A brief survey of English and American literature

Front matter

A BRIEF SURVEY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

•The,

THE M ACM ILL AN COMPANY

Preface

This book is intended especially to meet the needs of secondary schools in which only a moderate amount of time is devoted to the history of literature, and where a brief survey of English and American literature in a single volume is required. There has been a growing belief that the study about literature should be reduced to a minimum in order that as much time as possible might be given to the study of the literature itself. Much study about authors whose books the student has never read is of doubtful utility. A wiser plan is to use a brief account of the history of the literature with a large amount of reading in the literature itself arranged chronologically. To be sure, a certain amount of historical study is necessary. Students should be able to group the classics which they study in proper historical perspective and to see how these classics are the outgrowth of the life of the time in which they were written. For this purpose, however, no elaborate and detailed account of books which the student has never read is necessary. Such an elaborate study consumes an undue amount of time, confuses the student whose reading has been limited, and makes the study of literature uninspiring. The plan of the following book, therefore, is to give a very brief account of the progress of English and American literature, to mention only the most important literary productions, to suggest very briefly their connection with the life of the period in which they were produced, and to point out in a general way their 'significance as pieces of literary

v vi PREFACE

art. Each chapter is accompanied with a list of suggested readings from the literature mentioned in the chapter. Emphasis should be placed upon these readings and enough of them required to keep the study of the chapter from becoming a perfunctory learning of dry facts. The history should be carefully subordinated to the study of the literature itself.

In the preparation of the chapters on the history of English literature, I have been particularly indebted to Moody and Lovett's History of English Literature. In the final chapter of Part II, which treats of the development of the short-story in America, my obligation to Canby's A Study of the Short-story in English is obvious. I am also indebted for many helpful suggestions to my colleagues, Professors H. M. Belden and A. H. E. Eairchild.

F. M. T.

Part I Chapter Page

I. The Old English Period 1

(a) The Early Literature of the Anglo-Saxons . . 1

(6) The Traditional Literature of the Celts ... 5

(c) Christian Literature ...... 6

II. The Middle English Period 14

(a) The Romance and the Ba]lad 14

(b) The Age of Chaucer 25

(c) The Rise of the Drama . . ' . . . .33

III. The Renaissance ........ 41

(a) Non-dramatic Literature 43

(&) Dramatic Literature ...... 47

IV. The Puritan Age . 62

V. Classicism 73

(a) The Drama .75

(b) Non-dramatic Poetry 77

(c) The Essay and the Pamphlet 81

(d) The Novel 87

(e) Criticism . .90

VI. Romanticism 93

(a) Poetry 93

VII. The Victorian Era 115

(a) Realism 119

(6) Idealism 125

vii viii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part II Chapter Pag-k

VIII. Early American Literature 153

(a) History and Biography 154

(b) Theological Writings 158

(c) Poetry . . 159

(d) Oratory and Political Prose 162

IX. The First Creative Period 164

(a) Romance 164

(c) Oratory . . . 176

(d) Miscellaneous Prose . . . . . . 180

X. The Second Creative Period 184

(b) Fiction . . .188

(c) Oratory and Miscellaneous Prose .... 194

XL The Development of the Short-Story . . . 197

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The First Page of " Piers Plowman." Facsimile from the Ms. in the Bodleian Library Frontispiece

FACING- PAGE

The Canterbury Pilgrims. After the fresco painting by William

Portia. After the painting by John Everett Millais . . 57 ^ Milton dictating " Paradise Lost." After the painting by Michael

Munkacsy 69

A Literary Party at Sir Joshua Reynolds'. After the painting by

James Doyle 84 ^

Isabella and the Pot of Basil. After the painting by Holman

Thomas Car lyle. After the portrait by James McNeil Whistler . 117

Cooper Monument, Cooperstown 167

Ralph Waldo Emerson . . . r 181 /

Nathaniel Hawthorne 198 ^

PART I

A BRIEF SURVEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

CHAPTER I (a) THE EARLY LITERATURE OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS

The People. — For the beginnings of English literature we must go back to a time before our Anglo-Saxon forefathers came to England, when they were still living on the shores of the North Sea in Denmark and about the mouth of the Elbe River in northern Germany. They were Low- German tribes, allied more closely to the modern Dutch than to the modern Germans both by language and by blood. It is thought that they did not penetrate far into the swamps and forests of the interior, but lived along the shore and on the sea. They were uncivilized people, but not savages. Their literature shows — and we always go to literature to find out the inner life of a people — that they loved their homes, reverenced their women, felt the influences of Nature, believed in their gods, loved personal freedom, sought honor and glory. They were adventurous seafarers, stern of heart and strong of hand ; but they were not pirates.

Their Gloomy Life. — Their life was gloomy. Denmark and Germany are lands of cloud and mist. During the entire year the sun can be seen only a third of the time that it is above the horizon. In winter, darkness comes in the middle of the afternoon. Moreover, the struggle with storm and sea was long and hard. No wonder this people was a stern and somber race, with a gloomy religion, and with melancholy ideas of life and fate. Life was almost without joy save perhaps the joy of conflict ; and the whole of man's life, with whatever of joy it might have, was but the flicker of a candle between two great darknesses. The essential gloom of it was well expressed somewhat later in Northumbria by one of their own chiefs :

"You remember, it may be, king, that which sometimes happens in winter when you are seated at table with your earls and thanes. Your fire is lighted, and your hall warmed, and without is rain and snow and storm. Then comes a swallow flying across the hall ; he enters by one door, and leaves by another. The brief moment while he is within is pleasant to him ; he feels not rain nor cheerless winter weather ; but the moment is brief — the bird flies away in the twinkling of an eye, and he passes from winter to winter. Such, methinks, is the life of man on earth, compared with the uncertain time beyond. It appears for a while ; but what is the time which comes after — the time which was before ? We know not. If, then, this new doctrine [Christianity] may teach us somewhat of greater certainty, it were well that we should regard it."

Literature of Tradition. — Life, however, was not altogether without solace. In the long winter evenings the lord and his retainers gathered in the hall and sat around the mead bench, drinking together and. listening to the song of the scop and the gleeman. These poets and reciters kept alive the traditions of the people, interpreting their ideals in myth and legend and heroic story. This was their literature ; not books, not even manuscripts. Stories of gods and heroes passed from generation to generation by word of mouth, even as the story of the wrath of Achilles was handed down among the prehistoric Greeks. Some of these stories are history ; most of them, myths about the struggle of the race with sea and storm and pestilence.

When our forefathers came to England in the fifth century, they brought with them these traditions just as the prehistoric Greeks took their traditions to Asia Minor ; and just as the story of the siege of Troy developed in Asia Minor into The Iliad, so the Anglo-Saxon legends developed in England into an Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf.

" Beowulf." — The scene of the early part of this story is Denmark. Hrothgar, King of the Danes, had built a splendid mead hall by the sea, where he and his thanes gathered to feast and to listen to the songs of the gleemen. But a frightful monster, Grendel, came now and again and carried off the warriors to devour them in his lair. Arms could not prevail against him, and joy was turned to mourning in Hrothgar's Hall. At length from across the sea came the hero Beowulf to fight with the monster in the hall, and to pursue him wounded to the death to his lair beneath the waters of a sea pool. Here Beowulf also meets and destroys GrendePs mother. The hero then returns in great honor to his home in South Sweden, where he rules over his people for fifty years. In his old age, he destroys a fire dragon, and thereby secures for his people a great treasure-hoard ; but, in the battle, he loses his own life. A grateful people burn his body in pomp upon a funeral pyre and, upon a promontory overlooking the sea, erect a memorial barrow above his ashes. The end of the poem is too fine to pass over without quoting :

"Then fashioned for him the folk of Geats firm on the earth a funeral-pile, and hung it with helmets and harness of war and breastplates bright, as the boon he asked ; and they laid amid it the mighty chieftain, heroes mourning their master dear.

Then on the hill that hugest of balefires the warriors wakened. Wood-smoke rose black over blaze, and blent was the roar of flame with weeping (the wind was still), till the fire had broken the frame of bones,

hot at the heart. In heavy mood

their misery moaned they, their master's death.

Wailing her woe, the widow old,

her hair upbound, for Beowulf's death

sung in her sorrow, and said full oft

she dreaded the doleful days to come,

deaths enow, and doom of battle,

and shame. — The smoke by the sky was devoured.

"The folk of the Weders fashioned there on the headland a barrow broad and high, by ocean-farers far descried : in ten days' time their toil had raised it, the battle-brave's beacon. Round brands of the pyre a wall they built, the worthiest ever that wit could prompt in their wisest men. They placed in the barrow that precious booty, the rounds and the rings they had reft erewhile, hardy heroes, from hoard in cave, — trusting the ground with treasure of earls, gold in the earth, where ever it lies useless to men as of yore it was.

" Then about that barrow the battle-keen rode atheling-born, a band of twelve, lament to make, to mourn their king, chant their dirge, and their chieftain honor. They praised his earlship, his acts of prowess worthily witnessed : and well it is that men their master-friend mightily laud, heartily love, when hence he goes from life in the body forlorn away.

" Thus made their mourning the men of Geatland, for their hero's passing his hearth-companions : quoth that of all the kings of earth, of men he was the mildest and most belov'd, to his kin the kindest, keenest for praise."

In this poem we see the scenes with which our forefathers were familiar, enter into their hopes and fears, and realize their passion for honor and glory, their high feeling of duty, and the stern heroism with which they took leave of life.

Other poems which give us insight into Anglo-Saxon character and life are Widsith, an account of the wanderings of a gleeman ; The Sea-farer, written in the spirit of Odysseus, though the northern seas differ much from the Mediterranean; and the Battle of Brunanburh and the Battle of Maldon, fine expressions of the warlike spirit of the race.

(&) THE TRADITIONAL LITERATURE OF THE CELTS

The Celts in Britain. — The people who inhabited England — or Britain as it was then called — before the Anglo- Saxon conquest, were Celts, that branch of the Indo-European family of races which had overspread France, Spain, and the British Islands before the time of recorded history in western Europe. Caesar had fought against many of the Celtic tribes in Gaul, and in 55 B.C. had crossed over into Britain and defeated the British tribes there. Later Britain had become a Roman province, adopting to a certain extent the civilization of Rome. By the early part of the fifth century, however, the Roman legions had been withdrawn from Britain to protect the imperial city from the inroads of the Teutonic tribes of northern Europe, leaving the Celts of Britain to take care of themselves. They resisted the Anglo-Saxon invaders as best they could ; but they were little by little driven back into the mountains of Wales and Scotland, and some of them passed over into Armorica on the northwest coast of France.

Literature of the Britons. — ■ These people, as well as the Anglo-Saxons, had their traditional literature of myth and legend and heroic story, which has had a large influence in the development of English literature. These traditions clustered especially about the name of Arthur ; supposed to be a British prince who gathered the scattered bands of his people about him, and stemmed for a time the tide of Anglo- Saxon invasion, defeating the invaders in twelve great battles, of which the last was the famous battle of Mount Badon. The early form of these stories is not known to us. We have no mention of them until about the ninth century ; and, so far as we know, they did not find their way into manuscript until the eleventh or twelfth century, being transmitted from generation to generation by word of mouth like the story of the wrath of Achilles, and the story cf the exploits of Beowulf. They need not be discussed in this chapter, for, in the form in which they have come down to us, they belong to a time later than the Old English period. It is enough to say here that they reveal a people quite different from the Anglo-Saxon; a less somber people, gayer and more fanciful, more eager, more excitable, more buoyant, more appreciative of beauty, richer in sentiment, more keenly sensitive to joy and sorrow ; but less steady, less persevering, less enduring, less likely to conquer, to achieve, and to prevail.

(c) CHRISTIAN LITERATURE

When the Anglo-Saxons conquered Britain, they were pagans, and they remained pagans for one hundred and fifty years. Then Christianity came.

The Coming of Christianity. — One day in Rome in the latter half of the sixth century, a monk by the name of Gregory, seeing in the slave market at Rome two fair-haired slaves from Britain, asked to what race they belonged and was told that they were Angles. Thinking their faces more like Angels than Angles, he determined that this race should know Christianity; and later when he became Pope, sent

St. Augustine to convert them. St. Augustine came to southern England at the very end of the sixth century, established monasteries and schools, and instituted Christian civilization. About the same time also monks came from Ireand, which had long been a center of religion and learning, and established Irish (Celtic) monasteries in the north. These two streams of Christian influence brought to the English new thoughts and feelings, new ideas about life, and before long produced a literature different in many ways from the traditional pagan literature of the earlier Anglo-Saxons.

Caedmon. — The first Christian literature grew up in the north during the seventh century. One of the most important of the northern monasteries was at Whitby on the eastern coast, northeast of the city of York (see map). Here lived Caedmon, a poor ignorant man, who, if the legend about him is true, was miraculously led to the writing of poetry. Bede, who was born about the time of the death of Caedmon, tells the story in his Ecclesiastical History.

" There was in the monastery of this abbess a certain brother especially distinguished by the grace of God, since he was wont to make poems breathing of piety and religion. Whatever he learned of Sacred Scripture by the mouth of interpreters, he in a little time gave forth in poetical language composed with the greatest sweetness and depth of feeling, in English, his native tongue ; and the effect of his poems was ever and anon to incite the souls of many to despise the world and long for the heavenly life. Not but that there were others after him among the people of the Angles who sought to compose religious poetry; but none there was who could equal him. He (Caedmon) did not learn the art of song from men, nor through the means of any man ; rather did he receive it as a free gift from God. Hence it came to pass that he never was able to compose poetry of a frivolous or idle sort ; none but such as pertain to religion suited a tongue so religious as his. Living always the life of a layman until well advanced in years, he had never learned the least thing about poetry. In fact, so little did he understand of it that when at a feast it would be ruled that every one present should, for the entertainment of the others, sing in turn, he would, as soon as he saw the harp coming anywhere near him, jump up from the table in the midst of the banqueting, leave the place, and make the best of his way home.

" This he had done at a certain time, and leaving the house where the feast was in progress, had gone out to the stable where the care of the cattle had been assigned to him for that night. There, when it was time to go to sleep, he had lain down for that purpose. But while he slept some one stood by him in a dream, greeted him, called him by name, and said, ' Casdmon, sing me something/ To this he replied, 'X know not how to sing, and that is the very reason why I left a feast and came here, because I could not sing/ But the one who was talking with him answered, 'No matter, you are to sing for me/ 'Well, then/ said he, 'what is it that I must sing V 'Sing/ said the other, 'the beginning of created things/ At this reply he immediately began to sing verses in praise of God the Creator, verses that he had never heard, and whose meaning is as follows : 'Now should we praise the Keeper of the heavenly kingdom, the might of the Creator and His counsel, the works of the Father of glory ; how He, though God eternal, became the author of all marvels. He, the almighty Guardian of mankind, first created for the sons of men heaven as a roof, and afterwards the earth/ This is the meaning, but not the precise order, of the words which he sang in his sleep ; for no songs, however well they may be composed, can be rendered from one language into another without loss of grace and dignity. When he rose from sleep, he remembered all that he had sung while in that state, and shortly after added, in the same strain, many more words of a hymn befitting the majesty of God.

" In the morning he went to the steward who was set over him, and showed him what gift he had acquired. Being led to the abbess, he was bidden to make known his dream and repeat his poem to the many learned men who were present, that they all might give their judgment concerning the thing which he related, and whence it was; and they were unanimously of the opinion that heavenly grace had been bestowed upon him by the Lord. They then set about expounding to him a piece of sacred history or teaching, bidding him, if he could, to turn it into the rhythm of poetry. This he undertook to do, and departed. In the morning he returned and delivered the passage assigned to him, converted into an excellent poem. The abbess, honoring the grace of God as displayed in the man, shortly afterward instructed him to forsake the condition of a layman and take upon himself the vows of a monk. She thereupon received him into the monastery with his whole family, and made him one of the company of the brethren, commanding that he should be taught the whole course and succession of Biblical history. He, in turn, calling to mind what he was able to learn by the hearing of the ear, and, as it were, like a clean animal, chewing upon it as a cud, transformed it all into most agreeable poetry; and, by echoing it back in a more harmonius form, made his teachers in turn listen to him. Thus he rehearsed the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all the story of Genesis; the departure of Israel from Egypt and their entry into the Promised Land, together with many other histories from Holy Writ ; the incarnation of our Lord, his passion, resurrection, and ascension into heaven; the coming of the Holy Ghost and the teaching of the Apostles ; moreover, he made many poems about the terror of the future judgment, the awfulness of the pains of hell, and the joy of the heavenly kingdom, besides a great number about the mercies and judgments of God. In all these he exerted himself to allure men from the love of wickedness, and to impel them to the love and practice of righteous living ; for he was a very devout man, humbly submissive to the monastic rule, but full of consuming zeal against those who were disposed to act otherwise.

" Hence it came to pass that he ended his life with a fair death. For when the hour of his departure drew nigh, he was afflicted for the space of a fortnight with a bodily weakness which seemed to prepare the way; yet it was so far from severe that he was able during the whole of that time to walk about and converse. Near at hand there was a cottage, to which those who were sick and appeared nigh unto death were usually taken. At the approach of evening on the same night when he was to leave the world, he desired his attendant to make ready a place there for him to take his rest . The attendant did so, though he could not help wondering at the request, since he did not seem the least like a person about to die. When he was placed in the infirmary, he was somehow full of good humor, and kept talking and joking with those who had already been brought there. Some time after midnight he asked whether they had the Eucharist at hand. 'What do you need of the Eucharist ?' they answered, 'you aren't going to die yet, for you are just as full of fun in talking with us as if nothing were the matter with you/ 'Never mind/ said he, 'bring me the Eucharist.' Taking it in his hand, he asked, 'Are you all at peace with me, and free from any grudge or ill will?' 'Yes/ they all responded, 'we are perfectly at peace with you, and cherish no grievance whatever.' 'But are you/ said they, 'entirely at peace with us?' 'Yes, my dear children/ he answered without hesitation, 'I am at peace with all the servants of God.' And thus saying, he made ready for his entrance into the other life by partaking of the heavenly journeybread. Not long after he inquired, 'How near is it to the hour when the brethren are wakened for lauds?' 'But a little while/ was the reply. 'Well then,' said he, 'let us wait for that hour/ and, making over himself the sign of the cross, he laid his head on the pillow, and falling into a light slumber, ended his life in silence. And so it came to pass that, as he had served the Lord in simplicity and purity of mind, and with serene attachment and loyalty, so by a serene death he left the world, and went to look upon His face. And meet in truth it was that the tongue which had indited so many helpful words in praise of the Creator, should frame its very last words in His praise, while in the act of signing himself with the cross and of commending his spirit into His hands. And that he foresaw his death is apparent from what has here been related." 1

The long epic poem which has come down to us associated

1 Cook and Tinker, Translations from Old English Poetry, pp. 180-183.

with the name of Csedmon consists of a paraphrase of Genesis, Exodus, and a part of Daniel. It was not, however, all written by Csedmon; and no one knows exactly what parts are his. The tone is almost as much pagan as Christian. Armies and battles are described with enthusiasm. The destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea is sung with savage zest. The poem represents a civilization nominally Christian, but still permeated with pagan thought and feeling.

Cynewulf was another important poet who wrote in Anglo- Saxon. Almost nothing is known of his life. We are not sure how many of the poems attributed to him were really written by him ; but some of them certainly were, since he worked his name into the text in a kind of cipher, using runes for the purpose. 1

"Elene" and " Christ. " — The most important of Cynewulf s undoubted poems are Elene and Christ. Elene relates how Constantine, on the eve of battle, had a vision of the cross, and afterwards sent his mother, Elene, to search for the original cross in Jerusalem. The Christ tells the story of the nativity of Christ, his ascension, and the last judgment. Like most of the medieval writers and painters, Cynewulf loved to depict the tortures of the wicked and the joys of the redeemed. The Christ, however, is prevailingly didactic, though rising at times to the level of genuine reflective poetry. The following is a typical passage. It compares life to a journey on the sea.

"Now His most like as if we fare in ships On the ocean's flood, over the water cold, Driving our vessels through the spacious seas With horses of the deep. A perilous way is this Of boundless waves, and there are stormy seas

1 See Cook and Tinker, Translations from Old English Poetry, p. 83 f.

On which we toss here in this (reeling) world O'er the deep paths. Ours was a sorry plight Until at last we sailed unto the land, Over the troubled main, Help came to us That brought us to the haven of salvation, God's Spirit-Son, and granted grace to us That we might know e'en from the vessel's deck Where we must bind with anchorage secure Our ocean steeds, our stallions of the waves."

Bede's " Ecclesiastical History." — Another writer from the north of England was the Venerable Bede, who lived at Jarrow near the mouth of the Tyne. (See map.) He was a scholar, considering the time in which he lived; and although he made many mistakes, we owe to him most of our knowledge of English history from the landing of Csesar down to the year 731. His principal work is The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written in Latin, as most of his other works were. He is said to have made an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospel of St. John, but the manuscript is unfortunately lost. His account of Csedmon shows his interesting style.

The Coming of the Danes. — Near the end of the eighth century the Danes from the Baltic began to make inroads into northern England ; and by the middle of the ninth century the learning and civilization of Northumbria had been practically swept away. Monasteries were demolished, teachers and scholars slain, and libraries utterly destroyed. The Northumbrian literature is preserved only in West Saxon transcripts, made, probably, at the court of King Alfred the Great (848-901).

Alfred the Great, who succeeded for a time in checking the Danes in their progress to the south, maintained at his court in Wessex a center of literature and scholarship. He gathered learned men about him, established a court school, and caused many foreign manuscripts to be translated into Anglo-Saxon. He was himself a scholar and a translator. He gave to his people Anglo-Saxon versions of a manual of history and geography by Orosius, the Consolations of Philosophy by Boethius, and the Pastoral Care by Gregory. He translated Bede's Ecclesiastical History, and, above all, developed the famous Saxon Chronicle, the earliest history of England in the language of the people. Extracts from the Chronicle are accessible in Manly's English Prose, and in Cook and Tinker's Translations from Old English Prose. Much of it, especially the account of Alfred's own reign, is literature as well as history. Alfred has fittingly been called the father of English prose.

After the death of Alfred (901 a.d.) literature declined. There was no national life, and consequently no national literature. Monks in the monasteries wrote homilies, and the Saxon Chronicle was continued ; but the Anglo-Saxons had produced the best that was in them, and were in need of new blood and a new national impulse. These came with the Norman Conquest in 1066.