ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE AND HISTORY.
The Lineage of the Anglo-Saxon. Earliest Saxon Poem. Metrical
Arrangement. Periphrasis and Alliteration. Beowulf. Caedmon. Other
Saxon Fragments. The Appearance of Bede.
THE LINEAGE OF THE ANGLO-SAXON.
The true origin of English literature is Saxon. Anglo-Saxon is the mother
tongue of the English language, or, to state its genealogy more
distinctly, and to show its family relations at a glance, take the
following divisions and subdivisions of the
TEUTONIC CLASS.
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High German branch. Low German branch. Scandinavian branch.
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Dead | Languages.
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Gothic. Old Dutch. Anglo-Saxon. Old Frisian. Old Saxon.
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English.
Without attempting an analysis of English to find the exact proportion of
Saxon words, it must be observed that Saxon is the root-language of
English; it might with propriety be called the oldest English; it has been
manipulated, modified, and developed in its contact with other
languages--remaining, however, _radically_ the same--to become our present
spoken language.
At this period of our inquiry, we have to do with the Saxon itself,
premising, however, that it has many elements from the Dutch, and that its
Scandinavian relations are found in many Danish words. The progress and
modifications of the language in that formative process which made it the
English, will be mentioned as we proceed in our inquiries.
In speaking of the Anglo-Saxon literature, we include a consideration also
of those works written in Latin which are products of the times, and bear
a part in the progress of the people and their literature. They are
exponents of the Saxon mind, frequently of more value than the vernacular
writings.
EARLIEST SAXON POEM.--The earliest literary monument in the Saxon language
is the poem called Beowulf, the author and antiquity of which are alike
unknown. It is at once a romantic legend and an instructive portraiture of
the earliest Saxon period--"an Anglo-Saxon poetical romance," says Sharon
Turner, "true in costume and manners, but with an invented story." Before
proceeding to a consideration of this poem, let us look for a moment at
some of the characteristics of Saxon poetry. As to its subject-matter, it
is not much of a love-song, that sentiment not being one of its chief
inspirations. The Saxon imagination was inflamed chiefly by the religious
and the heroic in war. As to its handling, it abounded in metaphor and
periphrasis, suggestive images, and parables instead of direct narrative.
METRICAL ARRANGEMENT.--As to metrical arrangement, Saxon poetry differed
from our modern English as well as from the classical models, in that
their poets followed no laws of metre, but arranged their vernacular
verses without any distinct rules, but simply to please the ear. "To such
a selection and arrangement of words as produced this effect, they added
the habit of frequently omitting the usual particles, and of conveying
their meaning in short and contracted phrases. The only artifices they
used were those of inversion and transition."[7] It is difficult to give
examples to those unacquainted with the language, but the following
extract may serve to indicate our meaning: it is taken from Beowulf:
Crist waer a cennijd
Cýninga wuldor
On midne winter:
Mære theoden!
Ece almihtig!
On thij eahteothan daeg
Hael end gehaten
Heofon ricet theard.
Christ was born
King of glory
In mid-winter:
Illustrious King!
Eternal, Almighty!
On the eighth day
Saviour was called,
Of Heaven's kingdom ruler.
PERIPHRASIS.--Their periphrasis, or finding figurative names for persons
and things, is common to the Norse poetry. Thus Caedmon, in speaking of
the ark, calls it the _sea-house, the palace of the ocean, the wooden
fortress_, and by many other periphrastic names.
ALLITERATION.--The Saxons were fond of alliteration, both in prose and
verse. They used it without special rules, but simply to satisfy their
taste for harmony in having many words beginning with the same letter; and
thus sometimes making an arbitrary connection between the sentences or
clauses in a discourse, e.g.:
Firum foldan;
Frea almihtig;
The ground for men
Almighty ruler.
The nearest approach to a rule was that three words in close connection
should begin with the same letter. The habit of ellipsis and transposition
is illustrated by the following sentence in Alfred's prose: "So doth the
moon with his pale light, that the bright stars he obscures in the
heavens;" which he thus renders in poetry:
With pale light
Bright stars
Moon lesseneth.
With this brief explanation, which is only intended to be suggestive to
the student, we return to Beowulf.
THE PLOT OF BEOWULF.--The poem contains six thousand lines, in which are
told the wonderful adventures of the valiant viking Beowulf, who is
supposed to have fallen in Jutland in the year 340. The Danish king
Hrothgar, in whose great hall banquet, song, and dance are ever going on,
is subjected to the stated visits of a giant, Grendel, a descendant of
Cain, who destroys the Danish knights and people, and against whom no
protection can be found.
Beowulf, the hero of the epic, appears. He is a great chieftain, the
_heorth-geneat_ (hearth-companion, or vassal) of a king named Higelac. He
assembles his companions, goes over the road of the swans (the sea) to
Denmark, or Norway, states his purpose to Hrothgar, and advances to meet
Grendel. After an indecisive battle with the giant, and a fierce struggle
with the giant's mother, who attacks him in the guise of a sea-wolf, he
kills her, and then destroys Grendel. Upon the death of Hrothgar he
receives his reward in being made King of the Danes.
With this occurrence the original poem ends: it is the oldest epic poem in
any modern language. At a later day, new cantos were added, which,
following the fortunes of the hero, record at length that he was killed by
a dragon. A digest and running commentary of the poem may be found in
Turner's Anglo-Saxons; and no one can read it without discerning the
history shining clearly out of the mists of fable. The primitive manners,
modes of life, forms of expression, are all historically delineated. In it
the intimate relations between the _king_ and his people are portrayed.
The Saxon _cyning_ is compounded of _cyn_, people, and _ing_, a son or
descendant; and this etymology gives the true conditions of their rule:
they were popular leaders--_elected_ in the witenagemot on the death of
their predecessors.[8] We observe, too, the spirit of adventure--a rude
knight-errantry--which characterized these northern sea-kings
that with such profit and for deceitful glory
labor on the wide sea explore its bays
amid the contests of the ocean in the deep waters
there they for riches till they sleep with their elders.
We may also notice the childish wonder of a rude, primitive, but brave
people, who magnified a neighboring monarch of great skill and strength,
or perhaps a malarious fen, into a giant, and who were pleased with a poem
which caters to that heroic mythus which no civilization can root out of
the human breast, and which gives at once charm and popularity to every
epic.
CAEDMON.--Next in order, we find the paraphrase of Scripture by _Caedmon_,
a monk of Whitby, who died about the year 680. The period in which he
lived is especially marked by the spread of Christianity in Britain, and
by a religious zeal mingled with the popular superstitions. The belief was
universal that holy men had the power to work miracles. The Bible in its
entire canon was known to few even among the ecclesiastics: treasure-house
as it was to the more studious clerics, it was almost a sealed book to the
common people. It would naturally be expected, then, that among the
earliest literary efforts would be found translations and paraphrases of
the most interesting portions of the Scripture narrative. It was in
accordance with the spirit of the age that these productions should be
attended with something of the marvellous, to give greater effect to the
doctrine, and be couched in poetic language, the especial delight of
people in the earlier ages of their history. Thus the writings of Caedmon
are explained: he was a poor serving-brother in the monastery of Whitby,
who was, or feigned to be, unable to improvise Scripture stories and
legends of the saints as his brethren did, and had recourse to a vision
before he exhibited his fluency.
In a dream, in a stall of oxen of which he was the appointed night-guard,
an angelic stranger asked him to sing. "I cannot sing," said Caedmon.
"Sing the creation," said the mysterious visitant. Feeling himself thus
miraculously aided, Caedmon paraphrased in his dream the Bible story of
the creation, and not only remembered the verses when he awoke, but found
himself possessed of the gift of song for all his days.
Sharon Turner has observed that the paraphrase of Caedmon "exhibits much
of a Miltonic spirit; and if it were clear that Milton had been familiar
with Saxon, we should be induced to think that he owed something to
Caedmon." And the elder D'Israeli has collated and compared similar
passages in the two authors, in his "Amenities of Literature."
Another remarkable Anglo-Saxon fragment is called _Judith_, and gives the
story of Judith and Holofernes, rendered from the Apocrypha, but with
circumstances, descriptions, and speeches invented by the unknown author.
It should be observed, as of historical importance, that the manners and
characters of that Anglo-Saxon period are applied to the time of Judith,
and so we have really an Anglo-Saxon romance, marking the progress and
improvement in their poetic art.
Among the other remains of this time are the death of _Byrhtnoth_, _The
Fight of Finsborough_, and the _Chronicle of King Lear and his Daughters_,
the last of which is the foundation of an old play, upon which
Shakspeare's tragedy of Lear is based.
It should here be noticed that Saxon literature was greatly influenced by
the conversion of the realm at the close of the sixth century from the
pagan religion of Woden to Christianity. It displayed no longer the fierce
genius of the Scalds, inculcating revenge and promising the rewards of
Walhalla; in spirit it was changed by the doctrine of love, and in form it
was softened and in some degree--but only for a time--injured by the
influence of the Latin, the language of the Church. At this time, also,
there was a large adoption of Latin words into the Saxon, especially in
theology and ecclesiastical matters.
THE ADVENT OF BEDE.--The greatest literary character of the Anglo-Saxon
period, and the one who is of most value in teaching us the history of the
times, both directly and indirectly, is the man who has been honored by
his age as the _venerable Bede_ or _Beda_. He was born at Yarrow, in the
year 673; and died, after a retired but active, pious, and useful life, in
735. He wrote an Ecclesiastical history of the English, and dedicated it
to the most glorious King Ceowulph of Northumberland, one of the monarchs
of the Saxon Heptarchy. It is in matter and spirit a Saxon work in a Latin
dress; and, although his work was written in Latin, he is placed among the
Anglo-Saxon authors because it is as an Englishman that he appears to us
in his subject, in the honest pride of race and country which he
constantly manifests, and in the historical information which he has
conveyed to us concerning the Saxons in England: of a part of the history
which he relates he was an _eye-witness_; and besides, his work soon
called forth several translations into Anglo-Saxon, among which that of
Alfred the Great is the most noted, and would be taken for an original
Saxon production.
It is worthy of remark, that after the decline of the Saxon literature,
Bede remained for centuries, both in the original Latin and in the Saxon
translations, a sealed and buried book; but in the later days, students of
English literature and history began to look back with eager pleasure to
that formative period prior to the Norman conquest, when English polity
and institutions were simple and few, and when their Saxon progenitors
were masters in the land.