ENGLISH LITERATURE 



2053 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



THE STORY OF ENC?LISH LITERATURE 



.where England's great wri'ters arc buried 



JNGLISH LITERATURE, one of the 



world's greatest literatures. In every branch 

 of writing in the essay, the drama, the novel, 

 in epic and lyric poetry it has great master- 

 pieces, and one may read from childhood to 

 old age without exhausting its riches. Of the 

 long and interesting history of its development 

 it is possible to give here only a brief sketch, 

 but this is so planned that it will serve as a 

 basis for more extensive reading in these vol- 

 umes. Each branch of literature is treated un- 

 der its own title, and the important authors 

 mentioned in this sketch are the subjects of 

 special articles. It is thus possible, by read- 

 ing the discussion of a certain period here given 

 and the supplementary articles on the writers 

 mentioned, to gain a clear idea of what the 

 period stood for. 



Authorities differ in their method of divid- 

 ing the literary history of England into pe- 

 riods, but the classification here followed is 

 one of the best known. 



I. The Anglo-Saxon Period (450-1050) . There 

 are works in English literature which an Eng- 

 lishman cannot read, for the earliest are writ- 

 ten in a language, known as Anglo-Saxon, which 

 at first sight is altogether different from Mod- 

 ern English. Literature was not at first urrit- 

 ten; it was sung by the minstrels, or gleemen, 

 when they were called upon to encourage those 

 going into battle or to praise the popular 

 heroes. Only gradually arose the custom of 

 writing down such songs, that they might be 

 preserved. Of this early Anglo-Saxon poetry 

 the great monument is the long poem Beowulf 

 (which see) ; it was probably written down 

 about the beginning of the eighth century. 

 This epic really originated in continental Eu- 

 rope ; but about the year 670 a poem was com- 

 posed which was really English in its concep- 

 tion Caedmon's Paraphrase, a metrical ver- 

 sion of parts of the Scriptures. This, too, is 

 in Anglo-Saxon, and a person who has not 

 made a study of that can read Caedmon only 

 in a -translation. Other writers of note were 



the Venerable Bede, who wrote an Ecclesias- 

 tical History, and King Alfred, known as the 

 "Father of English Prose." Foremost among 

 the prose works of this period stands the 

 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the earliest history 

 produced in their own tongue by any Teutonic 

 people. 



II. The Anglo-Norman Period (1066-1350). 

 The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 be- 

 gan a new era in literature as well as in his- 

 tory. The chief interest in the works pro- 

 duced for three centuries after this date cen- 

 ters not in the thought but in the gradually 

 changing medium of expression the language 

 which was slowly shaping itself out of the 

 French, Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Real liter- 

 ary development was slow, but about the year 

 1200 there was written a poem of genuine 

 imaginative power the rhyming chronicle of 

 Layamon, known as the Brut. Metrical ro- 

 mances in cycles, such rhyming chronicles as 

 the Brut, and religious poems were the favorite 

 forms of literature, but new forms were coming 

 into popularity. 



III. The Age of Chaucer (1350-1400). John 

 Wyclif made his translation of the Bible, which 

 had wide influence; William Langland, or oth- 

 ers whose names are not known, produced the 

 remarkable Vision of Piers Plowman, that 

 clarion call to justice and common honesty; 

 but still England waited for its first really 

 great writer. Not for long, however, for Chau- 

 cer was born about 1340, and despite his busy 

 life produced poems that entitle him to the 

 name "Father of English Poetry." Chaucer's 

 work is treated fully elsewhere; here it is 

 enough to say that with him all hesitancy 

 vanished once for all from English literature, 

 which had entered upon its period of steady 

 development. The stage of preparation or 

 transition was over ; the troublesome dialects 

 had crystallized, for literary purposes, into one 

 language, and though it differed in spelling and 

 in many inflections from Modern English, it 

 may be read without great difficulty. 



