, and sickness would help the work of the
sword, and that after the rebels had been well hounded for two winters the
following summer would find the country peaceful. This plan, from the poet
of harmony and beauty, was somewhat milder than the usual treatment of a
brave people whose offense was that they loved liberty and religion.
Strange as it may seem, the _View_ was considered most statesmanlike, and
was excellently well received in England.
In Kilcolman, surrounded by great natural beauty, Spenser finished the
first three books of the _Faery Queen_. In 1589 Raleigh visited him, heard
the poem with enthusiasm, hurried the poet off to London, and presented him
to Elizabeth. The first three books met with instant success when published
and were acclaimed as the greatest work in the English language. A yearly
pension of fifty pounds was conferred by Elizabeth, but rarely paid, and
the poet turned back to exile, that is, to Ireland again.
Soon after his return, Spenser fell in love with his beautiful Elizabeth,
an Irish girl; wrote his _Amoretti_, or sonnets, in her honor; and
afterwards represented her, in the _Faery Queen_, as the beautiful woman
dancing among the Graces. In 1594 he married Elizabeth, celebrating his
wedding with his "Epithalamion," one of the most beautiful wedding hymns in
any language.
Spenser's next visit to London was in 1595, when he published "Astrophel,"
an elegy on the death of his friend Sidney, and three more books of the
_Faery Queen_. On this visit he lived again at Leicester House, now
occupied by the new favorite Essex, where he probably met Shakespeare and
the other literary lights of the Elizabethan Age. Soon after his return to
Ireland, Spenser was appointed Sheriff of Cork, a queer office for a poet,
which probably brought about his undoing. The same year Tyrone's Rebellion
broke out in Munster. Kilcolman, the ancient house of Desmond, was one of
the first places attacked by the rebels, and Spenser barely escaped with
his wife and two children. It is supposed that some unfinished parts of the
_Faery Queen_ were burned in the castle.
From the shock of this frightful experience Spenser never recovered. He
returned to England heartbroken, and in the following year (1599) he died
in an inn at Westminster. According to Ben Jonson he died "for want of
bread"; but whether that is a poetic way of saying that he had lost his
property or that he actually died of destitution, will probably never be
known. He was buried beside his master Chaucer in Westminster Abbey, the
poets of that age thronging to his funeral and, according to Camden,
"casting their elegies and the pens that had written them into his tomb."
SPENSER'S WORKS. _The Faery Queen_ is the great work upon which the poet's
fame chiefly rests. The original plan of the poem included twenty-four
books, each of which was to recount the adventure and triumph of a knight
who represented a moral virtue. Spenser's purpose, as indicated in a letter
to Raleigh which introduces the poem, is as follows:
To pourtraict in Arthure, before he was king, the image of a brave Knight,
perfected in the twelve private Morall Vertues, as Aristotle hath devised;
which is the purpose of these first twelve bookes: which if I finde to be
well accepted, I may be perhaps encoraged to frame the other part of
Polliticke Vertues in his person, after that hee came to be king.
Each of the Virtues appears as a knight, fighting his opposing Vice, and
the poem tells the story of the conflicts. It is therefore purely
allegorical, not only in its personified virtues but also in its
representation of life as a struggle between good and evil. In its strong
moral element the poem differs radically from _Orlando Furioso_, upon which
it was modeled. Spenser completed only six books, celebrating Holiness,
Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. We have also a
fragment of the seventh, treating of Constancy; but the rest of this book
was not written, or else was lost in the fire at Kilcolman. The first three
books are by far the best; and judging by the way the interest lags and the
allegory grows incomprehensible, it is perhaps as well for Spenser's
reputation that the other eighteen books remained a dream.
ARGUMENT OF THE FAERY QUEEN. From the introductory letter we learn that the
hero visits the queen's court in Fairy Land, while she is holding a
twelve-days festival. On each day some distressed person appears
unexpectedly, tells a woful story of dragons, of enchantresses, or of
distressed beauty or virtue, and asks for a champion to right the wrong and
to let the oppressed go free. Sometimes a knight volunteers or begs for the
dangerous mission; again the duty is assigned by the queen; and the
journeys and adventures of these knights are the subjects of the several
books. The first recounts the adventures of the Redcross Knight,
representing Holiness, and the lady Una, representing Religion. Their
contests are symbolical of the world-wide struggle between virtue and faith
on the one hand, and sin and heresy on the other. The second book tells the
story of Sir Guyon, or Temperance; the third, of Britomartis, representing
Chastity; the fourth, fifth, and sixth, of Cambel and Triamond
(Friendship), Artegall (Justice), and Sir Calidore (Courtesy). Spenser's
plan was a very elastic one and he filled up the measure of his narrative
with everything that caught his fancy,--historical events and personages
under allegorical masks, beautiful ladies, chivalrous knights, giants,
monsters, dragons, sirens, enchanters, and adventures enough to stock a
library of fiction. If you read Homer or Virgil, you know his subject in
the first strong line; if you read Caedmon's _Paraphrase_ or Milton's epic,
the introduction gives you the theme; but Spenser's great poem--with the
exception of a single line in the prologue, "Fierce warres and faithfull
loves shall moralize my song"--gives hardly a hint of what is coming.
As to the meaning of the allegorical figures, one is generally in doubt. In
the first three books the shadowy Faery Queen sometimes represents the
glory of God and sometimes Elizabeth, who was naturally flattered by the
parallel. Britomartis is also Elizabeth. The Redcross Knight is Sidney, the
model Englishman. Arthur, who always appears to rescue the oppressed, is
Leicester, which is another outrageous flattery. Una is sometimes religion
and sometimes the Protestant Church; while Duessa represents Mary Queen of
Scots, or general Catholicism. In the last three books Elizabeth appears
again as Mercilla; Henry IV of France as Bourbon; the war in the
Netherlands as the story of Lady Belge; Raleigh as Timias; the earls of
Northumberland and Westmoreland (lovers of Mary or Duessa) as Blandamour
and Paridell; and so on through the wide range of contemporary characters
and events, till the allegory becomes as difficult to follow as the second
part of Goethe's _Faust_.
POETICAL FORM. For the _Faery Queen_ Spenser invented a new verse form,
which has been called since his day the Spenserian stanza. Because of its
rare beauty it has been much used by nearly all our poets in their best
work. The new stanza was an improved form of Ariosto's _ottava rima_ (i.e.
eight-line stanza) and bears a close resemblance to one of Chaucer's most
musical verse forms in the "Monk's Tale." Spenser's stanza is in nine
lines, eight of five feet each and the last of six feet, riming
_ababbcbcc_. A few selections from the first book, which is best worth
reading, are reproduced here to show the style and melody of the verse.
A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,
Ycladd[117] in mightie armes and silver shielde,
Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine
The cruell markes of many a bloody fielde;
Yet armes till that time did he never wield:
His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,
As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:
Full iolly[118] knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,
As one for knightly giusts[119] and fierce encounters fitt.
And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore,
The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead, as living ever, him ador'd:
Upon his shield the like was also scor'd,
For soveraine hope, which in his helpe he had,
Right faithfull true he was in deede and word;
But of his cheere[120] did seeme too solemne sad;
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.[121]
This sleepy bit, from the dwelling of Morpheus, invites us to linger:
And, more to lulle him in his slumber soft,
A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe,
And ever-drizling raine upon the loft,
Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne.
No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,
As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne,
Might there be heard: but carelesse Quiet lyes,
Wrapt in eternal silence farre from enimyes.
The description of Una shows the poet's sense of ideal beauty:
One day, nigh wearie of the yrkesome way,
From her unhastie beast she did alight;
And on the grasse her dainty limbs did lay
In secrete shadow, far from all mens sight;
From her fayre head her fillet she undight,[122]
And layd her stole aside; Her angels face,
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place;
Did never mortall eye behold such heavenly grace.
It fortuned, out of the thickest wood
A ramping lyon rushed suddeinly,
Hunting full greedy after salvage blood:
Soone as the royall Virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily,
To have at once devourd her tender corse:
But to the pray whenas he drew more ny,
His bloody rage aswaged with remorse,[123]
And, with the sight amazd, forgat his furious forse.
Instead thereof he kist her wearie feet,
And lickt her lilly hands with fawning tong;
As he her wronged innocence did weet.[124]
O how can beautie maister the most strong,
And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!
MINOR POEMS. Next to his masterpiece, the _Shepherd's Calendar_ (1579) is
the best known of Spenser's poems; though, as his first work, it is below
many others in melody. It consists of twelve pastoral poems, or eclogues,
one for each month of the year. The themes are generally rural life,
nature, love in the fields; and the speakers are shepherds and
shepherdesses. To increase the rustic effect Spenser uses strange forms of
speech and obsolete words, to such an extent that Jonson complained his
works are not English or any other language. Some are melancholy poems on
his lost Rosalind; some are satires on the clergy; one, "The Briar and the
Oak," is an allegory; one flatters Elizabeth, and others are pure fables
touched with the Puritan spirit. They are written in various styles and
meters, and show plainly that Spenser was practicing and preparing himself
for greater work.
Other noteworthy poems are "Mother Hubbard's Tale," a satire on society;
"Astrophel," an elegy on the death of Sidney; _Amoretti_, or sonnets, to
his Elizabeth; the marriage hymn, "Epithalamion," and four "Hymns," on
Love, Beauty, Heavenly Love, and Heavenly Beauty. There are numerous other
poems and collections of poems, but these show the scope of his work and
are best worth reading.
IMPORTANCE OF THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR. The publication of this work, in
1579, by an unknown writer who signed himself modestly "Immerito," marks an
important epoch in our literature. We shall appreciate this better if we
remember the long years during which England had been without a great poet.
Chaucer and Spenser are often studied together as poets of the Renaissance
period, and the idea prevails that they were almost contemporary. In fact,
nearly two centuries passed after Chaucer's death,--years of enormous
political and intellectual development,--and not only did Chaucer have no
successor but our language had changed so rapidly that Englishmen had lost
the ability to read his lines correctly.[125]
This first published work of Spenser is noteworthy in at least four
respects: first, it marks the appearance of the first national poet in two
centuries; second, it shows again the variety and melody of English verse,
which had been largely a tradition since Chaucer; third, it was our first
pastoral, the beginning of a long series of English pastoral compositions
modeled on Spenser, and as such exerted a strong influence on subsequent
literature; and fourth, it marks the real beginning of the outburst of
great Elizabethan poetry.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SPENSER'S POETRY. The five main qualities of Spenser's
poetry are (1) a perfect melody; (2) a rare sense of beauty; (3) a splendid
imagination, which could gather into one poem heroes, knights, ladies,
dwarfs, demons and dragons, classic mythology, stories of chivalry, and the
thronging ideals of the Renaissance,--all passing in gorgeous procession
across an ever-changing and ever-beautiful landscape; (4) a lofty moral
purity and seriousness; (5) a delicate idealism, which could make all
nature and every common thing beautiful. In contrast with these excellent
qualities the reader will probably note the strange appearance of his lines
due to his fondness for obsolete words, like _eyne_ (eyes) and _shend_
(shame), and his tendency to coin others, like _mercify_, to suit his own
purposes.
It is Spenser's idealism, his love of beauty, and his exquisite melody
which have caused him to be known as "the poets' poet." Nearly all our
subsequent singers acknowledge their delight in him and their indebtedness.
Macaulay alone among critics voices a fault which all who are not poets
quickly feel, namely that, with all Spenser's excellences, he is difficult
to read. The modern man loses himself in the confused allegory of the
_Faery Queen_, skips all but the marked passages, and softly closes the
book in gentle weariness. Even the best of his longer poems, while of
exquisite workmanship and delightfully melodious, generally fail to hold
the reader's attention. The movement is languid; there is little dramatic
interest, and only a suggestion of humor. The very melody of his verses
sometimes grows monotonous, like a Strauss waltz too long continued. We
shall best appreciate Spenser by reading at first only a few well-chosen
selections from the _Faery Queen_ and the _Shepherd's Calendar_, and a few
of the minor poems which exemplify his wonderful melody.
COMPARISON BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER. At the outset it is well to
remember that, though Spenser regarded Chaucer as his master, two centuries
intervene between them, and that their writings have almost nothing in
common. We shall appreciate this better by a brief comparison between our
first two modern poets.
Chaucer was a combined poet and man of affairs, with the latter
predominating. Though dealing largely with ancient or mediaeval material, he
has a curiously modern way of looking at life. Indeed, he is our only
author preceding Shakespeare with whom we feel thoroughly at home. He threw
aside the outgrown metrical romance, which was practically the only form of
narrative in his day, invented the art of story-telling in verse, and
brought it to a degree of perfection which has probably never since been
equaled. Though a student of the classics, he lived wholly in the present,
studied the men and women of his own time, painted them as they were, but
added always a touch of kindly humor or romance to make them more
interesting. So his mission appears to be simply to amuse himself and his
readers. His mastery of various and melodious verse was marvelous and has
never been surpassed in our language; but the English of his day was
changing rapidly, and in a very few years men were unable to appreciate his
art, so that even to Spenser and Dryden, for example, he seemed deficient
in metrical skill. On this account his influence on our literature has been
much less than we should expect from the quality of his work and from his
position as one of the greatest of English poets.
Like Chaucer, Spenser was a busy man of affairs, but in him the poet and
the scholar always predominates. He writes as the idealist, describing men
not as they are but as he thinks they should be; he has no humor, and his
mission is not to amuse but to reform. Like Chaucer he studies the classics
and contemporary French and Italian writers; but instead of adapting his
material to present-day conditions, he makes poetry, as in his Eclogues for
instance, more artificial even than his foreign models. Where Chaucer looks
about him and describes life as he sees it, Spenser always looks backward
for his inspiration; he lives dreamily in the past, in a realm of purely
imaginary emotions and adventures. His first quality is imagination, not
observation, and he is the first of our poets to create a world of dreams,
fancies, and illusions. His second quality is a wonderful sensitiveness to
beauty, which shows itself not only in his subject-matter but also in the
manner of his poetry. Like Chaucer, he is an almost perfect workman; but in
reading Chaucer we think chiefly of his natural characters or his ideas,
while in reading Spenser we think of the beauty of expression. The
exquisite Spenserian stanza and the rich melody of Spenser's verse have
made him the model of all our modern poets.
MINOR POETS
Though Spenser is the one great non-dramatic poet of the Elizabethan Age, a
multitude of minor poets demand attention of the student who would
understand the tremendous literary activity of the period. One needs only
to read _The Paradyse of Daynty Devises_ (1576), or _A Gorgeous Gallery of
Gallant Inventions_ (1578), or any other of the miscellaneous collections
to find hundreds of songs, many of them of exquisite workmanship, by poets
whose names now awaken no response. A glance is enough to assure one that
over all England "the sweet spirit of song had arisen, like the first
chirping of birds after a storm." Nearly two hundred poets are recorded in
the short period from 1558 to 1625, and many of them were prolific writers.
In a work like this, we can hardly do more than mention a few of the best
known writers, and spend a moment at least with the works that suggest
Marlowe's description of "infinite riches in a little room." The reader
will note for himself the interesting union of action and thought in these
men, so characteristic of the Elizabethan Age; for most of them were
engaged chiefly in business or war or politics, and literature was to them
a pleasant recreation rather than an absorbing profession.
THOMAS SACKVILLE (1536-1608). Sir Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset and Lord
High Treasurer of England, is generally classed with Wyatt and Surrey among
the predecessors of the Elizabethan Age. In imitation of Dante's _Inferno_,
Sackville formed the design of a great poem called _The Mirror for
Magistrates_. Under guidance of an allegorical personage called Sorrow, he
meets the spirits of all the important actors in English history. The idea
was to follow Lydgate's _Fall of Princes_ and let each character tell his
own story; so that the poem would be a mirror in which present rulers might
see themselves and read this warning: "Who reckless rules right soon may
hope to rue." Sackville finished only the "Induction" and the "Complaint of
the Duke of Buckingham." These are written in the rime royal, and are
marked by strong poetic feeling and expression. Unfortunately Sackville
turned from poetry to politics, and the poem was carried on by two inferior
poets, William Baldwin and George Ferrers.
Sackville wrote also, in connection with Thomas Norton, the first English
tragedy, _Ferrex and Porrex_, called also _Gorboduc_, which will be
considered in the following section on the Rise of the Drama.
PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-1586). Sidney, the ideal gentleman, the Sir Calidore of
Spenser's "Legend of Courtesy," is vastly more interesting as a man than as
a writer, and the student is recommended to read his biography rather than
his books. His life expresses, better than any single literary work, the
two ideals of the age,--personal honor and national greatness.
As a writer he is known by three principal works, all published after his
death, showing how little importance he attached to his own writing, even
while he was encouraging Spenser. The _Arcadia_ is a pastoral romance,
interspersed with eclogues, in which shepherds and shepherdesses sing of
the delights of rural life. Though the work was taken up idly as a summer's
pastime, it became immensely popular and was imitated by a hundred poets.
The _Apologie for Poetrie_ (1595), generally called the _Defense of
Poesie_, appeared in answer to a pamphlet by Stephen Gosson called _The
School of Abuse_ (1579), in which the poetry of the age and its unbridled
pleasure were denounced with Puritan thoroughness and conviction. The
_Apologie_ is one of the first critical essays in English; and though its
style now seems labored and unnatural,--the pernicious result of Euphues
and his school,--it is still one of the best expressions of the place and
meaning of poetry in any language. _Astrophel and Stella_ is a collection
of songs and sonnets addressed to Lady Penelope Devereux, to whom Sidney
had once been betrothed. They abound in exquisite lines and passages,
containing more poetic feeling and expression than the songs of any other
minor writer of the age.
GEORGE CHAPMAN (1559?-1634). Chapman spent his long, quiet life among the
dramatists, and wrote chiefly for the stage. His plays, which were for the
most part merely poems in dialogue, fell far below the high dramatic
standard of his time and are now almost unread. His most famous work is the
metrical translation of the _Iliad_ (1611) and of the _Odyssey_ (1614).
Chapman's _Homer_, though lacking the simplicity and dignity of the
original, has a force and rapidity of movement which makes it superior in
many respects to Pope's more familiar translation. Chapman is remembered
also as the finisher of Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_, in which, apart from
the drama, the Renaissance movement is seen at perhaps its highest point in
English poetry. Out of scores of long poems of the period, _Hero and
Leander_ and the _Faery Queen_ are the only two which are even slightly
known to modern readers.
MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563-1631). Drayton is the most voluminous and, to
antiquarians at least, the most interesting of the minor poets. He is the
Layamon of the Elizabethan Age, and vastly more scholarly than his
predecessor. His chief work is _Polyolbion_, an enormous poem of many
thousand couplets, describing the towns, mountains, and rivers of Britain,
with the interesting legends connected with each. It is an extremely
valuable work and represents a lifetime of study and research. Two other
long works are the _Barons' Wars_ and the _Heroic Epistle of England;_ and
besides these were many minor poems. One of the best of these is the
"Battle of Agincourt," a ballad written in the lively meter which Tennyson
used with some variations in the "Charge of the Light Brigade," and which
shows the old English love of brave deeds and of the songs that stir a
people's heart in memory of noble ancestors.
III. THE FIRST ENGLISH DRAMATISTS
THE ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA. First the deed, then the story, then the play;
that seems to be the natural development of the drama in its simplest form.
The great deeds of a people are treasured in its literature, and later
generations represent in play or pantomime certain parts of the story which
appeal most powerfully to the imagination. Among primitive races the deeds
of their gods and heroes are often represented at the yearly festivals; and
among children, whose instincts are not yet blunted by artificial habits,
one sees the story that was heard at bedtime repeated next day in vigorous
action, when our boys turn scouts and our girls princesses, precisely as
our first dramatists turned to the old legends and heroes of Britain for
their first stage productions. To act a part seems as natural to humanity
as to tell a story; and originally the drama is but an old story retold to
the eye, a story put into action by living performers, who for the moment
"make believe" or imagine themselves to be the old heroes.
To illustrate the matter simply, there was a great life lived by him who
was called the Christ. Inevitably the life found its way into literature,
and we have the Gospels. Around the life and literature sprang up a great
religion. Its worship was at first simple,--the common prayer, the evening
meal together, the remembered words of the Master, and the closing hymn.
Gradually a ritual was established, which grew more elaborate and
impressive as the centuries went by. Scenes from the Master's life began to
be represented in the churches, especially at Christmas time, when the
story of Christ's birth was made more effective, to the eyes of a people
who could not read, by a babe in a manger surrounded by magi and shepherds,
with a choir of angels chanting the _Gloria in Excelsis_.[126] Other
impressive scenes from the Gospel followed; then the Old Testament was
called upon, until a complete cycle of plays from the Creation to the Final
Judgment was established, and we have the Mysteries and Miracle plays of
the Middle Ages. Out of these came directly the drama of the Elizabethan
Age.
PERIODS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DRAMA
1. THE RELIGIOUS PERIOD. In Europe, as in Greece, the drama had a
distinctly religious origin.[127] The first characters were drawn from the
New Testament, and the object of the first plays was to make the church
service more impressive, or to emphasize moral lessons by showing the
reward of the good and the punishment of the evil doer. In the latter days
of the Roman Empire the Church found the stage possessed by frightful
plays, which debased the morals of a people already fallen too low. Reform
seemed impossible; the corrupt drama was driven from the stage, and plays
of every kind were forbidden. But mankind loves a spectacle, and soon the
Church itself provided a substitute for the forbidden plays in the famous
Mysteries and Miracles.
MIRACLE AND MYSTERY PLAYS. In France the name _miracle_ was given to any
play representing the lives of the saints, while the _mystere_ represented
scenes from the life of Christ or stories from the Old Testament associated
with the coming of Messiah. In England this distinction was almost unknown;
the name Miracle was used indiscriminately for all plays having their
origin in the Bible or in the lives of the saints; and the name Mystery, to
distinguish a certain class of plays, was not used until long after the
religious drama had passed away.
The earliest Miracle of which we have any record in England is the _Ludus
de Sancta Katharina_, which was performed in Dunstable about the year
1110.[128] It is not known who wrote the original play of St. Catherine,
but our first version was prepared by Geoffrey of St. Albans, a French
school-teacher of Dunstable. Whether or not the play was given in English
is not known, but it was customary in the earliest plays for the chief
actors to speak in Latin or French, to show their importance, while minor
and comic parts of the same play were given in English.
For four centuries after this first recorded play the Miracles increased
steadily in number and popularity in England. They were given first very
simply and impressively in the churches; then, as the actors increased in
number and the plays in liveliness, they overflowed to the churchyards; but
when fun and hilarity began to predominate even in the most sacred
representations, the scandalized priests forbade plays altogether on church
grounds. By the year 1300 the Miracles were out of ecclesiastical hands and
adopted eagerly by the town guilds; and in the following two centuries we
find the Church preaching against the abuse of the religious drama which it
had itself introduced, and which at first had served a purely religious
purpose.[129] But by this time the Miracles had taken strong hold upon the
English people, and they continued to be immensely popular until, in the
sixteenth century, they were replaced by the Elizabethan drama.
The early Miracle plays of England were divided into two classes: the
first, given at Christmas, included all plays connected with the birth of
Christ; the second, at Easter, included the plays relating to his death and
triumph. By the beginning of the fourteenth century all these plays were,
in various localities, united in single cycles beginning with the Creation
and ending with the Final Judgment. The complete cycle was presented every
spring, beginning on Corpus Christi day; and as the presentation of so many
plays meant a continuous outdoor festival of a week or more, this day was
looked forward to as the happiest of the whole year.
Probably every important town in England had its own cycle of plays for its
own guilds to perform, but nearly all have been lost. At the present day
only four cycles exist (except in the most fragmentary condition), and
these, though they furnish an interesting commentary on the times, add very
little to our literature. The four cycles are the Chester and York plays,
so called from the towns in which they were given; the Towneley or
Wakefield plays, named for the Towneley family, which for a long time owned
the manuscript; and the Coventry plays, which on doubtful evidence have
been associated with the Grey Friars (Franciscans) of Coventry. The Chester
cycle has 25 plays, the Wakefield 30, the Coventry 42, and the York 48. It
is impossible to fix either the date or the authorship of any of these
plays; we only know certainly that they were in great favor from the
twelfth to the sixteenth century. The York plays are generally considered
to be the best; but those of Wakefield show more humor and variety, and
better workmanship. The former cycle especially shows a certain unity
resulting from its aim to represent the whole of man's life from birth to
death. The same thing is noticeable in _Cursor Mundi_, which, with the York
and Wakefield cycles, belongs to the fourteenth century.
At first the actors as well as the authors of the Miracles were the priests
and their chosen assistants. Later, when The town guilds took up the plays
and each guild became responsible for one or more of the series, the actors
were carefully selected and trained. By four o'clock on the morning of
Corpus Christi all the players had to be in their places in the movable
theaters, which were scattered throughout the town in the squares and open
places. Each of these theaters consisted of a two-story platform, set on
wheels. The lower story was a dressing room for the actors; the upper story
was the stage proper, and was reached by a trapdoor from below. When the
play was over the platform was dragged away, and the next play in the cycle
took its place. So in a single square several plays would be presented in
rapid sequence to the same audience. Meanwhile the first play moved on to
another square, where another audience was waiting to hear it.
Though the plays were distinctly religious in character, there is hardly
one without its humorous element. In the play of Noah, for instance, Noah's
shrewish wife makes fun for the audience by wrangling with her husband. In
the Crucifixion play Herod is a prankish kind of tyrant who leaves the
stage to rant among the audience; so that to "out-herod Herod" became a
common proverb. In all the plays the devil is a favorite character and the
butt of every joke. He also leaves the stage to play pranks or frighten the
wondering children. On the side of the stage was often seen a huge dragon's
head with gaping red jaws, belching forth fire and smoke, out of which
poured a tumultuous troop of devils with clubs and pitchforks and gridirons
to punish the wicked characters and to drag them away at last, howling and
shrieking, into hell-mouth, as the dragon's head was called. So the fear of
hell was ingrained into an ignorant people for four centuries. Alternating
with these horrors were bits of rough horse-play and domestic scenes of
peace and kindliness, representing the life of the English fields and
homes. With these were songs and carols, like that of the Nativity, for
instance:
As I out rode this enderes (last) night,
Of three jolly shepherds I saw a sight,
And all about their fold a star shone bright;
They sang _terli terlow_,
So merryly the shepherds their pipes can blow.
Down from heaven, from heaven so high,
Of angels there came a great companye
With mirth, and joy, and great solemnitye;
They sang _terli terlow_,
So merryly the shepherds their pipes can blow.
Such songs were taken home by the audience and sung for a season, as a
popular tune is now caught from the stage and sung on the streets; and at
times the whole audience would very likely join in the chorus.
After these plays were written according to the general outline of the
Bible stories, no change was tolerated, the audience insisting, like
children at "Punch and Judy," upon seeing the same things year after year.
No originality in plot or treatment was possible, therefore; the only
variety was in new songs and jokes, and in the pranks of the devil.
Childish as such plays seem to us, they are part of the religious
development of all uneducated people. Even now the Persian play of the
"Martyrdom of Ali" is celebrated yearly, and the famous "Passion Play," a
true Miracle, is given every ten years at Oberammergau.
2. THE MORAL PERIOD OF THE DRAMA.[130] The second or moral period of the
drama is shown by the increasing prevalence of the Morality plays. In these
the characters were allegorical personages,--Life, Death, Repentance,
Goodness, Love, Greed, and other virtues and vices. The Moralities may be
regarded, therefore, as the dramatic counterpart of the once popular
allegorical poetry exemplified by the _Romance of the Rose_. It did not
occur to our first, unknown dramatists to portray men and women as they are
until they had first made characters of abstract human qualities.
Nevertheless, the Morality marks a distinct advance over the Miracle in
that it gave free scope to the imagination for new plots and incidents. In
Spain and Portugal these plays, under the name _auto_, were wonderfully
developed by the genius of Calderon and Gil Vicente; but in England the
Morality was a dreary kind of performance, like the allegorical poetry
which preceded it.
To enliven the audience the devil of the Miracle plays was introduced; and
another lively personage called the Vice was the predecessor of our modern
clown and jester. His business was to torment the "virtues" by mischievous
pranks, and especially to make the devil's life a burden by beating him
with a bladder or a wooden sword at every opportunity. The Morality
generally ended in the triumph of virtue, the devil leaping into hell-mouth
with Vice on his back.
The best known of the Moralities is "Everyman," which has recently been
revived in England and America. The subject of the play is the summoning of
every man by Death; and the moral is that nothing can take away the terror
of the inevitable summons but an honest life and the comforts of religion.
In its dramatic unity it suggests the pure Greek drama; there is no change
of time or scene, and the stage is never empty from the beginning to the
end of the performance. Other well-known Moralities are the "Pride of
Life," "Hyckescorner," and "Castell of Perseverance." In the latter, man is
represented as shut up in a castle garrisoned by the virtues and besieged
by the vices.
Like the Miracle plays, most of the old Moralities are of unknown date and
origin. Of the known authors of Moralities, two of the best are John
Skelton, who wrote "Magnificence," and probably also "The Necromancer"; and
Sir David Lindsay (1490-1555), "the poet of the Scotch Reformation," whose
religious business it was to make rulers uncomfortable by telling them
unpleasant truths in the form of poetry. With these men a new element
enters into the Moralities. They satirize or denounce abuses of Church and
State, and introduce living personages thinly disguised as allegories; so
that the stage first becomes a power in shaping events and correcting
abuses.
THE INTERLUDES. It is impossible to draw any accurate line of distinction
between the Moralities and Interludes. In general we may think of the
latter as dramatic scenes, sometimes given by themselves (usually with
music and singing) at banquets and entertainments where a little fun was
wanted; and again slipped into a Miracle play to enliven the audience after
a solemn scene. Thus on the margin of a page of one of the old Chester
plays we read, "The boye and pigge when the kinges are gone." Certainly
this was no part of the original scene between Herod and the three kings.
So also the quarrel between Noah and his wife is probably a late addition
to an old play. The Interludes originated, undoubtedly, in a sense of
humor; and to John Heywood (1497?-1580?), a favorite retainer and jester at
the court of Mary, is due the credit for raising the Interlude to the
distinct dramatic form known as comedy.
Heywood's Interludes were written between 1520 and 1540. His most famous is
"The Four P's," a contest of wit between a "Pardoner, a Palmer, a Pedlar
and a Poticary." The characters here strongly suggest those of
Chaucer.[131] Another interesting Interlude is called "The Play of the
Weather." In this Jupiter and the gods assemble to listen to complaints
about the weather and to reform abuses. Naturally everybody wants his own
kind of weather. The climax is reached by a boy who announces that a boy's
pleasure consists in two things, catching birds and throwing snowballs, and
begs for the weather to be such that he can always do both. Jupiter decides
that he will do just as he pleases about the weather, and everybody goes
home satisfied.
All these early plays were written, for the most part, in a mingling of
prose and wretched doggerel, and add nothing to our literature. Their great
work was to train actors, to keep alive the dramatic spirit, and to prepare
the way for the true drama.
3. THE ARTISTIC PERIOD OF THE DRAMA. The artistic is the final stage in the
development of the English drama. It differs radically from the other two
in that its chief purpose is not to point a moral but to represent human
life as it is. The artistic drama may have purpose, no less than the
Miracle play, but the motive is always subordinate to the chief end of
representing life itself.
The first true play in English, with a regular plot, divided into acts and
scenes, is probably the comedy, "Ralph Royster Doyster." It was written by
Nicholas Udall, master of Eton, and later of Westminster school, and was
first acted by his schoolboys some time before 1556. The story is that of a
conceited fop in love with a widow, who is already engaged to another man.
The play is an adaptation of the _Miles Gloriosus_, a classic comedy by
Plautus, and the English characters are more or less artificial; but as
furnishing a model of a clear plot and natural dialogue, the influence of
this first comedy, with its mixture of classic and English elements, can
hardly be overestimated.
The next play, "Gammer Gurton's Needle" _(cir_. 1562), is a domestic
comedy, a true bit of English realism, representing the life of the peasant
class.
Gammer Gurton is patching the leather breeches of her man Hodge, when Gib,
the cat, gets into the milk pan. While Gammer chases the cat the family
needle is lost, a veritable calamity in those days. The whole household is
turned upside down, and the neighbors are dragged into the affair. Various
comical situations are brought about by Diccon, a thieving vagabond, who
tells Gammer that her neighbor, Dame Chatte, has taken her needle, and who
then hurries to tell Dame Chatte that she is accused by Gammer of stealing
a favorite rooster. Naturally there is a terrible row when the two irate
old women meet and misunderstand each other. Diccon also drags Doctor Rat,
the curate, into the quarrel by telling him that, if he will but creep into
Dame Chatte's cottage by a hidden way, he will find her using the stolen
needle. Then Diccon secretly warns Dame Chatte that Gammer Gurton's man
Hodge is coming to steal her chickens; and the old woman hides in the dark
passage and cudgels the curate soundly with the door bar. All the parties
are finally brought before the justice, when Hodge suddenly and painfully
finds the lost needle--which is all the while stuck in his leather
breeches--and the scene ends uproariously for both audience and actors.
This first wholly English comedy is full of fun and coarse humor, and is
wonderfully true to the life it represents. It was long attributed to John
Still, afterwards bishop of Bath; but the authorship is now definitely
assigned to William Stevenson.[132] Our earliest edition of the play was
printed in 1575; but a similar play called "Dyccon of Bedlam" was licensed
in 1552, twelve years before Shakespeare's birth.
To show the spirit and the metrical form of the play we give a fragment of
the boy's description of the dullard Hodge trying to light a fire on the
hearth from the cat's eyes, and another fragment of the old drinking song
at the beginning of the second act.
At last in a dark corner two sparkes he thought he sees
Which were, indede, nought els but Gyb our cat's two eyes.
"Puffe!" quod Hodge, thinking therby to have fyre without doubt;
With that Gyb shut her two eyes, and so the fyre was out.
And by-and-by them opened, even as they were before;
With that the sparkes appeared, even as they had done of yore.
And, even as Hodge blew the fire, as he did thincke,
Gyb, as she felt the blast, strayght-way began to wyncke,
Tyll Hodge fell of swering, as came best to his turne,
The fier was sure bewicht, and therfore wold not burne.
At last Gyb up the stayers, among the old postes and pinnes,
And Hodge he hied him after till broke were both his shinnes,
Cursynge and swering othes, were never of his makyng,
That Gyb wold fyre the house if that shee were not taken.
_Fyrste a Songe:_
_Backe and syde, go bare, go bare;
Booth foote and hande, go colde;
But, bellye, God sende thee good ale ynoughe,
Whether it be newe or olde_!
I can not eate but lytle meate,
My stomacke is not good;
But sure I thinke that I can dryncke
With him that weares a hood.
Thoughe I go bare, take ye no care,
I am nothinge a-colde,
I stuffe my skyn so full within
Of ioly good ale and olde.
_Backe and syde, go bare_, etc.
Our first tragedy, "Gorboduc," was written by Thomas Sackville and Thomas
Norton, and was acted in 1562, only two years before the birth of
Shakespeare. It is remarkable not only as our first tragedy, but as the
first play to be written in blank verse, the latter being most significant,
since it started the drama into the style of verse best suited to the
genius of English playwrights.
The story of "Gorboduc" is taken from the early annals of Britain and
recalls the story used by Shakespeare in _King Lear_. Gorboduc, king of
Britain, divides his kingdom between his sons Ferrex and Porrex. The sons
quarrel, and Porrex, the younger, slays his brother, who is the queen's
favorite. Videna, the queen, slays Porrex in revenge; the people rebel and
slay Videna and Gorboduc; then the nobles kill the rebels, and in turn fall
to fighting each other. The line of Brutus being extinct with the death of
Gorboduc, the country falls into anarchy, with rebels, nobles, and a
Scottish invader all fighting for the right of succession. The curtain
falls upon a scene of bloodshed and utter confusion.
The artistic finish of this first tragedy is marred by the authors' evident
purpose to persuade Elizabeth to marry. It aims to show the danger to which
England is exposed by the uncertainty of succession. Otherwise the plan of
the play follows the classical rule of Seneca. There is very little action
on the stage; bloodshed and battle are announced by a messenger; and the
chorus, of four old men of Britain, sums up the situation with a few moral
observations at the end of each of the first four acts.
CLASSICAL INFLUENCE UPON THE DRAMA. The revival of Latin literature had a
decided influence upon the English drama as it developed from the Miracle
plays. In the fifteenth century English teachers, in order to increase the
interest in Latin, began to let their boys act the plays which they had
read as literature, precisely as our colleges now present Greek or German
plays at the yearly festivals. Seneca was the favorite Latin author, and
all his tragedies were translated into English between 1559 and 1581. This
was the exact period in which the first English playwrights were shaping
their own ideas; but the severe simplicity of the classical drama seemed at
first only to hamper the exuberant English spirit. To understand this, one
has only to compare a tragedy of Seneca or of Euripides with one of
Shakespeare, and see how widely the two masters differ in methods.
In the classic play the so-called dramatic unities of time, place, and
action were strictly observed. Time and place must remain the same; the
play could represent a period of only a few hours, and whatever action was
introduced must take place at the spot where the play began. The
characters, therefore, must remain unchanged throughout; there was no
possibility of the child becoming a man, or of the man's growth with
changing circumstances. As the play was within doors, all vigorous action
was deemed out of place on the stage, and battles and important events were
simply announced by a messenger. The classic drama also drew a sharp line
between tragedy and comedy, all fun being rigorously excluded from serious
representations.
The English drama, on the other hand, strove to represent the whole sweep
of life in a single play. The scene changed rapidly; the same actors
appeared now at home, now at court, now on the battlefield; and vigorous
action filled the stage before the eyes of the spectators. The child of one
act appeared as the man of the next, and the imagination of the spectator
was called upon to bridge the gaps from place to place and from year to
year. So the dramatist had free scope to present all life in a single place
and a single hour. Moreover, since the world is always laughing and always
crying at the same moment, tragedy and comedy were presented side by side,
as they are in life itself. As Hamlet sings, after the play that amused the
court but struck the king with deadly fear:
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.
Naturally, with these two ideals struggling to master the English drama,
two schools of writers arose. The University Two Schools Wits, as men of
learning were called, generally of Drama upheld the classical ideal, and
ridiculed the crude-ness of the new English plays. Sackville and Norton
were of this class, and "Gorboduc" was classic in its construction. In the
"Defense of Poesie" Sidney upholds the classics and ridicules the too
ambitious scope of the English drama. Against these were the popular
playwrights, Lyly, Peele, Greene, Marlowe, and many others, who recognized
the English love of action and disregarded the dramatic unities in their
endeavor to present life as it is. In the end the native drama prevailed,
aided by the popular taste which had been trained by four centuries of
Miracles. Our first plays, especially of the romantic type, were extremely
crude and often led to ridiculously extravagant scenes; and here is where
the classic drama exercised an immense influence for good, by insisting
upon beauty of form and definiteness of structure at a time when the
tendency was to satisfy a taste for stage spectacles without regard to
either.
In the year 1574 a royal permit to Lord Leicester's actors allowed them "to
give plays anywhere throughout our realm of England," and this must be
regarded as the beginning of the regular drama. Two years later the first
playhouse, known as "The Theater," was built for these actors by James
Burbage in Finsbury Fields, just north of London. It was in this theater
that Shakespeare probably found employment when he first came to the city.
The success of this venture was immediate, and the next thirty years saw a
score of theatrical companies, at least seven regular theaters, and a dozen
or more inn yards permanently fitted for the giving of plays,--all
established in the city and its immediate suburbs. The growth seems all the
more remarkable when we remember that the London of those days would now be
considered a small city, having (in 1600) only about a hundred thousand
inhabitants.
A Dutch traveler, Johannes de Witt, who visited London in 1596, has given
us the only contemporary drawing we possess of the interior of one of these
theaters. They were built of stone and wood, round or octagonal in shape,
and without a roof, being simply an inclosed courtyard. At one side was the
stage, and before it on the bare ground, or pit, stood that large part of
the audience who could afford to pay only an admission fee. The players and
these groundlings were exposed to the weather; those that paid for seats
were in galleries sheltered by a narrow porch-roof projecting inwards from
the encircling walls; while the young nobles and gallants, who came to be
seen and who could afford the extra fee, took seats on the stage itself,
and smoked and chaffed the actors and threw nuts at the groundlings.[133]
The whole idea of these first theaters, according to De Witt, was like that
of the Roman amphitheater; and the resemblance was heightened by the fact
that, when no play was on the boards, the stage might be taken away and the
pit given over to bull and bear baiting.
In all these theaters, probably, the stage consisted of a bare platform,
with a curtain or "traverse" across the middle, separating the front from
the rear stage. On the latter unexpected scenes or characters were
"discovered" by simply drawing the curtain aside. At first little or no
scenery was used, a gilded sign being the only announcement of a change of
scene; and this very lack of scenery led to better acting, since the actors
must be realistic enough to make the audience forget its shabby
surroundings.[134] By Shakespeare's day, however, painted scenery had
appeared, first at university plays, and then in the regular theaters.[135]
In all our first plays female parts were taken by boy actors, who evidently
were more distressing than the crude scenery, for contemporary literature
has many satirical references to their acting,[136] and even the tolerant
Shakespeare writes:
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness.
However that may be, the stage was deemed unfit for women, and actresses
were unknown in England until after the Restoration.
SHAKESPEARE'S PREDECESSORS IN THE DRAMA. The English drama as it developed
from the Miracle plays has an interesting history. It began with
schoolmasters, like Udall, who translated and adapted Latin plays for their
boys to act, and who were naturally governed by classic ideals. It was
continued by the choir masters of St. Paul and the Royal and the Queen's
Chapel, whose companies of choir-boy actors were famous in London and
rivaled the players of the regular theaters.[137] These choir masters were
our first stage managers. They began with masques and interludes and the
dramatic presentation of classic myths modeled after the Italians; but some
of them, like Richard Edwards (choir master of the Queen's Chapel in 1561),
soon added farces from English country life and dramatized some of
Chaucer's stories. Finally, the regular playwrights, Kyd, Nash, Lyly,
Peele, Greene, and Marlowe, brought the English drama to the point where
Shakespeare began to experiment upon it.
Each of these playwrights added or emphasized some essential element in the
drama, which appeared later in the work of Shakespeare. Thus John Lyly
(1554?-1606), who is now known chiefly as having developed the pernicious
literary style called euphuism,[138] is one of the most influential of the
early dramatists. His court comedies are remarkable for their witty
dialogue and for being our first plays to aim definitely at unity and
artistic finish. Thomas Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_ (_c._ 1585) first gives us
the drama, or rather the melodrama, of passion, copied by Marlowe and
Shakespeare. This was the most popular of the early Elizabethan plays; it
was revised again and again, and Ben Jonson is said to have written one
version and to have acted the chief part of Hieronimo.[139] And Robert
Greene (1558?-1592) plays the chief part in the early development of
romantic comedy, and gives us some excellent scenes of English country life
in plays like _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_.
Even a brief glance at the life and work of these first playwrights shows
three noteworthy things which have a bearing on Shakespeare's career: (1)
These men were usually actors as well as dramatists. They knew the stage
and the audience, and in writing their plays they remembered not only the
actor's part but also the audience's love for stories and brave spectacles.
"Will it act well, and will it please our audience," were the questions of
chief concern to our early dramatists. (2) Their training began as actors;
then they revised old plays, and finally became independent writers. In
this their work shows an exact parallel with that of Shakespeare. (3) They
often worked together, probably as Shakespeare worked with Marlowe and
Fletcher, either in revising old plays or in creating new ones. They had a
common store of material from which they derived their stories and
characters, hence their frequent repetition of names; and they often
produced two or more plays on the same subject. Much of Shakespeare's work
depends, as we shall see, on previous plays; and even his _Hamlet_ uses the
material of an earlier play of the same name, probably by Kyd, which was
well known to the London stage in 1589, some twelve years before
Shakespeare's great work was written.
All these things are significant, if we are to understand the Elizabethan
drama and the man who brought it to perfection. Shakespeare was not simply
a great genius; he was also a great worker, and he developed in exactly the
same way as did all his fellow craftsmen. And, contrary to the prevalent
opinion, the Elizabethan drama is not a Minerva-like creation, springing
full grown from the head of one man; it is rather an orderly though rapid
development, in which many men bore a part. All our early dramatists are
worthy of study for the part they played in the development of the drama;
but we can here consider only one, the most typical of all, whose best work
is often ranked with that of Shakespeare.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-1593)
Marlowe is one of the most suggestive figures of the English Renaissance,
and the greatest of Shakespeare's predecessors. The glory of the
Elizabethan drama dates from his _Tamburlaine_ (1587), wherein the whole
restless temper of the age finds expression:
Nature, that framed us of four elements
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:
Our souls--whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world,
And measure every wandering planet's course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres--
Will us to wear ourselves and never rest.
_Tamburlaine_, Pt. I, II, vii.
Life. Marlowe was born in Canterbury, only a few months before Shakespeare.
He was the son of a poor shoemaker, but through the kindness of a patron
was educated at the town grammar school and then at Cambridge. When he came
to London (_c._ 1584), his soul was surging with the ideals of the
Renaissance, which later found expression in Faustus, the scholar longing
for unlimited knowledge and for power to grasp the universe. Unfortunately,
Marlowe had also the unbridled passions which mark the early, or Pagan
Renaissance, as Taine calls it, and the conceit of a young man just
entering the realms of knowledge. He became an actor and lived in a
low-tavern atmosphere of excess and wretchedness. In 1587, when but
twenty-three years old, he produced _Tamburlaine_, which brought him
instant recognition. Thereafter, notwithstanding his wretched life, he
holds steadily to a high literary purpose. Though all his plays abound in
violence, no doubt reflecting many of the violent scenes in which he lived,
he develops his "mighty line" and depicts great scenes in magnificent
bursts of poetry, such as the stage had never heard before. In five years,
while Shakespeare was serving his apprenticeship, Marlowe produced all his
great work. Then he was stabbed in a drunken brawl and died wretchedly, as
he had lived. The Epilogue of _Faustus_ might be written across his
tombstone:
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo's laurel bough
That sometime grew within this learned man.
MARLOWE'S WORKS. In addition to the poem "Hero and Leander," to which we
have referred,[140] Marlowe is famous for four dramas, now known as the
Marlowesque or one-man type of tragedy, each revolving about one central
personality who is consumed by the lust of power. The first of these is
_Tamburlaine_, the story of Timur the Tartar. Timur begins as a shepherd
chief, who first rebels and then triumphs over the Persian king.
Intoxicated by his success, Timur rushes like a tempest over the whole
East. Seated on his chariot drawn by captive kings, with a caged emperor
before him, he boasts of his power which overrides all things. Then,
afflicted with disease, he raves against the gods and would overthrow them
as he has overthrown earthly rulers. _Tamburlaine_ is an epic rather than a
drama; but one can understand its instant success with a people only half
civilized, fond of military glory, and the instant adoption of its "mighty
line" as the instrument of all dramatic expression.
_Faustus_, the second play, is one of the best of Marlowe's works.[141] The
story is that of a scholar who longs for infinite knowledge, and who turns
from Theology, Philosophy, Medicine, and Law, the four sciences of the
time, to the study of magic, much as a child might turn from jewels to
tinsel and colored paper. In order to learn magic he sells himself to the
devil, on condition that he shall have twenty-four years of absolute power
and knowledge. The play is the story of those twenty-four years. Like
_Tamburlaine_, it is lacking in dramatic construction,[142] but has an
unusual number of passages of rare poetic beauty. Milton's Satan suggests
strongly that the author of _Paradise Lost_ had access to _Faustus_ and
used it, as he may also have used _Tamburlaine_, for the magnificent
panorama displayed by Satan in _Paradise Regained_. For instance, more than
fifty years before Milton's hero says, "Which way I turn is hell, myself am
hell," Marlowe had written:
_Faust_. How comes it then that thou art out of hell?
_Mephisto_. Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
* * * * *
Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self place; for where we are is hell,
And where hell is there must we ever be.
Marlowe's third play is _The Jew of Malta_, a study of the lust for wealth,
which centers about Barabas, a terrible old money lender, strongly
suggestive of Shylock in _The Merchant of Venice_. The first part of the
play is well constructed, showing a decided advance, but the last part is
an accumulation of melodramatic horrors. Barabas is checked in his
murderous career by falling into a boiling caldron which he had prepared
for another, and dies blaspheming, his only regret being that he has not
done more evil in his life.
Marlowe's last play is _Edward II_, a tragic study of a king's weakness and
misery. In point of style and dramatic construction, it is by far the best
of Marlowe's plays, and is a worthy predecessor of Shakespeare's historical
drama.
Marlowe is the only dramatist of the time who is ever compared with
Shakespeare.[143] When we remember that he died at twenty-nine, probably
before Shakespeare had produced a single great play, we must wonder what he
might have done had he outlived his wretched youth and become a man. Here
and there his work is remarkable for its splendid imagination, for the
stateliness of its verse, and for its rare bits of poetic beauty; but in
dramatic instinct, in wide knowledge of human life, in humor, in
delineation of woman's character, in the delicate fancy which presents an
Ariel as perfectly as a Macbeth,--in a word, in all that makes a dramatic
genius, Shakespeare stands alone. Marlowe simply prepared the way for the
master who was to follow.
VARIETY OF THE EARLY DRAMA. The thirty years between our first regular
English plays and Shakespeare's first comedy[144] witnessed a development
of the drama which astonishes us both by its rapidity and variety. We shall
better appreciate Shakespeare's work if we glance for a moment at the plays
that preceded him, and note how he covers the whole field and writes almost
every form and variety of the drama known to his age.
First in importance, or at least in popular interest, are the new Chronicle
plays, founded upon historical events and characters. They show the strong
national spirit of the Elizabethan Age, and their popularity was due
largely to the fact that audiences came to the theaters partly to gratify
their awakened national spirit and to get their first knowledge of national
history. Some of the Moralities, like Bayle's _King Johan_ (1538), are
crude Chronicle plays, and the early Robin Hood plays and the first
tragedy, _Gorboduc_, show the same awakened popular interest in English
history. During the reign of Elizabeth the popular Chronicle plays
increased till we have the record of over two hundred and twenty, half of
which are still extant, dealing with almost every important character, real
or legendary, in English history. Of Shakespeare's thirty-seven dramas, ten
are true Chronicle plays of English kings; three are from the legendary
annals of Britain; and three more are from the history of other nations.
Other types of the early drama are less clearly defined, but we may sum
them up under a few general heads: (1) The Domestic Drama began with crude
home scenes introduced into the Miracles and developed in a score of
different ways, from the coarse humor of _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ to the
Comedy of Manners of Jonson and the later dramatists. Shakespeare's _Taming
of the Shrew_ and _Merry Wives of Windsor_ belong to this class. (2) The
so-called Court Comedy is the opposite of the former in that it represented
a different kind of life and was intended for a different audience. It was
marked by elaborate dialogue, by jests, retorts, and endless plays on
words, rather than by action. It was made popular by Lyly's success, and
was imitated in Shakespeare's first or "Lylian" comedies, such as _Love's
Labour's Lost_, and the complicated _Two Gentlemen of Verona_. (3) Romantic
Comedy and Romantic Tragedy suggest the most artistic and finished types of
the drama, which were experimented upon by Peele, Greene, and Marlowe, and
were brought to perfection in _The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet_,
and _The Tempest_. (4) In addition to the above types were several
others,--the Classical Plays, modeled upon Seneca and favored by cultivated
audiences; the Melodrama, favorite of the groundlings, which depended not
on plot or characters but upon a variety of striking scenes and incidents;
and the Tragedy of Blood, always more or less melodramatic, like Kyd's
_Spanish Tragedy_, which grew more blood-and-thundery in Marlowe and
reached a climax of horrors in Shakespeare's _Titus Andronicus_. It is
noteworthy that _Hamlet, Lear_, and _Macbeth_ all belong to this class, but
the developed genius of the author raised them to a height such as the
Tragedy of Blood had never known before.
These varied types are quite enough to show with what doubtful and unguided
experiments our first dramatists were engaged, like men first setting out
in rafts and dugouts on an unknown sea. They are the more interesting when
we remember that Shakespeare tried them all; that he is the only dramatist
whose plays cover the whole range of the drama from its beginning to its
decline. From the stage spectacle he developed the drama of human life; and
instead of the doggerel and bombast of our first plays he gives us the
poetry of _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Midsummer Night's Dream_. In a word,
Shakespeare brought order out of dramatic chaos. In a few short years he
raised the drama from a blundering experiment to a perfection of form and
expression which has never since been rivaled.
IV. SHAKESPEARE
One who reads a few of Shakespeare's great plays and then the meager story
of his life is generally filled with a vague wonder. Here is an unknown
country boy, poor and poorly educated according to the standards of his
age, who arrives at the great city of London and goes to work at odd jobs
in a theater. In a year or two he is associated with scholars and
dramatists, the masters of their age, writing plays of kings and clowns, of
gentlemen and heroes and noble women, all of whose lives he seems to know
by intimate association. In a few years more he leads all that brilliant
group of poets and dramatists who have given undying glory to the Age of
Elizabeth. Play after play runs from his pen, mighty dramas of human life
and character following one another so rapidly that good work seems
impossible; yet they stand the test of time, and their poetry is still
unrivaled in any language. For all this great work the author apparently
cares little, since he makes no attempt to collect or preserve his
writings. A thousand scholars have ever since been busy collecting,
identifying, classifying the works which this magnificent workman tossed
aside so carelessly when he abandoned the drama and retired to his native
village. He has a marvelously imaginative and creative mind; but he invents
few, if any, new plots or stories. He simply takes an old play or an old
poem, makes it over quickly, and lo! this old familiar material glows with
the deepest thoughts and the tenderest feelings that ennoble our humanity;
and each new generation of men finds it more wonderful than the last. How
did he do it? That is still an unanswered question and the source of our
wonder.
There are, in general, two theories to account for Shakespeare. The
romantic school of writers have always held that in him "all came from
within"; that his genius was his sufficient guide; and that to the
overmastering power of his genius alone we owe all his great works.
Practical, unimaginative men, on the other hand, assert that in Shakespeare
"all came from without," and that we must study his environment rather than
his genius, if we are to understand him. He lived in a play-loving age; he
studied the crowds, gave them what they wanted, and simply reflected their
own thoughts and feelings. In reflecting the English crowd about him he
unconsciously reflected all crowds, which are alike in all ages; hence his
continued popularity. And in being guided by public sentiment he was not
singular, but followed the plain path that every good dramatist has always
followed to success.
Probably the truth of the matter is to be found somewhere between these two
extremes. Of his great genius there can be no question; but there are other
things to consider. As we have already noticed, Shakespeare was trained,
like his fellow workmen, first as an actor, second as a reviser of old
plays, and last as an independent dramatist. He worked with other
playwrights and learned their secret. Like them, he studied and followed
the public taste, and his work indicates at least three stages, from his
first somewhat crude experiments to his finished masterpieces. So it would
seem that in Shakespeare we have the result of hard work and of orderly
human development, quite as much as of transcendent genius.
LIFE (1564-1616). Two outward influences were powerful in developing the
genius of Shakespeare,--the little village of Stratford, center of the most
beautiful and romantic district in rural England, and the great city of
London, the center of the world's political activity. In one he learned to
know the natural man in his natural environment; in the other, the social,
the artificial man in the most unnatural of surroundings.
From the register of the little parish church at Stratford-on-Avon we learn
that William Shakespeare was baptized there on the twenty-sixth of April,
1564 (old style). As it was customary to baptize children on the third day
after birth, the twenty-third of April (May 3, according to our present
calendar) is generally accepted as the poet's birthday.
His father, John Shakespeare, was a farmer's son from the neighboring
village of Snitterfield, who came to Stratford about 1551, and began to
prosper as a trader in corn, meat, leather, and other agricultural
products. His mother, Mary Arden, was the daughter of a prosperous farmer,
descended from an old Warwickshire family of mixed Anglo-Saxon and Norman
blood. In 1559 this married couple sold a piece of land, and the document
is signed, "The marke + of John Shacksper. The marke + of Mary Shacksper";
and from this it has been generally inferred that, like the vast majority
of their countrymen, neither of the poet's parents could read or write.
This was probably true of his mother; but the evidence from Stratford
documents now indicates that his father could write, and that he also
audited the town accounts; though in attesting documents he sometimes made
a mark, leaving his name to be filled in by the one who drew up the
document.
Of Shakespeare's education we know little, except that for a few years he
probably attended the endowed grammar school at Stratford, where he picked
up the "small Latin and less Greek" to which his learned friend Ben Jonson
refers. His real teachers, meanwhile, were the men and women and the
natural influences which surrounded him. Stratford is a charming little
village in beautiful Warwickshire, and near at hand were the Forest of
Arden, the old castles of Warwick and Kenilworth, and the old Roman camps
and military roads, to appeal powerfully to the boy's lively imagination.
Every phase of the natural beauty of this exquisite region is reflected in
Shakespeare's poetry; just as his characters reflect the nobility and the
littleness, the gossip, vices, emotions, prejudices, and traditions of the
people about him.
I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,
Told of a many thousand warlike French
That were embattailed and ranked in Kent.[145]
Such passages suggest not only genius but also a keen, sympathetic
observer, whose eyes see every significant detail. So with the nurse in
_Romeo and Juliet_, whose endless gossip and vulgarity cannot quite hide a
kind heart. She is simply the reflection of some forgotten nurse with whom
Shakespeare had talked by the wayside.
Not only the gossip but also the dreams, the unconscious poetry that sleeps
in the heart of the common people, appeal tremendously to Shakespeare's
imagination and are reflected in his greatest plays. Othello tries to tell
a curt soldier's story of his love; but the account is like a bit of
Mandeville's famous travels, teeming with the fancies that filled men's
heads when the great round world was first brought to their attention by
daring explorers. Here is a bit of folklore, touched by Shakespeare's
exquisite fancy, which shows what one boy listened to before the fire at
Halloween:
She comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
* * * * *
Her chariot is an empty hazel nut
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
* * * * *
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream.[146]
So with Shakespeare's education at the hands of Nature, which came from
keeping his heart as well as his eyes wide open to the beauty of the world.
He speaks of a horse, and we know the fine points of a thoroughbred; he
mentions the duke's hounds, and we hear them clamoring on a fox trail,
their voices matched like bells in the frosty air; he stops for an instant
in the sweep of a tragedy to note a flower, a star, a moonlit bank, a
hilltop touched by the sunrise, and instantly we know what our own hearts
felt but could not quite express when we saw the same thing. Because he
notes and remembers every significant thing in the changing panorama of
earth and sky, no other writer has ever approached him in the perfect
natural setting of his characters.
When Shakespeare was about fourteen years old his father lost his little
property and fell into debt, and the boy probably left school to help
support the family of younger children. What occupation he followed for the
next eight years is a matter of conjecture. From evidence found in his
plays, it is alleged with some show of authority that he was a country
schoolmaster and a lawyer's clerk, the character of Holofernes, in _Love's
Labour's Lost_, being the warrant for one, and Shakespeare's knowledge of
law terms for the other. But if we take such evidence, then Shakespeare
must have been a botanist, because of his knowledge of wild flowers; a
sailor, because he knows the ropes; a courtier, because of his
extraordinary facility in quips and compliments and courtly language; a
clown, because none other is so dull and foolish; a king, because Richard
and Henry are true to life; a woman, because he has sounded the depths of a
woman's feelings; and surely a Roman, because in _Coriolanus_ and _Julius
Caesar_ he has shown us the Roman spirit better than have the Roman writers
themselves. He was everything, in his imagination, and it is impossible
from a study of his scenes and characters to form a definite opinion as to
his early occupation.
In 1582 Shakespeare was married to Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a peasant
family of Shottery, who was eight years older than her boy husband. From
numerous sarcastic references to marriage made by the characters in his
plays, and from the fact that he soon left his wife and family and went to
London, it is generally alleged that the marriage was a hasty and unhappy
one; but here again the evidence is entirely untrustworthy. In many
Miracles as well as in later plays it was customary to depict the seamy
side of domestic life for the amusement of the crowd; and Shakespeare may
have followed the public taste in this as he did in other things. The
references to love and home and quiet joys in Shakespeare's plays are
enough, if we take such evidence, to establish firmly the opposite
supposition, that his love was a very happy one. And the fact that, after
his enormous success in London, he retired to Stratford to live quietly
with his wife and daughters, tends to the same conclusion.
About the year 1587 Shakespeare left his family and went to London and
joined himself to Burbage's company of players. A persistent tradition says
that he had incurred the anger of Sir Thomas Lucy, first by poaching deer
in that nobleman's park, and then, when haled before a magistrate, by
writing a scurrilous ballad about Sir Thomas, which so aroused the old
gentleman's ire that Shakespeare was obliged to flee the country. An old
record[147] says that the poet "was much given to all unluckiness in
stealing venison and rabbits," the unluckiness probably consisting in
getting caught himself, and not in any lack of luck in catching the
rabbits. The ridicule heaped upon the Lucy family in _Henry IV_ and the
_Merry Wives of Windsor_ gives some weight to this tradition. Nicholas
Rowe, who published the first life of Shakespeare,[148] is the authority
for this story; but there is some reason to doubt whether, at the time when
Shakespeare is said to have poached in the deer park of Sir Thomas Lucy at
Charlescote, there were any deer or park at the place referred to. The
subject is worthy of some scant attention, if only to show how worthless is
the attempt to construct out of rumor the story of a great life which,
fortunately perhaps, had no contemporary biographer.
Of his life in London from 1587 to 1611, the period of his greatest
literary activity, we know nothing definitely. We can judge only from his
plays, and from these it is evident that he entered into the stirring life
of England's capital with the same perfect sympathy and understanding that
marked him among the plain people of his native Warwickshire. The first
authentic reference to him is in 1592, when Greene's[149] bitter attack
appeared, showing plainly that Shakespeare had in five years assumed an
important position among playwrights. Then appeared the apology of the
publishers of Greene's pamphlet, with their tribute to the poet's sterling
character, and occasional literary references which show that he was known
among his fellows as "the gentle Shakespeare." Ben Jonson says of him: "I
loved the man and do honor his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as
any. He was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature." To judge from
only three of his earliest plays[150] it would seem reasonably evident that
in the first five years of his London life he had gained entrance to the
society of gentlemen and scholars, had caught their characteristic
mannerisms and expressions, and so was ready by knowledge and observation
as well as by genius to weave into his dramas the whole stirring life of
the English people. The plays themselves, with the testimony of
contemporaries and his business success, are strong evidence against the
tradition that his life in London was wild and dissolute, like that of the
typical actor and playwright of his time.
Shakespeare's first work may well have been that of a general helper, an
odd-job man, about the theater; but he soon became an actor, and the
records of the old London theaters show that in the next ten years he
gained a prominent place, though there is little reason to believe that he
was counted among the "stars." Within two years he was at work on plays,
and his course here was exactly like that of other playwrights of his time.
He worked with other men, and he revised old plays before writing his own,
and so gained a practical knowledge of his art. _Henry VI _(_c_. 1590-1591)
is an example of this tinkering work, in which, however, his native power
is unmistakably manifest. The three parts of _Henry VI_ (and _Richard III_,
which belongs with them) are a succession of scenes from English Chronicle
history strung together very loosely; and only in the last is there any
definite attempt at unity. That he soon fell under Marlowe's influence is
evident from the atrocities and bombast of _Titus Andronicus_ and _Richard
III_. The former may have been written by both playwrights in
collaboration, or may be one of Marlowe's horrors left unfinished by his
early death and brought to an end by Shakespeare. He soon broke away from
this apprentice work, and then appeared in rapid succession _Love's
Labour's Lost, Comedy of Errors, Two Gentlemen of Verona_, the first
English Chronicle plays,[151] _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, and _Romeo and
Juliet_. This order is more or less conjectural; but the wide variety of
these plays, as well as their unevenness and frequent crudities, marks the
first or experimental stage of Shakespeare's work. It is as if the author
were trying his power, or more likely trying the temper of his audience.
For it must be remembered that to please his audience was probably the
ruling motive of Shakespeare, as of the other early dramatists, during the
most vigorous and prolific period of his career.
Shakespeare's poems, rather than his dramatic work, mark the beginning of
his success. "Venus and Adonis" became immensely popular in London, and its
dedication to the Earl of Southampton brought, according to tradition, a
substantial money gift, which may have laid the foundation for
Shakespeare's business success. He appears to have shrewdly invested his
money, and soon became part owner of the Globe and Blackfriars theaters, in
which his plays were presented by his own companies. His success and
popularity grew amazingly. Within a decade of his unnoticed arrival in
London he was one of the most famous actors and literary men in England.
Following his experimental work there came a succession of wonderful
plays,--_Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar,
Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra_. The great
tragedies of this period are associated with a period of gloom and sorrow
in the poet's life; but of its cause we have no knowledge. It may have been
this unknown sorrow which turned his thoughts back to Stratford and caused,
apparently, a dissatisfaction with his work and profession; but the latter
is generally attributed to other causes. Actors and playwrights were in his
day generally looked upon with suspicion or contempt; and Shakespeare, even
in the midst of success, seems to have looked forward to the time when he
could retire to Stratford to live the life of a farmer and country
gentleman. His own and his father's families were first released from debt;
then, in 1597, he bought New Place, the finest house in Stratford, and soon
added a tract of farming land to complete his estate. His profession may
have prevented his acquiring the title of "gentleman," or he may have only
followed a custom of the time[152] when he applied for and obtained a coat
of arms for his father, and so indirectly secured the title by inheritance.
His home visits grew more and more frequent till, about the year 1611, he
left London and retired permanently to Stratford.
Though still in the prime of life, Shakespeare soon abandoned his dramatic
work for the comfortable life of a country gentleman. Of his later plays,
_Coriolanus, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale_, and _Pericles_ show a decided
falling off from his previous work, and indicate another period of
experimentation; this time not to test his own powers but to catch the
fickle humor of the public. As is usually the case with a theater-going
people, they soon turned from serious drama to sentimental or more
questionable spectacles; and with Fletcher, who worked with Shakespeare and
succeeded him as the first playwright of London, the decline of the drama
had already begun. In 1609, however, occurred an event which gave
Shakespeare his chance for a farewell to the public. An English ship
disappeared, and all on board were given up for lost. A year later the
sailors returned home, and their arrival created intense excitement. They
had been wrecked on the unknown Bermudas, and had lived there for ten
months, terrified by mysterious noises which they thought came from spirits
and devils. Five different accounts of this fascinating shipwreck were
published, and the Bermudas became known as the "Ile of Divels."
Shakespeare took this story--which caused as much popular interest as that
later shipwreck which gave us _Robinson Crusoe_--and wove it into _The
Tempest_. In the same year (1611) he probably sold his interest in the
Globe and Blackfriars theaters, and his dramatic work was ended. A few
plays were probably left unfinished[153] and were turned over to Fletcher
and other dramatists.
That Shakespeare thought little of his success and had no idea that his
dramas were the greatest that the world ever produced seems evident from
the fact that he made no attempt to collect or publish his works, or even
to save his manuscripts, which were carelessly left to stage managers of
the theaters, and so found their way ultimately to the ragman. After a few
years of quiet life, of which we have less record than of hundreds of
simple country gentlemen of the time, Shakespeare died on the probable
anniversary of his birth, April 23, 1616. He was given a tomb in the
chancel of the parish church, not because of his preeminence in literature,
but because of his interest in the affairs of a country village. And in the
sad irony of fate, the broad stone that covered his tomb--now an object of
veneration to the thousands that yearly visit the little church--was
inscribed as follows:
Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
To dig the dust enclosed heare;
Bleste be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.
This wretched doggerel, over the world's greatest poet, was intended, no
doubt, as a warning to some stupid sexton, lest he should empty the grave
and give the honored place to some amiable gentleman who had given more
tithes to the parish.
WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE. At the time of Shakespeare's death twenty-one plays
existed in manuscripts in the various theaters. A few others had already
been printed in quarto form, and the latter are the only publications that
could possibly have met with the poet's own approval. More probably they
were taken down in shorthand by some listener at the play and then
"pirated" by some publisher for his own profit. The first printed
collection of his plays, now called the First Folio (1623), was made by two
actors, Heming and Condell, who asserted that they had access to the papers
of the poet and had made a perfect edition, "in order to keep the memory of
so worthy a friend and fellow alive." This contains thirty-six of the
thirty-seven plays generally attributed to Shakespeare, _Pericles_ being
omitted. This celebrated First Folio was printed from playhouse manuscripts
and from printed quartos containing many notes and changes by individual
actors and stage managers. Moreover, it was full of typographical errors,
though the editors alleged great care and accuracy; and so, though it is
the only authoritative edition we have, it is of little value in
determining the dates, or the classification of the plays as they existed
in Shakespeare's mind.
Notwithstanding this uncertainty, a careful reading of the plays and poems
leaves us with an impression of four different periods of work, probably
corresponding with the growth and experience of the poet's life. These are:
(1) a period of early experimentation. It is marked by youthfulness and
exuberance of imagination, by extravagance of language, and by the frequent
use of rimed couplets with his blank verse. The period dates from his
arrival in London to 1595. Typical works of this first period are his early
poems, _Love's Labour's Lost, Two Gentlemen of Verona_, and _Richard III_.
(2) A period of rapid growth and development, from 1595 to 1600. Such plays
as _The Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It_, and
_Henry IV_, all written in this period, show more careful and artistic
work, better plots, and a marked increase in knowledge of human nature. (3)
A period of gloom and depression, from 1600 to 1607, which marks the full
maturity of his powers. What caused this evident sadness is unknown; but it
is generally attributed to some personal experience, coupled with the
political misfortunes of his friends, Essex and Southampton. The _Sonnets_
with their note of personal disappointment, _Twelfth Night_, which is
Shakespeare's "farewell to mirth," and his great tragedies, _Hamlet, Lear,
Macbeth, Othello_, and _Julius Caesar_, belong to this period. (4) A period
of restored serenity, of calm after storm, which marked the last years of
the poet's literary work. _The Winter's Tale_ and _The Tempest_ are the
best of his later plays; but they all show a falling off from his previous
work, and indicate a second period of experimentation with the taste of a
fickle public.
To read in succession four plays, taking a typical work from each of the
above periods, is one of the very best ways of getting quickly at the real
life and mind of Shakespeare. Following is a complete list with the
approximate dates of his works, classified according to the above four
periods.
First Period, Early Experiment. _Venus and Adonis, Rape of Lucrece_, 1594;
_Titus Andronicus, Henry VI_ (three parts), 1590-1591; _Love's Labour's
Lost_, 1590; _Comedy of Errors, Two Gentlemen of Verona_, 1591-1592;
_Richard-III_, 1593; _Richard II, King John_, 1594-1595.
Second Period, Development. _Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream_,
1595; _Merchant of Venice, Henry IV_ (first part), 1596; _Henry IV_ (second
part), _Merry Wives of Windsor_, 1597; _Much Ado About Nothing_, 1598; _As
You Like It, Henry V_, 1599.
Third Period, Maturity and Gloom. _Sonnets_ (1600-?), _Twelfth Night_,
1600; _Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida_,
1601-1602; _All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure_, 1603;
_Othello_, 1604; _King Lear_, 1605; _Macbeth_, 1606; _Antony and Cleopatra,
Timon of Athens_, 1607.
Fourth Period, Late Experiment. _Coriolanus, Pericles_, 1608; _Cymbeline_,
1609; _Winter's Tale_, 1610-1611; _The Tempest_, 1611; _Henry VIII_
(unfinished).
CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO SOURCE. In history, legend, and story,
Shakespeare found the material for nearly all his dramas; and so they are
often divided into three classes, called historical plays, like _Richard
III_ and _Henry V;_ legendary or partly historical plays, like _Macbeth,
King Lear_, and _Julius Caesar;_ and fictional plays, like _Romeo and
Juliet_ and _The Merchant of Venice_. Shakespeare invented few, if any, of
the plots or stories upon which his dramas are founded, but borrowed them
freely, after the custom of his age, wherever he found them. For his
legendary and historical material he depended, largely on _Holinshed's
Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland_, and on North's translation
of Plutarch's famous _Lives_.
A full half of his plays are fictional, and in these he used the most
popular romances of the day, seeming to depend most on the Italian
story-tellers. Only two or three of his plots, as in _Love's Labour's Lost_
and _Merry Wives of Windsor_, are said to be original, and even these are
doubtful. Occasionally Shakespeare made over an older play, as in _Henry
VI, Comedy of Errors_, and _Hamlet;_ and in one instance at least he seized
upon an incident of shipwreck in which London was greatly interested, and
made out of it the original and fascinating play of _The Tempest_, in much
the same spirit which leads our modern playwrights when they dramatize a
popular novel or a war story to catch the public fancy.
CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO DRAMATIC TYPE. Shakespeare's dramas are usually
divided into three classes, called tragedies, comedies, and historical
plays. Strictly speaking the drama has but two divisions, tragedy and
comedy, in which are included the many subordinate forms of tragi-comedy,
melodrama, lyric drama (opera), farce, etc. A tragedy is a drama in which
the principal characters are involved in desperate circumstances or led by
overwhelming passions. It is invariably serious and dignified. The movement
is always stately, but grows more and more rapid as it approaches the
climax; and the end is always calamitous, resulting in death or dire
misfortune to the principals. As Chaucer's monk says, before he begins to
"biwayle in maner of tragedie":
Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie
Of him that stood in great prosperitee,
And is y-fallen out of heigh degree
Into miserie, and endeth wrecchedly.
A comedy, on the other hand, is a drama in which the characters are placed
in more or less humorous situations. The movement is light and often
mirthful, and the play ends in general good will and happiness. The
historical drama aims to present some historical age or character, and may
be either a comedy or a tragedy. The following list includes the best of
Shakespeare's plays in each of the three classes; but the order indicates
merely the author's personal opinion of the relative merits of the plays in
each class. Thus _Merchant of Venice_ would be the first of the comedies
for the beginner to read, and _Julius Caesar_ is an excellent introduction
to the historical plays and the tragedies.
Comedies. _Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It,
Winter's Tale, The Tempest, Twelfth Night_.
Tragedies. _Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello_.
Historical Plays. _Julius Caesar, Richard III, Henry IV, Henry V,
Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra_.
DOUBTFUL PLAYS. It is reasonably certain that some of the plays generally
attributed to Shakespeare are partly the work of other dramatists. The
first of these doubtful plays, often called the Pre-Shakespearian Group,
are _Titus Andronicus_ and the first part of _Henry VI_. Shakespeare
probably worked with Marlowe in the two last parts of _Henry VI_ and in
_Richard III_. The three plays, _Taming of the Shrew, Timon_, and
_Pericles_ are only partly Shakespeare's work, but the other authors are
unknown. _Henry VIII_ is the work of Fletcher and Shakespeare, opinion
being divided as to whether Shakespeare helped Fletcher, or whether it was
an unfinished work of Shakespeare which was put into Fletcher's hands for
completion. _Two Noble Kinsmen_ is a play not ordinarily found in editions
of Shakespeare, but it is often placed among his doubtful works. The
greater part of the play is undoubtedly by Fletcher. _Edward III_ is one of
several crude plays published at first anonymously and later attributed to
Shakespeare by publishers who desired to sell their wares. It contains a
few passages that strongly suggest Shakespeare; but the external evidence
is all against his authorship.
SHAKESPEARE'S POEMS. It is generally asserted that, if Shakespeare had
written no plays, his poems alone would have given him a commanding place
in the Elizabethan Age. Nevertheless, in the various histories of our
literature there is apparent a desire to praise and pass over all but the
_Sonnets_ as rapidly as possible; and the reason may be stated frankly. His
two long poems, "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece," contain much
poetic fancy; but it must be said of both that the subjects are unpleasant,
and that they are dragged out to unnecessary length in order to show the
play of youthful imagination. They were extremely popular in Shakespeare's
day, but in comparison with his great dramatic works these poems are now of
minor importance.
Shakespeare's _Sonnets_, one hundred and fifty-four in number, are the only
direct expression of the poet's own feelings that we possess; for his plays
are the most impersonal in all literature. They were published together in
1609; but if they had any unity in Shakespeare's mind, their plan and
purpose are hard to discover. By some critics they are regarded as mere
literary exercises; by others as the expression of some personal grief
during the third period of the poet's literary career. Still others, taking
a hint from the sonnet beginning "Two loves I have, of comfort and
despair," divide them all into two classes, addressed to a man who was
Shakespeare's friend, and to a woman who disdained his love. The reader may
well avoid such classifications and read a few sonnets, like the twenty-
ninth, for instance, and let them speak their own message. A few are
trivial and artificial enough, suggesting the elaborate exercises of a
piano player; but the majority are remarkable for their subtle thought and
exquisite expression. Here and there is one, like that beginning
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
which will haunt the reader long afterwards, like the remembrance of an old
German melody.
SHAKESPEARE'S PLACE AND INFLUENCE. Shakespeare holds, by general
acclamation, the foremost place in the world's literature, and his
overwhelming greatness renders it difficult to criticise or even to praise
him. Two poets only, Homer and Dante, have been named with him; but each of
these wrote within narrow limits, while Shakespeare's genius included all
the world of nature and of men. In a word, he is the universal poet. To
study nature in his works is like exploring a new and beautiful country; to
study man in his works is like going into a great city, viewing the motley
crowd as one views a great masquerade in which past and present mingle
freely and familiarly, as if the dead were all living again. And the
marvelous thing, in this masquerade of all sorts and conditions of men, is
that Shakespeare lifts the mask from every face, lets us see the man as he
is in his own soul, and shows us in each one some germ of good, some "soul
of goodness" even in things evil. For Shakespeare strikes no uncertain
note, and raises no doubts to add to the burden of your own. Good always
overcomes evil in the long run; and love, faith, work, and duty are the
four elements that in all ages make the world right. To criticise or praise
the genius that creates these men and women is to criticise or praise
humanity itself.
Of his influence in literature it is equally difficult to speak. Goethe
expresses the common literary judgment when he says, "I do not remember
that any book or person or event in my life ever made so great an
impression upon me as the plays of Shakespeare." His influence upon our own
language and thought is beyond calculation. Shakespeare and the King James
Bible are the two great conservators of the English speech; and one who
habitually reads them finds himself possessed of a style and vocabulary
that are beyond criticism. Even those who read no Shakespeare are still
unconsciously guided by him, for his thought and expression have so
pervaded our life and literature that it is impossible, so long as one
speaks the English language, to escape his influence.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"
V. SHAKESPEARE'S CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS IN THE DRAMA
DECLINE OF THE DRAMA. It was inevitable that the drama should decline after
Shakespeare, for the simple reason that there was no other great enough to
fill his place. Aside from this, other causes were at work, and the chief
of these was at the very source of the Elizabethan dramas. It must be
remembered that our first playwrights wrote to please their audiences; that
the drama rose in England because of the desire of a patriotic people to
see something of the stirring life of the times reflected on the stage. For
there were no papers or magazines in those days, and people came to the
theaters not only to be amused but to be informed. Like children, they
wanted to see a story acted; and like men, they wanted to know what it
meant. Shakespeare fulfilled their desire. He gave them their story, and
his genius was great enough to show in every play not only their own life
and passions but something of the meaning of all life, and of that eternal
justice which uses the war of human passions for its own great ends. Thus
good and evil mingle freely in his dramas; but the evil is never
attractive, and the good triumphs as inevitably as fate. Though his
language is sometimes coarse, we are to remember that it was the custom of
his age to speak somewhat coarsely, and that in language, as in thought and
feeling, Shakespeare is far above most of his contemporaries.
With his successors all this was changed. The audience itself had gradually
changed, and in place of plain people eager for a story and for
information, we see a larger and larger proportion of those who went to the
play because they had nothing else to do. They wanted amusement only, and
since they had blunted by idleness the desire for simple and wholesome
amusement, they called for something more sensational. Shakespeare's
successors catered to the depraved tastes of this new audience. They lacked
not only Shakespeare's genius, but his broad charity, his moral insight
into life. With the exception of Ben Jonson, they neglected the simple fact
that man in his deepest nature is a moral being, and that only a play which
satisfies the whole nature of man by showing the triumph of the moral law
can ever wholly satisfy an audience or a people. Beaumont and Fletcher,
forgetting the deep meaning of life, strove for effect by increasing the
sensationalism of their plays; Webster reveled in tragedies of blood and
thunder; Massinger and Ford made another step downward, producing evil and
licentious scenes for their own sake, making characters and situations more
immoral till, notwithstanding these dramatists' ability, the stage had
become insincere, frivolous, and bad. Ben Jonson's ode, "Come Leave the
Loathed Stage," is the judgment of a large and honest nature grown weary of
the plays and the players of the time. We read with a sense of relief that
in 1642, only twenty-six years after Shakespeare's death, both houses of
Parliament voted to close the theaters as breeders of lies and immorality.
BEN JONSON (1573?-1637)
Personally Jonson is the most commanding literary figure among the
Elizabethans. For twenty-five years he was the literary dictator of London,
the chief of all the wits that gathered nightly at the old Devil Tavern.
With his great learning, his ability, and his commanding position as poet
laureate, he set himself squarely against his contemporaries and the
romantic tendency of the age. For two things he fought bravely,--to restore
the classic form of the drama, and to keep the stage from its downward
course. Apparently he failed; the romantic school fixed its hold more
strongly than ever; the stage went swiftly to an end as sad as that of the
early dramatists. Nevertheless his influence lived and grew more powerful
till, aided largely by French influence, it resulted in the so-called
classicism of the eighteenth century.
LIFE. Jonson was born at Westminster about the year 1573. His father, an
educated gentleman, had his property confiscated and was himself thrown
into prison by Queen Mary; so we infer the family was of some prominence.
From his mother he received certain strong characteristics, and by a single
short reference in Jonson's works we are led to see the kind of woman she
was. It is while Jonson is telling Drummond of the occasion when he was
thrown into prison, because some passages in the comedy of _Eastward Ho!_
gave offense to King James, and he was in danger of a horrible death, after
having his ears and nose cut off. He tells us how, after his pardon, he was
banqueting with his friends, when his "old mother" came in and showed a
paper full of "lusty strong poison," which she intended to mix with his
drink just before the execution. And to show that she "was no churl," she
intended first to drink of the poison herself. The incident is all the more
suggestive from the fact that Chapman and Marston, one his friend and the
other his enemy, were first cast into prison as the authors of _Eastward
Ho!_ and rough Ben Jonson at once declared that he too had had a small hand
in the writing and went to join them in prison.
Jonson's father came out of prison, having given up his estate, and became
a minister. He died just before the son's birth, and two years later the
mother married a bricklayer of London. The boy was sent to a private
school, and later made his own way to Westminster School, where the
submaster, Camden, struck by the boy's ability, taught and largely
supported him. For a short time he may have studied at the university in
Cambridge; but his stepfather soon set him to learning the bricklayer's
trade. He ran away from this, and went with the English army to fight
Spaniards in the Low Countries. His best known exploit there was to fight a
duel between the lines with one of the enemy's soldiers, while both armies
looked on. Jonson killed his man, and took his arms, and made his way back
to his own lines in a way to delight the old Norman troubadours. He soon
returned to England, and married precipitately when only nineteen or twenty
years old. Five years later we find him employed, like Shakespeare, as
actor and reviser of old plays in the theater. Thereafter his life is a
varied and stormy one. He killed an actor in a duel, and only escaped
hanging by pleading "benefit of clergy";[154] but he lost all his poor
goods and was branded for life on his left thumb. In his first great play,
_Every Man in His Humour_ (1598), Shakespeare acted one of the parts; and
that may have been the beginning of their long friendship. Other plays
followed rapidly. Upon the accession of James, Jonson's masques won him
royal favor, and he was made poet laureate. He now became undoubted leader
of the literary men of his time, though his rough honesty and his hatred of
the literary tendencies of the age made him quarrel with nearly all of
them. In 1616, soon after Shakespeare's retirement, he stopped writing for
the stage and gave himself up to study and serious work. In 1618 he
traveled on foot to Scotland, where he visited Drummond, from whom we have
the scant records of his varied life. His impressions of this journey,
called _Foot Pilgrimage_, were lost in a fire before publication.
Thereafter he produced less, and his work declined in vigor; but spite of
growing poverty and infirmity we notice in his later work, especially in
the unfinished _Sad Shepherd_, a certain mellowness and tender human
sympathy which were lacking in his earlier productions. He died poverty
stricken in 1637. Unlike Shakespeare's, his death was mourned as a national
calamity, and he was buried with all honor in Westminster Abbey. On his
grave was laid a marble slab, on which the words "O rare Ben Jonson" were
his sufficient epitaph.
WORKS OF BEN JONSON. Jonson's work is in strong contrast with that of
Shakespeare and of the later Elizabethan dramatists. Alone he fought
against the romantic tendency of the age, and to restore the classic
standards. Thus the whole action of his drama usually covers only a few
hours, or a single day. He never takes liberties with historical facts, as
Shakespeare does, but is accurate to the smallest detail. His dramas abound
in classical learning, are carefully and logically constructed, and comedy
and tragedy are kept apart, instead of crowding each other as they do in
Shakespeare and in life. In one respect his comedies are worthy of careful
reading,--they are intensely realistic, presenting men and women of the
time exactly as they were. From a few of Jonson's scenes we can
understand--better than from all the plays of Shakespeare--how men talked
and acted during the Age of Elizabeth.
Jonson's first comedy, _Every Man in His Humour_, is a key to all his
dramas. The word "humour" in his age stood for some characteristic whim or
quality of society. Jonson gives to his leading character some prominent
humor, exaggerates it, as the cartoonist enlarges the most characteristic
feature of a face, and so holds it before our attention that all other
qualities are lost sight of; which is the method that Dickens used later in
many of his novels. _Every Man in His Humour_ was the first of three
satires. Its special aim was to ridicule the humors of the city. The
second, _Cynthia's Revels_, satirizes the humors of the court; while the
third, _The Poetaster_, the result of a quarrel with his contemporaries,
was leveled at the false standards of the poets of the age.
The three best known of Jonson's comedies are _Volpone, or the Fox, The
Alchemist_, and _Epicoene, or the Silent Woman. Volpone_ is a keen and
merciless analysis of a man governed by an overwhelming love of money for
its own sake. The first words in the first scene are a key to the whole
comedy:
_(Volpone)_
Good morning to the day; and next, my gold!
Open the shrine that I may see my saint.
(_Mosca withdraws a curtain and discovers piles of
gold, plate, jewels, etc._)
Hail the world's soul, and mine!
Volpone's method of increasing his wealth is to play upon the avarice of
men. He pretends to be at the point of death, and his "suitors," who know
his love of gain and that he has no heirs, endeavor hypocritically to
sweeten his last moments by giving him rich presents, so that he will leave
them all his wealth. The intrigues of these suitors furnish the story of
the play, and show to what infamous depths avarice will lead a man.
_The Alchemist_ is a study of quackery on one side and of gullibility on
the other, founded on the mediaeval idea of the philosopher's stone,[155]
and applies as well to the patent medicines and get-rich-quick schemes of
our day as to the peculiar forms of quackery with which Jonson was more
familiar. In plot and artistic construction _The Alchemist_ is an almost
perfect specimen of the best English drama. It has some remarkably good
passages, and is the most readable of Jonson's plays.
_Epicoene, or the Silent Woman_, is a prose comedy exceedingly well
constructed, full of life, abounding in fun and unexpected situations. Here
is a brief outline from which the reader may see of what materials Jonson
made up his comedies.
The chief character is Morose, a rich old codger whose humor is a horror of
noise. He lives in a street so narrow that it will admit no carriages; he
pads the doors; plugs the keyhole; puts mattresses on the stairs. He
dismisses a servant who wears squeaky boots; makes all the rest go about in
thick stockings; and they must answer him by signs, since he cannot bear to
hear anybody but himself talk. He disinherits his poor nephew Eugenie, and,
to make sure that the latter will not get any money out of him, resolves to
marry. His confidant in this delicate matter is Cutbeard the barber, who,
unlike his kind, never speaks unless spoken to, and does not even knick his
scissors as he works. Cutbeard (who is secretly in league with the nephew)
tells him of Epicoene, a rare, silent woman, and Morose is so delighted
with her silence that he resolves to marry her on the spot. Cutbeard
produces a parson with a bad cold, who can speak only in a whisper, to
marry them; and when the parson coughs after the ceremony Morose demands
back five shillings of the fee. To save it the parson coughs more, and is
hurriedly bundled out of the house. The silent woman finds her voice
immediately after the marriage, begins to talk loudly and to make reforms
in the household, driving Morose to distraction. A noisy dinner party from
a neighboring house, with drums and trumpets and a quarreling man and wife,
is skillfully guided in at this moment to celebrate the wedding. Morose
flees for his life, and is found perched like a monkey on a crossbeam in
the attic, with all his nightcaps tied over his ears. He seeks a divorce,
but is driven frantic by the loud arguments of a lawyer and a divine, who
are no other than Cutbeard and a sea captain disguised. When Morose is past
all hope the nephew offers to release him from his wife and her noisy
friends if he will allow him five hundred pounds a year. Morose offers him
anything, everything, to escape his torment, and signs a deed to that
effect. Then comes the surprise of the play when Eugenie whips the wig from
Epicoene and shows a boy in disguise.
It will be seen that the _Silent Woman_, with its rapid action and its
unexpected situations, offers an excellent opportunity for the actors; but
the reading of the play, as of most of Jonson's comedies, is marred by low
intrigues showing a sad state of morals among the upper classes.
Besides these, and many other less known comedies, Jonson wrote two great
tragedies, _Sejanus_ (1603) and _Catiline_ (1611), upon severe classical
lines. After ceasing his work for the stage, Jonson wrote many masques in
honor of James I and of Queen Anne, to be played amid elaborate scenery by
the gentlemen of the court. The best of these are "The Satyr," "The
Penates," "Masque of Blackness," "Masque of Beauty," "Hue and Cry after
Cupid," and "The Masque of Queens." In all his plays Jonson showed a strong
lyric gift, and some of his little poems and songs, like "The Triumph of
Charis," "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes," and "To the Memory of my
Beloved Mother," are now better known than his great dramatic works. A
single volume of prose, called _Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and
Matter_, is an interesting collection of short essays which are more like
Bacon's than any other work of the age.
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. The work of these two men is so closely interwoven
that, though Fletcher outlived Beaumont by nine years and the latter had no
hand in some forty of the plays that bear their joint names, we still class
them together, and only scholars attempt to separate their works so as to
give each writer his due share. Unlike most of the Elizabethan dramatists,
they both came from noble and cultured families and were university
trained. Their work, in strong contrast with Jonson's, is intensely
romantic, and in it all, however coarse or brutal the scene, there is
still, as Emerson pointed out, the subtle "recognition of gentility."
Beaumont (1584-1616) was the brother of Sir John Beaumont of
Leicestershire. From Oxford he came to London to study law, but soon gave
it up to write for the stage. Fletcher (1579-1625) was the son of the
bishop of London, and shows in all his work the influence of his high
social position and of his Cambridge education. The two dramatists met at
the Mermaid tavern under Ben Jonson's leadership and soon became
inseparable friends, living and working together. Tradition has it that
Beaumont supplied the judgment and the solid work of the play, while
Fletcher furnished the high-colored sentiment and the lyric poetry, without
which an Elizabethan play would have been incomplete. Of their joint plays,
the two best known are _Philaster_, whose old theme, like that of
_Cymbeline_ and _Griselda_, is the jealousy of a lover and the faithfulness
of a girl, and _The Maid's Tragedy_. Concerning Fletcher's work the most
interesting literary question is how much did he write of Shakespeare's
_Henry VIII_, and how much did Shakespeare help him in _The Two Noble
Kinsmen_.
JOHN WEBSTER. Of Webster's personal history we know nothing except that he
was well known as a dramatist under James I. His extraordinary powers of
expression rank him with Shakespeare; but his talent seems to have been
largely devoted to the blood-and-thunder play begun by Marlowe. His two
best known plays are _The White Devil_ (pub. 1612) and _The Duchess of
Malfi_ (pub. 1623). The latter, spite of its horrors, ranks him as one of
the greatest masters of English tragedy. It must be remembered that he
sought in this play to reproduce the Italian life of the sixteenth century,
and for this no imaginary horrors are needed. The history of any Italian
court or city in this period furnishes more vice and violence and dishonor
than even the gloomy imagination of Webster could conceive. All the
so-called blood tragedies of the Elizabethan period, from Thomas Kyd's
_Spanish Tragedy_ down, however much they may condemn the brutal taste of
the English audiences, are still only so many search lights thrown upon a
history of horrible darkness.
THOMAS MIDDLETON (1570?-1627). Middleton is best known by two great plays,
_The Changeling_[156] and _Women Beware Women_. In poetry and diction they
are almost worthy at times to rank with Shakespeare's plays; otherwise, in
their sensationalism and unnaturalness they do violence to the moral sense
and are repulsive to the modern reader. Two earlier plays, _A Trick to
catch the Old One_, his best comedy, and _A Fair Quarrel_, his earliest
tragedy, are less mature in thought and expression, but more readable,
because they seem to express Middleton's own idea of the drama rather than
that of the corrupt court and playwrights of his later age.
THOMAS HEYWOOD (1580?-1650?). Heywood's life, of which we know little in
detail, covers the whole period of the Elizabethan drama. To the glory of
that drama he contributed, according to his own statement, the greater
part, at least, of nearly two hundred and twenty plays. It was an enormous
amount of work; but he seems to have been animated by the modern literary
spirit of following the best market and striking while the financial iron
is hot. Naturally good work was impossible, even to genius, under such
circumstances, and few of his plays are now known. The two best, if the
reader would obtain his own idea of Heywood's undoubted ability, are _A
Woman killed with Kindness_, a pathetic story of domestic life, and _The
Fair Maid of the West_, a melodrama with plenty of fighting of the popular
kind.
THOMAS DEKKER (1570-?). Dekker is in pleasing contrast with most of the
dramatists of the time. All we know of him must be inferred from his works,
which show a happy and sunny nature, pleasant and good to meet. The reader
will find the best expression of Dekker's personality and erratic genius in
_The Shoemakers' Holiday_, a humorous study of plain working people, and
_Old Fortunatus_, a fairy drama of the wishing hat and no end of money.
Whether intended for children or not, it had the effect of charming the
elders far more than the young people, and the play became immensely
popular.
MASSINGER, FORD, SHIRLEY. These three men mark the end of the Elizabethan
drama. Their work, done largely while the struggle was on between the
actors and the corrupt court, on one side, and the Puritans on the other,
shows a deliberate turning away not only from Puritan standards but from
the high ideals of their own art to pander to the corrupt taste of the
upper classes.
Philip Massinger (1584-1640) was a dramatic poet of great natural ability;
but his plots and situations are usually so strained and artificial that
the modern reader finds no interest in them. In his best comedy, _A New Way
to Pay Old Debts_, he achieved great popularity and gave us one figure, Sir
Giles Overreach, which is one of the typical characters of the English
stage. His best plays are _The Great Duke of Florence, The Virgin Martyr_,
and _The Maid of Honour_.
John Ford (1586-1642?) and James Shirley (1596-1666) have left us little of
permanent literary value, and their works are read only by those who wish
to understand the whole rise and fall of the drama. An occasional scene in
Ford's plays is as strong as anything that the Elizabethan Age produced;
but as a whole the plays are unnatural and tiresome. Probably his best play
is _The Broken Heart_ (1633). Shirley was given to imitation of his
predecessors, and his very imitation is characteristic of an age which had
lost its inspiration. A single play, _Hyde Park_, with its frivolous,
realistic dialogue, is sometimes read for its reflection of the fashionable
gossipy talk of the day. Long before Shirley's death the actors said,
"Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone." Parliament voted to close the
theaters, thereby saving the drama from a more inglorious death by
dissipation.[157]
VI. THE PROSE WRITERS
FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)
In Bacon we see one of those complex and contradictory natures which are
the despair of the biographer. If the writer be an admirer of Bacon, he
finds too much that he must excuse or pass over in silence; and if he takes
his stand on the law to condemn the avarice and dishonesty of his subject,
he finds enough moral courage and nobility to make him question the justice
of his own judgment. On the one hand is rugged Ben Jonson's tribute to his
power and ability, and on the other Hallam's summary that he was "a man
who, being intrusted with the highest gifts of Heaven, habitually abused
them for the poorest purposes of earth--hired them out for guineas,
places, and titles in the service of injustice, covetousness, and
oppression."
Laying aside the opinions of others, and relying only upon the facts of
Bacon's life, we find on the one side the politician, cold, calculating,
selfish, and on the other the literary and scientific man with an
impressive devotion to truth for its own great sake; here a man using
questionable means to advance his own interests, and there a man seeking
with zeal and endless labor to penetrate the secret ways of Nature, with no
other object than to advance the interests of his fellow-men. So, in our
ignorance of the secret motives and springs of the man's life, judgment is
necessarily suspended. Bacon was apparently one of those double natures
that only God is competent to judge, because of the strange mixture of
intellectual strength and moral weakness that is in them.
LIFE. Bacon was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Seal, and
of the learned Ann Cook, sister-in-law to Lord Burleigh, greatest of the
queen's statesmen. From these connections, as well as from native gifts, he
was attracted to the court, and as a child was called by Elizabeth her
"Little Lord Keeper." At twelve he went to Cambridge, but left the
university after two years, declaring the whole plan of education to be
radically wrong, and the system of Aristotle, which was the basis of all
philosophy in those days, to be a childish delusion, since in the course of
centuries it had "produced no fruit, but only a jungle of dry and useless
branches." Strange, even for a sophomore of fourteen, thus to condemn the
whole system of the universities; but such was the boy, and the system!
Next year, in order to continue his education, he accompanied the English
ambassador to France, where he is said to have busied himself chiefly with
the practical studies of statistics and diplomacy.
Two years later he was recalled to London by the death of his father.
Without money, and naturally with expensive tastes, he applied to his Uncle
Burleigh for a lucrative position. It was in this application that he used
the expression, so characteristic of the Elizabethan Age, that he "had
taken all knowledge for his province." Burleigh, who misjudged him as a
dreamer and self-seeker, not only refused to help him at the court but
successfully opposed his advancement by Elizabeth. Bacon then took up the
study of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1582. That he had not lost his
philosophy in the mazes of the law is shown by his tract, written about
this time, "On the Greatest Birth of Time," which was a plea for his
inductive system of philosophy, reasoning from many facts to one law,
rather than from an assumed law to particular facts, which was the
deductive method that had been in use for centuries. In his famous plea for
progress Bacon demanded three things: the free investigation of nature, the
discovery of facts instead of theories, and the verification of results by
experiment rather than by argument. In our day these are the A, B, C of
science, but in Bacon's time they seemed revolutionary.
As a lawyer he became immediately successful; his knowledge and power of
pleading became widely known, and it was almost at the beginning of his
career that Jonson wrote, "The fear of every one that heard him speak was
that he should make an end." The publication of his _Essays_ added greatly
to his fame; but Bacon was not content. His head was buzzing with huge
schemes,--the pacification of unhappy Ireland, the simplification of
English law, the reform of the church, the study of nature, the
establishment of a new philosophy. Meanwhile, sad to say, he played the
game of politics for his personal advantage. He devoted himself to Essex,
the young and dangerous favorite of the queen, won his friendship, and then
used him skillfully to better his own position. When the earl was tried for
treason it was partly, at least, through Bacon's efforts that he was
convicted and beheaded; and though Bacon claims to have been actuated by a
high sense of justice, we are not convinced that he understood either
justice or friendship in appearing as queen's counsel against the man who
had befriended him. His coldbloodedness and lack of moral sensitiveness
appear even in his essays on "Love" and "Friendship." Indeed, we can
understand his life only upon the theory that his intellectuality left him
cold and dead to the higher sentiments of our humanity.
During Elizabeth's reign Bacon had sought repeatedly for high office, but
had been blocked by Burleigh and perhaps also by the queen's own shrewdness
in judging men. With the advent of James I (1603) Bacon devoted himself to
the new ruler and rose rapidly in favor. He was knighted, and soon
afterwards attained another object of his ambition in marrying a rich wife.
The appearance of his great work, the _Advancement of Learning_, in 1605,
was largely the result of the mental stimulus produced by his change in
fortune. In 1613 he was made attorney-general, and speedily made enemies by
using the office to increase his personal ends. He justified himself in his
course by his devotion to the king's cause, and by the belief that the
higher his position and the more ample his means the more he could do for
science. It was in this year that Bacon wrote his series of _State Papers_,
which show a marvelous grasp of the political tendencies of his age. Had
his advice been followed, it would have certainly averted the struggle
between king and parliament that followed speedily. In 1617 he was
appointed to his father's office, Lord Keeper of the Seal, and the next
year to the high office of Lord Chancellor. With this office he received
the title of Baron Verulam, and later of Viscount St. Alban, which he
affixed with some vanity to his literary work. Two years later appeared his
greatest work, the _Novum Organum_, called after Aristotle's famous
_Organon_.
Bacon did not long enjoy his political honors. The storm which had been
long gathering against James's government broke suddenly upon Bacon's head.
When Parliament assembled in 1621 it vented its distrust of James and his
favorite Villiers by striking unexpectedly at their chief adviser. Bacon
was sternly accused of accepting bribes, and the evidence was so great that
he confessed that there was much political corruption abroad in the land,
that he was personally guilty of some of it, and he threw himself upon the
mercy of his judges. Parliament at that time was in no mood for mercy.
Bacon was deprived of his office and was sentenced to pay the enormous fine
of 40,000 pounds, to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and
thereafter to be banished forever from Parliament and court. Though the
imprisonment lasted only a few days and the fine was largely remitted,
Bacon's hopes and schemes for political honors were ended; and it is at
this point of appalling adversity that the nobility in the man's nature
asserts itself strongly. If the reader be interested to apply a great man's
philosophy to his own life, he will find the essay, "Of Great Place," most
interesting in this connection.
Bacon now withdrew permanently from public life, and devoted his splendid
ability to literary and scientific work. He completed the _Essays_,
experimented largely, wrote history, scientific articles, and one
scientific novel, and made additions to his _Instauratio Magna_, the great
philosophical work which was never finished. In the spring of 1626, while
driving in a snowstorm, it occurred to him that snow might be used as a
preservative instead of salt. True to his own method of arriving at truth,
he stopped at the first house, bought a fowl, and proceeded to test his
theory. The experiment chilled him, and he died soon after from the effects
of his exposure. As Macaulay wrote, "the great apostle of experimental
philosophy was destined to be its martyr."
WORKS OF BACON. Bacon's philosophic works, _The Advancement of Learning_
and the _Novum Organum_, will be best understood in connection with the
_Instauratio Magna_, or _The Great Institution of True Philosophy_, of
which they were parts. The _Instauratio_ was never completed, but the very
idea of the work was magnificent,--to sweep away the involved philosophy of
the schoolmen and the educational systems of the universities, and to
substitute a single great work which should be a complete education, "a
rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and for the relief of man's
estate." The object of this education was to bring practical results to all
the people, instead of a little selfish culture and much useless
speculation, which, he conceived, were the only products of the
universities.
THE INSTAURATIO MAGNA. This was the most ambitious, though it is not the
best known, of Bacon's works. For the insight it gives us into the author's
mind, we note here a brief outline of his subject. It was divided into six
parts, as follows:
1. _Partitiones Scientiarum_. This was to be a classification and summary
of all human knowledge. Philosophy and all speculation must be cast out and
the natural sciences established as the basis of all education. The only
part completed was _The Advancement of Learning_, which served as an
introduction.
2. _Novum Organum_, or the "new instrument," that is, the use of reason and
experiment instead of the old Aristotelian logic. To find truth one must do
two things: (_a_) get rid of all prejudices or idols, as Bacon called them.
These "idols" are four: "idols of the tribe," that is, prejudices due to
common methods of thought among all races; "idols of the cave or den," that
is, personal peculiarities and prejudices; "idols of the market place," due
to errors of language; and "idols of the theater," which are the unreliable
traditions of men. (_b_) After discarding the above "idols" we must
interrogate nature; must collect facts by means of numerous experiments,
arrange them in order, and then determine the law that underlies them.
It will be seen at a glance that the above is the most important of Bacon's
works. The _Organum_ was to be in several books, only two of which he
completed, and these he wrote and rewrote twelve times until they satisfied
him.
3. _Historic Naturalis et Experimentalis_, the study of all the phenomena
of nature. Of four parts of this work which he completed, one of them at
least, the _Sylva Sylvarum_, is decidedly at variance with his own idea of
fact and experiment. It abounds in fanciful explanations, more worthy of
the poetic than of the scientific mind. Nature is seen to be full of
desires and instincts; the air "thirsts" for light and fragrance; bodies
rise or sink because they have an "appetite" for height or depth; the
qualities of bodies are the result of an "essence," so that when we
discover the essences of gold and silver and diamonds it will be a simple
matter to create as much of them as we may need.
4. _Scala Intellectus_, or "Ladder of the Mind," is the rational
application of the _Organum_ to all problems. By it the mind should ascend
step by step from particular facts and instances to general laws and
abstract principles.
5. _Prodromi_, "Prophecies or Anticipations," is a list of discoveries that
men shall make when they have applied Bacon's methods of study and
experimentation.
6. _Philosophia Secunda_, which was to be a record of practical results of
the new philosophy when the succeeding ages should have applied it
faithfully.
It is impossible to regard even the outline of such a vast work without an
involuntary thrill of admiration for the bold and original mind which
conceived it. "We may," said Bacon, "make no despicable beginnings. The
destinies of the human race must complete the work ... for upon this will
depend not only a speculative good but all the fortunes of mankind and all
their power." There is the unconscious expression of one of the great minds
of the world. Bacon was like one of the architects of the Middle Ages, who
drew his plans for a mighty cathedral, perfect in every detail from the
deep foundation stone to the cross on the highest spire, and who gave over
his plans to the builders, knowing that, in his own lifetime, only one tiny
chapel would be completed; but knowing also that the very beauty of his
plans would appeal to others, and that succeeding ages would finish the
work which he dared to begin.
THE ESSAYS. Bacon's famous _Essays_ is the one work which will interest all
students of our literature. His _Instauratio_ was in Latin, written mostly
by paid helpers from short English abstracts. He regarded Latin as the only
language worthy of a great work; but the world neglected his Latin to seize
upon his English,--marvelous English, terse, pithy, packed with thought, in
an age that used endless circumlocutions. The first ten essays, published
in 1597, were brief notebook jottings of Bacon's observations. Their
success astonished the author, but not till fifteen years later were they
republished and enlarged. Their charm grew upon Bacon himself, and during
his retirement he gave more thought to the wonderful language which he had
at first despised as much as Aristotle's philosophy. In 1612 appeared a
second edition containing thirty-eight essays, and in 1625, the year before
his death, he republished the _Essays_ in their present form, polishing and
enlarging the original ten to fifty-eight, covering a wide variety of
subjects suggested by the life of men around him.
Concerning the best of these essays there are as many opinions as there are
readers, and what one gets out of them depends largely upon his own thought
and intelligence. In this respect they are like that Nature to which Bacon
directed men's thoughts. The whole volume may be read through in an
evening; but after one has read them a dozen times he still finds as many
places to pause and reflect as at the first reading. If one must choose out
of such a storehouse, we would suggest "Studies," "Goodness," "Riches,"
"Atheism," "Unity in Religion," "Adversity," "Friendship," and "Great
Place" as an introduction to Bacon's worldly-wise philosophy.
MISCELLANEOUS WORKS. Other works of Bacon are interesting as a revelation
of the Elizabethan mind, rather than because of any literary value. _The
New Atlantis_ is a kind of scientific novel describing another Utopia as
seen by Bacon. The inhabitants of Atlantis have banished Philosophy and
applied Bacon's method of investigating Nature, using the results to better
their own condition. They have a wonderful civilization, in which many of
our later discoveries--academies of the sciences, observatories, balloons,
submarines, the modification of species, and several others--were
foreshadowed with a strange mixture of cold reason and poetic intuition.
_De Sapientia Veterum_ is a fanciful attempt to show the deep meaning
underlying ancient myths,--a meaning which would have astonished the myth
makers themselves. The _History of Henry VII_ is a calm, dispassionate, and
remarkably accurate history, which makes us regret that Bacon did not do
more historical work. Besides these are metrical versions of certain
Psalms--which are valuable, in view of the controversy anent Shakespeare's
plays, for showing Bacon's utter inability to write poetry--and a large
number of letters and state papers showing the range and power of his
intellect.
BACON'S PLACE AND WORK. Although Bacon was for the greater part of his life
a busy man of affairs, one cannot read his work without becoming conscious
of two things,--a perennial freshness, which the world insists upon in all
literature that is to endure, and an intellectual power which marks him as
one of the great minds of the world.
Of late the general tendency is to give less and less prominence to his
work in science and philosophy; but criticism of his _Instauratio_, in view
of his lofty aim, is of small consequence. It is true that his "science"
to-day seems woefully inadequate; true also that, though he sought to
discover truth, he thought perhaps to monopolize it, and so looked with the
same suspicion upon Copernicus as upon the philosophers. The practical man
who despises philosophy has simply misunderstood the thing he despises. In
being practical and experimental in a romantic age he was not unique, as is
often alleged, but only expressed the tendency of the English mind in all
ages. Three centuries earlier the monk Roger Bacon did more practical
experimenting than the Elizabethan sage; and the latter's famous "idols"
are strongly suggestive of the former's "Four Sources of Human Ignorance."
Although Bacon did not make any of the scientific discoveries at which he
aimed, yet the whole spirit of his work, especially of _the Organum_, has
strongly influenced science in the direction of accurate observation and of
carefully testing every theory by practical experiment. "He that regardeth
the clouds shall not sow," said a wise writer of old; and Bacon turned
men's thoughts from the heavens above, with which they had been too busy,
to the earth beneath, which they had too much neglected. In an age when men
were busy with romance and philosophy, he insisted that the first object of
education is to make a man familiar with his natural environment; from
books he turned to men, from theory to fact, from philosophy to nature,--
and that is perhaps his greatest contribution to life and literature. Like
Moses upon Pisgah, he stood high enough above his fellows to look out over
a promised land, which his people would inherit, but into which he himself
might never enter.
RICHARD HOOKER (1554?-1600) In strong contrast with Bacon is Richard
Hooker, one of the greatest prose writers of the Elizabethan Age. One must
read the story of his life, an obscure and lowly life animated by a great
spirit, as told by Izaak Walton, to appreciate the full force of this
contrast. Bacon took all knowledge for his province, but mastered no single
part of it. Hooker, taking a single theme, the law and practice of the
English Church, so handled it that no scholar even of the present day would
dream of superseding it or of building upon any other foundation than that
which Hooker laid down. His one great work is _The Laws of Ecclesiastical
Polity_,[158] a theological and argumentative book; but, entirely apart
from its subject, it will be read wherever men desire to hear the power and
stateliness of the English language. Here is a single sentence, remarkable
not only for its perfect form but also for its expression of the reverence
for law which lies at the heart of Anglo-Saxon civilization:
Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of
God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do
her homage; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not
exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what
condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with
uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.
SIDNEY AND RALEIGH. Among the prose writers of this wonderful literary age
there are many others that deserve passing notice, though they fall far
below the standard of Bacon and Hooker. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), who
has already been considered as a poet, is quite as well known by his prose
works, _Arcadia_, a pastoral romance, and the _Defense of Poesie_, one of
our earliest literary essays. Sidney, whom the poet Shelley has eulogized,
represents the whole romantic tendency of his age; while Sir Walter Raleigh
(1552?-1618) represents its adventurous spirit and activity. The life of
Raleigh is an almost incomprehensible mixture of the poet, scholar, and
adventurer; now helping the Huguenots or the struggling Dutch in Europe,
and now leading an expedition into the unmapped wilds of the New World;
busy here with court intrigues, and there with piratical attempts to
capture the gold-laden Spanish galleons; one moment sailing the high seas
in utter freedom, and the next writing history and poetry to solace his
imprisonment. Such a life in itself is a volume far more interesting than
anything that he wrote. He is the restless spirit of the Elizabethan Age
personified.
Raleigh's chief prose works are the _Discoverie of Guiana_, a work which
would certainly have been interesting enough had he told simply what he
saw, but which was filled with colonization schemes and visions of an El
Dorado to fill the eyes and ears of the credulous; and the _History of the
World_, written to occupy his prison hours. The history is a wholly
untrustworthy account of events from creation to the downfall of the
Macedonian Empire. It is interesting chiefly for its style, which is simple
and dignified, and for the flashes of wit and poetry that break into the
fantastic combination of miracles, traditions, hearsay, and state records
which he called history. In the conclusion is the famous apostrophe to
Death, which suggests what Raleigh might have done had he lived less
strenuously and written more carefully.
O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise thou hast
persuaded; what none hath dared thou hast done; and whom all the world hath
flattered thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast
drawn together all the star-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty,
and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words,
_Hic jacet_!
JOHN FOXE (1516-1587). Foxe will be remembered always for his famous _Book
of Martyrs_, a book that our elders gave to us on Sundays when we were
young, thinking it good discipline for us to afflict our souls when we
wanted to be roaming the sunlit fields, or when in our enforced idleness we
would, if our own taste in the matter had been consulted, have made good
shift to be quiet and happy with _Robinson Crusoe_. So we have a gloomy
memory of Foxe, and something of a grievance, which prevent a just
appreciation of his worth.
Foxe had been driven out of England by the Marian persecutions, and in a
wandering but diligent life on the Continent he conceived the idea of
writing a history of the persecutions of the church from the earliest days
to his own. The part relating to England and Scotland was published, in
Latin, in 1559 under a title as sonorous and impressive as the Roman office
for the dead,--_Rerum in Ecclesia Gestarum Maximarumque per Europam
Persecutionum Commentarii_. On his return to England Foxe translated this
work, calling it the _Acts and Monuments_; but it soon became known as the
_Book of Martyrs_, and so it will always be called. Foxe's own bitter
experience causes him to write with more heat and indignation than his
saintly theme would warrant, and the "holy tone" sometimes spoils a
narrative that would be impressive in its bare simplicity. Nevertheless the
book has made for itself a secure place in our literature. It is strongest
in its record of humble men, like Rowland Taylor and Thomas Hawkes, whose
sublime heroism, but for this narrative, would have been lost amid the
great names and the great events that fill the Elizabethan Age.
CAMDEN AND KNOX. Two historians, William Camden and John Knox, stand out
prominently among the numerous historical writers of the age. Camden's
_Britannia_ (1586) is a monumental work, which marks the beginning of true
antiquarian research in the field of history; and his _Annals of Queen
Elizabeth_ is worthy of a far higher place than has thus far been given it.
John Knox, the reformer, in his _History of the Reformation in Scotland_,
has some very vivid portraits of his helpers and enemies. The personal and
aggressive elements enter too strongly for a work of history; but the
autobiographical parts show rare literary power. His account of his famous
interview with Mary Queen of Scots is clear-cut as a cameo, and shows the
man's extraordinary power better than a whole volume of biography. Such
scenes make one wish that more of his time had been given to literary work,
rather than to the disputes and troubles of his own Scotch kirk.
HAKLUYT AND PURCHAS. Two editors of this age have made for themselves an
enviable place in our literature. They are Richard Hakluyt (1552?-1616) and
Samuel Purchas (1575?-1626). Hakluyt was a clergyman who in the midst of
his little parish set himself to achieve two great patriotic ends,--to
promote the wealth and commerce of his country, and to preserve the memory
of all his countrymen who added to the glory of the realm by their travels
and explorations. To further the first object he concerned himself deeply
with the commercial interests of the East India Company, with Raleigh's
colonizing plans in Virginia, and with a translation of De Soto's travels
in America. To further the second he made himself familiar with books of
voyages in all foreign languages and with the brief reports of explorations
of his own countrymen. His _Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries
of the English Nation_, in three volumes, appeared first in 1589, and a
second edition followed in 1598-1600. The first volume tells of voyages to
the north; the second to India and the East; the third, which is as large
as the other two, to the New World. With the exception of the very first
voyage, that of King Arthur to Iceland in 517, which is founded on a myth,
all the voyages are authentic accounts of the explorers themselves, and are
immensely interesting reading even at the present day. No other book of
travels has so well expressed the spirit and energy of the English race, or
better deserves a place in our literature.
Samuel Purchas, who was also a clergyman, continued the work of Hakluyt,
using many of the latter's unpublished manuscripts and condensing the
records of numerous other voyages. His first famous book, _Purchas, His
Pilgrimage_, appeared in 1613, and was followed by _Hakluytus Posthumus, or
Purchas His Pilgrimes_, in 1625. The very name inclines one to open the
book with pleasure, and when one follows his inclination--which is, after
all, one of the best guides in literature--he is rarely disappointed.
Though it falls far below the standard of Hakluyt, both in accuracy and
literary finish, there is still plenty to make one glad that the book was
written and that he can now comfortably follow Purchas on his pilgrimage.
THOMAS NORTH. Among the translators of the Elizabethan Age Sir Thomas North
(1535?-1601?) is most deserving of notice because of his version of
_Plutarch's Lives_ (1579) from which Shakespeare took the characters and
many of the incidents for three great Roman plays. Thus in North we read:
Caesar also had Cassius in great jealousy and suspected him much: whereupon
he said on a time to his friends: "What will Cassius do, think ye? I like
not his pale looks." Another time when Caesar's friends warned him of
Antonius and Dolabella, he answered them again, "I never reckon of them;
but these pale-visaged and carrion lean people, I fear them most," meaning
Brutus and Cassius.
Shakespeare merely touches such a scene with the magic of his genius, and
his Caesar speaks:
Let me have men about me that are fat:
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look:
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
A careful reading of North's _Plutarch_ and then of the famous Roman plays
shows to how great an extent Shakespeare was dependent upon his obscure
contemporary.
North's translation, to which we owe so many heroic models in our
literature, was probably made not from Plutarch but from Amyot's excellent
French translation. Nevertheless he reproduces the spirit of the original,
and notwithstanding our modern and more accurate translations, he remains
the most inspiring interpreter of the great biographer whom Emerson calls
"the historian of heroism."
SUMMARY OF THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. This period is generally regarded as the
greatest in the history of our literature. Historically, we note in this
age the tremendous impetus received from the Renaissance, from the
Reformation, and from the exploration of the New World. It was marked by a
strong national spirit, by patriotism, by religious tolerance, by social
content, by intellectual progress, and by unbounded enthusiasm.
Such an age, of thought, feeling, and vigorous action, finds its best
expression in the drama; and the wonderful development of the drama,
culminating in Shakespeare, is the most significant characteristic of the
Elizabethan period. Though the age produced some excellent prose works, it
is essentially an age of poetry; and the poetry is remarkable for its
variety, its freshness, its youthful and romantic feeling. Both the poetry
and the drama were permeated by Italian influence, which was dominant in
English literature from Chaucer to the Restoration. The literature of this
age is often called the literature of the Renaissance, though, as we have
seen, the Renaissance itself began much earlier, and for a century and a
half added very little to our literary possessions.
In our study of this great age we have noted (1) the Non-dramatic Poets,
that is, poets who did not write for the stage. The center of this group is
Edmund Spenser, whose _Shepherd's Calendar_ (1579) marked the appearance of
the first national poet since Chaucer's death in 1400. His most famous work
is _The Faery Queen_. Associated with Spenser are the minor poets, Thomas
Sackville, Michael Drayton, George Chapman, and Philip Sidney. Chapman is
noted for his completion of Marlowe's poem, _Hero and Leander_, and for his
translation of Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. Sidney, besides his poetry,
wrote his prose romance _Arcadia_, and _The Defense of Poesie_, one of our
earliest critical essays.
(2) The Rise of the Drama in England; the Miracle plays, Moralities, and
Interludes; our first play, "Ralph Royster Doyster"; the first true English
comedy, "Gammer Gurton's Needle," and the first tragedy, "Gorboduc"; the
conflict between classic and native ideals in the English drama.
(3) Shakespeare's Predecessors, Lyly, Kyd, Nash, Peele, Greene, Marlowe;
the types of drama with which they experimented,--the Marlowesque, one-man
type, or tragedy of passion, the popular Chronicle plays, the Domestic
drama, the Court or Lylian comedy, Romantic comedy and tragedy, Classical
plays, and the Melodrama. Marlowe is the greatest of Shakespeare's
predecessors. His four plays are "Tamburlaine," "Faustus," "The Jew of
Malta," and "Edward II."
(4) Shakespeare, his life, work, and influence.
(5) Shakespeare's Successors, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster,
Middleton, Heywood, Dekker; and the rapid decline of the drama. Ben Jonson
is the greatest of this group. His chief comedies are "Every Man in His
Humour," "The Silent Woman," and "The Alchemist"; his two extant tragedies
are "Sejanus" and "Catiline."
(6) The Prose Writers, of whom Bacon is the most notable. His chief
philosophical work is the _Instauratio Magna_ (incomplete), which includes
"The Advancement of Learning" and the "Novum Organum"; but he is known to
literary readers by his famous _Essays_. Minor prose writers are Richard
Hooker, John Foxe, the historians Camden and Knox, the editors Hakluyt and
Purchas, who gave us the stirring records of exploration, and Thomas North,
the translator of Plutarch's _Lives_.
SELECTIONS FOR READING. _Spenser_. Faery Queen, selections in Standard
English Classics; Bk. I, in Riverside Literature Series, etc.; Shepherd's
Calendar, in Cassell's National Library; Selected Poems, in Canterbury
Poets Series; Minor Poems, in Temple Classics; Selections in Manly's
English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets.
_Minor Poets_. Drayton, Sackville, Sidney, Chapman, Selections in Manly or
Ward; Elizabethan songs, in Schelling's Elizabethan Lyrics, and in
Palgrave's Golden Treasury; Chapman's Homer, in Temple Classics.
_The Early Drama_. Play of Noah's Flood, in Manly's Specimens of the
Pre-Shaksperean Drama, or in Pollard's English Miracle Plays, Moralities
and Interludes, or in Belles Lettres Series, sec. 2; L.T. Smith's The York
Miracle Plays.
_Lyly_. Endymion, in Holt's English Readings.
_Marlowe_. Faustus, in Temple Dramatists, or Mermaid Series, or Morley's
Universal Library, or Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets;
Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets; Edward II,
in Temple Dramatists, and in Holt's English Readings.
_Shakespeare_. Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, etc., in Standard
English Classics (edited, with notes, with special reference to college-
entrance requirements). Good editions of single plays are numerous and
cheap. Hudson's and Rolfe's and the Arden Shakespeare are suggested as
satisfactory. The Sonnets, edited by Beeching, in Athenaeum Press Series.
_Ben Jonson_. The Alchemist, in Canterbury Poets Series, or Morley's
Universal Library; Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English
Poets, or Canterbury Poets Series; Selections from Jonson's Masques, in
Evans's English Masques; Timber, edited by Schelling, in Athenaeum Press
Series.
_Bacon_. Essays, school edition (Ginn and Company); Northup's edition, in
Riverside Literature Series (various other inexpensive editions, in the
Pitt Press, Golden Treasury Series, etc.); Advancement of Learning, Bk. I,
edited by Cook (Ginn and Company). Compare selections from Bacon, Hooker,
Lyly, and Sidney, in Manly's English Prose.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.[159] _HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 208-238; Cheyney,
pp. 330-410; Green, ch. 7; Traill, Macaulay, Froude.
_Special works_. Creighton's The Age of Elizabeth; Hall's Society in the
Elizabethan Age; Winter's Shakespeare's England; Goadby's The England of
Shakespeare; Lee's Stratford on Avon; Harrison's Elizabethan England.
_LITERATURE_. Saintsbury's History of Elizabethan Literature; Whipple's
Literature of the Age of Elizabeth; S. Lee's Great Englishmen of the
Sixteenth Century; Schilling's Elizabethan Lyrics, in Athenaeum Press
Series; Vernon Lee's Euphorion.
_Spenser_. Texts, Cambridge, Globe, and Aldine editions; Noel's Selected
Poems of Spenser, in Canterbury Poets; Minor Poems, in Temple Classics;
Arber's Spenser Anthology; Church's Life of Spenser, in English Men of
Letters Series; Lowell's Essay, in Among My Books, or in Literary Essays,
vol. 4; Hazlitt's Chaucer and Spenser, in Lectures on the English Poets;
Dowden's Essay, in Transcripts and Studies.
_The Drama_. Texts, Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shakesperean Drama, 2
vols., in Athenaeum Press Series; Pollard's English Miracle Plays,
Moralities and Interludes; the Temple Dramatists; Morley's Universal
Library; Arber's English Reprints; Mermaid Series, etc.; Thayer's The Best
Elizabethan Plays.
Gayley's Plays of Our Forefathers (Miracles, Moralities, etc.); Bates's The
English Religious Drama; Schelling's The English Chronicle Play; Lowell's
Old English Dramatists; Boas's Shakespeare and his Predecessors; Symonds's
Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama; Schelling's Elizabethan
Drama; Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Introduction to Hudson's
Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters; Ward's History of English
Dramatic Literature; Dekker's The Gull's Hornbook, in King's Classics.
_Marlowe_. Works, edited by Bullen; chief plays in Temple Dramatists,
Mermaid Series of English Dramatists, Morley's Universal Library, etc.;
Lowell's Old English Dramatists; Symonds's introduction, in Mermaid Series;
Dowden's Essay, in Transcripts and Studies.
_Shakespeare_. Good texts are numerous. Furness's Variorum edition is at
present most useful for advanced work. Hudson's revised edition, each play
in a single volume, with notes and introductions, will, when complete, be
one of the very best for students' use.
Raleigh's Shakespeare, in English Men of Letters Series; Lee's Life of
Shakespeare; Hudson's Shakespeare: his Life, Art, and Characters;
Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare; Fleay's
Chronicle History of the Life and Work of Shakespeare; Dowden's
Shakespeare, a Critical Study of his Mind and Art; Shakespeare Primer (same
author); Baker's The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist; Lounsbury's
Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; The Text of Shakespeare (same author);
Wendell's William Shakespeare; Bradley's Shakesperian Tragedy; Hazlitt's
Shakespeare and Milton, in Lectures on the English Poets; Emerson's Essay,
Shakespeare or the Poet; Lowell's Essay, in Among My Books; Lamb's Tales
from Shakespeare; Mrs. Jameson's Shakespeare's Female Characters (called
also Characteristics of Women); Rolfe's Shakespeare the Boy; Brandes's
William Shakespeare; Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; Mabie's
William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man; The Shakespeare Apocrypha,
edited by C. F. T. Brooke; Shakespeare's Holinshed, edited by Stone;
Shakespeare Lexicon, by Schmidt; Concordance, by Bartlett; Grammar, by
Abbott, or by Franz.
_Ben Jonson_. Texts in Mermaid Series, Temple Dramatists, Morley's
Universal Library, etc.; Masques and Entertainments of Ben Jonson, edited
by Morley, in Carisbrooke Library; Timber, edited by Schelling, in Athenaeum
Press Series.
_Beaumont, Fletcher, etc_. Plays in Mermaid Series, Temple Dramatists,
etc.; Schelling's Elizabethan Drama; Lowell's Old English Dramatists;
Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Fleay's Biographical Chronicle
of the English Drama; Swinburne's Essays, in Essays in Prose and Poetry,
and in Essays and Studies.
_Bacon_. Texts, Essays in Everyman's Library, etc.; Advancement of Learning
in Clarendon Press Series, Library of English Classics, etc.; Church's Life
of Bacon, in English Men of Letters Series; Nichol's Bacon's Life and
Philosophy; Francis Bacon, translated from the German of K. Fischer
(excellent, but rare); Macaulay's Essay on Bacon.
_Minor Prose Writers_. Sidney's Arcadia, edited by Somers; Defense of
Poesy, edited by Cook, in Athenaeum Press Series; Arber's Reprints, etc.;
Selections from Sidney's prose and poetry in the Elizabethan Library;
Symonds's Life of Sidney, in English Men of Letters; Bourne's Life of
Sidney, in Heroes of the Nations; Lamb's Essay on Sidney's Sonnets, in
Essays of Elia.
Raleigh's works, published by the Oxford Press; Selections by Grosart, in
Elizabethan Library; Raleigh's Last Fight of the _Revenge_, in Arber's
Reprints; Life of Raleigh, by Edwards and by Gosse. Richard Hooker's works,
edited by Keble, Oxford Press; Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, in Everyman's
Library, and in Morley's Universal Library; Life, in Walton's Lives, in
Morley's Universal Library; Dowden's Essay, in Puritan and Anglican.
Lyly's Euphues, in Arber's Reprints; Endymion, edited by Baker; Campaspe,
in Manly's Pre-Shaksperean Drama.
North's Plutarch's Lives, edited by Wyndham, in Tudor Library; school
edition, by Ginn and Company. Hakluyt's Voyages, in Everyman's Library;
Jones's introduction to Hakluyt's Diverse Voyages; Payne's Voyages of
Elizabethan Seamen; Froude's Essay, in Short Studies on Great Subjects.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What historical conditions help to account for the
great literature of the Elizabethan age? What are the general
characteristics of Elizabethan literature? What type of literature
prevailed, and why? What work seems to you to express most perfectly the
Elizabethan spirit?
2. Tell briefly the story of Spenser's life. What is the story or argument
of the _Faery Queen_? What is meant by the Spenserian stanza? Read and
comment upon Spenser's "Epithalamion." Why does the "Shepherd's Calendar"
mark a literary epoch? What are the main qualities of Spenser's poetry? Can
you quote or refer to any passages which illustrate these qualities? Why is
he called the poets' poet?
3. For what is Sackville noted? What is the most significant thing about
his "Gorboduc"? Name other minor poets and tell what they wrote.
4. Give an outline of the origin and rise of the drama in England. What is
meant by Miracle and Mystery plays? What purposes did they serve among the
common people? How did they help the drama? What is meant by cycles of
Miracle plays? How did the Moralities differ from the Miracles? What was
the chief purpose of the Interludes? What type of drama did they develop?
Read a typical play, like "Noah's Flood" or "Everyman," and write a brief
analysis of it.
5. What were our first plays in the modern sense? What influence did the
classics exert on the English drama? What is meant by the dramatic unities?
In what important respect did the English differ from the classic drama?
6. Name some of Shakespeare's predecessors in the drama? What types of
drama did they develop? Name some plays of each type. Are any of these
plays still presented on the stage?
7. What are Marlowe's chief plays? What is the central motive in each? Why
are they called one-man plays? What is meant by Marlowe's "mighty line"?
What is the story of "Faustus"? Compare "Faustus" and Goethe's "Faust,"
having in mind the story, the dramatic interest, and the literary value of
each play.
8. Tell briefly the story of Shakespeare's life. What fact in his life most
impressed you? How does Shakespeare sum up the work of all his
predecessors? What are the four periods of his work, and the chief plays of
each? Where did he find his plots? What are his romantic plays? his
chronicle or historical plays? What is the difference between a tragedy and
a comedy? Name some of Shakespeare's best tragedies, comedies, and
historical plays. Which play of Shakespeare's seems to you to give the best
picture of human life? Why is he called the myriad-minded Shakespeare? For
what reasons is he considered the greatest of writers? Can you explain why
Shakespeare's plays are still acted, while other plays of his age are
rarely seen? If you have seen any of Shakespeare's plays on the stage, how
do they compare in interest with a modern play?
9. What are Ben Jonson's chief plays? In what important respects did they
differ from those of Shakespeare? Tell the story of "The Alchemist" or "The
Silent Woman." Name other contemporaries and successors of Shakespeare.
Give some reasons for the preeminence of the Elizabethan drama. What causes
led to its decline?
10. Tell briefly the story of Bacon's life. What is his chief literary
work? his chief educational work? Why is he called a pioneer of modern
science? Can you explain what is meant by the inductive method of learning?
What subjects are considered in Bacon's _Essays_? What is the central idea
of the essay you like best? What are the literary qualities of these
essays? Do they appeal to the intellect or the emotions? What is meant by
the word "essay," and how does Bacon illustrate the definition? Make a
comparison between Bacon's essays and those of some more recent writer,
such as Addison, Lamb, Carlyle, Emerson, or Stevenson, having in mind the
subjects, style, and interest of both essayists.
11. Who are the minor prose writers of the Elizabethan Age? What did they
write? Comment upon any work of theirs which you have read. What is the
literary value of North's Plutarch? What is the chief defect in Elizabethan
prose as a whole? What is meant by euphuism? Explain why Elizabethan poetry
is superior to the prose.
CHRONOLOGY
_Last Half of the Sixteenth and First Half of the Seventeenth Centuries_
============================================================================
HISTORY | LITERATURE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
1558. Elizabeth (_d_. 1603) | 1559. John Knox in Edinburgh
| 1562(?). Gammer Gurton's Needle.
| Gorboduc
| 1564. Birth of Shakespeare
1571. Rise of English Puritans | 1576. First Theater
1577. Drake's Voyage around the | 1579. Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.
World | Lyly's Euphues. North's Plutarch.
|
| 1587. Shakespeare in London. Marlowe's
| Tamburlaine
|
1588. Defeat of the Armada |
|
| 1590. Spenser's Faery Queen. Sidney's
| Arcadia
|
| 1590-1595. Shakespeare's Early Plays
|
| 1597-1625. Bacon's Essays
|
| 1598-1614. Chapman's Homer
|
| 1598. Ben Jonson's Every Man in His
| Humour
|
| 1600-1607. Shakespeare's Tragedies
|
1603. James I (_d_. 1625) |
|
1604. Divine Right of Kings | 1605. Bacon's Advancement of Learning
proclaimed |
|
1607. Settlement at Jamestown, | 1608. Birth of Milton
Virginia |
|
| 1611. Translation (King James Version)
| of Bible
|
| 1614. Raleigh's History
|
| 1616. Death of Shakespeare
|
1620. Pilgrim Fathers at | 1620-1642. Shakespeare's successors.
Plymouth | End of drama
|
| 1620. Bacon's Novum Organum
|
| 1622. First regular newspaper, The
| Weekly News
|
1625. Charles I | 1626. Death of Bacon
============================================================================
* * * * *
CHAPTER VII
THE PURITAN AGE (1620-1660)
I. HISTORICAL SUMMARY
THE PURITAN MOVEMENT. In its broadest sense the Puritan movement may be
regarded as a second and greater Renaissance, a rebirth of the moral nature
of man following the intellectual awakening of Europe in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. In Italy, whose influence had been uppermost in
Elizabethan literature, the Renaissance had been essentially pagan and
sensuous. It had hardly touched the moral nature of man, and it brought
little relief from the despotism of rulers. One can hardly read the
horrible records of the Medici or the Borgias, or the political
observations of Machiavelli, without marveling at the moral and political
degradation of a cultured nation. In the North, especially among the German
and English peoples, the Renaissance was accompanied by a moral awakening,
and it is precisely that awakening in England, "that greatest moral and
political reform which ever swept over a nation in the short space of half
a century," which is meant by the Puritan movement. We shall understand it
better if we remember that it had two chief objects: the first was personal
righteousness; the second was civil and religious liberty. In other words,
it aimed to make men honest and to make them free.
Such a movement should be cleared of all the misconceptions which have
clung to it since the Restoration, when the very name of Puritan was made
ridiculous by the jeers of the gay courtiers of Charles II. Though the
spirit of the movement was profoundly religious, the Puritans were not a
religious sect; neither was the Puritan a narrow-minded and gloomy
dogmatist, as he is still pictured even in the histories. Pym and Hampden
and Eliot and Milton were Puritans; and in the long struggle for human
liberty there are few names more honored by freemen everywhere. Cromwell
and Thomas Hooker were Puritans; yet Cromwell stood like a rock for
religious tolerance; and Thomas Hooker, in Connecticut, gave to the world
the first written constitution, in which freemen, before electing their
officers, laid down the strict limits of the offices to which they were
elected. That is a Puritan document, and it marks one of the greatest
achievements in the history of government.
From a religious view point Puritanism included all shades of belief. The
name was first given to those who advocated certain changes in the form of
worship of the reformed English Church under Elizabeth; but as the ideal of
liberty rose in men's minds, and opposed to it were the king and his evil
counselors and the band of intolerant churchmen of whom Laud is the great
example, then Puritanism became a great national movement. It included
English churchmen as well as extreme Separatists, Calvinists, Covenanters,
Catholic noblemen,--all bound together in resistance to despotism in Church
and State, and with a passion for liberty and righteousness such as the
world has never since seen. Naturally such a movement had its extremes and
excesses, and it is from a few zealots and fanatics that most of our
misconceptions about the Puritans arise. Life was stern in those days, too
stern perhaps, and the intensity of the struggle against despotism made men
narrow and hard. In the triumph of Puritanism under Cromwell severe laws
were passed, many simple pleasures were forbidden, and an austere standard
of living was forced upon an unwilling people. So the criticism is made
that the wild outbreak of immorality which followed the restoration of
Charles was partly due to the unnatural restrictions of the Puritan era.
The criticism is just; but we must not forget the whole spirit of the
movement. That the Puritan prohibited Maypole dancing and horse racing is
of small consequence beside the fact that he fought for liberty and
justice, that he overthrew despotism and made a man's life and property
safe from the tyranny of rulers. A great river is not judged by the foam on
its surface, and certain austere laws and doctrines which we have ridiculed
are but froth on the surface of the mighty Puritan current that has flowed
steadily, like a river of life, through English and American history since
the Age of Elizabeth.
CHANGING IDEALS. The political upheaval of the period is summed up in the
terrible struggle between the king and Parliament, which resulted in the
death of Charles at the block and the establishment of the Commonwealth
under Cromwell. For centuries the English people had been wonderfully loyal
to their sovereigns; but deeper than their loyalty to kings was the old
Saxon love for personal liberty. At times, as in the days of Alfred and
Elizabeth, the two ideals went hand in hand; but more often they were in
open strife, and a final struggle for supremacy was inevitable. The crisis
came when James I, who had received the right of royalty from an act of
Parliament, began, by the assumption of "divine right," to ignore the
Parliament which had created him. Of the civil war which followed in the
reign of Charles I, and of the triumph of English freedom, it is
unnecessary to write here. The blasphemy of a man's divine right to rule
his fellow-men was ended. Modern England began with the charge of
Cromwell's brigade of Puritans at Naseby.
Religiously the age was one of even greater ferment than that which marked
the beginning of the Reformation. A great ideal, the ideal of a national
church, was pounding to pieces, like a ship in the breakers, and in the
confusion of such an hour the action of the various sects was like that of
frantic passengers, each striving to save his possessions from the wreck.
The Catholic church, as its name implies, has always held true to the ideal
of a united church, a church which, like the great Roman government of the
early centuries, can bring the splendor and authority of Rome to bear upon
the humblest village church to the farthest ends of the earth. For a time
that mighty ideal dazzled the German and English reformers; but the
possibility of a united Protestant church perished with Elizabeth. Then,
instead of the world-wide church which was the ideal of Catholicism, came
the ideal of a purely national Protestantism. This was the ideal of Laud
and the reactionary bishops, no less than of the scholarly Richard Hooker,
of the rugged Scotch Covenanters, and of the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay.
It is intensely interesting to note that Charles called Irish rebels and
Scotch Highlanders to his aid by promising to restore their national
religions; and that the English Puritans, turning to Scotland for help,
entered into the solemn Covenant of 1643, establishing a national
Presbyterianism, whose object was:
To bring the churches of God in the three kingdoms to uniformity in
religion and government, to preserve the rights of Parliament and the
liberties of the Kingdom; ... that we and our posterity may as brethren
live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to live in the midst of
us.
In this famous Covenant we see the national, the ecclesiastical, and the
personal dream of Puritanism, side by side, in all their grandeur and
simplicity.
Years passed, years of bitter struggle and heartache, before the
impossibility of uniting the various Protestant sects was generally
recognized. The ideal of a national church died hard, and to its death is
due all the religious unrest of the period. Only as we remember the
national ideal, and the struggle which it caused, can we understand the
amazing life and work of Bunyan, or appreciate the heroic spirit of the
American colonists who left home for a wilderness in order to give the new
ideal of a free church in a free state its practical demonstration.
LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. In literature also the Puritan Age was one of
confusion, due to the breaking up of old ideals. Mediaeval standards of
chivalry, the impossible loves and romances of which Spenser furnished the
types, perished no less surely than the ideal of a national church; and in
the absence of any fixed standard of literary criticism there was nothing
to prevent the exaggeration of the "metaphysical" poets, who are the
literary parallels to religious sects like the Anabaptists. Poetry took new
and startling forms in Donne and Herbert, and prose became as somber as
Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_. The spiritual gloom which sooner or later
fastens upon all the writers of this age, and which is unjustly attributed
to Puritan influence, is due to the breaking up of accepted standards in
government and religion. No people, from the Greeks to those of our own
day, have suffered the loss of old ideals without causing its writers to
cry, "Ichabod! the glory has departed." That is the unconscious tendency of
literary men in all times, who look backward for their golden age; and it
need not concern the student of literature, who, even in the break-up of
cherished institutions, looks for some foregleams of a better light which
is to break upon the world. This so-called gloomy age produced some minor
poems of exquisite workmanship, and one great master of verse whose work
would glorify any age or people,--John Milton, in whom the indomitable
Puritan spirit finds its noblest expression.
There are three main characteristics in which Puritan literature differs
from that of the preceding age: (1) Elizabethan literature, with all its
diversity, had a marked unity in spirit, resulting from the patriotism of
all classes and their devotion to a queen who, with all her faults, sought
first the nation's welfare. Under the Stuarts all this was changed. The
kings were the open enemies of the people; the country was divided by the
struggle for political and religious liberty; and the literature was as
divided in spirit as were the struggling parties. (2) Elizabethan
literature is generally inspiring; it throbs with youth and hope and
vitality. That which follows speaks of age and sadness; even its brightest
hours are followed by gloom, and by the pessimism inseparable from the
passing of old standards. (3) Elizabethan literature is intensely romantic;
the romance springs from the heart of youth, and believes all things, even
the impossible. The great schoolman's _credo_, "I believe because it is
impossible," is a better expression of Elizabethan literature than of
mediaeval theology. In the literature of the Puritan period one looks in
vain for romantic ardor. Even in the lyrics and love poems a critical,
intellectual spirit takes its place, and whatever romance asserts itself is
in form rather than in feeling, a fantastic and artificial adornment of
speech rather than the natural utterance of a heart in which sentiment is
so strong and true that poetry is its only expression.
II. LITERATURE OF THE PURITAN PERIOD
THE TRANSITION POETS. When one attempts to classify the literature of the
first half of the seventeenth century, from the death of Elizabeth (1603)
to the Restoration (1660), he realizes the impossibility of grouping poets
by any accurate standard. The classifications attempted here have small
dependence upon dates or sovereigns, and are suggestive rather than
accurate. Thus Shakespeare and Bacon wrote largely in the reign of James I,
but their work is Elizabethan in spirit; and Bunyan is no less a Puritan
because he happened to write after the Restoration. The name Metaphysical
poets, given by Dr. Johnson, is somewhat suggestive but not descriptive of
the followers of Donne; the name Caroline or Cavalier poets brings to mind
the careless temper of the Royalists who followed King Charles with a
devotion of which he was unworthy; and the name Spenserian poets recalls
the little band of dreamers who clung to Spenser's ideal, even while his
romantic mediaeval castle was battered down by Science at the one gate and
Puritanism at the other. At the beginning of this bewildering confusion of
ideals expressed in literature, we note a few writers who are generally
known as Jacobean poets, but whom we have called the Transition poets
because, with the later dramatists, they show clearly the changing
standards of the age.
SAMUEL DANIEL (1562-1619). Daniel, who is often classed with the first
Metaphysical poets, is interesting to us for two reasons,--for his use of
the artificial sonnet, and for his literary desertion of Spenser as a model
for poets. His _Delia_, a cycle of sonnets modeled, perhaps, after Sidney's
_Astrophel and Stella_, helped to fix the custom of celebrating love or
friendship by a series of sonnets, to which some pastoral pseudonym was
affixed. In his sonnets, many of which rank with Shakespeare's, and in his
later poetry, especially the beautiful "Complaint of Rosamond" and his
"Civil Wars," he aimed solely at grace of expression, and became
influential in giving to English poetry a greater individuality and
independence than it had ever known. In matter he set himself squarely
against the mediaeval tendency:
Let others sing of kings and paladines
In aged accents and untimely words,
Paint shadows in imaginary lines.
This fling at Spenser and his followers marks the beginning of the modern
and realistic school, which sees in life as it is enough poetic material,
without the invention of allegories and impossible heroines. Daniel's
poetry, which was forgotten soon after his death, has received probably
more homage than it deserves in the praises of Wordsworth, Southey, Lamb,
and Coleridge. The latter says: "Read Daniel, the admirable Daniel. The
style and language are just such as any pure and manly writer of the
present day would use. It seems quite modern in comparison with the style
of Shakespeare."
THE SONG WRITERS. In strong contrast with the above are two distinct
groups, the Song Writers and the Spenserian poets. The close of the reign
of Elizabeth was marked by an outburst of English songs, as remarkable in
its sudden development as the rise of the drama. Two causes contributed to
this result,--the increasing influence of French instead of Italian verse,
and the rapid development of music as an art at the close of the sixteenth
century. The two song writers best worth studying are Thomas Campion
(1567?-1619) and Nicholas Breton (1545?-1626?). Like all the lyric poets of
the age, they are a curious mixture of the Elizabethan and the Puritan
standards. They sing of sacred and profane love with the same zest, and a
careless love song is often found on the same page with a plea for divine
grace.
THE SPENSERIAN POETS. Of the Spenserian poets Giles Fletcher and Wither are
best worth studying. Giles Fletcher (1588?-1623) has at times a strong
suggestion of Milton (who was also a follower of Spenser in his early
years) in the noble simplicity and majesty of his lines. His best known
work, "Christ's Victory and Triumph" (1610), was the greatest religious
poem that had appeared in England since "Piers Plowman," and is not an
unworthy predecessor of _Paradise Lost_.
The life of George Wither (1588-1667) covers the whole period of English
history from Elizabeth to the Restoration, and the enormous volume of his
work covers every phase of the literature of two great ages. His life was a
varied one; now as a Royalist leader against the Covenanters, and again
announcing his Puritan convictions, and suffering in prison for his faith.
At his best Wither is a lyric poet of great originality, rising at times to
positive genius; but the bulk of his poetry is intolerably dull. Students
of this period find him interesting as an epitome of the whole age in which
he lived; but the average reader is more inclined to note with interest
that he published in 1623 _Hymns and Songs of the Church_, the first hymn
book that ever appeared in the English language.
THE METAPHYSICAL POETS. This name--which was given by Dr. Johnson in
derision, because of the fantastic form of Donne's poetry--is often applied
to all minor poets of the Puritan Age. We use the term here in a narrower
sense, excluding the followers of Daniel and that later group known as the
Cavalier poets. It includes Donne, Herbert, Waller, Denham, Cowley,
Vaughan, Davenant, Marvell, and Crashaw. The advanced student finds them
all worthy of study, not only for their occasional excellent poetry, but
because of their influence on later literature. Thus Richard Crashaw
(1613?-1649), the Catholic mystic, is interesting because his troubled life
is singularly like Donne's, and his poetry is at times like Herbert's set
on fire.[160] Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), who blossomed young and who, at
twenty-five, was proclaimed the greatest poet in England, is now scarcely
known even by name, but his "Pindaric Odes"[161] set an example which
influenced English poetry throughout the eighteenth century. Henry Vaughan
(1622-1695) is worthy of study because he is in some respects the
forerunner of Wordsworth;[162] and Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), because of
his loyal friendship with Milton, and because his poetry shows the conflict
between the two schools of Spenser and Donne. Edmund Waller (1606-1687)
stands between the Puritan Age and the Restoration. He was the first to use
consistently the "closed" couplet which dominated our poetry for the next
century. By this, and especially by his influence over Dryden, the greatest
figure of the Restoration, he occupies a larger place in our literature
than a reading of his rather tiresome poetry would seem to warrant.
Of all these poets, each of whom has his special claim, we can consider
here only Donne and Herbert, who in different ways are the types of revolt
against earlier forms and standards of poetry. In feeling and imagery both
are poets of a high order, but in style and expression they are the leaders
of the fantastic school whose influence largely dominated poetry during the
half century of the Puritan period.
JOHN DONNE (1573-1631)
LIFE. The briefest outline of Donne's life shows its intense human
interest. He was born in London, the son of a rich iron merchant, at the
time when the merchants of England were creating a new and higher kind of
princes. On his father's side he came from an old Welsh family, and on his
mother's side from the Heywoods and Sir Thomas More's family. Both families
were Catholic, and in his early life persecution was brought near; for his
brother died in prison for harboring a proscribed priest, and his own
education could not be continued in Oxford and Cambridge because of his
religion. Such an experience generally sets a man's religious standards for
life; but presently Donne, as he studied law at Lincoln's Inn, was
investigating the philosophic grounds of all faith. Gradually he left the
church in which he was born, renounced all denominations, and called
himself simply Christian. Meanwhile he wrote poetry and shared his wealth
with needy Catholic relatives. He joined the expedition of Essex for Cadiz
in 1596, and for the Azores in 1597, and on sea and in camp found time to
write poetry. Two of his best poems, "The Storm" and "The Calm," belong to
this period. Next he traveled in Europe for three years, but occupied
himself with study and poetry. Returning home, he became secretary to Lord
Egerton, fell in love with the latter's young niece, Anne More, and married
her; for which cause Donne was cast into prison. Strangely enough his
poetical work at this time is not a song of youthful romance, but "The
Progress of the Soul," a study of transmigration. Years of wandering and
poverty followed, until Sir George More forgave the young lovers and made
an allowance to his daughter. Instead of enjoying his new comforts, Donne
grew more ascetic and intellectual in his tastes. He refused also the
nattering offer of entering the Church of England and of receiving a
comfortable "living." By his "Pseudo Martyr" he attracted the favor of
James I, who persuaded him to be ordained, yet left him without any place
or employment. When his wife died her allowance ceased, and Donne was left
with seven children in extreme poverty. Then he became a preacher, rose
rapidly by sheer intellectual force and genius, and in four years was the
greatest of English preachers and Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
There he "carried some to heaven in holy raptures and led others to amend
their lives," and as he leans over the pulpit with intense earnestness is
likened by Izaak Walton to "an angel leaning from a cloud."
Here is variety enough to epitomize his age, and yet in all his life,
stronger than any impression of outward weal or woe, is the sense of
mystery that surrounds Donne. In all his work one finds a mystery, a hiding
of some deep thing which the world would gladly know and share, and which
is suggested in his haunting little poem, "The Undertaking":
I have done one braver thing
Than all the worthies did;
And yet a braver thence doth spring,
Which is, to keep that hid.
DONNE'S POETRY. Donne's poetry is so uneven, at times so startling and
fantastic, that few critics would care to recommend it to others. Only a
few will read his works, and they must be left to their own browsing, to
find what pleases them, like deer which, in the midst of plenty, take a
bite here and there and wander on, tasting twenty varieties of food in an
hour's feeding. One who reads much will probably bewail Donne's lack of any
consistent style or literary standard. For instance, Chaucer and Milton are
as different as two poets could well be; yet the work of each is marked by
a distinct and consistent style, and it is the style as much as the matter
which makes the _Tales_ or the _Paradise Lost_ a work for all time. Donne
threw style and all literary standards to the winds; and precisely for this
reason he is forgotten, though his great intellect and his genius had
marked him as one of those who should do things "worthy to be remembered."
While the tendency of literature is to exalt style at the expense of
thought, the world has many men and women who exalt feeling and thought
above expression; and to these Donne is good reading. Browning is of the
same school, and compels attention. While Donne played havoc with
Elizabethan style, he nevertheless influenced our literature in the way of
boldness and originality; and the present tendency is to give him a larger
place, nearer to the few great poets, than he has occupied since Ben Jonson
declared that he was "the first poet of the world in some things," but
likely to perish "for not being understood." For to much of his poetry we
must apply his own satiric verses on another's crudities:
Infinite work! which doth so far extend
That none can study it to any end.
GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633)
"O day most calm, most bright," sang George Herbert, and we may safely take
that single line as expressive of the whole spirit of his writings.
Professor Palmer, whose scholarly edition of this poet's works is a model
for critics and editors, calls Herbert the first in English poetry who
spoke face to face with God. That may be true; but it is interesting to
note that not a poet of the first half of the seventeenth century, not even
the gayest of the Cavaliers, but has written some noble verse of prayer or
aspiration, which expresses the underlying Puritan spirit of his age.
Herbert is the greatest, the most consistent of them all. In all the others
the Puritan struggles against the Cavalier, or the Cavalier breaks loose
from the restraining Puritan; but in Herbert the struggle is past and peace
has come. That his life was not all calm, that the Puritan in him had
struggled desperately before it subdued the pride and idleness of the
Cavalier, is evident to one who reads between his lines:
I struck the board and cry'd, No more!
I will abroad.
What? Shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free, free as the road,
Loose as the wind.
There speaks the Cavalier of the university and the court; and as one reads
to the end of the little poem, which he calls by the suggestive name of
"The Collar," he may know that he is reading condensed biography.
Those who seek for faults, for strained imagery and fantastic verse forms
in Herbert's poetry, will find them in abundance; but it will better repay
the reader to look for the deep thought and fine feeling that are hidden in
these wonderful religious lyrics, even in those that appear most
artificial. The fact that Herbert's reputation was greater, at times, than
Milton's, and that his poems when published after his death had a large
sale and influence, shows certainly that he appealed to the men of his age;
and his poems will probably be read and appreciated, if only by the few,
just so long as men are strong enough to understand the Puritan's spiritual
convictions.
LIFE. Herbert's life is so quiet and uneventful that to relate a few
biographical facts can be of little advantage. Only as one reads the whole
story by Izaak Walton can he share the gentle spirit of Herbert's poetry.
He was born at Montgomery Castle,[163] Wales, 1593, of a noble Welsh
family. His university course was brilliant, and after graduation he waited
long years in the vain hope of preferment at court. All his life he had to
battle against disease, and this is undoubtedly the cause of the long delay
before each new step in his course. Not till he was thirty-seven was he
ordained and placed over the little church of Bemerton. How he lived here
among plain people, in "this happy corner of the Lord's field, hoping all
things and blessing all people, asking his own way to Sion and showing
others the way," should be read in Walton. It is a brief life, less than
three years of work before being cut off by consumption, but remarkable for
the single great purpose and the glorious spiritual strength that shine
through physical weakness. Just before his death he gave some manuscripts
to a friend, and his message is worthy of John Bunyan:
Deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, and tell him he shall
find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed
betwixt God and my soul before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my
master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom. Desire him to
read it; and then, if he can think it may turn to the advantage of any
dejected poor soul, let it be made public; if not, let him burn it, for I
and it are less than the least of God's mercies.
HERBERT'S POEMS. Herbert's chief work, _The Temple_, consists of over one
hundred and fifty short poems suggested by the Church, her holidays and
ceremonials, and the experiences of the Christian life. The first poem,
"The Church Porch," is the longest and, though polished with a care that
foreshadows the classic school, the least poetical. It is a wonderful
collection of condensed sermons, wise precepts, and moral lessons,
suggesting Chaucer's "Good Counsel," Pope's "Essay on Man," and Polonius's
advice to Laertes, in _Hamlet;_ only it is more packed with thought than
any of these. Of truth-speaking he says:
Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie;
A fault which needs it most grows two thereby.
and of calmness in argument:
Calmness is great advantage: he that lets
Another chafe may warm him at his fire.
Among the remaining poems of _The Temple_ one of the most suggestive is
"The Pilgrimage." Here in six short stanzas, every line close-packed with
thought, we have the whole of Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_. The poem was
written probably before Bunyan was born, but remembering the wide influence
of Herbert's poetry, it is an interesting question whether Bunyan received
the idea of his immortal work from this "Pilgrimage." Probably the best
known of all his poems is the one called "The Pulley," which generally
appears, however under the name "Rest," or "The Gifts of God."
When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
Let us, said he, pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed; then wisdom, honor, pleasure.
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.
For, if I should, said he,
Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.
Among the poems which may be read as curiosities of versification, and
which arouse the wrath of the critics against the whole metaphysical
school, are those like "Easter Wings" and "The Altar," which suggest in the
printed form of the poem the thing of which the poet sings. More ingenious
is the poem in which rime is made by cutting off the first letter of a
preceding word, as in the five stanzas of "Paradise ":
I bless thee, Lord, because I grow
Among thy trees, which in a row
To thee both fruit and order ow.
And more ingenious still are odd conceits like the poem "Heaven," in which
Echo, by repeating the last syllable of each line, gives an answer to the
poet's questions.
THE CAVALIER POETS. In the literature of any age there are generally found
two distinct tendencies. The first expresses the dominant spirit of the
times; the second, a secret or an open rebellion. So in this age, side by
side with the serious and rational Puritan, lives the gallant and trivial
Cavalier. The Puritan finds expression in the best poetry of the period,
from Donne to Milton, and in the prose of Baxter and Bunyan; the Cavalier
in a small group of poets,--Herrick, Lovelace, Suckling, and Carew,--who
write songs generally in lighter vein, gay, trivial, often licentious, but
who cannot altogether escape the tremendous seriousness of Puritanism.
THOMAS CAREW (1598?-1639?). Carew may be called the inventor of Cavalier
love poetry, and to him, more than to any other, is due the peculiar
combination of the sensual and the religious which marked most of the minor
poets of the seventeenth century. His poetry is the Spenserian pastoral
stripped of its refinement of feeling and made direct, coarse, vigorous.
His poems, published in 1640, are generally, like his life, trivial or
sensual; but here and there is found one, like the following, which
indicates that with the Metaphysical and Cavalier poets a new and
stimulating force had entered English literature:
Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose,
For in your beauty's orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
Ask me no more where those stars light
That downwards fall in dead of night,
For in your eyes they sit, and there
Fixed become as in their sphere.
Ask me no more if east or west
The phoenix builds her spicy nest,
For unto you at last she flies,
And in your fragrant bosom dies.
ROBERT HERRICK (1591-1674). Herrick is the true Cavalier, gay, devil-may-
care in disposition, but by some freak of fate a clergyman of Dean Prior,
in South Devon, a county made famous by him and Blackmore. Here, in a
country parish, he lived discontentedly, longing for the joys of London and
the Mermaid Tavern, his bachelor establishment consisting of an old
housekeeper, a cat, a dog, a goose, a tame lamb, one hen,--for which he
thanked God in poetry because she laid an egg every day,--and a pet pig
that drank beer with Herrick out of a tankard. With admirable good nature,
Herrick made the best of these uncongenial surroundings. He watched with
sympathy the country life about him and caught its spirit in many lyrics, a
few of which, like "Corinna's Maying," "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,"
and "To Daffodils," are among the best known in our language. His poems
cover a wide range, from trivial love songs, pagan in spirit, to hymns of
deep religious feeling. Only the best of his poems should be read; and
these are remarkable for their exquisite sentiment and their graceful,
melodious expression. The rest, since they reflect something of the
coarseness of his audience, may be passed over in silence.
Late in life Herrick published his one book, _Hesperides and Noble Numbers_
(1648). The latter half contains his religious poems, and one has only to
read there the remarkable "Litany" to see how the religious terror that
finds expression in Bunyan's _Grace Abounding_ could master even the most
careless of Cavalier singers.
SUCKLING AND LOVELACE. Sir John Suckling (1609-1642) was one of the most
brilliant wits of the court of Charles I, who wrote poetry as he exercised
a horse or fought a duel, because it was considered a gentleman's
accomplishment in those days. His poems, "struck from his wild life like
sparks from his rapier," are utterly trivial, and, even in his best known
"Ballad Upon a Wedding," rarely rise above mere doggerel. It is only the
romance of his life--his rich, brilliant, careless youth, and his poverty
and suicide in Paris, whither he fled because of his devotion to the
Stuarts--that keeps his name alive in our literature.
In his life and poetry Sir Richard Lovelace (1618-1658) offers a remarkable
parallel to Suckling, and the two are often classed together as perfect
representatives of the followers of King Charles. Lovelace's _Lucasta_, a
volume of love lyrics, is generally on a higher plane than Suckling's work;
and a few of the poems like "To Lucasta," and "To Althea, from Prison,"
deserve the secure place they have won. In the latter occur the oft-quoted
lines:
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage.
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.
JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)
Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea--
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free;
So didst thou travel on life's common way
In cheerful godliness: and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
(From Wordsworth's "Sonnet on Milton")
Shakespeare and Milton are the two figures that tower conspicuously above
the goodly fellowship of men who have made our literature famous. Each is
representative of the age that produced him, and together they form a
suggestive commentary upon the two forces that rule our humanity,--the
force of impulse and the force of a fixed purpose. Shakespeare is the poet
of impulse, of the loves, hates, fears, jealousies, and ambitions that
swayed the men of his age. Milton is the poet of steadfast will and
purpose, who moves like a god amid the fears and hopes and changing
impulses of the world, regarding them as trivial and momentary things that
can never swerve a great soul from its course.
It is well to have some such comparison in mind while studying the
literature of the Elizabethan and the Puritan Age. While Shakespeare and
Ben Jonson and their unequaled company of wits make merry at the Mermaid
Tavern, there is already growing up on the same London street a poet who
shall bring a new force into literature, who shall add to the Renaissance
culture and love of beauty the tremendous moral earnestness of the Puritan.
Such a poet must begin, as the Puritan always began, with his own soul, to
discipline and enlighten it, before expressing its beauty in literature.
"He that would hope to write well hereafter in laudable things," says
Milton, "ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and
pattern of the best and most honorable things." Here is a new proposition
in art which suggests the lofty ideal of Fra Angelico, that before one can
write literature, which is the expression of the ideal, he must first
develop in himself the ideal man. Because Milton is human he must know the
best in humanity; therefore he studies, giving his days to music, art, and
literature, his nights to profound research and meditation. But because he
knows that man is more than mortal he also prays, depending, as he tells
us, on "devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all
utterance and knowledge." Such a poet is already in spirit far beyond the
Renaissance, though he lives in the autumn of its glory and associates with
its literary masters. "There is a spirit in man," says the old Hebrew poet,
"and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." Here, in a
word, is the secret of Milton's life and writing. Hence his long silences,
years passing without a word; and when he speaks it is like the voice of a
prophet who begins with the sublime announcement, "The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me." Hence his style, producing an impression of sublimity, which
has been marked for wonder by every historian of our literature. His style
was unconsciously sublime because he lived and thought consciously in a
sublime atmosphere.
LIFE OF MILTON. Milton is like an ideal in the soul, like a lofty mountain
on the horizon. We never attain the ideal; we never climb the mountain; but
life would be inexpressibly poorer were either to be taken away.
From childhood Milton's parents set him apart for the attainment of noble
ends, and so left nothing to chance in the matter of training. His father,
John Milton, is said to have turned Puritan while a student at Oxford and
to have been disinherited by his family; whereupon he settled in London and
prospered greatly as a scrivener, that is, a kind of notary. In character
the elder Milton was a rare combination of scholar and business man, a
radical Puritan in politics and religion, yet a musician, whose hymn tunes
are still sung, and a lover of art and literature. The poet's mother was a
woman of refinement and social grace, with a deep interest in religion and
in local charities. So the boy grew up in a home which combined the culture
of the Renaissance with the piety and moral strength of early Puritanism.
He begins, therefore, as the heir of one great age and the prophet of
another.
Apparently the elder Milton shared Bacon's dislike for the educational
methods of the time and so took charge of his son's training, encouraging
his natural tastes, teaching him music, and seeking out a tutor who helped
the boy to what he sought most eagerly, not the grammar and mechanism of
Greek and Latin but rather the stories, the ideals, the poetry that hide in
their incomparable literatures. At twelve years we find the boy already a
scholar in spirit, unable to rest till after midnight because of the joy
with which his study was rewarded. From boyhood two great principles seem
to govern Milton's career: one, the love of beauty, of music, art,
literature, and indeed of every form of human culture; the other, a
steadfast devotion to duty as the highest object in human life.
A brief course at the famous St. Paul's school in London was the prelude to
Milton's entrance to Christ's College, Cambridge. Here again he followed
his natural bent and, like Bacon, found himself often in opposition to the
authorities. Aside from some Latin poems, the most noteworthy song of this
period of Milton's life is his splendid ode, '"On the Morning of Christ's
Nativity," which was begun on Christmas day, 1629. Milton, while deep in
the classics, had yet a greater love for his native literature. Spenser was
for years his master; in his verse we find every evidence of his "loving
study" of Shakespeare, and his last great poems show clearly how he had
been influenced by Fletcher's _Christ's Victory and Triumph_. But it is
significant that this first ode rises higher than anything of the kind
produced in the famous Age of Elizabeth.
While at Cambridge it was the desire of his parents that Milton should take
orders in the Church of England; but the intense love of mental liberty
which stamped the Puritan was too strong within him, and he refused to
consider the "oath of servitude," as he called it, which would mark his
ordination. Throughout his life Milton, though profoundly religious, held
aloof from the strife of sects. In belief, he belonged to the extreme
Puritans, called Separatists, Independents, Congregationalists, of which
our Pilgrim Fathers are the great examples; but he refused to be bound by
any creed or church discipline:
As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.
In this last line of one of his sonnets[164] is found Milton's rejection of
every form of outward religious authority in face of the supreme Puritan
principle, the liberty of the individual soul before God.
A long period of retirement followed Milton's withdrawal from the
university in 1632. At his father's country home in Horton he gave himself
up for six years to solitary reading and study, roaming over the wide
fields of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Italian, and English
literatures, and studying hard at mathematics, science, theology, and
music,--a curious combination. To his love of music we owe the melody of
all his poetry, and we note it in the rhythm and balance which make even
his mighty prose arguments harmonious. In "Lycidas," "L'Allegro," "Il
Penseroso," "Arcades," "Comus," and a few "Sonnets," we have the poetic
results of this retirement at Horton,--few, indeed, but the most perfect of
their kind that our literature has recorded.
Out of solitude, where his talent was perfected, Milton entered the busy
world where his character was to be proved to the utmost. From Horton he
traveled abroad, through France, Switzerland, and Italy, everywhere
received with admiration for his learning and courtesy, winning the
friendship of the exiled Dutch scholar Grotius, in Paris, and of Galileo in
his sad imprisonment in Florence.[165] He was on his way to Greece when
news reached him of the break between king and parliament. With the
practical insight which never deserted him Milton saw clearly the meaning
of the news. His cordial reception in Italy, so chary of praise to anything
not Italian, had reawakened in Milton the old desire to write an epic which
England would "not willingly let die"; but at thought of the conflict for
human freedom all his dreams were flung to the winds. He gave up his
travels and literary ambitions and hurried to England. "For I thought it
base," he says, "to be traveling at my ease for intellectual culture while
my fellow-countrymen at home were fighting for liberty."
Then for nearly twenty years the poet of great achievement and still
greater promise disappears. We hear no more songs, but only the prose
denunciations and arguments which are as remarkable as his poetry. In all
our literature there is nothing more worthy of the Puritan spirit than this
laying aside of personal ambitions in order to join in the struggle for
human liberty. In his best known sonnet, "On His Blindness," which reflects
his grief, not at darkness, but at his abandoned dreams, we catch the
sublime spirit of this renunciation.
Milton's opportunity to serve came in the crisis of 1649. The king had been
sent to the scaffold, paying the penalty of his own treachery, and England
sat shivering at its own deed, like a child or a Russian peasant who in
sudden passion resists unbearable brutality and then is afraid of the
consequences. Two weeks of anxiety, of terror and silence followed; then
appeared Milton's _Tenure of Kings and Magistrates_. To England it was like
the coming of a strong man, not only to protect the child, but to justify
his blow for liberty. Kings no less than people are subject to the eternal
principle of law; the divine right of a people to defend and protect
themselves,--that was the mighty argument which calmed a people's dread and
proclaimed that a new man and a new principle had arisen in England. Milton
was called to be Secretary for Foreign Tongues in the new government; and
for the next few years, until the end of the Commonwealth, there were two
leaders in England, Cromwell the man of action, Milton the man of thought.
It is doubtful to which of the two humanity owes most for its emancipation
from the tyranny of kings and prelates.
Two things of personal interest deserve mention in this period of Milton's
life, his marriage and his blindness. In 1643 he married Mary Powell, a
shallow, pleasure-loving girl, the daughter of a Royalist; and that was the
beginning of sorrows. After a month, tiring of the austere life of a
Puritan household, she abandoned her husband, who, with the same radical
reasoning with which he dealt with affairs of state, promptly repudiated
the marriage. His _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_ and his
_Tetrachordon_ are the arguments to justify his position; but they aroused
a storm of protest in England, and they suggest to a modern reader that
Milton was perhaps as much to blame as his wife, and that he had scant
understanding of a woman's nature. When his wife, fearing for her position,
appeared before him in tears, all his ponderous arguments were swept aside
by a generous impulse; and though the marriage was never a happy one,
Milton never again mentioned his wife's desertion. The scene in _Paradise
Lost_, where Eve comes weeping to Adam, seeking peace and pardon, is
probably a reflection of a scene in Milton's own household. His wife died
in 1653, and a few years later he married another, whom we remember for the
sonnet, "Methought I saw my late espoused saint," in which she is
celebrated. She died after fifteen months, and in 1663 he married a third
wife, who helped the blind old man to manage his poor household.
From boyhood the strain on the poet's eyes had grown more and more severe;
but even when his sight was threatened he held steadily to his purpose of
using his pen in the service of his country. During the king's imprisonment
a book appeared called _Eikon Basilike_ (Royal Image), giving a rosy
picture of the king's piety, and condemning the Puritans. The book speedily
became famous and was the source of all Royalist arguments against the
Commonwealth. In 1649 appeared Milton's _Eikonoklastes_ (Image Breaker),
which demolished the flimsy arguments of the _Eikon Basilike_ as a charge
of Cromwell's Ironsides had overwhelmed the king's followers. After the
execution of the king appeared another famous attack upon the Puritans,
_Defensio Regia pro Carlo I_, instigated by Charles II, who was then living
in exile. It was written in Latin by Salmasius, a Dutch professor at
Leyden, and was hailed by the Royalists as an invincible argument. By order
of the Council of State Milton prepared a reply. His eyesight had sadly
failed, and he was warned that any further strain would be disastrous. His
reply was characteristic of the man and the Puritan. As he had once
sacrificed his poetry, so he was now ready, he said, to sacrifice his eyes
also on the altar of English liberty. His magnificent _Defensio pro Populo
Anglicano_ is one of the most masterly controversial works in literature.
The power of the press was already strongly felt in England, and the new
Commonwealth owed its standing partly to Milton's prose, and partly to
Cromwell's policy. The _Defensio_ was the last work that Milton saw.
Blindness fell upon him ere it was finished, and from 1652 until his death
he labored in total darkness.
The last part of Milton's life is a picture of solitary grandeur unequaled
in literary history. With the Restoration all his labors and sacrifices for
humanity were apparently wasted. From his retirement he could hear the
bells and the shouts that welcomed back a vicious monarch, whose first act
was to set his foot upon his people's neck. Milton was immediately marked
for persecution; he remained for months in hiding; he was reduced to
poverty, and his books were burned by the public hangman. His daughters,
upon whom he depended in his blindness, rebelled at the task of reading to
him and recording his thoughts. In the midst of all these sorrows we
understand, in _Samson_, the cry of the blind champion of Israel:
Now blind, disheartened, shamed, dishonored, quelled,
To what can I be useful? wherein serve
My nation, and the work from Heaven imposed?
But to sit idle on the household hearth,
A burdenous drone; to visitants a gaze,
Or pitied object.
Milton's answer is worthy of his own great life. Without envy or bitterness
he goes back to the early dream of an immortal poem and begins with superb
consciousness of power to dictate his great epic.
_Paradise Lost_ was finished in 1665, after seven years' labor in darkness.
With great difficulty he found a publisher, and for the great work, now the
most honored poem in our literature, he received less than certain verse
makers of our day receive for a little song in one of our popular
magazines. Its success was immediate, though, like all his work, it met
with venomous criticism. Dryden summed up the impression made on thoughtful
minds of his time when he said, "This man cuts us all out, and the ancients
too." Thereafter a bit of sunshine came into his darkened home, for the
work stamped him as one of the world's great writers, and from England and
the Continent pilgrims came in increasing numbers to speak their gratitude.
The next year Milton began his _Paradise Regained_. In 1671 appeared his
last important work, _Samson Agonistes_, the most powerful dramatic poem on
the Greek model which our language possesses. The picture of Israel's
mighty champion, blind, alone, afflicted by thoughtless enemies but
preserving a noble ideal to the end, is a fitting close to the life work of
the poet himself. For years he was silent, dreaming who shall say what
dreams in his darkness, and saying cheerfully to his friends, "Still guides
the heavenly vision." He died peacefully in 1674, the most sublime and the
most lonely figure in our literature.
MILTON'S EARLY POETRY.[166] In his early work Milton appears as the
inheritor of all that was best in Elizabethan literature, and his first
work, the ode "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," approaches the
high-water mark of lyric poetry in England. In the next six years, from
1631 to 1637, he wrote but little, scarcely more than two thousand lines,
but these are among the most exquisite and the most perfectly finished in
our language.
"L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso" are twin poems, containing many lines and
short descriptive passages which linger in the mind like strains of music,
and which are known and loved wherever English is spoken. "L'Allegro" (the
joyous or happy man) is like an excursion into the English fields at
sunrise. The air is sweet; birds are singing; a multitude of sights,
sounds, fragrances, fill all the senses; and to this appeal of nature the
soul of man responds by being happy, seeing in every flower and hearing in
every harmony some exquisite symbol of human life. "Il Penseroso" takes us
over the same ground at twilight and at moonrise. The air is still fresh
and fragrant; the symbolism is, if possible, more tenderly beautiful than
before; but the gay mood is gone, though its memory lingers in the
afterglow of the sunset. A quiet thoughtfulness takes the place of the
pure, joyous sensation of the morning, a thoughtfulness which is not sad,
though like all quiet moods it is akin to sadness, and which sounds the
deeps of human emotion in the presence of nature. To quote scattered lines
of either poem is to do injustice to both. They should be read in their
entirety the same day, one at morning, the other at eventide, if one is to
appreciate their beauty and suggestiveness.
The "Masque of Comus" is in many respects the most perfect of Milton's
poems. It was written in 1634 to be performed at Ludlow Castle before the
earl of Bridgewater and his friends. There is a tradition that the earl's
three children had been lost in the woods, and, whether true or not, Milton
takes the simple theme of a person lost, calls in an Attendant Spirit to
protect the wanderer, and out of this, with its natural action and
melodious songs, makes the most exquisite pastoral drama that we possess.
In form it is a masque, like those gorgeous products of the Elizabethan age
of which Ben Jonson was the master. England had borrowed the idea of the
masque from Italy and had used it as the chief entertainment at all
festivals, until it had become to the nobles of England what the miracle
play had been to the common people of a previous generation. Milton, with
his strong Puritan spirit, could not be content with the mere entertainment
of an idle hour. "Comus" has the gorgeous scenic effects, the music and
dancing of other masques; but its moral purpose and its ideal teachings are
unmistakable. "The Triumph of Virtue" would be a better name for this
perfect little masque, for its theme is that virtue and innocence can walk
through any peril of this world without permanent harm. This eternal
triumph of good over evil is proclaimed by the Attendant Spirit who has
protected the innocent in this life and who now disappears from mortal
sight to resume its life of joy:
Mortals, that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free.
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her.
While there are undoubted traces of Jonson and John Fletcher in Milton's
"Comus," the poem far surpasses its predecessors in the airy beauty and
melody of its verses.
In the next poem, "Lycidas," a pastoral elegy written in 1637, and the last
of his Horton poems, Milton is no longer the inheritor of the old age, but
the prophet of a new. A college friend, Edward King, had been drowned in
the Irish Sea, and Milton follows the poetic custom of his age by
representing both his friend and himself in the guise of shepherds leading
the pastoral life. Milton also uses all the symbolism of his predecessors,
introducing fauns, satyrs, and sea nymphs; but again the Puritan is not
content with heathen symbolism, and so introduces a new symbol of the
Christian shepherd responsible for the souls of men, whom he likens to
hungry sheep that look up and are not fed. The Puritans and Royalists at
this time were drifting rapidly apart, and Milton uses his new symbolism to
denounce the abuses that had crept into the Church. In any other poet this
moral teaching would hinder the free use of the imagination; but Milton
seems equal to the task of combining high moral purpose with the noblest
poetry. In its exquisite finish and exhaustless imagery "Lycidas" surpasses
most of the poetry of what is often called the pagan Renaissance.
Besides these well-known poems, Milton wrote in this early period a
fragmentary masque called "Arcades"; several Latin poems which, like his
English, are exquisitely finished; and his famous "Sonnets," which brought
this Italian form of verse nearly to the point of perfection. In them he
seldom wrote of love, the usual subject with his predecessors, but of
patriotism, duty, music, and subjects of political interest suggested by
the struggle into which England was drifting. Among these sonnets each
reader must find his own favorites. Those best known and most frequently
quoted are "On His Deceased Wife," "To the Nightingale," "On Reaching the
Age of Twenty-three," "The Massacre in Piedmont," and the two "On His
Blindness."
MILTON'S PROSE. Of Milton's prose works there are many divergent opinions,
ranging from Macaulay's unbounded praise to the condemnation of some of our
modern critics. From a literary view point Milton's prose would be stronger
if less violent, and a modern writer would hardly be excused for using his
language or his methods; but we must remember the times and the methods of
his opponents. In his fiery zeal against injustice the poet is suddenly
dominated by the soldier's spirit. He first musters his facts in
battalions, and charges upon the enemy to crush and overpower without
mercy. For Milton hates injustice and, because it is an enemy of his
people, he cannot and will not spare it. When the victory is won, he exults
in a paean of victory as soul-stirring as the Song of Deborah. He is the
poet again, spite of himself, and his mind fills with magnificent images.
Even with a subject so dull, so barren of the bare possibilities of poetry,
as his "Animadversions upon the Remonstrants' Defense," he breaks out into
an invocation, "Oh, Thou that sittest in light and glory unapproachable,
parent of angels and men," which is like a chapter from the Apocalypse. In
such passages Milton's prose is, as Taine suggests, "an outpouring of
splendors," which suggests the noblest poetry.
On account of their controversial character these prose works are seldom
read, and it is probable that Milton never thought of them as worthy of a
place in literature. Of them all _Areopagitica_ has perhaps the most
permanent interest and is best worth reading. In Milton's time there was a
law forbidding the publication of books until they were indorsed by the
official censor. Needless to say, the censor, holding his office and salary
by favor, was naturally more concerned with the divine right of kings and
bishops than with the delights of literature, and many books were
suppressed for no better reason than that they were displeasing to the
authorities. Milton protested against this, as against every other form of
tyranny, and his _Areopagitica_--so called from the Areopagus or Forum of
Athens, the place of public appeal, and the Mars Hill of St. Paul's
address--is the most famous plea in English for the freedom of the press.
MILTON'S LATER POETRY. Undoubtedly the noblest of Milton's works, written
when he was blind and suffering, are _Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained_,
and _Samson Agonistes_. The first is the greatest, indeed the only
generally acknowledged epic in our literature since _Beowulf;_ the last is
the most perfect specimen of a drama after the Greek method in our
language.
Of the history of the great epic we have some interesting glimpses. In
Cambridge there is preserved a notebook of Milton's containing a list of
nearly one hundred subjects[167] for a great poem, selected while he was a
boy at the university. King Arthur attracted him at first; but his choice
finally settled upon the Fall of Man, and we have four separate outlines
showing Milton's proposed treatment of the subject. These outlines indicate
that he contemplated a mighty drama or miracle play; but whether because of
Puritan antipathy to plays and players, or because of the wretched dramatic
treatment of religious subjects which Milton had witnessed in Italy, he
abandoned the idea of a play and settled on the form of an epic poem; most
fortunately, it must be conceded, for Milton had not the knowledge of men
necessary for a drama. As a study of character _Paradise Lost_ would be a
grievous failure. Adam, the central character, is something of a prig;
while Satan looms up a magnificent figure, entirely different from the
devil of the miracle plays and completely overshadowing the hero both in
interest and in manliness. The other characters, the Almighty, the Son,
Raphael, Michael, the angels and fallen spirits, are merely mouthpieces for
Milton's declamations, without any personal or human interest. Regarded as
a drama, therefore, _Paradise Lost_ could never have been a success; but as
poetry, with its sublime imagery, its harmonious verse, its titanic
background of heaven, hell, and the illimitable void that lies between, it
is unsurpassed in any literature.
In 1658 Milton in his darkness sat down to dictate the work which he had
planned thirty years before. In order to understand the mighty sweep of the
poem it is necessary to sum up the argument of the twelve books, as
follows:
Book I opens with a statement of the subject, the Fall of Man, and a noble
invocation for light and divine guidance. Then begins the account of Satan
and the rebel angels, their banishment from heaven, and their plot to
oppose the design of the Almighty by dragging down his children, our first
parents, from their state of innocence. The book closes with a description
of the land of fire and endless pain where the fallen spirits abide, and
the erection of Pandemonium, the palace of Satan. Book II is a description
of the council of evil spirits, of Satan's consent to undertake the
temptation of Adam and Eve, and his journey to the gates of hell, which are
guarded by Sin and Death. Book III transports us to heaven again. God,
foreseeing the fall, sends Raphael to warn Adam and Eve, so that their
disobedience shall be upon their own heads. Then the Son offers himself a
sacrifice, to take away the sin of the coming disobedience of man. At the
end of this book Satan appears in a different scene, meets Uriel, the Angel
of the Sun, inquires from him the way to earth, and takes his journey
thither disguised as an angel of light. Book IV shows us Paradise and the
innocent state of man. An angel guard is set over Eden, and Satan is
arrested while tempting Eve in a dream, but is curiously allowed to go free
again. Book V shows us Eve relating her dream to Adam, and then the morning
prayer and the daily employment of our first parents. Raphael visits them,
is entertained by a banquet (which Eve proposes in order to show him that
all God's gifts are not kept in heaven), and tells them of the revolt of
the fallen spirits. His story is continued in Book VI. In Book VII we read
the story of the creation of the world as Raphael tells it to Adam and Eve.
In Book VIII Adam tells Raphael the story of his own life and of his
meeting with Eve. Book IX is the story of the temptation by Satan,
following the account in Genesis. Book X records the divine judgment upon
Adam and Eve; shows the construction by Sin and Death of a highway through
chaos to the earth, and Satan's return to Pandemonium. Adam and Eve repent
of their disobedience and Satan and his angels are turned into serpents. In
Book XI the Almighty accepts Adam's repentance, but condemns him to be
banished from Paradise, and the archangel Michael is sent to execute the
sentence. At the end of the book, after Eve's feminine grief at the loss of
Paradise, Michael begins a prophetic vision of the destiny of man. Book XII
continues Michael's vision. Adam and Eve are comforted by hearing of the
future redemption of their race. The poem ends as they wander forth out of
Paradise and the door closes behind them.
It will be seen that this is a colossal epic, not of a man or a hero, but
of the whole race of men; and that Milton's characters are such as no human
hand could adequately portray. But the scenes, the splendors of heaven, the
horrors of hell, the serene beauty of Paradise, the sun and planets
suspended between celestial light and gross darkness, are pictured with an
imagination that is almost superhuman. The abiding interest of the poem is
in these colossal pictures, and in the lofty thought and the marvelous
melody with which they are impressed on our minds. The poem is in blank
verse, and not until Milton used it did we learn the infinite variety and
harmony of which it is capable. He played with it, changing its melody and
movement on every page, "as an organist out of a single theme develops an
unending variety of harmony."
Lamartine has described _Paradise Lost_ as the dream of a Puritan fallen
asleep over his Bible, and this suggestive description leads us to the
curious fact that it is the dream, not the theology or the descriptions of
Bible scenes, that chiefly interests us. Thus Milton describes the
separation of earth and water, and there is little or nothing added to the
simplicity and strength of _Genesis_; but the sunset which follows is
Milton's own dream, and instantly we are transported to a land of beauty
and poetry:
Now came still Evening on, and Twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale.
She all night long her amorous descant sung:
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
So also Milton's Almighty, considered purely as a literary character, is
unfortunately tinged with the narrow and literal theology of the time. He
is a being enormously egotistic, the despot rather than the servant of the
universe, seated upon a throne with a chorus of angels about him eternally
singing his praises and ministering to a kind of divine vanity. It is not
necessary to search heaven for such a character; the type is too common
upon earth. But in Satan Milton breaks away from crude mediaeval
conceptions; he follows the dream again, and gives us a character to admire
and understand:
"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?--this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since He
Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from Him is best,
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor--one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."
In this magnificent heroism Milton has unconsciously immortalized the
Puritan spirit, the same unconquerable spirit that set men to writing poems
and allegories when in prison for the faith, and that sent them over the
stormy sea in a cockleshell to found a free commonwealth in the wilds of
America.
For a modern reader the understanding of _Paradise Lost_ presupposes two
things,--a knowledge of the first chapters of the Scriptures, and of the
general principles of Calvinistic theology; but it is a pity to use the
poem, as has so often been done, to teach a literal acceptance of one or
the other. Of the theology of _Paradise Lost_ the least said the better;
but to the splendor of the Puritan dream and the glorious melody of its
expression no words can do justice. Even a slight acquaintance will make
the reader understand why it ranks with the _Divina Commedia_ of Dante, and
why it is generally accepted by critics as the greatest single poem in our
literature.
Soon after the completion of _Paradise Lost_, Thomas Ellwood, a friend of
Milton, asked one day after reading the Paradise manuscript, "But what hast
thou to say of Paradise Found?" It was in response to this suggestion that
Milton wrote the second part of the great epic, known to us as _Paradise
Regained_. The first tells how mankind, in the person of Adam, fell at the
first temptation by Satan and became an outcast from Paradise and from
divine grace; the second shows how mankind, in the person of Christ,
withstands the tempter and is established once more in the divine favor.
Christ's temptation in the wilderness is the theme, and Milton follows the
account in the fourth chapter of Matthew's gospel. Though _Paradise
Regained_ was Milton's favorite, and though it has many passages of noble
thought and splendid imagery equal to the best of _Paradise Lost_, the poem
as a whole falls below the level of the first, and is less interesting to
read.
In _Samson Agonistes_ Milton turns to a more vital and personal theme, and
his genius transfigures the story of Samson, the mighty champion of Israel,
now blind and scorned, working as a slave among the Philistines. The poet's
aim was to present in English a pure tragedy, with all the passion and
restraint which marked the old Greek dramas. That he succeeded where others
failed is due to two causes: first, Milton himself suggests the hero of one
of the Greek tragedies,--his sorrow and affliction give to his noble nature
that touch of melancholy and calm dignity which is in perfect keeping with
his subject. Second, Milton is telling his own story. Like Samson he had
struggled mightily against the enemies of his race; he had taken a wife
from the Philistines and had paid the penalty; he was blind, alone, scorned
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