Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days | Page 2

is to have incurred a great and living debt. I have tried
to clothe some of these in the nearest approach I could find to the
native garb in which their makers had sent them forth, with the
humblest acknowledgement that nothing comes up to that native garb

itself. In writing the book I have naturally incurred debt in various
directions; debt of which the source would be difficult always to trace. I
may mention my obligations to the work of Professor Morley,
Professor Earle, Professor Ten Brink, and Professor Albert S. Cook:
also to the writers of Chapters I-VII of "The Cambridge History of
English Literature," vol. i.
If this little book in any way fulfils the wishes of those Catholic
teachers who have asked me to print some thoughts of mine about
English Literature, I shall be glad indeed.
EMILY HICKEY.
CHAPTER I
The beginnings of Literature in England. Two poets of the best period
of our old poetry, Caedmon and Cynewulf. The language they wrote in.
The monastery at Whitby. The story of Caedmon's gift of song.
How many of us I wonder, realise in anything like its full extent the
beauty and the glory of our Catholic heritage. Do we think how the
Great Mother, the keeper of truth, the guardian of beauty, the muse of
learning, the fosterer of progress, has given us gifts in munificent
generosity, gifts that sprang from her holy bosom, to enlighten, to cheer,
to guide and to help; gifts that she, large, liberal, glorious, could not but
give, for she, like her Lord, is giver and bestower; and to be of her
children is to be of the givers and bestowers. The Catholic Church is
the source of fine literature, of true art, as of noble speech and noble
deed.
We are going to look at a small portion of that part of our Catholic
heritage which consists of our early literature; we are going to think
about the beginning of Christian work of this kind in the form of poetry
and prose in England. When I say Christian poetry and prose, I am
using the word Christian as opposed to pagan, and inclusive of secular
as well as religious verse, though the amount of secular verse is, in the
earliest time, comparatively very small. Some of the pagan work was
retouched by Christians who cared for the truth and strength and beauty

of it. The ideal of the English heathen poet was, in many respects, a
fine one. He loved valour and generosity and loyalty, and all these
things are found, for instance, in the poem "Béowulf," a poem full of
interest of various kinds; full, too, as Professor Harrison says, "of
evidences of having been fumigated here and there by a Christian
incense-bearer." But "the poem is a heathen poem, just 'fumigated' here
and there by its editor." There is a vast difference between "fumigating"
a heathen work and adapting it to blessedly changed belief, seeing in
old story the potential vessel of Christian thought and Christian
teaching. To fumigate with incense is one thing--to use that incense in
the work of dedication and consecration is another. For instance, the
old story of the "Quest of the Graal," best known to modern readers
through Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," has been Christianised and
consecrated. And so it was with some fine old English (or Anglo-Saxon)
poetry. But, just now, we are going to listen to Catholic poets and
teachers only.
We begin with the work of poets. Out of all those who wrote in what
was the best period of our old poetry, a period that lasted some hundred
and fifty or seventy-five years, we know the names of two only,
Caedmon and Cynewulf.
And here may I say that scholars agree that the names are to be
pronounced Kadmon and _Kun-e-wolf_; in the second name we sound
the y like a French u, make a syllable of the e, not sounding it as ee, but
short, and make the last syllable just what we now pronounce as wolf.
Both of these poets deserve our love and our praise, as singers and
inspirers of other singers, but we know much more about Caedmon's
life than we know about his share in the poetry that has been attributed
to him; that is the poetry which has gone under his name. That he did
write much fine verse we know. On the other hand, we know a good
deal as to the authenticity of Cynewulf's poetry, and nothing about his
life.
Both of these poets wrote in the language spoken in England before the
period of French influence. That influence upon English at first seemed
to be disastrous; the language became broken up and spoilt: but this

was only for a time; and