CHAPTER I
THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD

THE BEGINNINGS

Of the actual facts concerning the origin of English literature we know little indeed. Nearly all the literary history of the period, as far as it concerns the lives of actual writers, is a series of skillful reconstructions based on the texts, fortified by some scanty contemporary references (such as those of Bede), and topped with a mass of conjecture. The results, however, are astonishing and fruitful, as will be seen even in the meager summary that appears in the following pages.

THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The period is a long one, for it starts with the fifth century and concludes with the Norman Conquest of 1066. The events, however, must be dismissed very quickly. We may begin in 410 with the departure of the Romans, who left behind them a race of semi-civilized Celts. The latter, harassed by the inroads of the savage Caledonians, appealed for help to the adventurous English. The English, coming at first as saviors, remained as conquerors (450–600). In the course of time they gained possession of nearly all the land from the English Channel to the Firth of Forth. Then followed the Christianizing of the pagan English, beginning in Kent (597), a movement that affected very deeply all phases of English life. In succession followed the inroads of the Danes in the ninth century; the rise of Wessex among the early English kingdoms, due in great measure to the personality of King Alfred, who compromised with the Danes by sharing England with them (878); the accession of a Danish dynasty in England (1017); and the Gallicizing of the English Court, a process that was begun before the Conquest of 1066. All these events had their effect on the literature of the period.

LITERARY FEATURES OF THE PERIOD

1. Pagan Origins. The earliest poems, such as Widsith and Beowulf, present few Christian features, and those that do appear are clearly clumsy additions by later hands. It is fairly certain, therefore, that the earliest poems came over with the pagan conquerors. They were probably the common property of the bards or gleemen, who sang them at the feasts of the warriors. As time went on Christian ideas were imposed upon the heathen poetry, which retained much of its primitive phraseology.

2. Anonymous Origins. Of all the Old English poets, we have direct mention of only one, Cædmon. The name of another poet, Cynewulf, obscurely hinted at in three separate runic or riddling verses. Of the other Old English poets we do not know even the names. Prose came much later, and, as it was used for practical purposes, its authorship is in each case established.

3. The Imitative Quality. Nearly all the prose, and the larger part of the poetry, consists of translations and adaptations from the Latin. The favorite works for translation were the lives of saints, the books of the Bible, and various works of a practical nature. The clergy, who were almost the sole authors, had such text-books at hand, and were rarely capable of reaching beyond them. This secondhand nature of Old English is certainly its most disappointing feature. In most cases the translations are feebly imitative; in a few cases the poets (such as Cynewulf) or the prose-writers (such as Alfred) alter, expand, or comment upon their Latin originals, and then the material is of much greater literary importance.

4. The Manuscripts. It is very likely that only a portion of Old English poetry has survived, though the surviving material is quite representative. The manuscripts that preserve the poetical texts are comparatively late in their discovery, are unique of their kind, and are only four in number. They are (a) the Beowulf manuscript (containing also a portion of a poem Judith), discovered in 1705, and said to have been written about the year 1000; (b) the Junian manuscript, discovered in 1681 by the famous scholar Junius, and now in the Bodleian Library, containing the Cædmon poems; (c) the Exeter Book, in the Exeter Cathedral library (to which it was given by Leofric about 1050, being brought to light again in 1705), which preserves most of the Cynewulf poems; and (d) the Vercelli Book, discovered at Vercelli, near Milan, in 1832, which contains, along with some prose homilies, six Old English poems, including Andreas and Elene.

THE LANGUAGE

The Old English language was that of a simple and semi-barbarous people: limited in vocabulary, concrete in ideas, and rude and forcible in expression. In the later stages of their literature we see the crudeness being softened into something more cultured. In grammar the language was fairly complicated, possessing declinable nouns, pronouns, and adjectives, and a rather elaborate verb-system. There were three chief dialects: the Northern or Northumbrian, which was the first to produce a literature, and which was overwhelmed by the Danes; the West Saxon, a form of the Mercian or Midland, which grew to be the standard, as nearly all the texts are preserved in it; and the Kentish or Jutish, which is of little literary importance.

BEOWULF

1. Origin of the Poem. It is almost certain that the poem originated before the English invasions. There is no mention of England; Beowulf himself is the king of the “Geatas.” The poem, moreover, is pagan in conception, and so antedates the Christian conversion. With regard to the actual authorship of the work there is no evidence. It is very likely that it is a collection of the tales sung by the bards, strung together by one hand, and written in the West Saxon dialect.

2. The Story. There are so many episodes, digressions, and reversions in the story of Beowulf that it is almost impossible to set it down as a detailed consecutive narrative. Putting it in its very briefest form, we may say that Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, and king of the Geatas, sails to Denmark with a band of heroes, and rids the Danish King Hrothgar of a horrible mere-monster called Grendel. The mother of Grendel meets with the same fate, and Beowulf, having been duly feasted and rewarded, returns to his native land. After a prosperous reign of forty years Beowulf slays the dragon that ravishes his land, but himself receives a mortal wound. The poem concludes with the funeral of the old hero.

3. The Style. We give a short extract, along with a literal translation, to illustrate the style. The short lines of the poem are really half-lines, and in most editions they are printed in pairs across the page. The extract deals with Beowulf’s funeral rites:

It will be observed that the language is abruptly and rudely phrased. The half-lines very frequently consist of mere tags or, as they are called, kennings. Such conventional phrases were the stock-in-trade of the gleemen, and they were employed to keep the narrative in some kind of motion while the invention of the minstrel flagged. At least half of the lines in the extract are kennings—beorhtū byrnū, hláf-ord leófne, higū un-róte, and so on. Such phrases occur again and again in Old English poetry. It will also be observed that the lines are strongly rhythmical, but not metrical; and that there is a system of alliteration, consisting as a rule of two alliterated sounds in the first half-line and one in the second half-line.

With regard to the general narrative style of the poem, there is much primitive vigor in the fighting, sailing, and feasting; a deep appreciation of the terrors of the sea and of other elemental forces; and a fair amount of rather tedious repetition and digression. Beowulf, in short, may be justly regarded as the expression of a hardy, primitive, seafaring folk, reflecting their limitations as well as their virtues.

OTHER POETRY

1. The Pagan Poems. The bulk of Old English poetry is of a religious cast, but a few pieces are distinctly secular.

(a) Widsith (i.e., “the far traveler”) is usually considered to be the oldest poem in the language. It consists of more than a hundred lines of verse, in which a traveler, real or imaginary, recounts the places and persons he has visited. Since he mentions several historical personages, the poem is of much interest, but as pure poetry it has little merit.

(b) Waldhere (or Walter) consists of two fragments, sixty-eight lines in all, giving some of the exploits of a famous Burgundian hero. There is much real vigor in the poem, which ranks high among its fellows.

(c) The Fight at Finnesburgh, a fragment of fifty lines, contains a finely told description of the fighting at Finnesburgh.

(d) The Battle of Brunanburgh is a spirited piece on this famous fight, which took place in 937. The poem has much more spirit and originality than usual, contains some fine descriptions, and forces the narrative along at a comparatively fast pace.

(e) The Battle of Maldon is a fragment, but of uncommon freshness and vivacity. The battle occurred in 993, and the poem seems to be contemporary with the event.

2. The Dramatic Monologues. These poems, which are called The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Deor’s Complaint, The Wife’s Complaint, The Husband’s Message, and Wulf and Eadwacer, appear in the Exeter Book. It is unlikely that they were composed at the same time, but they are alike in a curious meditative pathos. In Old English literature they come nearest to the lyric. As poetry, they possess the merit of being both original and personal, qualities not common in the poems of the period.

3. The Cædmon Group. In his Historia Ecclesiastica Bede tells the story of a herdsman Cædmon, who by divine inspiration was transformed from a state of tongue-tied ineffectiveness into that of poetical ecstasy. He was summoned into the presence of Hilda of Whitby, who was abbess during the years 658–80. He was created a monk, and thereafter sang of many Biblical events. On a blank page of one of the Bede manuscripts there is quoted the first divinely inspired hymn of Cædmon, a rude and distinctly uninspired fragment of poetry, nine lines in all, composed in the ancient Northumbrian dialect.

That is all we know of the life and works of Cædmon; but in the Junian manuscript a series of religious paraphrases was unearthed in the year 1651. In subject they corresponded rather closely to the list set out by Bede, and in a short time they were ascribed to Cædmon. The poems consist of paraphrases of Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel and three shorter poems, the chief of which is the Harrowing of Hell. Modern scholarship now recognizes that the poems are by different hands, but the works can be conveniently lumped together under the name of the shadowy Northumbrian. The poems appear in the West Saxon dialect, in spite of the fact that Cædmon must have written in his own dialect; but the difficulty is overcome by pointing out that a West Saxon scribe might have copied the poems.

In merit the poems are unequal. At their best they are not sublime poetry, but they are strong and spirited pieces with some aptitude in description. On the average they are trudging mediocrities which are frequently prosaic and dull.

4. The Cynewulf Group. In 1840 the scholar Kemble lighted upon three runic (or pre-Roman) signatures which appeared respectively in the course of the poems called Christ and Juliana (in the Exeter Book) and Elene (in the Vercelli Book). The signatures read “Cynewulf” or “Cynwulf.” In 1888 a signature “Fwulcyn” was discovered in The Fates of the Apostles. This is all we know of Cynewulf, if we accept the quite general personalities that appear in the course of the poems. Yet an elaborate life has been built up for the poet, and other poems, similar in style to the signed pieces, have been attributed to him. The Phœnix, The Dream of the Rood, and the Riddles of the Exeter Book are the most considerable of the additional poems.

The Cynewulfian poems are much more scholarly compositions than the Beowulf or even the Cædmon poems. There is a greater power of expression, less reliance on the feeble kenning, and some real expertness in description. The ideas expressed in the poems are broader and deeper, and a certain lyrical fervor is not wanting. The date is probably the tenth century.

PROSE

1. Alfred (848–900). Though there were some prose writings of an official nature (such as the laws of Ine, who died about 730) before the time of Alfred, there can be little objection to the claim frequently made for him, that he is “the father of English prose.” As he tells us himself in his preface to the Pastoral Care, he was driven into authorship by the lamentable state of English learning, due in large measure to the depredations of the Danes. Even the knowledge of Latin was evaporating, so the King, in order to preserve some show of learning among the clergy, was compelled to translate some popular monastic handbooks into his own tongue. These works are his contribution to our literature. As he says, they were often “interpreted word for word, and meaning for meaning”; but they are made much more valuable by reason of the original passages freely introduced into them. The books, four in number, are an able selection from the popular treatises of the day: the Universal History of Orosius; the Ecclesiastical History of Bede; the Pastoral Care of Pope Gregory; and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boëthius. His claim to the translation of Bede is sometimes disputed; and there is a fifth work, a Handbook or commonplace book, which has been lost. The chronological order of the translations cannot be determined, but they were all written during the last years of the reign.

We add a brief extract to illustrate his prose style. It is not a highly polished style; it is rather that of an earnest but somewhat unpracticed writer. When it is simplest it is best; in its more complicated passages it is confusing and involved. The vocabulary is simple and unforced.

2. Ælfric (955–1020) is known as “the Grammarian.” Of his life little is known. It is probable that he lived near Winchester, and he was certainly the first abbot of Eynsham, near Oxford, in 1006. A fair number of his works, both in Latin and English, have come down to us. Of his English books, two series of homilies, adapted from the Latin, seem to have been composed about the year 990. A third series of homilies, called The Lives of the Saints, is dated approximately at 996. Several of his pastoral letters survive, as well as a translation of Bede’s De Temporibus and some English translations of Biblical passages.

Ælfric’s style is interesting, for it is representative of the scholarly prose of his time, a century after Alfred. It is flowing and vigorous, showing an almost excessive use of alliteration. In many cases it suggests a curious hybrid between the poetry and prose of the period.

3. Wulfstan was Archbishop of York from 1003 till his death in 1023. In his prose, which survives in more than fifty homilies and in his famous Letter to the English People (Lupi Sermo ad Anglos), he shows the effects of “style” to a marked degree. His Letter in particular is a fervid epistle, detailing with considerable power and fluency the dreadful plight of the English nation in the year 1014. The alliteration and rhythm are exceedingly well marked, much more so than in the case of Ælfric.

4. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was probably inspired by King Alfred, who is said even to have dictated the entries dealing with his own campaigns. The Chronicle has come down to us in four versions, all of which seem to have sprung from a common stock. The four versions are preserved in seven manuscripts, of which the most notable are those connected with Canterbury and Peterborough. From the period of the English invasions till the year 892 the books are fairly in accord. At the latter year they diverge. Each introduces its local events and miscellaneous items of news, and they finish at different dates. The last date of all is about the middle of the twelfth century.

The style of the Chronicle varies greatly; it ranges from the baldest notes and summaries to quite ambitious passages of narrative and description. Of the latter class the well-known passage on the horrors of Stephen’s reign is a worthy example. We give a brief extract, dated 1100, just at the close of the Old English period, which is a fair average of the different methods:

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS

From the time when it first appears till it is swamped by the Norman Conquest Old English literature undergoes a quite noticeable development. In the mass the advance appears to be considerable, but when we reflect that it represents the growth of some five hundred years, we see that the rate of progress is undoubtedly slow. We shall take the poetical and prose forms separately.

1. Poetry. Poetry is much earlier in the field, and its development is the greater. It begins with the rude forms of Beowulf and concludes with the more scholarly paraphrases of Cynewulf.

(a) The epic in its untutored form exists in Beowulf. This poem lacks the finer qualities of the epic: it is deficient in the strict unity, the high dignity, and the broad motive of the great classical epic; but a crude vigor and a certain rude majesty are not wanting. It is no mean beginning for the English epic. The later poems of the Cædmon and Cynewulf types are too discursive and didactic to be epics, though in places they are like The Battle of Maldon and The Fight at Finnesburgh in their narrative force.

(b) The lyric—that is, the short and passionate expression of a personal feeling—hardly exists at all. The nearest approach to it lies in the dramatic monologues, such as Deor’s Complaint. These poems are too long and diffuse to be real lyrics, but they have some of the expressive melancholy and personal emotion of the lyric.

2. Prose. The great bulk of Old English prose consists of translation; and in its various shapes English prose adopts the methods of its originals. We have many homilies, some history, and a few pastoral letters, all based strictly upon Latin works. There are very few passages of real originality, and they are short and disjointed. Of historical writing we have the rudiments in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. On the whole, the development is very small, for the prose is bound by the curse of imitativeness.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY STYLE

1. Poetry. We have once more to distinguish between the earlier Beowulf stage and the later Cynewulf stage. In the earlier period the style is more disjointed, abrupt, and digressive, and is weighted down by the reliance upon the kenning. In the later stage there is greater passion and insight, less reliance upon the stock phrases, and a greater desire for stylistic effects.

2. Prose. In spite of its limited scope, Old English prose shows quite an advance in style. The earlier style, represented by the prose of Alfred, is rather halting and unformed, the sentences are loosely knit, the vocabulary is meager, and there is an absence of the finer qualities of rhythm and cadence. By the time of Wulfstan the prose has gained in fluency. It is much more animated and confident, and it freely employs alliteration and the commoner rhetorical figures.

But within this development both of prose and poetry there was already the seed of decay. During the last century of the period the poetical impulse was weakening; there is little verse after the time of Cynewulf. The prose too was failing, and the language was showing symptoms of weakness. The inflections were loosening even before the Norman Conquest, and the Old English vocabulary was being subtly Gallicized. The Norman Conquest was in time to put an abrupt finish to a process already well advanced.

EXERCISES

1. Examine the style of the following poetical passages. Point out examples of kennings, and mention the purposes they serve. Comment upon the type of sentence, the use of alliteration, and the nature of the vocabulary. Compare the style with that of the Beowulf extract given on page 4.

2. Comment briefly upon the style of the following prose extract. How does it compare with modern English prose?

3. What appears to you to be the reasons why in Old English poetry appears before prose?

4. Mention some of the effects of translation upon both the poetry and the prose of the Old English.

5. “Old English prose is much nearer modern English prose than Old English poetry is to modern English poetry.” Discuss this statement.