English literature, in the etymological sense of the word, had, so far
as we know, no existence until Christian times. There is no evidence
either that the heathen English had adopted the Roman alphabet, or that
they had learned to employ their native monumental script (the runes) on
materials suitable for the writing of continuous compositions of
considerable length.
It is, however, certain that in the pre-literary period at least one
species of poetic art had attained a high degree of development, and
that an extensive body of poetry was handed down--not, indeed, with
absolute fixity of form or substance--from generation to generation.
This unwritten poetry was the work of minstrels who found their
audiences in the halls of kings and nobles. Its themes were the exploits
of heroes belonging to the royal houses of Germanic Europe, with which
its listeners claimed kinship. Its metre was the alliterative long line,
the lax rhythm of which shows that it was intended, not to be sung to
regular melodies, but to be recited--probably with some kind of
instrumental accompaniment. Of its beauty and power we may judge from
the best passages in _Beowulf_ (q.v.); for there can be little doubt
that this poem gained nothing and lost much in the process of literary
redaction.
The conversion of the people to Christianity necessarily involved the
decline of the minstrelsy that celebrated the glories of heathen times.
Yet the descendants of Woden, even when they were devout Christians,
would not easily lose all interest in the achievements of their kindred
of former days. Chaucer's knowledge of "the song of Wade" is one proof
among others that even so late as the 14th century the deeds of Germanic
heroes had not ceased to be recited in minstrel verse. The paucity of
the extant remains of Old English heroic poetry is no argument to the
contrary. The wonder is that any of it has survived at all. We may well
believe that the professional reciter would, as a rule, be jealous of
any attempt to commit to writing the poems which he had received by
tradition or had himself composed. The clergy, to whom we owe the
writing and the preservation of the Old English MSS., would only in rare
instances be keenly interested in secular poetry. We possess, in fact,
portions of four narrative poems, treating of heroic legend--_Beowulf_,
_Widsith_, _Finnesburh_ and _Waldere_. The second of these has no
poetical merit, but great archaeological interest. It is an enumeration
of the famous kings known to German tradition, put into the mouth of a
minstrel (named Widsith, "far-travelled"), who claims to have been at
many of their courts and to have been rewarded by them for his song. The
list includes historical persons such as Ermanaric and Alboin, who
really lived centuries apart, but (with the usual chronological
vagueness of tradition) are treated as contemporaries. The extant
fragment of _Finnesburh_ (50 lines) is a brilliant battle piece,
belonging to a story of which another part is introduced episodically in
_Beowulf_. _Waldere_, of which we have two fragments (together 68 lines)
is concerned with Frankish and Burgundian traditions based on events of
the 5th century; the hero is the "Waltharius" of Ekkehart's famous Latin
epic. The English poem may possibly be rather a literary composition
than a genuine example of minstrel poetry, but the portions that have
survived are hardly inferior to the best passages of _Beowulf_.
It may reasonably be assumed that the same minstrels who entertained the
English kings and nobles with the recital of ancient heroic traditions
would also celebrate in verse the martial deeds of their own patrons and
their immediate ancestors. Probably there may have existed an abundance
of poetry commemorative of events in the conquest of Britain and the
struggle with the Danes. Two examples only have survived, both belonging
to the 10th century: The _Battle of Brunanburh_, which has been greatly
over-praised by critics who were unaware that its striking phrases and
compounds are mere traditional echoes; and the _Battle of Maldon_, the
work of a truly great poet, of which unhappily only a fragment has been
preserved.
One of the marvels of history is the rapidity and thoroughness with
which Christian civilization was adopted by the English. Augustine
landed in 597; forty years later was born an Englishman, Aldhelm, who in
the judgment of his contemporaries throughout the Christian world was
the most accomplished scholar and the finest Latin writer of his time.
In the next generation England produced in Bede (Baeda) a man who in
solidity and variety of knowledge, and in literary power, had for
centuries no rival in Europe. Aldhelm and Bede are known to us only from
their Latin writings, though the former is recorded to have written
vernacular poetry of great merit. The extant Old English literature is
almost entirely Christian, for the poems that belong to an earlier
period have been expurgated and interpolated in a Christian sense. From
the writings that have survived, it would seem as if men strove to
forget that England had ever been heathen. The four deities whose names
are attached to the days of the week are hardly mentioned at all. The
names Thunor and Tiw are sometimes used to translate the Latin Jupiter
and Mars; Woden has his place (but not as a god) in the genealogies of
the kings, and his name occurs once in a magical poem, but that is all.
Bede, as a historian, is obliged to tell the story of the conversion;
but the only native divinities he mentions are the goddesses Hreth and
Eostre, and all we learn about them is that they gave their names to
Hrethemonath (March) and Easter. That superstitious practices of heathen
origin long survived among the people is shown by the acts of church
councils and by a few poems of a magical nature that have been
preserved; but, so far as can be discovered, the definite worship of the
ancient gods quickly died out. English heathenism perished without
leaving a record.
The Old English religious poetry was written, probably without
exception, in the cloister, and by men who were familiar with the Bible
and with Latin devotional literature. Setting aside the wonderful _Dream
of the Rood_, it gives little evidence of high poetic genius, though
much of it is marked by a degree of culture and refinement that we
should hardly have expected. Its material and thought are mainly derived
from Latin sources; its expression is imitated from the native heroic
poetry. Considering that a great deal of Latin verse was written by
Englishmen in the 7th and succeeding centuries, and that in one or two
poems the line is actually composed of an English and a Latin hemistich
rhyming together, it seems strange that the Latin influence on Old
English versification should have been so small. The alliterative long
line is throughout the only metre employed, and although the laws of
alliteration and rhythm were less rigorously obeyed in the later than in
the earlier poetry, there is no trace of approximation to the structure
of Latin verse. It is true that, owing to imitation of the Latin hymns
of the church, rhyme came gradually to be more and more frequently used
as an ornament of Old English verse; but it remained an ornament only,
and never became an essential feature. The only poem in which rhyme is
employed throughout is one in which sense is so completely sacrificed to
sound that a translation would hardly be possible. It was not only in
metrical respects that the Old English religious poetry remained
faithful to its native models. The imagery and the diction are mainly
those of the old heroic poetry, and in some of the poems Christ and the
saints are presented, often very incongruously, under the aspect of
Germanic warriors. Nearly all the religious poetry that has any
considerable religious value seems to have been written in Northumbria
during the 8th century. The remarkably vigorous poem of _Judith_,
however, is certainly much later; and the _Exodus_, though early, seems
to be of southern origin. For a detailed account of the Old English
sacred poetry, the reader is referred to the articles on CAeDMON and
CYNEWULF, to one or other of whom nearly every one of the poems, except
those of obviously late date, has at some time been attributed.
The Riddles (q.v.) of the Exeter Book resemble the religious poetry in
being the work of scholars, but they bear much more decidedly the
impress of the native English character. Some of them rank among the
most artistic and pleasing productions of Old English poetry. The Exeter
Book contains also several pieces of a gnomic character, conveying
proverbial instruction in morality and worldly wisdom. Their morality is
Christian, but it is not unlikely that some of the wise sayings they
contain may have come down by tradition from heathen times. The very
curious _Dialogue of Solomon and Saturn_ may be regarded as belonging to
the same class.
The most original and interesting portion of the Old English literary
poetry is the group of dramatic monologues--_The Banished Wife's
Complaint_, _The Husband's Message_, _The Wanderer_, _The Seafarer_,
_Deor_ and _Wulf and Eadwacer_. The date of these compositions is
uncertain, though their occurrence in the Exeter Book shows that they
cannot be later than the 10th century. That they are all of one period
is at least unlikely, but they are all marked by the same peculiar tone
of pathos. The monodramatic form renders it difficult to obtain a clear
idea of the situation of the supposed speakers. It is not improbable
that most of these poems may relate to incidents of heroic legend, with
which the original readers were presumed to be acquainted. This,
however, can be definitely affirmed only in the case of the two short
pieces--_Deor_ and _Wulf and Eadwacer_--which have something of a lyric
character, being the only examples in Old English of strophic structure
and the use of the refrain. _Wulf and Eadwacer_, indeed, exhibits a
still further development in the same direction, the monotony of the
long line metre being varied by the admission of short lines formed by
the suppression of the second hemistich. The highly developed art
displayed in this remarkable poem gives reason for believing that the
existing remains of Old English poetry very inadequately represent its
extent and variety.
While the origins of English poetry go back to heathen times, English
prose may be said to have had its effective beginning in the reign of
Alfred. It is of course true that vernacular prose of some kind was
written much earlier. The English laws of Aethelberht of Kent, though it
is perhaps unlikely that they were written down, as is commonly
supposed, in the lifetime of Augustine (died A.D. 604), or even in that
of the king (d. 616), were well known to Bede; and even in the
12th-century transcript that has come down to us, their crude and
elliptical style gives evidence of their high antiquity. Later kings of
Kent and of Wessex followed the example of publishing their laws in the
native tongue. Bede is known to have translated the beginning of the
gospel of John (down to vi. 9). The early part of the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle (q.v.) is probably founded partly on prose annals of
pre-Alfredian date. But although the amount of English prose written
between the beginning of the 7th and the middle of the 9th century may
have been considerable, Latin continued to be regarded as the
appropriate vehicle for works of any literary pretension. If the English
clergy had retained the scholarship which they possessed in the days of
Aldhelm and Bede, the creation of a vernacular prose literature would
probably have been longer delayed; for while Alfred certainly was not
indifferent to the need of the laity for instruction, the evil that he
was chiefly concerned to combat was the ignorance of their spiritual
guides.
Of the works translated by him and the scholars whom he employed, _St
Gregory's Pastoral Care_ and his _Dialogues_ (the latter rendered by
Bishop Werferth) are expressly addressed to the priesthood; if the other
translations were intended for a wider circle of readers, they are all
(not excepting the secular _History of Orosius_) essentially religious
in purpose and spirit. In the interesting preface to the _Pastoral
Care_, in the important accounts of Northern lands and peoples inserted
in the _Orosius_, and in the free rendering and amplification of the
_Consolation_ of Boethius and of the _Soliloquies_ of Augustine, Alfred
appears as an original writer. Other fruits of his activity are his Laws
(preceded by a collection of those of his 7th-century predecessor, Ine
of Wessex), and the beginnings of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The Old
English prose after Alfred is entirely of clerical authorship; even the
Laws, so far as their literary form is concerned, are hardly to be
regarded as an exception. Apart from the Chronicle (see ANGLO-SAXON
CHRONICLE), the bulk of this literature consists of translations from
Latin and of homilies and saints' lives, the substance of which is
derived from sources mostly accessible to us in their original form; it
has therefore for us little importance except from the philological
point of view. This remark may be applied, in the main, even to the
writings of Aelfric, notwithstanding the great interest which attaches to
his brilliant achievement in the development of the capacities of the
native language for literary expression. The translation of the gospels,
though executed in Aelfric's time (about 1000), is by other hands. The
sermons of his younger contemporary, Archbishop Wulfstan, are marked by
earnestness and eloquence, and contain some passages of historical
value.
From the early years of the 11th century we possess an encyclopaedic
manual of the science of the time--chronology, astronomy, arithmetic,
metre, rhetoric and ethics--by the monk Byrhtferth, a pupil of Abbo of
Fleury. It is a compilation, but executed with intelligence. The
numerous works on medicine, the properties of herbs, and the like, are
in the main composed of selections from Latin treatises; so far as they
are original, they illustrate the history of superstition rather than
that of science. It is interesting to observe that they contain one or
two formulas of incantations in Irish.
Two famous works of fiction, the romance of _Apollonius of Tyre_ and the
_Letter of Alexander_, which in their Latin form had much influence on
the later literature of Europe, were Englished in the 11th century with
considerable skill. To the same period belongs the curious tract on _The
Wonders of the East_. In these works, and some minor productions of the
time, we see that the minds of Englishmen were beginning to find
interest in other than religious subjects.
The crowding of the English monasteries by foreigners, which was one of
the results of the Norman Conquest, brought about a rapid arrest of the
development of the vernacular literature. It was not long before the
boys trained in the monastic schools ceased to learn to read and write
their native tongue, and learned instead to read and write French. The
effects of this change are visible in the rapid alteration of the
literary language. The artificial tradition of grammatical correctness
lost its hold; the archaic literary vocabulary fell into disuse; and
those who wrote English at all wrote as they spoke, using more and more
an extemporized phonetic spelling based largely on French analogies. The
12th century is a brilliant period in the history of Anglo-Latin
literature, and many works of merit were written in French (see
ANGLO-NORMAN). But vernacular literature is scanty and of little
originality. The _Peterborough Chronicle_, it is true, was continued
till 1154, and its later portions, while markedly exemplifying the
changes in the language, contain some really admirable writing. But it
is substantially correct to say that from this point until the age of
Chaucer vernacular prose served no other purpose than that of popular
religious edification. For light on the intellectual life of the nation
during this period we must look mainly to the works written in Latin.
The homilies of the 12th century are partly modernized transcripts from
Aelfric and other older writers, partly translations from French and
Latin; the remainder is mostly commonplace in substance and clumsy in
expression. At the beginning of the 13th century the _Ancren Riwle_
(q.v.), a book of counsel for nuns, shows true literary genius, and is
singularly interesting in its substance and spirit; but notwithstanding
the author's remarkable mastery of English expression, his culture was
evidently French rather than English. Some minor religious prose works
of the same period are not without merit. But these examples had no
literary following. In the early 14th century the writings of Richard
Rolle and his school attained great popularity. The profound influence
which they exercised on later religious thought, and on the development
of prose style, has seldom been adequately recognized. The _Ayenbite of
Inwyt_ (see MICHEL, DAN), a wretchedly unintelligent translation
(finished in 1340) from Frere Lorens's _Somme des vices et des vertus_,
is valuable to the student of language, but otherwise worthless.
The break in the continuity of literary tradition, induced by the
Conquest, was no less complete with regard to poetry than with regard to
prose. The poetry of the 13th and the latter part of the 12th century
was uninfluenced by the written works of Old English poets, whose
archaic diction had to a great extent become unintelligible. But there
is no ground to suppose that the succession of popular singers and
reciters was ever interrupted. In the north-west, indeed, the old
recitative metre seems to have survived in oral tradition, with little
more alteration than was rendered necessary by the changes in the
language, until the middle of the 14th century, when it was again
adopted by literary versifiers. In the south this metre had greatly
degenerated in strictness before the Conquest, but, with gradually
increasing laxity in the laws of alliteration and rhythm, it continued
long in use. It is commonly believed, with great intrinsic probability
but with scanty actual evidence, that in the Old English period there
existed, beside the alliterative long line, other forms of verse adapted
not for recitation but for singing, used in popular lyrics and ballads
that were deemed too trivial for written record. The influence of native
popular poetic tradition, whether in the form of recited or of sung
verse, is clearly discernible in the earliest Middle English poems that
have been preserved. But the authors of these poems were familiar with
Latin, and probably spoke French as easily as their mother tongue; and
there was no longer any literary convention to restrain them from
adopting foreign metrical forms. The artless verses of the hermit
Godric, who died in 1170, exhibit in their metre the combined influence
of native rhythm and of that of Latin hymnology. The _Proverbs of
Alfred_, written about 1200, is (like the later _Proverbs of Hendyng_)
in style and substance a gnomic poem of the ancient Germanic type,
containing maxims some of which may be of immemorial antiquity; and its
rhythm is mainly of native origin. On the other hand, the solemn and
touching meditation known as the _Moral Ode_, which is somewhat earlier
in date, is in a metre derived from contemporary Latin verse--a line of
seven accents, broken by a caesura, and with feminine end-rhymes. In the
_Ormulum_ (see ORM) this metre (known as the septenarius) appears
without rhyme, and with a syllabic regularity previously without example
in English verse, the line (or distich, as it may be called with almost
equal propriety) having invariably fifteen syllables. In various
modified forms, the septenarius was a favourite measure throughout the
Middle English period. In the poetry of the 13th century the influence
of French models is conspicuous. The many devotional lyrics, some of
which, as the _Luve Ron_ of Thomas of Hales, have great beauty, show
this influence not only in their varied metrical form, but also in their
peculiar mystical tenderness and fervour. The _Story of Genesis and
Exodus_, the substance of which is taken from the Bible and Latin
commentators, derives its metre chiefly from French. Its poetical merit
is very small. The secular poetry also received a new impulse from
France. The brilliant and sprightly dialogue of the _Owl and
Nightingale_, which can hardly be dated later than about 1230, is a
"contention" of the type familiar in French and Provencal literature.
The "Gallic" type of humour may be seen in various other writings of
this period, notably in the _Land of Cockaigne_, a vivacious satire on
monastic self-indulgence, and in the fabliau of _Dame Siviz_, a story of
Eastern origin, told with almost Chaucerian skill. Predominantly, though
not exclusively French in metrical structure, are the charming love
poems collected in a MS. (Harl. 2253) written about 1320 in
Herefordshire, some of which (edited in T. Wright's _Specimens of Lyric
Poetry_) find a place in modern popular anthologies. It is noteworthy
that they are accompanied by some French lyrics very similar in style.
The same MS. contains, besides some religious poetry, a number of
political songs of the time of Edward II. They are not quite the
earliest examples of their kind; in the time of the Barons' War the
popular cause had had its singers in English as well as in French.
Later, the victories of Edward III. down to the taking of Guisnes in
1352, were celebrated by the Yorkshireman Laurence Minot in alliterative
verse with strophic arrangement and rhyme.
At the very beginning of the 13th century a new species of composition,
the metrical chronicle, was introduced into English literature. The huge
work of Layamon, a history (mainly legendary) of Britain from the time
of the mythical Brutus till after the mission of Augustine, is a free
rendering of the Norman-French _Brut_ of Wace, with extensive additions
from traditional sources. Its metre seems to be a degenerate survival of
the Old English alliterative line, gradually modified in the course of
the work by assimilation to the regular syllabic measure of the French
original. Unquestionable evidence of the knowledge of the poem on the
part of later writers is scarce, but distinct echoes of its diction
appear in the chronicle ascribed to Robert of Gloucester, written in
rhymed septenary measures about 1300. This work, founded in its earlier
part on the Latin historians of the 12th century, is an independent
historical source of some value for the events of the writer's own
times. The succession of versified histories of England was continued by
Thomas Bek of Castleford in Yorkshire (whose work still awaits an
editor), and by Robert Mannyng of Brunne (Bourne, Lincolnshire).
Mannyng's chronicle, finished in 1338, is a translation, in its earlier
part from Wace's _Brut_, and in its later part from an Anglo-French
chronicle (still extant) written by Peter Langtoft, canon of
Bridlington.
Not far from the year 1300 (for the most part probably earlier rather
than later) a vast mass of hagiological and homiletic verse was produced
in divers parts of England. To Gloucester belongs an extensive series
of Lives of Saints, metrically and linguistically closely resembling
Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, and perhaps wholly or in part of the
same authorship. A similar collection was written in the north of
England, as well as a large body of homilies showing considerable poetic
skill, and abounding in exempla or illustrative stories. Of _exempla_
several prose collections had already been made in Anglo-French, and
William of Wadington's poem _Manuel des peches_, which contains a great
number of them, was translated in 1303 by Robert Mannyng already
mentioned, with some enlargement of the anecdotic element, and frequent
omissions of didactic passages. The great rhyming chronicle of Scripture
history entitled _Cursor Mundi_ (q.v.) was written in the north about
this time. It was extensively read and transcribed, and exercised a
powerful influence on later writers down to the end of the 14th century.
The remaining homiletic verse of this period is too abundant to be
referred to in detail; it will be enough to mention the sermons of
William of Shoreham, written in strophic form, but showing little either
of metrical skill or poetic feeling. To the next generation belongs the
_Pricke of Conscience_ by Richard Rolle, the influence of which was not
less powerful than that of the author's prose writings.
Romantic poetry, which in French had been extensively cultivated, both
on the continent and in England from the early years of the 12th
century, did not assume a vernacular form till about 1250. In the next
hundred years its development was marvellously rapid. Of the vast mass
of metrical romances produced during this period no detailed account
need here be attempted (see ROMANCE, and articles, &c. referred to;
ARTHURIAN ROMANCE). Native English traditions form the basis of _King
Horn_, _Guy of Warwick_, _Bevis of Hamtoun_ and _Havelok_, though the
stories were first put into literary form by Anglo-Norman poets. The
popularity of these home-grown tales (with which may be classed the
wildly fictitious _Coer de Lion_) was soon rivalled by that of
importations from France. The English rendering of _Floris and
Blancheflur_ (a love-romance of Greek origin) is found in the same MS.
that contains the earliest copy of _King Horn_. Before the end of the
century, the French "matter of Britain" was represented in English by
the Southern _Arthur and Merlin_ and the Northern _Tristram_ and _Yvaine
and Gawin_, the "matter of France" by _Roland and Vernagu_ and _Otuel_;
the _Alexander_ was also translated, but in this instance the immediate
original was an Anglo-French and not a continental poem. The tale of
Troy did not come into English till long afterwards. The Auchinleck MS.,
written about 1330, contains no fewer than 14 poetical romances; there
were many others in circulation, and the number continued to grow. About
the middle of the 14th century, the Old English alliterative long line,
which for centuries had been used only in unwritten minstrel poetry,
emerges again in literature. One of the earliest poems in this revived
measure, _Wynnere and Wastour_, written in 1352, is by a professional
reciter-poet, who complains bitterly that original minstrel poetry no
longer finds a welcome in the halls of great nobles, who prefer to
listen to those who recite verses not of their own making. About the
same date the metre began to be employed by men of letters for the
translation of romance--_William of Palerne_ and _Joseph of Arimathea_
from the French, _Alexander_ from Latin prose. The later development of
alliterative poetry belongs mainly to the age of Chaucer.
The extent and character of the literature produced during the first
half of the 14th century indicate that the literary use of the native
tongue was no longer, as in the preceding age, a mere condescension to
the needs of the common people. The rapid disuse of French as the
ordinary medium of intercourse among the middle and higher ranks of
society, and the consequent substitution of English for French as the
vehicle of school instruction, created a widespread demand for
vernacular reading. The literature which arose in answer to this demand,
though it consisted mainly of translations or adaptations of foreign
works, yet served to develop the appreciation of poetic beauty, and to
prepare an audience in the near future for a poetry in which the genuine
thought and feeling of the nation were to find expression.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Only general works need be mentioned here. Those cited
contain lists of books for more detailed information. (1) For the
literature from the beginnings to Chaucer:--B. ten Brink, _Geschichte
der englischen Litteratur_, vol. i. 2nd ed., by A. Brandl (Strassburg,
1899) (English translation from the 1st ed. of 1877, by H.M. Kennedy,
London, 1883); _The Cambridge History of English Literature_, vol. i.
(1907). (2) For the Old English period:--R. Wulker, _Grundriss zur
Geschichte der angelsachsischen Litteratur_ (Leipzig, 1885); Stopford
A. Brooke, _English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman
Conquest_ (London, 1898); A. Brandl, "Altenglische Litteratur," in H.
Paul's _Grundriss der germanischen Philologie_, vol. ii. (2nd ed.,
Strassburg, 1908). (3) For the early Middle English Period:--H.
Morley, _English Writers_, vol. iii. (London, 1888; vols. i. and ii.,
dealing with the Old English period, cannot be recommended); A.
Brandl, "Mittelenglische Litteratur," in H. Paul's _Grundriss der
germanischen Philologie_, vol. ii. (1st ed., Strassburg, 1893); W.H.
Schofield, _English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer_
(London, 1906). (H. Br.)