:l I.ITKHAT. 





NCI.ISII LITERATURE I. 



BODUOTXO 



Tut. literature of Kn^lond is a collection of works of art, each 



ulu.h may In- tmlied separately, for the sake oi 

 lividu. oe, without regard to its connection with the 



. tlio circumstance* of its production. Such a study \\ill 

 . tin' tiisti' and judgment, and give pleasure in proportion 

 to tlio capacity of tho student; and it requires only diligence in 

 reading, and sufficient discernment to appreciate what is read. 

 Ml that a teacher can do to assist it, is to point out what aro 

 the works best worthy of study, and to call attention to some of 

 their more prominent beauties. This service wo hope to render 

 to such students in tho course of the following lessons, so far as 

 . >ur *paee permits US. 



Jtut those who would gn the full benefit of the study of 

 English literature must regard it from a wider point of view. 

 The literature of a country is one of tho most instructive parts 

 of its history. Every thoughtful student of history seeks to 

 know not only what men have done, but what they have thought 

 and felt. He seeks to know not merely the great external 

 events of the period ho is studying the wars, tho revolutions, 

 the religious controversies, the social struggles but also the 

 motives which influenced men, tho extent of their know- 

 ledge, their standard of right and wrong, their likes and dis- 

 likes : in short, he wishes to know not men's acts only, but men ; 

 and for this he must look chiefly to the literature they have left 

 behind them. Every student of English literature, then, ought 

 to endeavour, in all that ho reads, to read not only beautiful 

 poetry or eloquent prose, but history as well. 



It is not merely that he will find historical facts embedded in 

 what he reads, which ho might not meet with elsewhere, though 

 this is true. He will also find such facts related often by eye- 

 witnesses, and therefore with all that freshness and vividness of 

 description which stimulates the imagination and impresses the 

 memory. He will, moreover, be able to observe for himself, and 

 at first hand, what effect was produced upon men's minds at the 

 time by tho great events of history with which ho is familiar. 



All these things are of importance. But the connection be- 

 tween national history and a national literature lies much deeper 

 still ; and it is of the utmost importance that every student of 

 literature should at the outset clearly realise it. Every one must 

 observe that literature in England has not been like a river 

 flowing on in a steady and unbroken course ; but has ebbed and 

 flowed like the tide, though without tho regularity of tho tide. 

 In the days of Edward III., at tho close of the fourteenth 

 century, there was produced a great mass of literature, of which 

 Chaucer's poems are tho most important examples. For a 

 century afterwards there is almost a total blank. Then began 

 gradually the revival, which culminated in the days of Elizabeth 

 and James I. in an amount of literary life such as has never 

 been seen in England before or since- -the age of Shakespeare 

 and the great dramatists, of Spenser and the countless con- 

 temporary poets. And tho same alternation of activity and 

 depression is to be seen throughout tho whole history of our 

 literature. But what it is important for the student to observe 

 is, that these changes are not isolated or meaningless events. 

 Literary activity is only one of the many forms in which an 

 increased mental energy exhibits itself, and a period fertile in 

 great books is sure to be a period fertile in great deeds and 

 great changes. Thus the age which produced the poetry of 

 Chaucer was the same in which the feudal organisation of 

 society was broken up, the same in which tho national spirit 

 and vigour of England displayed itself in tho French conquests 

 of Edward III., the victories of Cressy and Poitiers ; and the 

 same in which Wycliffe led the first great religious reforma- 

 tion in England, the first rebellion against the superstitions of 

 the dark ages and tho corruptions of the clergy. The century 

 of literary dearth that followed was a century of national de- 

 pression, in which the country was desolated by the Wars of 

 the Hoses. The Elizabethan era, so rich in literary genius, 

 was also the era of the revival of classical learning, of the 

 Reformation, of the Spanish wars and the defeat of the Armada, 

 of the voyages of Drake and the other great navigators, and 

 of the first colonisation of America. 



But not only is tho amount of literary genius shown at different 

 times seen to be very different ; the character and spirit of tho 

 works produced varies not less, and this diversity is no less 



82 **. 



closely connected with the history of the times. Thai the i 

 exuberance of life and energy, seeking a vent for iUelf in eretj 

 direction, which in the days of Elizabeth and her soocenaor vent 

 English Bailors and adventurers about the world, discovering 

 strange land*, fighting half a> lawful warrion, half M pirate* 

 on the Spanish main, or colonising Virginia, is appar 

 all the Elizabethan dramatists, and above all in Shakespeare. 

 Their characteristics are activity of invention, freedom, and 

 variety. And the same patriotic pride and unity of "nfrVnnl 

 spirit which was shown when the Armada threatened our shores 

 is prominent in tho literature of tho period. It in the very key- 

 note of at least one of Shakespeare's plays, " Henry V." Bnt 

 Che next generation of Englishmen lived in a very different 

 world. England was no longer a. united nation. The king 

 Charles I. and his people have been alienated from one another, 

 the liberties of tho nation are at stake, the civil war ensue* ; 

 and the political contest is intensified and embittered by the 

 religious differences which are so closely connected with it. The 

 day is one in which every man is compelled to choose Ids ride in 

 a contest of surpassing importance ; and men do choose their 

 sides, and maintain them with rare earnestness and fidelity. 

 And how does this change of spirit in men show itself in litera- 

 ture ? The representative of tho literature of the age is MO ton. 

 Milton in power of genius falls behind none of the Elizabethan 

 poets, except Shakespeare himself ; but in tone and spirit his 

 works stand in the strongest contrast to theirs. Seriousness 

 of spirit, earnestness of purpose, and an intense realisation of 

 tho presence of the unseen, are the characteristics of everything 

 ho has left us. Nor is the change less instructive in the next 

 generation. The Commonwealth was followed by the Restora- 

 tion. The cavalier party became in the ascendant. A natural 

 reaction against the austerity of puritanism, combined with tho 

 evil example of a licentious court, introduced a tone of morality 

 lower than anything that had ever been known in England be- 

 fore ; and this is immediately reproduced in the literature of the 

 day. Dryden and the series of comedians whom we shall have 

 to describe hereafter are its chief representatives ; and they 

 stand in the most marked contrast to the writers of the pre- 

 vious generation, in the entire absence of any seriousness or 

 earnestness of purpose, and in their low moral tone. 



Nor is it only the changes and movements taking place 

 within our own country, which we may see thus faithfully re- 

 flected in the literature of each age. The study of literature 

 enlarges our view and enables us to watch the influence which 

 one nation has exercised upon another, either by means of its 

 living thinkers and writers, or by its older literature. Thus we 

 all read, as matter of history, that at the time of the first great 

 harvest of English literature, in the time of Edward HI., 

 tho chief impulse to literary activity both in England and else- 

 where was derived from Italy ; for in Italy had but shortly 

 before been produced the great works of Dante, Boccaccio, and 

 Petrarch. But the extent of this influence can only be appre- 

 ciated by reading Chaucer's poems, and observing how he one 

 of the most original of poets is indebted for his stories, his 

 metres, and to a large extent his style, to his Italian models. 

 This our readers will see more fully when we come to treat of 

 Chaucer's poems in detail. In the same way we read, as matter 

 of history, of the great effect produced in England, as elsewhere, 

 during the Elizabethan era, by the revived knowledge of classical 

 literature, through study of the originals by the few, through the 

 medium of translations with the many. But there is no way in 

 which this influence can bo more fully realised than by observ- 

 ing how a man like Shakespeare, who had " small Latin and less 

 Greek," shows in his works that he was affected by it. Play 

 aft^r play, as " Julius Caesar " and " Antony and Cleopatra," is 

 taken from classical sources ; and in each he shows not only 

 that he can follow the narrative as he read it, probably in trans- 

 lation, but that he had largely entered into the spirit of the 

 time. 



We have said enough to show that the student of English 

 literature has the opportunity of reading English history in the 

 fullest, best, and most reliable way, for he is enabled to get 

 a step nearer to the men with whose history he is dealing than 

 ho can do by any other method. Bnt the advantage of keeping 

 the connection between literature and history always in view is 

 not entirely on the side of history. We have said that the 

 various books which go to make up the total of English litera- 

 ture may be studied as isolated works of art, and may be so 



