Outlines of English and American Literature Part 2

ANGLO-SAXON SONGS. Beside the epic of _Beowulf_ a few mutilated poems have been preserved, and these are as fragments of a plate or film upon which the life of long ago left its impression. One of the oldest of these poems is "Widsith," the "wide-goer," which describes the wanderings and rewards of the ancient gleeman. It begins:

Widsith spake, his word-h.o.a.rd unlocked, He who farthest had fared among earth-folk and tribe-folk.

Then follows a recital of the places he had visited, and the gifts he had received for his singing. Some of the personages named are real, others mythical; and as the list covers half a world and several centuries of time, it is certain that Widsith's recital cannot be taken literally.

[Sidenote: MEANING OF WIDSITH]

Two explanations offer themselves: the first, that the poem contains the work of many scops, each of whom added his travels to those of his predecessor; the second, that Widsith, like other gleemen, was both historian and poet, a keeper of tribal legends as well as a shaper of songs, and that he was ever ready to entertain his audience with things new or old. Thus, he mentioned Hrothgar as one whom he had visited; and if a hearer called for a tale at this point, the scop would recite that part of _Beowulf_ which tells of the monster Grendel. Again, he named Sigard the Volsung (the Siegfrid of the _Niebelungenlied_ and of Wagner's opera), and this would recall the slaying of the dragon Fafnir, or some other story of the old Norse saga. So every name or place which Widsith mentioned was an invitation. When he came to a hall and "unlocked his word-h.o.a.rd," he offered his hearers a variety of poems and legends from which they made their own selection. Looked at in this way, the old poem becomes an epitome of Anglo-Saxon literature.

[Sidenote: TYPES OF SAXON POETRY]

Other fragments of the period are valuable as indicating that the Anglo-Saxons were familiar with various types of poetry. "Deor's Lament,"

describing the sorrows of a scop who had lost his place beside his chief, is a true lyric; that is, a poem which reflects the author's feeling rather than the deed of another man. In his grief the scop comforts himself by recalling the afflictions of various heroes, and he ends each stanza with the refrain:

That sorrow he endured; this also may I.

Among the best of the early poems are: "The Ruined City," reflecting the feeling of one who looks on crumbling walls that were once the abode of human ambition; "The Seafarer," a chantey of the deep, which ends with an allegory comparing life to a sea voyage; "The Wanderer," which is the plaint of one who has lost home, patron, ambition, and as the easiest way out of his difficulty turns _eardstappa_, an "earth-hitter" or tramp; "The Husband's Message," which is the oldest love song in our literature; and a few ballads and battle songs, such as "The Battle of Brunanburh"

(familiar to us in Tennyson's translation) and "The Fight at Finnsburgh,"

which was mentioned by the gleemen in _Beowulf_, and which was then probably as well known as "The Charge of the Light Brigade" is to modern Englishmen.

Another early war song, "The Battle of Maldon" or "Byrhtnoth's Death," has seldom been rivaled in savage vigor or in the expression of deathless loyalty to a chosen leader. The climax of the poem is reached when the few survivors of an uneven battle make a ring of spears about their fallen chief, shake their weapons in the face of an overwhelming horde of Danes, while Byrhtwold, "the old comrade," chants their defiance:

The sterner shall thought be, the bolder our hearts, The greater the mood as lessens our might.

We know not when or by whom this stirring battle cry was written. It was copied under date of 991 in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, and is commonly called the swan song of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The lion song would be a better name for it.

LATER PROSE AND POETRY. The works we have just considered were wholly pagan in spirit, but all reference to Thor or other G.o.ds was excluded by the monks who first wrote down the scop's poetry.

With the coming of these monks a reform swept over pagan England, and literature reflected the change in a variety of ways. For example, early Anglo-Saxon poetry was mostly warlike, for the reason that the various earldoms were in constant strife; but now the peace of good will was preached, and moral courage, the triumph of self-control, was exalted above mere physical hardihood. In the new literature the adventures of Columb or Aidan or Brendan were quite as thrilling as any legends of Beowulf or Sigard, but the climax of the adventure was spiritual, and the emphasis was always on moral heroism.

Another result of the changed condition was that the unlettered scop, who carried his whole stock of poetry in his head, was replaced by the literary monk, who had behind him the immense culture of the Latin language, and who was interested in world history or Christian doctrine rather than in tribal fights or pagan mythology. These monks were capable men; they understood the appeal of pagan poetry, and their motto was, "Let nothing good be wasted." So they made careful copy of the scop's best songs (else had not a shred of early poetry survived), and so the pagan's respect for womanhood, his courage, his loyalty to a chief,--all his virtues were recognized and turned to religious account in the new literature. Even the beautiful pagan scrolls, or "dragon knots," once etched on a warrior's sword, were reproduced in glowing colors in the initial letters of the monk's illuminated Gospel.

A third result of the peaceful conquest of the missionaries was that many monasteries were established in Britain, each a center of learning and of writing. So arose the famous Northumbrian School of literature, to which we owe the writings of Bede, Caedmon, Cynewulf and others a.s.sociated with certain old monasteries, such as Peterborough, Jarrow, York and Whitby, all north of the river Humber.

BEDE. The good work of the monks is finely exemplified in the life of the Venerable Bede, or Baeda (_cir_. 673-735), who is well called the father of English learning. As a boy he entered the Benedictine monastery at Jarrow; the temper of his manhood may be judged from a single sentence of his own record:

"While attentive to the discipline of mine order and the daily care of singing in the church, my constant delight was in learning or teaching or writing."

It is hardly too much to say that this gentle scholar was for half a century the teacher of Europe. He collected a large library of ma.n.u.scripts; he was the author of some forty works, covering the whole field of human knowledge in his day; and to his school at Jarrow came hundreds of pupils from all parts of the British Isles, and hundreds more from the Continent.

Of all his works the most notable is the so-called "Ecclesiastical History"

(_Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum_) which should be named the "History of the Race of Angles." This book marks the beginning of our literature of knowledge, and to it we are largely indebted for what we know of English history from the time of Caesar's invasion to the early part of the eighth century.

All the extant works of Bede are in Latin, but we are told by his pupil Cuthbert that he was "skilled in our English songs," that he made poems and translated the Gospel of John into English. These works, which would now be of priceless value, were all destroyed by the plundering Danes.

As an example of Bede's style, we translate a typical pa.s.sage from his History. The scene is the Saxon _Witenagemot_, or council of wise men, called by King Edward (625) to consider the doctrine of Paulinus, who had been sent from Rome by Pope Gregory. The first speaker is Coifi, a priest of the old religion:

"Consider well, O king, this new doctrine which is preached to us; for I now declare, what I have learned for certain, that the old religion has no virtue in it. For none of your people has been more diligent than I in the wors.h.i.+p of our G.o.ds; yet many receive more favors from you, and are preferred above me, and are more prosperous in their affairs. If the old G.o.ds had any discernment, they would surely favor me, since I have been most diligent in their service. It is expedient, therefore, if this new faith that is preached is any more profitable than the old, that we accept it without delay."

Whereupon Coifi, who as a priest has. .h.i.therto been obliged to ride upon an a.s.s with wagging ears, calls loudly for a horse, a prancing horse, a stallion, and cavorts off, a crowd running at his heels, to hurl a spear into the shrine where he lately wors.h.i.+ped. He is a good type of the political demagogue, who clamors for progress when he wants an office, and whose spear is more likely to be hurled at the back of a friend than at the breast of an enemy.

Then a pagan chief rises to speak, and we bow to a n.o.bler motive. His allegory of the mystery of life is like a strain of Anglo-Saxon poetry; it moves us deeply, as it moved his hearers ten centuries ago:

"This present life of man, O king, in comparison with the time that is hidden from us, is as the flight of a sparrow through the room where you sit at supper, with companions around you and a good fire on the hearth. Outside are the storms of wintry rain and snow. The sparrow flies in at one opening, and instantly out at another: whilst he is within he is sheltered from the winter storms, but after a moment of pleasant weather he speeds from winter back to winter again, and vanishes from your sight into the darkness whence he came. Even so the life of man appears for a little time; but of what went before and of what comes after we are wholly ignorant. If this new religion can teach us anything of greater certainty, it surely deserves to be followed." [Footnote: Bede, _Historia_, Book II, chap xiii, a free translation]

CaeDMON (SEVENTH CENTURY). In a beautiful chapter of Bede's History we may read how Caedmon (d. 680) discovered his gift of poetry. He was, says the record, a poor unlettered servant of the Abbess Hilda, in her monastery at Whitby. At that time (and here is an interesting commentary on monastic culture) singing and poetry were so familiar that, whenever a feast was given, a harp would be brought in, and each monk or guest would in turn entertain the company with a song or poem to his own musical accompaniment.

But Caedmon could not sing, and when he saw the harp coming down the table he would slip away ashamed, to perform his humble duties in the monastery:

"Now it happened once that he did this thing at a certain festivity, and went out to the stable to care for the horses, this duty being a.s.signed him for that night. As he slept at the usual time one stood by him, saying, 'Caedmon, sing me something.' He answered, 'I cannot sing, 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 that one said, 'Sing the beginning of created things.' Thereupon Caedmon began to sing verses that he had never heard before, of this import:

Nu scylun hergan hefaenriches ward ...

Now shall we hallow the warden of heaven, He the Creator, he the Allfather, Deeds of his might and thoughts of his mind...."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CaeDMON CROSS AT WHITBY ABBEY]

In the morning he remembered the words, and came humbly to the monks to recite the first recorded Christian hymn in our language. And a very n.o.ble hymn it is. The monks heard him in wonder, and took him to the Abbess Hilda, who gave order that Caedmon should receive instruction and enter the monastery as one of the brethren. Then the monks expounded to him the Scriptures. He in turn, reflecting on what he had heard, echoed it back to the monks "in such melodious words that his teachers became his pupils."

So, says the record, the whole course of Bible history was turned into excellent poetry.

About a thousand years later, in the days of Milton, an Anglo-Saxon ma.n.u.script was discovered containing a metrical paraphrase of the books of Genesis, Exodus and Daniel, and these were supposed to be some of the poems mentioned in Bede's narrative. A study of the poems (now known as the Caedmonian Cycle) leads to the conclusion that they were probably the work of two or three writers, and it has not been determined what part Caedmon had in their composition. The n.o.bility of style in the Genesis poem and the picturesque account of the fallen angels (which reappears in _Paradise Lost_) have won for Caedmon his designation as the Milton of the Anglo-Saxon period. [Footnote: A friend of Milton, calling himself Franciscus Junius, first printed the Caedmon poems in Antwerp (_cir_.

1655) during Milton's lifetime. The Puritan poet was blind at the time, and it is not certain that he ever saw or heard the poems; yet there are many parallelisms in the earlier and later works which warrant the conclusion that Milton was influenced by Caedmon's work.]

CYNEWULF (EIGHTH CENTURY). There is a variety of poems belonging to the Cynewulf Cycle, and of some of these Cynewulf (born _cir_. 750) was certainly the author, since he wove his name into the verses in the manner of an acrostic. Of Cynewulf's life we know nothing with certainty; but from various poems which are attributed to him, and which undoubtedly reflect some personal experience, scholars have constructed the following biography,--which may or may not be true.

In his early life Cynewulf was probably a wandering scop of the old pagan kind, delighting in wild nature, in adventure, in the clamor of fighting men. To this period belong his "Riddles" [Footnote: These riddles are ancient conundrums, in which some familiar object, such as a bow, a s.h.i.+p, a storm las.h.i.+ng the sh.o.r.e, the moon riding the clouds like a Viking's boat, is described in poetic language, and the last line usually calls on the hearer to name the object described. See Cook and Tinker, _Translations from Old English Poetry_.] and his vigorous descriptions of the sea and of battle, which show hardly a trace of Christian influence. Then came trouble to Cynewulf, perhaps in the ravages of the Danes, and some deep spiritual experience of which he writes in a way to remind us of the Puritan age:

"In the prison of the night I pondered with myself. I was stained with my own deeds, bound fast in my sins, hard smitten with sorrows, walled in by miseries."

A wondrous vision of the cross, "brightest of beacons," shone suddenly through his darkness, and led him forth into light and joy. Then he wrote his "Vision of the Rood" and probably also _Juliana_ and _The Christ_. In the last period of his life, a time of great serenity, he wrote _Andreas_, a story of St. Andrew combining religious instruction with extraordinary adventure; _Elene_, which describes the search for the cross on which Christ died, and which is a prototype of the search for the Holy Grail; and other poems of the same general kind. [Footnote: There is little agreement among scholars as to who wrote most of these poems. The only works to which Cynewulf signs his name are _The Christ_, _Elene_, _Juliana_ and _Fates of the Apostles_. All others are doubtful, and our biography of Cynewulf is largely a matter of pleasant speculation.] Aside from the value of these works as a reflection of Anglo-Saxon ideals, they are our best picture of Christianity as it appeared in England during the eighth and ninth centuries.

ALFRED THE GREAT (848-901). We shall understand the importance of Alfred's work if we remember how his country fared when he became king of the West Saxons, in 871. At that time England lay at the mercy of the Danish sea-rovers. Soon after Bede's death they fell upon Northumbria, hewed out with their swords a place of settlement, and were soon lords of the whole north country. Being pagans ("Thor's men" they called themselves) they sacked the monasteries, burned the libraries, made a lurid end of the civilization which men like Columb and Bede had built up in North-Humberland. Then they pushed southward, and were in process of paganizing all England when they were turned back by the heroism of Alfred.

How he accomplished his task, and how from his capital at Winchester he established law and order in England, is recorded in the histories. We are dealing here with literature, and in this field Alfred is distinguished in two ways: first, by his preservation of early English poetry; and second, by his own writing, which earned for him the t.i.tle of father of English prose. Finding that some fragments of poetry had escaped the fire of the Danes, he caused search to be made for old ma.n.u.scripts, and had copies made of all that were legible. [Footnote: These copies were made in Alfred's dialect (West Saxon) not in the Northumbrian dialect in which they were first written.] But what gave Alfred deepest concern was that in all his kingdom there were few priests and no laymen who could read or write their own language. As he wrote sadly:

"King Alfred sends greeting to Bishop Werfrith in words of love and friends.h.i.+p. Let it be known to thee that it often comes to my mind what wise men and what happy times were formerly in England, ... I remember what I saw before England had been ravaged and burned, how churches throughout the whole land were filled with treasures of books. And there was also a mult.i.tude of G.o.d's servants, but these had no knowledge of the books: they could not understand them because they were not written in their own language. It was as if the books said, 'Our fathers who once occupied these places loved wisdom, and through it they obtained wealth and left it to us. We see here their footprints, but we cannot follow them, and therefore have we lost both their wealth and their wisdom, because we would not incline our hearts to their example.' When I remember this, I marvel that good and wise men who were formerly in England, and who had learned these books, did not translate them into their own language. Then I answered myself and said, 'They never thought that their children would be so careless, or that learning would so decay.'" [Footnote: A free version of part of Alfred's preface to his translation of Pope Gregory's _Cura Pastoralis_, which appeared in English as the Hirdeboc or Shepherd's Book.]

To remedy the evil, Alfred ordered that every freeborn Englishman should learn to read and write his own language; but before he announced the order he followed it himself. Rather late in his boyhood he had learned to spell out an English book; now with immense difficulty he took up Latin, and translated the best works for the benefit of his people. His last notable work was the famous _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_.

[Sidenote: ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE]

At that time it was customary in monasteries to keep a record of events which seemed to the monks of special importance, such as the coming of a bishop, the death of a king, an eclipse of the moon, a battle with the Danes. Alfred found such a record at Winchester, rewrote it (or else caused it to be rewritten) with numerous additions from Bede's History and other sources, and so made a fairly complete chronicle of England. This was sent to other monasteries, where it was copied and enlarged, so that several different versions have come down to us. The work thus begun was continued after Alfred's death, until 1154, and is the oldest contemporary history possessed by any modern nation in its own language.

ANGLO-NORMAN OR MIDDLE-ENGLISH PERIOD (1066-1350)

SPECIMENS OF THE LANGUAGE. A glance at the following selections will show how Anglo-Saxon was slowly approaching our English speech of to-day. The first is from a religious book called _Ancren Riwle_ (Rule of the Anch.o.r.esses, _cir_. 1225). The second, written about a century later, is from the riming chronicle, or verse history, of Robert Manning or Robert of Brunne. In it we note the appearance of rime, a new thing in English poetry, borrowed from the French, and also a few words, such as "solace,"

which are of foreign origin:

"Hwoso hevide iseid to Eve, theo heo werp hire eien therone, 'A!

wend te awei; thu worpest eien o thi death!' hwat heved heo ionswered? 'Me leove sire, ther havest wouh. Hwarof kalenges tu me?