Romance | Page 6

they spend time on cherishing the painted veil called Life, when their desires are fixed on what it conceals? When Tacitus called the Christian religion "a deadly superstition," he spoke as a true Roman, a member of the race of Empire- builders. His subtle political instinct scented danger from those who looked with coldness on the business and desire of this world. The Christian faith, which presents no social difficulties while it is professed here and there by a lonely saint or seer, is another thing when it becomes the formal creed of a nation. The Christians themselves knew that to cut themselves off from the country of their birth would have been a fatal choice, so far as this world is concerned. Their ultimate decision was to accept Roman civilization and Roman culture, and to add Christianity to it.
Then followed an age-long attempt to Christianize Latin literature, to supply believers with a new poetry, written in polished and accomplished verse, and inspired by Christian doctrine. Of those who attempted this task, Prudentius is perhaps the greatest name. The attempt could never have been very successful; those who write in Latin verse must submit to be judged, not by the truth of their teaching, but by the formal beauties of their prosody, and the wealth of their allusive learning. Even Milton, zealot though he be, is esteemed for his manner rather than for his matter. But the experiment was cut short by the barbarian invasions. When the Empire was invaded, St. Jerome and St. Augustine, Prudentius and Symmachus, Claudian and Paulinus of Nola, were all alive. These men, in varying degrees, had compounded and blended the two elements, the pagan and the Christian. The two have been compounded ever since. The famous sevententh century controversy concerning the fitness of sacred subjects for poetic treatment is but a repetition and an echo of that older and more vital difference. The two strains could never be perfectly reconciled, so that a certain impurity and confusion was bequeathed to modern European literature, not least to English literature. Ours is a great and various literature, but its rarest virtue is simplicity. Our best ballads and lyrics are filled with the matter of faith, but as often as we try the larger kinds of poetry, we inevitably pass over into reminiscence, learning, criticism,--in a word, culture.
The barbarians seized, or were granted, land; and settled down under their chiefs. They accepted Christianity, and made it into a warlike religion. They learned and "corrupted" the Latin language. In their dialects they had access neither to the literature of ancient Rome, nor to the imitative scholarly Christian literature, poetry and homily, which competed with it. Latin continued to be the language of religion and law. It was full of terms and allusions which meant nothing to them. They knew something of government,--not of the old republic, but of their own men and estates. They believed wholly and simply in Christianity, especially the miraculous part of it. To them (as to all whom it has most profoundly influenced) it was not a philosophy, but a history of marvellous events. When, by the operation of society, their dialect had formed itself, a new literature, unlike anything that had flourished in ancient Rome, grew up among them. This was Romance, the great literary form of the Middle Ages. It was a sincere literature, expressive of their pride in arms and their simple religious faith. The early songs and ballads, chanted in the Romance speech, have all perished. From a later time there have come down to us the Chansons de Geste, narrative poems composed by the professional caste of poets to celebrate the deeds and adventures of the knights who fought the battles of Charlemagne against the Saracen invader.
The note of this Romance literature is that it was actual, modern, realistic, at a time when classical literature had become a remote convention of bookish culture. It was sung in the banqueting-hall, while Latin poetry was read in the cells of monks. It flourished enormously, and extended itself to all the matter of history and legend, to King Arthur, Theseus, Alexander, ancient heroes and warriors who were brought alive again in the likeness of knights and emperors. Its triumph was so complete, that its decadence followed swiftly. Like the creatures that live in the blood of man, literary forms and species commonly die of their own excess. Romances were multiplied, and imitated; professional poets, not content with marvels that had now become familiar, sought for a new sensation in extravagant language and incident. The tales became more and more sophisticated, elaborate, grotesque, and unreal, until, in the fourteenth century, a stout townsman, who ticketed bales in a custom- house, and was the best English poet of his time, found them ridiculous. In