NOTE ON BOOKS
For the language: Anglo-Saxon can be learned in Sweet’s Primer and Reader (Clarendon Press). Sweet’s First Middle English Primer gives extracts from the Ancren Riwle and the Ormulum, with separate grammars for the two dialects. But it is generally most convenient to learn the language of Chaucer before attempting the earlier books. Morris and Skeat’s Specimens of Early English (two volumes, Clarendon Press) range from the end of the English Chronicle (1153) to Chaucer; valuable for literary history as well as philology. The nature of the language is explained in Henry Bradley’s Making of English (Clarendon Press), and in Wyld’s Study of the Mother Tongue (Murray).
The following books should be noted: Stopford Brooke, Early English Literature (Macmillan); Schofield, English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer (Macmillan); Jusserand, Literary History of the English People (Fisher Unwin); Chambers’ Cyclopædia of English Literature, I; Ten Brink, Early English Literature (Bell); Saintsbury, History of English Prosody, I (Macmillan); Courthope, History of English Poetry, I and II (Macmillan).
Full bibliographies are provided in the Cambridge History of English Literature.
The bearings of early French upon English poetry are illustrated in Saintsbury’s Flourishing of Romance and Rise of Allegory (Blackwood). Much of the common medieval tendencies may be learned from the earlier part of Robertson’s German Literature (Blackwood), and Gaspary’s Italian Literature, translated by Oelsner (Bell). Some topics have been already discussed by the present author in other works: Epic and Romance (Macmillan); The Dark Ages (Blackwood); Essays on Medieval Literature (Macmillan).
The history of medieval drama in England, for which there was no room in this book, is clearly given in Pollard’s Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes (Clarendon Press).
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE
By R. W. Chambers
Many years have passed since the publication of Ker’s volume in the Home University Library, yet there is hardly a paragraph in it which demands any serious addition or alteration. It is a classic of English criticism, and any attempt to alter it, or ‘bring it up to date’, either now or in future years, would be futile.
Ker deliberately refused to add an elaborate bibliography. But his Note on Books reminds us how, though his own work remains unimpaired, the whole field of study has been altered, largely as a result of that work.
Sweet’s books mark an epoch in Anglo-Saxon study, and have not lost their practical value: to his Primer and Reader (Clarendon Press) must be added the Anglo-Saxon Reader of A. J. Wyatt (Cambridge University Press, 1919, etc.). The earlier portion of Morris’s Specimens of Early English, Part I (1150-1300), has been replaced by Joseph Hall’s Selections from Early Middle English, 1130-1250, 2 vols. (Clarendon Press, 1920); Part II, Specimens (1298-1393), edited by Morris and Skeat, has been replaced by Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose, edited by Kenneth Sisam (Clarendon Press, 1921). To Wyld’s Study of the Mother Tongue must now be added his History of Modern Colloquial English and Otto Jespersen’s Growth and Structure of the English Language (Blackwell, 1938).
The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, edited by G. P. Krapp and others (Columbia Univ. Press and Routledge, 6 vols, 1931, etc.), provide a corpus of Anglo-Saxon poetry.
It is impossible to review editions of, or monographs on, individual poems or authors, but some work done on Beowulf and Chaucer may be noted: editions of Beowulf, by Sedgefield (Manchester Univ. Press, 1910, etc.), by Wyatt and Chambers (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1914, etc.) and by Klaeber (Heath & Co., 1922, etc.); R. W. Chambers, Beowulf, an Introduction (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1921, etc.), and W. W. Lawrence, Beowulf and Epic Tradition (Harvard Univ. Press, 1928, etc.); G. L. Kittredge, Chaucer and his Poetry (Harvard Univ. Press, 1915); J. L. Lowes, Geoffrey Chaucer (Oxford Univ. Press, 1934); F. N. Robinson, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Oxford Univ. Press, 1933).
Fresh aspects of medieval literature are dealt with in G. R. Owst’s Preaching in Medieval England (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1926) and Literature and the Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1933); R. W. Chambers, The Continuity of English Prose (Oxford Univ. Press, 1932); C. S. Lewis, Allegory of Love (Clarendon Press, 1936); Mr. Owst’s books serve to remind us that Ker’s work can still be supplemented by minute study of fields which he, with his vast range over the literatures of all Western Europe, had of necessity to leave unexplored, when he closed his little book with Chaucer. The two most startling new discoveries in Medieval English Literature fall outside the limits which Ker set himself; they are The Book of Margery Kempe, edited in 1940 for the Early English Text Society by Prof. S. B. Meech and Miss Hope Emily Allen, and the Winchester manuscript of Malory’s Morte Darthur, upon which Prof. Eugene Vinaver is now engaged.
The student will find particulars of the books he wants by consulting the new bibliography of the Cambridge History of English Literature or A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1400, by Prof. J. E. Wells (Yale and Oxford Univ. Presses, 1916, with supplements).
FOOTNOTES
The Cædmon MS. in Oxford.
The Exeter Book.
The Vercelli Book.
The book containing the poems Beowulf and Judith in the Cotton Library at the British Museum.
INDEX
- Ælfric, 17, 40, 42, 43, 154, 155, 157
- Alexander the Great, 51, 53, 105, 137
- Alfred, King, 17, 19, 33, 34, 35, 41, 43
- Amadace, Sir, 84, 130
- Amadas et Ydoine, 55, 77
- Ancren Riwle, 154-7
- Andersen, Hans, 83, 128
- Anelida and Arcite, 113, 174, 175, 180, 181
- Apollonius of Tyre, 57
- Arnold, Matthew, 8
- Arthur, King, 50, 86, 87, 120
- Auchinleck MS., 90
- Ayenbite of Inwit, 150
- Ballads, 116-23
- Barbour, 162
- Bede, 34, 37
- Bentham on the Middle Ages, 10
- Beowulf, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 34, 43, 45, 52
- Bestiary, 138, 154
- Bevis of Southampton, Sir, 25, 98
- Boccaccio, 28, 174, 175, 179, 181, 182, 185
- Boethius, 34, 41, 43, 171
- Book of the Duchess, 173, 178, 181, 183
- Book of the Duchess Blanche, 133
- Britain,’ ‘Matter of, 50-1, 52, 53, 85
- Bruce, 162
- Bunyan, John, 98, 132, 138, 139, 145
- Burne, Minstrel, 58
- Burns, Robert, 56, 114, 115
- Byrhtnoth, 29
- Cædmon, 34, 35, 37
- Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, The, 186
- Canute, his boat song, 107, 109
- Canterbury Tales, The, 28, 64, 168, 170, 184, 185, 186
- Carole, The, 61, 63, 64
- Chansons de Geste, 52, 70
- Charlemagne, 52, 53, 87
- Chaucer, 20, 43, 55, 63, 64, 69, 94, 96, 97, 113, 133, 134, 140, 141, 143, 160, 163-86
- Chevelere Assigne, 105
- Chrestien de Troyes, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85, 166
- Chronicle, The English, 41
- Clerk’s Tale, The, 184
- Clopinel, Jean, 140
- Cockayne, Land of, 132
- Complaint to Pity, 173, 178
- Confessio Amantis, 133, 167
- Courtly Poets, 63, 64, 66, 68
- Cuckoo Song, 57, 59
- Cursor Mundi, The, 161
- Cynewulf, 37, 38, 39, 44
- Dante, 8, 9, 65, 66, 75, 144, 160, 168, 171, 177, 179, 181, 185
- Deor’s Lament, 38, 119
- Deschamps, Eustace, 174
- Dream of the Rood, The, 36, 37
- Dryden on Chaucer, 183
- Emaré, quoted, 97
- Fabliaux, 127-32
- Faerie Queene, The, 26, 99
- Fall of the Angels, The, 36, 44
- Faroese Ballads, 53, 119
- Ferabras, Sir, 54
- Finnesburgh, The Fight at, 26, 29
- Floris and Blanchefleur, 89
- France,’ ‘The Matter of, 50-1, 52, 53
- Franklin’s Tale, The, 184
- French Poetry, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59, 60, 69, 70, 72, 163, 176
- Friars of Berwick, 130
- Froissart, 166, 173
- Gawain, Sir, 50, 52
- Gawain and the Green Knight, 45, 60, 86, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 144
- Genesis, Anglo-Saxon poem, 35
- Geoffrey of Monmouth, 52, 86, 87
- Germania, The, 18, 20, 21, 27
- Giraldus Cambrensis, 62, 84, 108
- Godric, St., 107, 108, 109
- Gower, John, 55, 56, 63, 69, 134, 164, 165, 166, 167
- Grimm, 13, 129
- Guillaume de Lorris, 140
- Guy of Warwick, 98
- Hampole, Richard Rolle of, 63, 162
- Harleian MS., the, 110-3, 114,116
- Havelock the Dane, 45, 88, 89
- Henryson, Robert, 125
- Hous of Fame, The, 143, 170, 178, 184
- Huchoun, 106
- Huon of Bordeaux, Sir, 25
- Lais, Breton, 83, 86, 94
- Launfal, Sir, 83, 84, 93
- Layamon’s Brut, 45, 52, 87, 88, 153, 154
- Legend of Good Women, The, 66, 72, 143, 168, 174, 183, 184
- Lewes, Song on the Battle of, 111
- Libeaus, Sir, 98, 99, 100, 102
- Luve Ron, 109
- Lydgate, John, 98
- Lyndsay, Sir David, 161
- Lyric poetry, 56-63, 107-23
- Maldon, Battle of, 29, 30, 33, 39, 40, 43, 52
- Malmesbury, William of, 44
- Malory, 86, 88
- Man in the Moon, 113
- Map, Walter, 84, 87
- Marie de France, 83, 84, 86, 94
- Melibeus, 169
- Michael of Kildare, Friar, 113
- Minnesingers, 67, 69
- Minot, Laurence, 95, 112
- Monk’s Tale, The, 185
- Moral Ode, 152, 153
- Morte Arthure, in alliterative verse, 45, 60, 86, 105, 106
- Odyssey, The, 24
- Ohthere, 19, 20
- Orfeo, Sir, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 117
- Ormulum, 57, 58, 59, 151
- Osborne, Dorothy, 81
- Ovid, read by French poets, 72, 176
- Owl and the Nightingale, The, 64, 133-6
- Parliament of Birds, 181, 183
- Pearl, 103, 143
- Petrarch, 49, 65, 66, 75, 143
- Piers Plowman, 30, 31, 45, 143, 144-9
- Provençal poetry, 67, 68, 69
- Reynard the Fox, 124-7
- Riddles, Anglo-Saxon, 40
- Rime of Sir Thopas, 79, 94, 96, 97, 103, 104, 168, 178
- Robert of Brunne, 159
- Robert of Gloucester, 158, 178
- Robin Hood, 122
- Roland, 51, 52, 53
- Roman d’Eneas, 71, 73, 176
- Roman de Troie, 51, 52, 53, 71, 105
- Rome,’ ‘The Matter of, 50, 51
- Rood, Dream of the, 36, 37
- Rose, Roman de la, 139-43, 163, 166, 167, 171, 173
- Ruin, The, 39, 44
- Ruskin, 8, 9
- Ruthwell verses, the, 37
- St. Cecilia, Life of, 178, 179
- Saints, Lives of the, 43, 159
- Salomon and Saturnus, 40
- Saxo Grammaticus, 28, 48, 66
- Science, popular, 160
- Scottish Field, The, 30
- Seafarer, The, 39
- Seven Wise Masters of Rome, 137, 167
- Sidney, Sir Philip, 72
- Sigfred (Sigurd, or Siegfried the Volsung), 21, 22, 27
- Sirith, Dame, 127
- Soul’s Ward, 157
- Spenser, 65, 73, 75, 99, 139
- Tacitus, 18
- Thomas de Hales, Friar, 109
- Thopas, Rime of Sir, 79, 94, 96, 97, 103, 104, 168, 178
- Tristrem, Sir, 90, 94, 99, 100, 120
- Troilus and Criseyde, 51, 168, 170, 181, 182, 186
- Waldere, Anglo-Saxon poem, 16, 22, 29
- Wanderer, The, 39, 44
- Wayland Smith, 34
- Welsh poet writing English, 114
- Widsith, 22, 26, 33, 38, 119
- Wife’s Complaint, The, 39
- William of Malmesbury, 28, 44
- William of Palerne (or William and the Werwolf), 55, 105
- William of Poitiers, 47, 48, 114
- Wycliffe, 42
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