STUDY SUGGESTIONS

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Saxons is particularly useful as a study of life and man

ners.

Ten Brink's History of English Literature, vol. i., Stopford Brooke's Early English Literature, also his English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest, and the first two volumes of Henry Morley's English Writers, are authorities upon Anglo-Saxon literature.

Beginnings of English Literature, by C. M. Lewis (Ginn), includes the period covered here.

Numerous translations of Anglo-Saxon poetry are given by both Brooke and Morley. In the English Writers, vol. ii., are Widsith and the Seafarer, entire; the Seafarer and the Wanderer are translated by Brooke in the Notes at the end of his volume. Beowulf is accessible in several versions, of which that by James M. Garnett (Ginn) is most faithful to the spirit of the original. Professor Garnett has translated also Cynewulf's Elene and the fragment of Judith, together with Brunnanburh and Maldon, in one volume (Ginn). The Christ is at hand in an excellent prose rendering by Charles H. Whitman (Ginn). Albert S. Cook's edition of Judith (Heath) contains a translation of that fragment. The Battle of Brunnanburh, too, is found among the poems of Tennyson. There is an excellent volume of Select Translations from Old English Poetry, by Cook and Tinker (Ginn).

Bede's account of the poet Cædmon, and Cuthbert's narrative of the death of Bede, also Alfred's preface to his translation of Bede's Cura Pastoralis, will be found translated, or paraphrased, by Morley in his English Writers, vol. ii. Wulfstan's narrative, incorporated by Alfred in his translation of Orosius, is also given by Morley. Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are published in translation by Bohn. A Life of Alfred the Great, by Thomas Hughes, is published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

Students who wish to begin the study of Anglo-Saxon will find available text-books in Cook's First Book in Old English (Ginn), Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader (Holt), Sweet's

Anglo-Saxon Primer, and Anglo-Saxon Reader (Clarendon Press). Smith's Old English Grammar and Exercise Book (Allyn & Bacon) is an excellent introduction to the study. A series of important texts is included in the Library of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, published by Ginn: I. Beowulf, by Harrison and Sharp; II. Exodus and Daniel, by T. W. Hunt; IV. Maldon and Brunnanburh, by C. L. Crow; VI. Elene, by C. W. Kent. The Albion Series of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English Poetry is announced by the same house; Professor A. S. Cook's edition of the Christ has already appeared. The Judith, also edited by Cook, is published by Heath. Particular attention is directed to the Millennial Series of English Classics (Section I. Old English Literature), now in preparation (Heath), Edward Miles Brown, general editor.

The History of the English Language, by O. F. Emerson (Macmillan), and T. R. Lounsbury's History of the English Language (Holt) are valuable books. For general study of words, Words and their Ways in English Speech, by Greenough and Kittredge (Macmillan), is recommended. The development of Anglo-Saxon literature may be traced as follows (of course only the most important names and titles are included): :

CHAPTER II

THE ANGLO-NORMAN PERIOD

FROM THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS TO THE DEATH OF CHAUCER

I. The New Invasion.

II. The Development of Middle English Literature. III. The Age of Chaucer.

IV. Geoffrey Chaucer: Poet of the Dawn.

I. THE NEW INVASION.

WHEN, in 1066, William of Normandy led his victorious hosts against Harold and his Saxons The Norat Senlac near Hastings, a new epoch be- mans. gan in English history. The Normans, originally Teutons like the English themselves, were descendants of those Norse pirates, who, under Hrolf, at the beginning of the tenth century, had overrun the land on either side the mouth of the Seine, conquered that territory, and in the course of one hundred and fifty years developed the powerful duchy of Normandy. They were a bold, keen race, vigorous and aggressive, remarkable for their ability in assimilating the desirable qualities of the conquered people, and wonderfully successful in imparting their own energy to their new subjects. They adopted the modes and laws of the feudal system; they accepted the Christian faith; they were foremost in promoting the courtly rules and manners of chivalry; they made themselves at home among the Franks, forgot their own Norse speech, and learned

the French tongue. The music and literature of France impressed them with its softer measures. At the great battle which gave England to William, Taillefer the Norman minstrel led the vanguard, tossing his sword in the air, and chanting loudly the song of Roland, the epic of the Franks. It was really a new race, combining the characteristics of Teuton and Celt, which thus won its footing on English soil the Norman-French; it represented the best blood and the highest culture of Europe, and its influence in the literature of England, as well as in its life, proved an incalculable benefit in the generations to come. For a hundred years after the conquest of the island was actually completed, the lines between the conquerors and the conquered were rather sharply drawn. There were two races, Norman and English; two languages side by side. Yet the natural tendency was toward assimilation, and in the end the result was the same as it had been in France: the native tongue triumphed over that of the invader. The Norman-French became Anglo-Norman, and finally English. In 1350 the English language was used in the schools, and in 1362, by royal decree, Edward III. made it the official language for courts of law. But the English of that period had been wonderfully expanded and enriched by the elements it had absorbed from the Norman-French; its vocabulary settled by the usage of Wyclif and Chaucer, its inflections gradually modified if not absolutely lost, it thus became the basis of our modern speech. With reference to this epoch in the history of our language it is customary to designate as the Middle English Period the three centuries which intervened between the Conquest and the death of Chaucer, although throughout the twelfth century the literature produced was almost entirely in Latin or in Norman-French.

DEVELOPMENT OF MIDDLE ENGLISH

among

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While in England the literary spirit had languished since the death of Alfred, it had flourished Literawith remarkable energy among the peoples of ture western Europe. In the romance dialects of the Nornorthern and southern France, indeed, a new mans. literature had been created, a literature inspired by the institution of chivalry, and devoted to the glory of knighthood and the praise of love. The French trouvères were just beginning to compose their Chansons de Gestes, or Songs of Deeds, in which were celebrated the achievements of national heroes like Charlemagne and Roland. Love songs and tales of adventure were finding their place in literature. That scholarship which had made the schools and abbeys of England famous in the days of Bede and Alcuin, and had been ruthlessly blotted out in the harrying of the Danes, had blossomed again in France, where Alcuin himself had sowed the seed of learning at the court of Charlemagne. At the time of the Norman invasion French monks were the leaders in all scholastic and ecclesiastical learning; for a generation before that event English students had been flocking to France as the centre of European culture, and young English priests betook themselves to the great monastic school at Bec, to learn wisdom at the feet of Lanfranc and Anselm.

II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE.

An Epoch

mance.

The latter part of King William's life was occupied in completing the conquest which gave him his title in history. Here and there over the of Roland arose the massive, square Norman castles of the barons. The monasteries were ruled by Norman monks. Lanfranc was made Archbishop of Canterbury, and at his death was succeeded by Anselm.