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A History of English Literature

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A TABULAR VIEW OF ENGLISH LITERATURE



I. The Britons and the Anglo-Saxon Period, from the
beginning to the Norman Conquest in 1066 A. D.
A. The Britons, before and during the Roman occupation,
to the fifth century.
B. Anglo-Saxon Poetry, on the Continent in prehistoric
times before the migration to England, and in England
especially during the Northumbrian Period, seventh and
eighth centuries A. D. Ballads, 'Beowulf,' Caedmon,
Bede (Latin prose), Cynewulf.
C. Anglo-Saxon Prose, of the West Saxon Period, tenth
and eleventh centuries, beginning with King Alfred,
871-901. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
II. The Norman-French, Period, 1066 to about 1350.
Literature in Latin, French, and English. Many different
forms, both religious and secular, including the
religious drama. The Metrical Romances, including the
Arthurian Cycle. Geoffrey of Monmouth, 'Historia
Regum Britanniae' (Latin), about 1136. Wace, 'Brut'
(French), about 1155. Laghamon, 'Brut' (English),
about 1200.
III. The End of the Middle Ages, about 1350 to about 1500.
The Hundred Years' War. 'Sir John Mandeyille's'
'Voyage.' Chaucer, 1338-1400. John Gower. 'The
Vision Concerning Piers the Plowman.' Wiclif and
the Lollard Bible, about 1380. Popular Ballads. The
War of the Roses. Malory's 'Morte Darthur,' finished
1467. Caxton and the printing press, 1476. Morality
Plays and Interludes.
IV. The Renaissance and the Elizabethan Period, about 1500
to 1603.
Great discoveries and activity, both intellectual and
physical. Influence of Italy. The Reformation.
Henry VIII, 1509-47. Edward VI, to 1553. Mary, to 1558.
Elizabeth, 1558-1603. Defeat of the Armada, 1588.
Sir Thomas More, 'Utopia.' Tyndale's New Testament
and other translations of the Bible.
Wyatt and Surrey, about 1540.
Prose Fiction. Lyly's 'Euphues,' 1578. Sidney's
'Arcadia.'
Spenser, 1552-1599. 'The Shepherd's Calendar,' 1579.
'The Faerie Queene,' 1590 and later.
Lyric poetry, including sonnet sequences. John Donne.
The Drama. Classical and native influences. Lyly,
Peele, Greene, Marlowe. Shakspere, 1564-1616. Ben
Jonson and other dramatists.
V. The Seventeenth Century, 1603-1660.
The First Stuart Kings, James I (to 1625) and Charles I.
Cavaliers and Puritans. The Civil War and the Commonwealth.
Cromwell.
The Drama, to 1642.
Francis Bacon.
The King James Bible, 1611.
Lyric Poets. Herrick. The 'Metaphysical' religious
poets--Herbert, Crashaw, and Vaughan. Cavalier and
Puritan poets.
Milton, 1608-1674.
John Bunyan, 'Pilgrim's Progress.' 1678.

VI. The Restoration Period, from the Restoration of Charles II
in 1660 to the death of Dryden in 1700.
Charles II, 1660-1685. James II, 1685 to the Revolution
in 1688. William and Mary, 1688-1702.
Butler's 'Hudibras.' Pepys' 'Diary.' The Restoration
Drama. Dryden, 1631-1700.

VII. The Eighteenth Century.
Queen Anne, 1702-1715. The four Georges, 1715-1830.

PSEUDO-CLASSIC
LITERATURE.
Swift, 1667-1745.
Addison, 1672-1719.
Steele, 1672-1729.
Pope, 1688-1744.
Johnson, 1709-1784.

THE LATER PROSE.
Burke, 1729-1797.
Gibbon, 'Decline and
Fall,' 1776-1788.
Boswell, 'Life of
Johnson,' 1791.

THE NOVEL.
'Sir Roger de Coverly,'
1711-12.
Defoe, 1661-1731.
'Robinson Crusoe,'
1718-20.
Richardson, 1689-1761.
'Clarissa Harlowe,'
1747-8.
Fielding, 1707-1754.
Smollett.
Sterne.
Goldsmith, 'Vicar of
Wakefield,' 1766.
Historical and 'Gothic'
Novels.
Miss Burney, 'Evelina,'
1778.
Revolutionary Novels
of Purpose. Godwin,
'Caleb Williams.'
Miss Edgeworth.
Miss Austen.

THE ROMANTIC REVOLT
--Poetry.
Thomson, 'The Seasons,'
1726-30.
Collins, 'Odes,' 1747.
Gray, 1716-71.
Percy's 'Reliques,'
1765.
Goldsmith, 'The Deserted
Village,'
1770.
Cowper.
Chatterton.
Macpherson, Ossianic
imitations.
Burns, 1759-96.
Blake.

THE DRAMA.
Pseudo-Classical Tragedy,
Addison's
'Cato,' 1713.
Sentimental Comedy.
Domestic Tragedy.
Revival of genuine
Comedy of
Manners. Goldsmith,
'She Stoops to
Conquer,' 1773.
Sheridan.

VIII. The Romantic Triumph, 1798 to about 1830.
Coleridge, 1772-1834. Wordsworth, 1770-1850. Southey,
1774-1843. Scott, 1771-1832.
Byron, 1788-1824. Shelley, 1792-1822. Keats, 1759-1821.

IX. The Victorian Period, about 1830-1901.
Victoria Queen, 1837-1901.

ESSAYISTS. POETS. NOVELISTS.

Macaulay, 1800-1859. Mrs. Browning, 1806- Charlotte Bronté,
Carlyle, 1795-1881. 1861. 1816-1855.
Ruskin, 1819-1900. Tennyson, 1809-1892. Dickens, 1812-1870.
Browning, 1812-1889. Thackeray, 1811-1863.
Matthew Arnold, Kingsley, 1819-1875.
poems, 1848-58. George Eliot, 1819-
Rossetti, 1828-82. 1880.
Matthew Arnold, Morris, 1834-96. Reade, 1814-1884.
essays, 1861-82. Swinburne, 1837-1909. Trollope, 1815-1882.
Blackmore, 'Lorna
Doone,' 1869.
Shorthouse,' John
Inglesant,' 1881.
Meredith, 1828-1910.
Thomas Hardy, 1840-
Stevenson, 1850-1894.
Kipling, 1865- Kipling, 1865-




REFERENCE BOOKS


It is not a part of the plan of this book to present any extended
bibliography, but there are certain reference books to which the student's
attention should be called. 'Chambers' Cyclopedia of English Literature,'
edition of 1910, published in the United States by the J. B. Lippincott Co.
in three large volumes at $15.00 (generally sold at about half that price)
is in most parts very satisfactory. Garnett and Gosse's 'Illustrated
History of English Literature, four volumes, published by the Macmillan Co.
at $20.00 and in somewhat simpler form by Grosset and Dunlap at $12.00
(sold for less) is especially valuable for its illustrations. Jusserand's
'Literary History of the English People' (to 1642, G. P. Putnam's Sons,
three volumes, $3.50 a volume) should be mentioned. Courthope's 'History of
English Poetry' (Macmillan, six volumes, $3.25 a volume), is full and after
the first volume good. 'The Cambridge History of English Literature,' now
nearing completion in fourteen volumes (G. P. Putnam's Sons, $2.50 a
volume) is the largest and in most parts the most scholarly general work in
the field, but is generally too technical except for special students. The
short biographies of many of the chief English authors in the English Men
of Letters Series (Macmillan, 30 and 75 cents a volume) are generally
admirable. For appreciative criticism of some of the great poets the essays
of Lowell and of Matthew Arnold are among the best. Frederick Byland's
'Chronological Outlines of English Literature' (Macmillan, $1.00) is very
useful for reference though now much in need of revision. It is much to be
desired that students should have at hand for consultation some good short
history of England, such as that of S. E. Gardiner (Longmans, Green, and
Co.) or that of J. R. Green.




CHAPTER I

PERIOD I. THE BRITONS AND THE ANGLO-SAXONS. TO A. D. 1066.


FOREWORD. The two earliest of the nine main divisions of English Literature
are by far the longest--taken together are longer than all the others
combined--but we shall pass rather rapidly over them. This is partly
because the amount of thoroughly great literature which they produced is
small, and partly because for present-day readers it is in effect a foreign
literature, written in early forms of English or in foreign languages, so
that to-day it is intelligible only through special study or in
translation.

THE BRITONS. The present English race has gradually shaped itself out of
several distinct peoples which successively occupied or conquered the
island of Great Britain. The earliest one of these peoples which need here
be mentioned belonged to the Celtic family and was itself divided into two
branches. The Goidels or Gaels were settled in the northern part of the
island, which is now Scotland, and were the ancestors of the present
Highland Scots. On English literature they exerted little or no influence
until a late period. The Britons, from whom the present Welsh are
descended, inhabited what is now England and Wales; and they were still
further subdivided, like most barbarous peoples, into many tribes which
were often at war with one another. Though the Britons were conquered and
chiefly supplanted later on by the Anglo-Saxons, enough of them, as we
shall see, were spared and intermarried with the victors to transmit
something of their racial qualities to the English nation and literature.

The characteristics of the Britons, which are those of the Celtic family as
a whole, appear in their history and in the scanty late remains of their
literature. Two main traits include or suggest all the others: first, a
vigorous but fitful emotionalism which rendered them vivacious, lovers of
novelty, and brave, but ineffective in practical affairs; second, a
somewhat fantastic but sincere and delicate sensitiveness to beauty. Into
impetuous action they were easily hurried; but their momentary ardor easily
cooled into fatalistic despondency. To the mysterious charm of Nature--of
hills and forests and pleasant breezes; to the loveliness and grace of
meadow-flowers or of a young man or a girl; to the varied sheen of rich
colors--to all attractive objects of sight and sound and motion their fancy
responded keenly and joyfully; but they preferred chiefly to weave these
things into stories and verse of supernatural romance or vague
suggestiveness; for substantial work of solider structure either in life or
in literature they possessed comparatively little faculty. Here is a
description (exceptionally beautiful, to be sure) from the story 'Kilhwch
and Olwen':

'The maid was clothed in a robe of flame-colored silk, and about her neck
was a collar of ruddy gold, on which were precious emeralds and rubies.
More yellow was her head than the flowers of the broom, and her skin was
whiter than the foam of the wave, and fairer were her hands and her fingers
than the blossoms of the wood anemone amidst the spray of the meadow
fountain. The eye of the trained hawk, the glance of the three-mewed
falcon, was not brighter than hers. Her bosom was more snowy than the
breast of the white swan, her cheeks were redder than the reddest roses.
Who beheld her was filled with her love. Pour white trefoils sprang up
wherever she trod. And therefore was she called Olwen.'

This charming fancifulness and delicacy of feeling is apparently the great
contribution of the Britons to English literature; from it may perhaps be
descended the fairy scenes of Shakspere and possibly to some extent the
lyrical music of Tennyson.

THE ROMAN OCCUPATION. Of the Roman conquest and occupation of Britain
(England and Wales) we need only make brief mention, since it produced
virtually no effect on English literature. The fact should not be forgotten
that for over three hundred years, from the first century A. D. to the
beginning of the fifth, the island was a Roman province, with Latin as the
language of the ruling class of Roman immigrants, who introduced Roman
civilization and later on Christianity, to the Britons of the towns and
plains. But the interest of the Romans in the island was centered on other
things than writing, and the great bulk of the Britons themselves seem to
have been only superficially affected by the Roman supremacy. At the end of
the Roman rule, as at its beginning, they appear divided into mutually
jealous tribes, still largely barbarous and primitive.

The Anglo-Saxons. Meanwhile across the North Sea the three Germanic tribes
which were destined to form the main element in the English race were
multiplying and unconsciously preparing to swarm to their new home. The
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes occupied territories in the region which includes
parts of the present Holland, of Germany about the mouth of the Elbe, and
of Denmark. They were barbarians, living partly from piratical expeditions
against the northern and eastern coasts of Europe, partly from their flocks
and herds, and partly from a rude sort of agriculture. At home they seem to
have sheltered themselves chiefly in unsubstantial wooden villages, easily
destroyed and easily abandoned; For the able-bodied freemen among them the
chief occupation, as a matter of course, was war. Strength, courage, and
loyalty to king and comrades were the chief virtues that they admired;
ferocity and cruelty, especially to other peoples, were necessarily among
their prominent traits when their blood was up; though among themselves
there was no doubt plenty of rough and ready companionable good-humor.
Their bleak country, where the foggy and unhealthy marshes of the coast
gave way further inland to vast and somber forests, developed in them
during their long inactive winters a sluggish and gloomy mood, in which,
however, the alternating spirit of aggressive enterprise was never
quenched. In religion they had reached a moderately advanced state of
heathenism, worshipping especially, it seems, Woden, a 'furious' god as
well as a wise and crafty one; the warrior Tiu; and the strong-armed Thunor
(the Scandinavian Thor); but together with these some milder deities like
the goddess of spring, Éostre, from whom our Easter is named. For the
people on whom they fell these barbarians were a pitiless and terrible
scourge; yet they possessed in undeveloped form the intelligence, the
energy, the strength--most of the qualities of head and heart and
body--which were to make of them one of the great world-races.

THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT. The process by which Britain
became England was a part of the long agony which transformed the Roman
Empire into modern Europe. In the fourth century A. D. the Angles, Saxons,
and Jutes began to harry the southern and eastern shores of Britain, where
the Romans were obliged to maintain a special military establishment
against them. But early in the fifth century the Romans, hard-pressed even
in Italy by other barbarian invaders, withdrew all their troops and
completely abandoned Britain. Not long thereafter, and probably before the
traditional date of 449, the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons began to come in
large bands with the deliberate purpose of permanent settlement. Their
conquest, very different in its methods and results from that of the
Romans, may roughly be said to have occupied a hundred and fifty or two
hundred years. The earlier invading hordes fixed themselves at various
points on the eastern and southern shore and gradually fought their way
inland, and they were constantly augmented by new arrivals. In general the
Angles settled in the east and north and the Saxons in the south, while the
less numerous Jutes, the first to come, in Kent, soon ceased to count in
the movement. In this way there naturally came into existence a group of
separate and rival kingdoms, which when they were not busy with the Britons
were often at war with each other. Their number varied somewhat from time
to time as they were united or divided; but on the whole, seven figured
most prominently, whence comes the traditional name 'The Saxon Heptarchy'
(Seven Kingdoms). The resistance of the Britons to the Anglo-Saxon advance
was often brave and sometimes temporarily successful. Early in the sixth
century, for example, they won at Mount Badon in the south a great victory,
later connected in tradition with the legendary name of King Arthur, which
for many years gave them security from further aggressions. But in the long
run their racial defects proved fatal; they were unable to combine in
permanent and steady union, and tribe by tribe the newcomers drove them
slowly back; until early in the seventh century the Anglo-Saxons were in
possession of nearly all of what is now England, the exceptions being the
regions all along the west coast, including what has ever since been, known
as Wales.

Of the Roman and British civilization the Anglo-Saxons were ruthless
destroyers, exulting, like other barbarians, in the wanton annihilation of
things which they did not understand. Every city, or nearly every one,
which they took, they burned, slaughtering the inhabitants. They themselves
occupied the land chiefly as masters of scattered farms, each warrior
established in a large rude house surrounded by its various outbuildings
and the huts of the British slaves and the Saxon and British bondmen. Just
how largely the Britons were exterminated and how largely they were kept
alive as slaves and wives, is uncertain; but it is evident that at least a
considerable number were spared; to this the British names of many of our
objects of humble use, for example _mattoc_ and _basket_, testify.

In the natural course of events, however, no sooner had the Anglo-Saxons
destroyed the (imperfect and partial) civilization of their predecessors
than they began to rebuild one for themselves; possessors of a fertile
land, they settled down to develop it, and from tribes of lawless fighters
were before long transformed into a race of farmer-citizens. Gradually
trade with the Continent, also, was reestablished and grew; but perhaps the
most important humanizing influence was the reintroduction of Christianity.
The story is famous of how Pope Gregory the Great, struck by the beauty of
certain Angle slave-boys at Rome, declared that they ought to be called not
_Angli_ but _Angeli_ (angels) and forthwith, in 597, sent to
Britain St. Augustine (not the famous African saint of that name), who
landed in Kent and converted that kingdom. Within the next two generations,
and after much fierce fighting between the adherents of the two religions,
all the other kingdoms as well had been christianized. It was only the
southern half of the island, however, that was won by the Roman
missionaries; in the north the work was done independently by preachers
from Ireland, where, in spite of much anarchy, a certain degree of
civilization had been preserved. These two types of Christianity, those of
Ireland and of Rome, were largely different in spirit. The Irish
missionaries were simple and loving men and won converts by the beauty of
their lives; the Romans brought with them the architecture, music, and
learning of their imperial city and the aggressive energy which in the
following centuries was to make their Church supreme throughout the Western
world. When the inevitable clash for supremacy came, the king of the
then-dominant Anglian kingdom, Northumbria, made choice of the Roman as
against the Irish Church, a choice which proved decisive for the entire
island. And though our personal sympathies may well go to the
finer-spirited Irish, this outcome was on the whole fortunate; for only
through religious union with Rome during the slow centuries of medieval
rebirth could England be bound to the rest of Europe as one of the family
of coöperating Christian states; and outside that family she would have
been isolated and spiritually starved.

One of the greatest gifts of Christianity, it should be observed, and one
of the most important influences in medieval civilization, was the network
of monasteries which were now gradually established and became centers of
active hospitality and the chief homes of such learning as was possible to
the time.

ANGLO-SAXON POETRY. THE EARLY PAGAN POETRY AND 'BÉOWULF.' The Anglo-Saxons
doubtless brought with them from the Continent the rude beginnings of
poetry, such as come first in the literature of every people and consist
largely of brief magical charms and of rough 'popular ballads' (ballads of
the people). The charms explain themselves as an inevitable product of
primitive superstition; the ballads probably first sprang up and developed,
among all races, in much the following way. At the very beginning of human
society, long before the commencement of history, the primitive groups of
savages who then constituted mankind were instinctively led to express
their emotions together, communally, in rhythmical fashion. Perhaps after
an achievement in hunting or war the village-group would mechanically fall
into a dance, sometimes, it might be, about their village fire. Suddenly
from among the inarticulate cries of the crowd some one excited individual
would shout out a fairly distinct rhythmical expression. This expression,
which may be called a line, was taken up and repeated by the crowd; others
might be added to it, and thus gradually, in the course of generations,
arose the regular habit of communal composition, composition of something
like complete ballads by the throng as a whole. This procedure ceased to be
important everywhere long before the literary period, but it led to the
frequent composition by humble versifiers of more deliberate poems which
were still 'popular' because they circulated by word of mouth, only, from
generation to generation, among the common people, and formed one of the
best expressions of their feeling. At an early period also professional
minstrels, called by the Anglo-Saxons scops or gleemen, disengaged
themselves from the crowd and began to gain their living by wandering from
village to village or tribe to tribe chanting to the harp either the
popular ballads or more formal poetry of their own composition. Among all
races when a certain stage of social development is reached at least one
such minstrel is to be found as a regular retainer at the court of every
barbarous chief or king, ready to entertain the warriors at their feasts,
with chants of heroes and battles and of the exploits of their present
lord. All the earliest products of these processes of 'popular' and
minstrel composition are everywhere lost long before recorded literature
begins, but the processes themselves in their less formal stages continue
among uneducated people (whose mental life always remains more or less
primitive) even down to the present time.

Out of the popular ballads, or, chiefly, of the minstrel poetry which is
partly based on them, regularly develops epic poetry. Perhaps a minstrel
finds a number of ballads which deal with the exploits of a single hero or
with a single event. He combines them as best he can into a unified story
and recites this on important and stately occasions. As his work passes
into general circulation other minstrels add other ballads, until at last,
very likely after many generations, a complete epic is formed, outwardly
continuous and whole, but generally more or less clearly separable on
analysis into its original parts. Or, on the other hand, the combination
may be mostly performed all at once at a comparatively late period by a
single great poet, who with conscious art weaves together a great mass of
separate materials into the nearly finished epic.

Not much Anglo-Saxon poetry of the pagan period has come down to us. By far
the most important remaining example is the epic 'Béowulf,' of about three
thousand lines. This poem seems to have originated on the Continent, but
when and where are not now to be known. It may have been carried to England
in the form of ballads by the Anglo-Saxons; or it may be Scandinavian
material, later brought in by Danish or Norwegian pirates. At any rate it
seems to have taken on its present form in England during the seventh and
eighth centuries. It relates, with the usual terse and unadorned power of
really primitive poetry, how the hero Beowulf, coming over the sea to the
relief of King Hrothgar, delivers him from a monster, Grendel, and then
from the vengeance of Grendel's only less formidable mother. Returned home
in triumph, Beowulf much later receives the due reward of his valor by
being made king of his own tribe, and meets his death while killing a
fire-breathing dragon which has become a scourge to his people. As he
appears in the poem, Béowulf is an idealized Anglo-Saxon hero, but in
origin he may have been any one of several other different things. Perhaps
he was the old Germanic god Béowa, and his exploits originally allegories,
like some of those in the Greek mythology, of his services to man; he may,
for instance, first have been the sun, driving away the mists and cold of
winter and of the swamps, hostile forces personified in Grendel and his
mother. Or, Béowulf may really have been a great human fighter who actually
killed some especially formidable wild beasts, and whose superhuman
strength in the poem results, through the similarity of names, from his
being confused with Béowa. This is the more likely because there is in the
poem a slight trace of authentic history. (See below, under the assignments
for study.)

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