Halleck's New English Literature · Chapter 19Literature of the Period 1066-1400
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Metrical Romances.—For nearly three hundred years after the Norman Conquest the chief literary productions were metrical romances, which were in the first instance usually written by Frenchmen, but sometimes by Englishmen (e.g. Layamon) under French influence. There were four main cycles of French romance especially popular in England before the fifteenth century. These were tales of the remarkable adventures of King Arthur and his Knights, Charlemagne and his Peers, Alexander the Great, and the heroes at the siege of Troy. At the battle of Hastings a French minstrel is said to have sung the Song of Roland from the Charlemagne cycle.
These long stories in verse usually present the glory of chivalry, the religious faith, and the romantic loves of a feudal age. In Beowulf, woman plays a very minor part and there is no love story; but in these romances we often find woman and love in the ascendancy. One of them, well known today in song, Tristram and Iseult (Wagner's Tristan und Isolde), "a possession of our composite race," is almost entirely a story of romantic love.
The romances of this age that have most interest for English readers are those which relate to King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The foundation suggestions for the most of this cycle are of British (Welsh) origin. This period would not have existed in vain, if it had given to the world nothing, but these Arthurian ideals of generosity, courage, honor, and high endeavour, which are still a potent influence. In his Idylls of the King, Tennyson calls Arthur and his Knights:—
"A glorious company, the flower of men, To serve as model for the mighty world, And be the fair beginning of a time."
The Quest of the Holy Grail belongs to the Arthurian cycle. Percival (Wagner's Parsifal), the hero of the earlier version and Sir Galahad of the later, show the same spirit that animated the knights in the Crusades. Tennyson introduces Sir Galahad as a knight whose strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure, undertaking "the far-quest after the divine." The American poet Lowell chose Sir Launfal, a less prominent figure in Arthurian romance, for the hero of his version of the search for the Grail, and had him find it in every sympathetic act along the common way of life.
The story of Gawayne and the Green Knight, "the jewel of English medieval literature," tells how Sir Gawayne, Arthur's favorite, fought with a giant called the Green Knight. The romance might almost be called a sermon, if it did not reveal in a more interesting way a great moral truth,—that deception weakens character and renders the deceiver vulnerable in life's contests. In preparing for the struggle, Sir Gawayne is guilty of one act of deceit. But for this, he would have emerged unscathed from the battle. One wound, which leaves a lasting scar, is the result of an apparently trivial deception. His purity and honor in all things else save him from death. This story, which reminds us of Spenser's Faerie Queene, presents in a new garb one of the oft-recurring ideals of the race, "keep troth" (truth). Chaucer sings in the same key:—
"Hold the hye wey, and let thy gost thee lede, And trouthe shall delivere, it is no drede."
We should remember that these romances are the most characteristic literary creations of the Middle Ages, that they embody the new spirit of chivalry, religious faith, and romantic love in a feudal age, that they had a story to tell, and that some of them have never lost their influence on human ideals.
A Latin Chronicler.—One chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth, although he wrote in Latin, must receive some attention because of his vast influence on English poetry. He probably acquired his last name from being archdeacon of Monmouth. He was appointed Bishop of St. Asaph in 1152 and died about 1154. Unlike the majority of the monkish chroniclers, he possessed a vivid imagination, which he used in his so-called History of the Kings of Britain.
Geoffrey pretended to have found an old manuscript which related the deeds of all British kings from Brutus, the mythical founder of the kingdom of Britain, and the great-grandson of Aeneas, to Caesar. Geoffrey wrote an account of the traditionary British kings down to Cadwallader in 689 with as much minuteness and gravity as Swift employed in the Voyage to Lilliput. Other chroniclers declared that Geoffrey lied saucily and shamelessly, but his book became extremely popular. The monks could not then comprehend that the world's greatest literary works were to be products of the imagination.
In Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain we are given vivid pictures of King Lear and his daughters, of Cymbeline, of King Arthur and his Knights, of Guinevere and the rest of that company whom later poets have immortalized. It is probable that Geoffrey was not particular whether he obtained his materials from old chroniclers, Welsh bards, floating tradition, or from his own imagination. His book left its impress on the historical imagination of the Middle Ages. Had it not been for Geoffrey's History, the dramas of King Lear and Cymbeline might never have been suggested to Shakespeare.
Layamon's Brut.—About 1155 a Frenchman named Wace translated into his own language Geoffrey of Monmouth's works. This translation fell into the hands of Layamon, a priest living in Worcestershire, who proceeded to render the poem, with additions of his own, into the Southern English dialect. Wace's Brut has 15,300 lines; Layamon's, 32,250. As the matter which Layamon added is the best in the poem, he is, in so far, an original author of much imaginative power. He is certainly the greatest poet between the Conquest and Chaucer's time.
A selection from the Brut will give the student an opportunity of comparing this transition English with the language in its modern form:—
"And Ich wulle varan to Avalun: And I will fare to Avalon, To vairest alre maidene To the fairest of all maidens, To Argante ðere quene, To Argante the queen, Alven swiðe sceone; Elf surpassing fair; And heo scal mine wunden And she shall my wounds Makien alle isunde, Make all sound, Al hal me makien All hale me make Mid halweige drenchen. With healing draughts. And seoðe Ich cumen wulle And afterwards I will come To mine kineriche To my kingdom And wunien mid Brutten And dwell with Britons Mid muchelere wunne." With much joy.
With this, compare the following lines from Tennyson's The Passing of Arthur:—
"…I am going a long way * * * * * To the island-valley of Avilion, Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound. * * * * * He passes to be King among the dead, And after healing of his grievous wound He comes again."
Layamon employed less alliteration than is found in Anglo-Saxon poetry. He also used an occasional rime, but the accent and rhythm of his verse are more Saxon than modern. When reading Tennyson's Idylls of the King, we must not forget that Layamon was the first poet to celebrate in English King Arthur's deeds. The Brut shows little trace of French influences, not more than a hundred French words being found in it.
Orm's Ormulum.—A monk named Orm wrote in the Midland dialect a metrical paraphrase of those parts of the Gospels used in the church on each service day throughout the year. After the paraphrase comes his metrical explanation and application of the Scripture.
He says:—
"Diss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum Forrði ðatt Ormm itt wrohhte."
This book is named Ormulum For that Orm it wrote.
There was no fixed spelling at this time. Orm generally doubled the consonant after a short vowel, and insisted that any one who copied his work should be careful to do the same. We shall find on counting the syllables in the two lines quoted from him that the first line has eight; the second, seven. This scheme is followed with great precision throughout the poem, which employs neither rime nor regular alliteration. Orm used even fewer French words than Layamon. The date of the Ormulum is probably somewhere between 1200 and 1215.
The Ancren Riwle.—About 1225 appeared the most notable prose work in the native tongue since the time of Alfred, if we except the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Three young ladies who had secluded themselves from the world in Dorsetshire, wished rules for guidance in their seclusion. An unknown author, to oblige them, wrote the Ancren Riwle (Rule of Anchoresses). This book not only lays down rules for their future conduct in all the affairs of life, but also offers much religious consolation.
The following selection shows some of the curious rules for the guidance of the anchoresses, and furnishes a specimen of the Southern dialect of transitional English prose in the early part of the thirteenth century:—
"ße, mine leoue sustren, ne schulen habben no best bute kat one… ße schulen beon i-dodded four siðen, iðe ßere, uorto lihten ower heaued… Of idelnesse awakeneð muchel flesshes fondunge… Iren ðet lið stille gedereð sone rust."
Ye, my beloved sisters, shall have no beast but one cat… Ye shall be cropped four times in the year for to lighten your head… Of idleness ariseth much temptation of the flesh… Iron that lieth still soon gathereth rust.
The keynote of the work is the renunciation of self. Few productions of modern literature contain finer pictures of the divine love and sympathy. The following simile affords an instance of this quality in the work:—
"De sixte kunfort is ðet ure Louerd, hwon he iðolð ðet we beoð itented, he plaieð mid us, ase ðe moder mid hire ßunge deorlinge; vlihð from him, and hut hire, and let hit sitten one, and loken ßeorne abuten, and cleopien Dame! dame! and weopen one hwule; and ðeonne mid ispredde ermes leapeð lauhwinde vorð, and cluppeð and cusseð and wipeð his eien. Riht so ure Louerd let us one iwurðen oðer hwules, and wiðdraweð his grace and his kunfort, ðet we ne ivindeð swetnesse in none ðinge ðet we wel doð, ne savor of heorte; and ðauh, iðet ilke point ne luveð he us ure leove veder never ðe lesce, auh he deð hit for muchel luve ðet he haveð to us."
The sixth comfort is that our Lord, when he suffers that we be tempted, he plays with us, as the mother with her young darling; she flees from it, and hides herself, and lets it sit alone and look anxiously about and cry "Dame! dame!" and weep awhile; and then with outspread arms leaps laughing forth and clasps and kisses it and wipes its eyes. Exactly so our Lord leaves us alone once in a while and withdraws his grace and his comfort, that we find sweetness in nothing that we do well, no relish of heart; and notwithstanding, at the same time, he, our dear Father, loves us nevertheless, but he does it for the great love that he has for us.
Professor Sweet calls the Ancren Riwle "one of the most perfect models of simple, natural, eloquent prose in our language." For its introduction of French words, this work occupies a prominent place in the development of the English language. Among the words of French origin found in it, we may instance: "dainty," "cruelty," "vestments," "comfort," "journey," "mercer."
Lyrical Poetry.—A famous British Museum manuscript, known as Harleian MS., No. 2253. which was transcribed about 1310, contains a fine anthology of English lyrics, some of which may have been composed early in the thirteenth century. The best of these are love lyrics, but they are less remarkable for an expression of the tender passion than for a genuine appreciation of nature. Some of them are full of the joy of birds and flowers and warm spring days.
A lover's song, called Alysoun, is one of the best of these lyrics:—
"Bytuene Mershe ant[3] Averil[4] When spray biginneth to spring, The lutel[5] foul hath hire wyl On hyre lud[6] to synge."
A famous spring lyric beginning:—
"Lenten[7] ys come with love to toune,[8] With blosmen ant with briddes[9] roune."[10]
is a symphony of daisies, roses, "lovesome lilies," thrushes, and "notes suete of nyhtegales."
The refrain of one love song is invigorating with the breath of the northern wind:—
"Blou, northerne wynd! Send thou me my suetyng! Blou norterne wynd! blou, blou, blou!"
The Cuckoo Song, which is perhaps older than any of these, is the best known of all the early lyrics:—
"Sumer is i-cumen in Lhude sing cuccu Groweth sed and bloweth med And springeth the wde nu. Sing cuccu, cuccu."
Summer is a-coming in, Loud sing cuckoo, Groweth seed and bloometh mead, And springeth the wood now. Sing cuckoo, cuckoo.
A more somber note is heard in the religious lyrics:—
"Wynter wakeneth al my care, Nou this leves waxeth bare; Ofte I sike[11] ant mourne sare[12] When hit cometh in my thoht Of this worldes joie, hou hit goth al to noht."
We do not know the names of any of these singers, but they were worthy forerunners of the later lyrists of love and nature.
Robert Manning of Brunne.—We have now come to fourteenth-century literature, which begins to wear a more modern aspect. Robert Manning, generally known as Robert of Brunne, because he was born at Brunne, now called Bourn, in Lincolnshire, adapted from a Norman-French original a work entitled Handlyng Synne (Manual of Sins). This book, written in the Midland dialect in 1303, discourses of the Seven Deadly Sins and the best ways of living a godly life.
A careful inspection of the following selection from the Handlyng Synne will show that, aside from the spelling, the English is essentially modern. Most persons will be able to understand all but a few words. He was the first prominent English writer to use the modern order of words. The end rime is also modern. A beggar, seeing a beast laden with bread at the house of a rich man, asks for food. The poem says of the rich man:—
"He stouped down to seke a stone, But, as hap was, than fonde he none. For the stone he toke a lofe, And at the pore man hyt drofe. The pore man hente hyt up belyue, And was thereof ful ferly blythe, To hys felaws fast he ran With the lofe, thys pore man."
He stooped down to seek a stone, But, as chance was, then found he none. For the stone he took a loaf, And at the poor man it drove. The poor man caught it up quickly, And was thereof full strangely glad, To his fellows fast he ran With the loaf this poor man.
Oliphant says: "Strange it is that Dante should have been compiling his Inferno, which settled the course of Italian literature forever, in the selfsame years that Robert of Brunne was compiling the earliest pattern of well-formed New English… Almost every one of the Teutonic changes in idiom, distinguishing the New English from the Old, the speech of Queen Victoria from the speech of Hengist, is to be found in Manning's work."
Mandeville's Travels.—Sir John Mandeville, who is popularly considered the author of a very entertaining work of travels, states that he was born in St. Albans in 1300, that he left England in 1322, and traveled in the East for thirty-four years. His Travels relates what he saw and heard in his wanderings through Ethiopia, Persia, Tartary, India, and Cathay. What he tells on his own authority, he vouches for as true, but what he relates as hearsay, he leaves to the reader's judgment for belief.
[Illustration: WHAT MADEVILLE SAW. Old print from Edition of 1725.]
No such single traveler as Mandeville ever existed. The work attributed to him has been proved to be a compilation from the writings of other travelers. A French critic says wittily: "He first lost his character as a truthful writer; then out of the three versions of his book, French, English, and Latin, two were withdrawn from him, leaving him only the first. Existence has now been taken from him, and he is left with nothing at all." No matter, however, who the author was, the book exists. More manuscripts of it survive than of any other work except the Scriptures. It is the most entertaining volume of English prose that we have before 1360. The sentences are simple and direct, and they describe things vividly:—
"In Ethiope ben many dyverse folk: and Ethiope is clept[13] Cusis. In that contree ben folk, that han but o foot: and thei gon so fast, that it is marvaylle: and the foot is so large, that it schadewethe alle the body azen[14] the Sonne whanne thei wole[15] lye and reste hem."[16]
Mandeville also tells of a bird that used to amuse itself by flying away with an elephant in its talons. In the land of Prester John was a valley where Mandeville says he saw devils jumping about as thick as grasshoppers. Stories like these make the work as interesting as Gulliver's Travels.
The so-called Mandeville's Travels was one of the few works that the unlearned of that age could understand and enjoy. Consequently its popularity was so great as to bring large number of French words into familiar use. The native "againbought" is, however, used instead of the foreign "redeemed."
[Illustration: JOHN WYCLIFFE. From an old print.]
John Wycliffe.—Wycliffe (1324-1384) was born at Hipswell, near Richmond, in the northern part of Yorkshire. He became a doctor of divinity and a master of one of the colleges at Oxford. Afterward he was installed vicar of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, where he died. In history he is principally known as the first great figure in the English Reformation. He preceded the other reformers by more than a century. In literature he is best known for the first complete translation of the Bible,—a work that exerted great influence on English prose. All the translation was not made by him personally, but all was done under his direction. The translation of most of the New Testament is thought to be his own special work. He is the most important prose writer of the fourteenth century. His prose had an influence as wide as the circulation of the Bible. The fact that it was forced to circulate in manuscript, because printing had not then been invented, limited his readers; but his translation was, nevertheless, read by many. To help the cause of the Reformation, he wrote argumentative religious pamphlets, which are excellent specimens of energetic fourteenth-century prose.
Of his place in literature, Ten Brink says: "Wycliffe's literary importance lies in the fact that he extended the domain of English prose and enhanced its powers of expression. He accustomed it to terse reasoning, and perfected it as an instrument for expressing rigorous logical thought and argument; he brought it into the service of great ideas and questions of the day, and made it the medium of polemics and satire. And above all, he raised it to the dignity of the national language of the Bible."
The following is a specimen verse of Wycliffe's translation. We may note that the strong old English word "againrising" had not then been displaced by the Latin "resurrection."
"Jhesu seith to hir, I am agenrisyng and lyf; he that bileueth in me, he, if he schal be deed, schall lyue."
Piers Plowman.—The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, popularly called Piers Plowman, from its most important character, is the name of an allegorical poem, the first draft ("A" text) of which was probably composed about 1362. Later in the century two other versions, known as texts "B" and "C" appeared. Authorities differ in regard to whether these are the work of the same man. The Vision is the first and the most interesting part of a much longer work, known as Liber de Petro Plowman (The Book of Piers the Plowman).
The authorship of the poem is not certainly known, but it has long been ascribed to William Langland, born about 1322 at Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire. The author of Piers Plowman seems to have performed certain functions connected with the church, such as singing at funerals.
Piers Plowman opens on a pleasant May morning amid rural scenery. The poet falls asleep by the side of a brook and dreams. In his dream he has a vision of the world passing before his eyes, like a drama. The poem tells what he saw. Its opening lines are:—
"In a _s_omer _s_eson * whan _s_oft was the _s_onne I _sh_ope[17] me in _sh_roudes[18] * as I a _sh_epe[19] were In _h_abite as an _h_eremite[20] - un_h_oly of workes _W_ent _w_yde in þis _w_orld - _w_ondres to here Ac on a _M_ay _m_ornynge - on _M_aluerne hulles[21] Me by_f_el a _f_erly[22] - of _f_airy me thouß te I _w_as _w_ery for_w_andred[23] - and _w_ent me to reste Under a _b_rode _b_ank - _b_i a _b_ornes[24] side, And as I _l_ay and _l_ened[25] - and _l_oked in þe wateres I _s_lombred in a _s_lepyng - it _s_weyved[26] so merye."
[Illustration: TREUTHE'S PILGRYME ATTE PLOW. From a manuscript in Trinity College, Cambridge.]
The language of Piers Plowman is a mixture of the Southern and Midland dialects. It should be noticed that the poem employs the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative meter. There is no end rime. Piers Plowman is the last great poem written in this way.
The actors in this poem are largely allegorical. Abstractions are personified. Prominent characters are Conscience, Lady Meed or Bribery, Reason, Truth, Gluttony, Hunger, and the Seven Deadly Sins. In some respects, the poem is not unlike the Pilgrim's Progress, for the battle in passing from this life to the next is well described in both; but there are more humor, satire, and descriptions of common life in Langland. Piers is at first a simple plowman, who offers to guide men to truth. He is finally identified with the Savior.
Throughout the poem, the writer displays all the old Saxon earnestness. His hatred of hypocrisy is manifest on every page. His sadness, because things are not as they ought to be, makes itself constantly felt. He cannot reconcile the contradiction between the real and the ideal. In attacking selfishness, hypocrisy, and corruption; in preaching the value of a life of good deeds; in showing how men ought to progress toward higher ideals; in teaching that "Love is the physician of life and nearest our Lord himself,—" Piers Plowman proved itself a regenerating spiritual force, a stepping-stone toward the later Reformation.
The author of this poem was also a fourteenth-century social reformer, protesting against the oppression of the poor, insisting on mutual service and "the good and loving life." In order to have a well-rounded conception of the life of the fourteenth century, we must read Piers Plowman. Chaucer was a poet for the upper classes. Piers Plowman gives valuable pictures of the life of the common people and shows them working—
"To kepe kyne In þe field, þe corne fro þe bestes, Diken[27] or deluen[28] or dyngen[29] vppon sheues,[30] Or helpe make mortar or here mukke a-felde."
We find in the popular poetry of Piers Plowman almost as many words of French derivation as in the work of the more aristocratic Chaucer. This fact shows how thoroughly the French element had become incorporated in the speech of all classes. The style of the author of Piers Plowman is, however, remarkable for the old Saxon sincerity and for the realistic directness of the bearer of a worthy message.
John Gower.—Gower, a very learned poet, was born about 1325 and died in 1408. As he was not sure that English would become the language of his cultivated countrymen, he tried each of the three languages used in England. His first important work, the Speculum Meditantis, was written in French; his second, the Vox Clamantis, in Latin; his third, the Confessio Amantis, in English.
[Illustration: EARLY PORTRAIT OF GOWER HEARING THE CONFESSION OF A LOVER (CONFESSIO AMANTIS). From the Egerton MS., British Museum.]
The Confessio Amantis (Confession of a Lover) is principally a collection of one hundred and twelve short tales. An attempt to unify them is seen in the design to have the confessor relate, at the lover's request, those stories which reveal the causes tending to hinder or to further love. Gower had ability in story-telling, as is shown by the tales about Medea and the knight Florent; but he lacked Chaucer's dramatic skill and humor. Gower's influence has waned because, although he stood at the threshold of the Renaissance, his gaze was chiefly turned backward toward medievalism. His contemporary, Chaucer, as we see, was affected by the new spirit.