Outlines of English and American Literature | Page 7

proceeds not
from a single wellhead but from many springs, each sending forth its
rivulet of sweet or bitter water. As there is a place where the river
assumes a character of its own, distinct from all its tributaries, so in
English literature there is a time when it becomes national rather than

tribal, and English rather than Saxon or Celtic or Norman. That time
was in the fifteenth century, when the poems of Chaucer and the
printing press of Caxton exalted the Midland above all other dialects
and established it as the literary language of England.
[Sidenote: TRIBUTARIES OF LITERATURE]
Before that time, if you study the records of Britain, you meet several
different tribes and races of men: the native Celt, the law-giving Roman,
the colonizing Saxon, the sea-roving Dane, the feudal baron of
Normandy, each with his own language and literature reflecting the
traditions of his own people. Here in these old records is a strange
medley of folk heroes, Arthur and Beowulf, Cnut and Brutus, Finn and
Cuchulain, Roland and Robin Hood. Older than the tales of such
folk-heroes are ancient riddles, charms, invocations to earth and sky:
Hal wes thu, Folde, fira moder! Hail to thee, Earth, thou mother of
men!
With these pagan spells are found the historical writings of the
Venerable Bede, the devout hymns of Cædmon, Welsh legends, Irish
and Scottish fairy stories, Scandinavian myths, Hebrew and Christian
traditions, romances from distant Italy which had traveled far before the
Italians welcomed them. All these and more, whether originating on
British soil or brought in by missionaries or invaders, held each to its
own course for a time, then met and mingled in the swelling stream
which became English literature.
[Illustration: STONEHENGE, ON SALISBURY PLAIN Probably the
ruins of a temple of the native Britons]
To trace all these tributaries to their obscure and lonely sources would
require the labor of a lifetime. We shall here examine only the two
main branches of our early literature, to the end that we may better
appreciate the vigor and variety of modern English. The first is the
Anglo-Saxon, which came into England in the middle of the fifth
century with the colonizing Angles, Jutes and Saxons from the shores
of the North Sea and the Baltic; the second is the Norman-French,

which arrived six centuries later at the time of the Norman invasion.
Except in their emphasis on personal courage, there is a marked
contrast between these two branches, the former being stern and
somber, the latter gay and fanciful. In Anglo-Saxon poetry we meet a
strong man who cherishes his own ideals of honor, in Norman-French
poetry a youth eagerly interested in romantic tales gathered from all the
world. One represents life as a profound mystery, the other as a happy
adventure.
* * * * *
ANGLO-SAXON OR OLD-ENGLISH PERIOD (450-1050)
SPECIMENS OF THE LANGUAGE. Our English speech has changed
so much in the course of centuries that it is now impossible to read our
earliest records without special study; but that Anglo-Saxon is our own
and not a foreign tongue may appear from the following examples. The
first is a stanza from "Widsith," the chant of a wandering gleeman or
minstrel; and for comparison we place beside it Andrew Lang's modern
version. Nobody knows how old "Widsith" is; it may have been sung to
the accompaniment of a harp that was broken fourteen hundred years
ago. The second, much easier to read, is from the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, which was prepared by King Alfred from an older record in
the ninth century:
Swa scrithende gesceapum hweorfath, Gleomen gumena geond grunda
fela; Thearfe secgath, thonc-word sprecath, Simle, suth oththe north
sumne gemetath, Gydda gleawne geofam unhneawne.
So wandering on the world about, Gleemen do roam through many
lands; They say their needs, they speak their thanks, Sure, south or
north someone to meet, Of songs to judge and gifts not grudge.
Her Hengest and Aesc, his sunu, gefuhton wid Bryttas on thaere stowe
the is gecweden Creccanford, and thaer ofslogon feower thusenda wera.
And tha Bryttas tha forleton Cent-lond, and mid myclum ege flugon to
Lundenbyrig.

At this time Hengist and Esk, his son, fought with the Britons at the
place that is called Crayford, and there slew four thousand men. And
the Britons then forsook Kentland, and with much fear fled to London
town.
BEOWULF. The old epic poem, called after its hero Beowulf, is more
than myth or legend, more even than history; it is a picture of a life and
a world that once had real existence. Of that vanished life, that world of
ancient Englishmen, only a few material fragments remain: a bit of
linked armor, a rusted sword with runic inscriptions, the oaken ribs of a
war galley buried with the Viking