lence seems at first to be the distinguishing mark of their history. They They were undoubtedly cruel to their enemies, but humanity and pity are virtues of later growth. The student must guard carefully against the mistake of supposing that the early races with the future before them were in any way analogous to modern barbarous races whose development has been arrested and who are hopelessly out of the line of progress. The readiness with which the Anglo-Saxons assimilated the fundamental Christian ideas, and the simplicity and earnestness of some of their early saints, who, too, were held in veneration by the entire community, show that our forefathers were far more than merely bold pirates and ruthless, stubborn savages. Their poetry proves that at bottom they were responsive to the ideas of sincerity and moral earnestness. They were not an artistic, though they were a poetic, race, and it would be absurd to look for the harmony of Greek poetry in their verse. Still more absurd would it be to look for the technical finish and the refined conceptions of the poetry of a later civilization. They were primitive, and their imaginative production has some of nature's qualities, absence of artificiality, conceit, and affectation. QUESTIONS What traits have been contributed by the Saxon and the Celt respectively to the English character? What qualities to the literature? Show by examples how literature, especially primitive literature, is an exponent and mirror of the national character. Which of the Old English dialects became dominant for literary purposes and kept its position throughout the Anglo-Saxon period? Name the chief characteristic of Old English poetry, as to technique; as to subject matter. Do popular ballads, war songs, and legends, passed from mouth to mouth among the people and preserved chiefly in the memories of gleemen and minstrels, constitute a literature? In general, what ethical conceptions of duty, of destiny, of providence, are expressed or implied in Anglo-Saxon poetry? LITERARY REFERENCES ARNOLD, M. Celtic Literature. BEOWULF. Metrical translation by J. M. Garnett. COURTHOPE, W. J. History of English Poetry, v. 1, c. 3. 1895. HYDE, D. Literary History of Ireland, c. 1. JUSSERAND, J. A. A. J. Literary History of the English People, v. 1, c. 2-4. 1895. MORLEY, H. Brink, B. ten. English Writers, v. 1-2. 1887-88. History of English Literature, bk. i, c. 1. History of English Literature, v. 1. 1891. WUELCKER, R. P. Grundriss zur Geschichte der angelsaechsischen Literatur. 1885. CHAPTER II THE NORMAN-FRENCH PERIOD (1066 to 1360) Historical References FREEMAN, E. A. The Norman Conquest, v. 5, c. 17. JUSSERAND, J. A. A. J. Literary History of the English People: CARLYLE, T. Past and Present. (Contains an excellent picture of a monastery of the period, the daily life and many-sided activity of its inmates.) JEWETT, S. O. Story of the Normans. Historical tant. THE year 1066 is not strictly either a linguistic or a literary date; it marks a political event the effects of which on literature were ultimately very imporThe central authority was taken possession of by a foreign conqueror who could not speak the national language. His officers, spiritual and temporal, were given positions of authority in all parts of England, and many French traders settled in the cities. The speech Change in of the ruling class was French; the technical Language. language of the priests and scholars was Latin. But the great body of the people continued to use their mother tongue, — Anglo-Saxon, already considerably simplified in grammatical inflections. We have no means of telling how numerous they were, but the race had lived in England for five hundred years, and the French ruling class was comparatively insignificant in numbers, although it controlled the military and ecclesiastical organization. The Anglo-Saxon language passed in two centuries (1150 to 1350) through stages of transition, till it became middle English, used by Chaucer, which differs from our modern English principally in spelling and the retention of a few Saxon words which have since been dropped. In the The conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy, with an army of possibly sixty thousand men Other Effects speaking French, and his assumption of the of Norman throne as king of England, was one of the Conquest. most important events in English history from the social, national, and literary points of view. course of two hundred years it created a new England and a new language. The national spirit was modified without losing its essential character. King William was a man of great administrative ability and force, and sternly repressed all resistance to his authority. He spoke no English, and French became the language of the court. Norman priests were appointed to the most important ecclesiastical offices. The feudal system of landholding and a graded nobility with the sovereign as the head were imposed on the nation. The social institution of chivalry, which cherished an ideal at once manly, unselfish, and poetic, though sometimes degenerating into fanciful and affected absurdities, also took firm root in England under the Norman kings and their successors. The social code, even of manners, influences literature, but the social code that furnishes elevated standards for the conduct of life as chivalry did, must profoundly affect all artistic expression. The "perfect knight without fear and without reproach" is still a favorite type in literature. The The Normans, the ruling class in Normandy, were descendants of Danes or Northmen who had conquered a province in France and given it their name. Normans. The second and third generation of Northmen had amalgamated with the French, given up their Danish language, and become Frenchmen. The successors of William the Conqueror were not only kings of England, but Dukes of Normandy, and became by marriage and conquest lords of all the western part of France from the English Channel to the Pyrenees. The Normans proper were the most able and adaptable of all the northern races, and the conquest of England is rightly called the Norman Conquest; but intellectually it was France, and not merely Normandy, that was brought into relation with England. After a period of depression the English began to translate and adapt works of French literature, in the twelfth French and thirteenth centuries. Rhyme and stanzaic Influence. forms were imitated in the English language. This alone was an important innovation. The French tone of gay, mocking persiflage and witty, ironical social satire, so well exemplified in the next period in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," began to modify the seriousness of the English mind. The French imagination is less disposed to dwell on the shadowy, the vague, and the terrible than is the original English imagination, and the French sense of artistic form is more logical and better regulated than is that of the English. It is not without significance that Taillefer, the first to advance against the English force at the battle of Senlac, rode forward singing "The Song of Roland," for the spirit of the French literature entered into English literature somewhat as Norman-French words have entered into the English language; adding variety |