An introduction to the study of English literature; comprising representative masterpieces in poetry and prose ... with copious notes on the selections ...

Front matter

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Preface

It is q. most gratifying sign of progress in our educational pursuits that the study of our vernacular language and literature is receiving such increasing attention and favor. Such an exclusion from our courses of instruction of the study of English as has prevailed heretofore, cannot be vindicated on any ground except that of the want of the needful helps and guides. Happily this want has been responded to by numerous and able contributors both to linguistic science generally and also to the proper knowledge of the English tongue. There is ample reason for believing not only that the chief aim and object in education — the quickening and shaping and starting in fixed habit the various faculties and capacities of the mind — may be best effected by the introduction of English into the course, but also that even the particular ends of classical studies may most fully and easily be attained by it. The light that the learner may gather from a short study of his vernacular will dissipate a great deal of obscurity, through which without such help he can but grope with much trouble, and perplexity, and hindrance.

IV PKEFACE.

The numerous text-books in English literature that have been within the last four years called forth by the growing interest in the study, are chiefly of two classes : one class consisting of brief selections accompanied with brief biographical sketches of authors, and presented in chronological order ; the other class being characteristically histories of authorship in English. There seems to be wanting still a manual that shall introduce the learner to the literature itself as a growth. In order to this it is necessary to take specimens of our literature at certain marked stages of its growth, and as represented in its best forms by the best writers. Further, not mere fragments of poems or of prose discourses, comprising but a few verses or a few paragraphs, but entire artistic products, so far as practicable, must^ be presented. Still further, no worthy study of our literature as an historic growth is possible except as it is investigated in its proper form and style belonging to it at the time of its production. Modernized forms of it only mislead and hinder. Moreover, as the great objection to the study of English literature has been that it has no plan, no method ; as system is necessary which shall further the great disciplinary ends of education, and particularly shall give the learner possession of the principles which have presided over the growth and shaping of our language and literature, and of the general facts in regard to its manifold forms, so that he may appreciate its true excellences, understand its apparent anomalies, and so

PREFACE. V

reduce them to rule and be prepared to prosecute his studies as well as guide his selections in the reading to be incidentally pursued in subsequent life, it is necessary to refer the learner all along to the elements of our literature, that by the study of single words, of single sentences, of single poems or discourses, he may gradually come to a methodical and familiar acquaintance with all the characteristic phenomena of our language and literature.

Such is accordingly the motive to the preparation of this new text-book, and such its design and plan. The book consists of two parts. In the first part, after a chapter on the origin and affinities of our language, selections preceded by brief biographical or historical notices are given from our greatest authors, those conceived to be the best representatives of our literature at the special stage of its growth when they wrote. As far as possible complete poems, or large extracts are presented, so that they may be studied in respect to the thought, its character and form, and also aesthetically as complete artistic products. These selections are followed by copious notes, etymological, grammatical, historical, and aesthetical, referring all along to the systematic presentation of the elements of our language and literature which constitute the second part. The selections are given in the orthographical form of the original editions so far as has been practicable ; as there can be no satisfactory study of the orthographical peculiarities of our language without such an historic vi PREFACE.

study of the changes in the forms of our words. A special care has accordingly been taken to obtain a reprint from the best accessible editions ; and where it has seemed important, a careful collation has been made with other editions of established reputation. In this connection grateful acknowledgment should be made of the courteous permission expressly accorded by Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, publishers of the works of Professor Longfellow, to insert the selections from " Hiawatha."

The second part presents our language and literature in their elements in systematic order. Here are exhibited the principles governing the. rise and formation of language ; of English orthoepy, orthography, syllabication, word-formation, and of poetic forms in English ; the growth of our literature, also, in its several departments of oratory, history, scientific discourse, fiction, the drama, and poetry, with notice of leading authors in each department separately in their chronological succession.

The endeavor has been, while directing the study to the literature itself and not to a history of authorship, so to present the subject that it can be studied in specially assigned lessons, with a clear understanding of what is to be done in preparing the lesson, as in our common text-books in classical literature. Here has lain the chief difficulty in directing the study hitherto ; the learner has not known what he is to do in the study, or if he may have conjectured this or that thing

PREFACE. Vll

as the proper thing to be done, the needful aids were wanting. And there was no system. He might study out this or that word ; this or that peculiarity in sentence-construction ; this or that rhetorical figure ; this or that poetical form ; this or that historic or aesthetic element. But this gathering of scattered, isolated parts with no eye to system, to order, or to completeness, is of as little profit as of satisfaction. Study to be of service must be definite and must be comprehensive ; must know its road and see that it leads through to the end of the science.

In the study of the parallel versions of a portion of the Bible, an initiation is afforded into the etymology of the language. The individual word, in its history, its affinities, its form, its meaning and use, may be studied by the help of the Notes and the Glossary. It is thought that the student will be made to such a degree conversant with this branch of study, that he will not only be able, but will be prompted to study out afterwards any word that may occur, having the needful helps, just as the young botanist, after the analysis of a few scores or at least a few hundreds of flowers, is qualified to analyze any plant that may offer. This etymological study may be continued in the subsequent selections at pleasure ; but it has not been deemed necessary to work out for the student every word that occurs, but only such as for some reason invited special attention. There are in fact several distinct ends to be prosecuted in a study of literature which may advantage-

VI II PREFACE.

ously be pursued, for a time at least, separately and successively. Thus the etymology, the history of the word-forms, may be exclusively studied at the outset ; then the grammatical features, the elements of the sentence, may be attended to ; then the rhetorical elements ; then the more general historical and biographical as well as aesthetic characteristics. In this way method and completeness, and thus satisfaction and profit, will be secured in the study.

New Haven, September, 1868.

Contents

PAET I. — HISTORY AND SELECTIONS.

Chapter I. — Origin And Affinities

1. The Dispersion of the Race and the Confusion of Tongues ; 2. The Migrations; 3. Origin of Speech in the Instinct to communicate Thought; 4. The First Words ; 5. Languages, Monosyllabic, Agglutinative, and Inflectional ; 6. The Indo-European Family of Languages ; 7. The English a Dialect of the Low German Branch; 8. The Celtic Element in English; 9. The Roman Invasion ; 10. The Anglo-Saxon Occupation of England ; 11. The Danish and Norwegian Invasions ; 12. The Norman Conquest.

Chapter II. — Representative Selections

1. Versions of the Bible ; Notes on the Versions ; State of the Language in the Latter Part of the Fourteenth Century ; 2. The Vision of Piers Ploughman; Notes on the Selection from Piers Ploughman: 3. Sir John Mandeville ; Notes on Selection ; 4. Geoffrey Chaucer — Canterbury Tales ; Notes on the Clerkes Tale; 5. Edmund Spenser — The Faerie Queen; Notes on the Selections; 6. Richard Hooker — Ecclesiastical Polity; Notes on the Selections ; 7. William Shakespeare — Julius Caesar ; Notes on Julius Caesar ; 8. John Milton — Samson Agonistes ; Notes on Samson Agonistes ; 9. Joseph Addison — Spectator; Notes on Selections; 10. Alexander Pope — The Rape of the Lock ; Notes on The Rape of the Lock ; 11. William Cowper — The Task; Notes on the Selections from The Task; 12. Alfred Tennyson — Elaine; Notes on Elaine; 13. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — Hiawatha, Notes on the Selections from Hiawatha.

Part II. — Elements Of The English Lan- Guage And Literature. Chapter I. — Formation And Growth Of Language

§ 1. Nature of Language, expressing Thought, social, through Articulate Sound; §2. Its Elements, (1) Thought, (2) Person, (3) Matter of Thought; §3. Matter Element, (1) Subject, (2) Attribute; §4. Pronominal Element; § 5. Thought Element, Negation, Moods ; § 6. Modifying Elements ; § 7.

X CONTENTS.

Notion Words distinguished by Forms ; § 8. Formative Elements — Form Words; §9. Language Articulate — Interjectional and Onomatopoetlc Theories; § 10. Languages distinguished as Monosyllabic, Agglutinative, and Inflectional ; § 11. Language ever changing.

CHAPTEE II. — DEPARTMENTS OF LANGUAGE AND LITERA- TURE.

CHAPTER TIL — ORTHOEPY.

§ 13. Elements — Phthongal and Aphthongal; Vowels and Consonants; Organic Position; § 14. Rise of Vowels; § 15. Rise of Consonants; § 16. Orthoepic System

Chapter IV. — Orthography

§ 17. Orthography defined; § 18. Expedients to distinguish Quantity; §19. Expedients to distinguish Phthongal and Aphthongal Elements; § 20. Digraphs; § 21. Expedients to show Character of Sound; § 22. Diphthongs ; § 23. Diverse Functions of Characters ; §24. Homonyms: § 25. Influence of Typography on Orthography; § 20. The Final E; § 27. Alphabetic System.

Chapter V. — Syllabication

§ 28. Syllable as to its Essential Nature; § 29. Syllabication Threefold; § 30. Orthoepic Syllabication; § 31. Etymological Syllabication; § 32. Orthographic Syllabication.

Chapter VII. — Derivation

§ 35. Principles and Modes of Derivation, Grimm's Law; § 36. Composition; § 37. Affixes; § 38. Euphonic Affixes; § 39. Orthographic Affixes; §40. Thought Affixes; §41. Matter Affixes; §42. Grammatical Affixes; §43. Discriminative Affixes; §44. Prefixes; §45 Suffixes; § 46. Internal Changes in Words; § 47. Changes in use of Words; § 48. Admission of New Words; § 49. Rules of Admission.

Index

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS WORK.

adj. stands for adjective.

Ir. stands for Irish.

act.

. active.

ltal. .

. . Italian.

. . Anglo-Saxon.

Lat.

. . Latin.

aug. .

. . augmentative.

m., masc

. masculine.

mix. .

. . auxiliary.

mid. .

. . middle.

cf. .

compare.

Ch. .

. Chaucer.

neut. .

. . neuter.

cotnp.

. compound.

compar.

. comparative.

nom. .

. nominative.

conj. .

. conjunction.

0. Eng.

. . Old English.

. Canterbury Tales.

obj.

. objective.

. . Dutch.

. . Paradise Lost.

Dan. .

. . Danish.

part. .

. participle.

dat.

. dative.

pass. .

. passive.

def. .

. definitive.

pers.

. person.

dem. .

. demonstrative.

plu

. plural.

der.

. derived, derivative.

poet.

. poetical.

dim. .

. diminutive.

pos.

. possessive.

. for example.

prep. .

. preposition.

Eng. .

. England, English.

pres. .

. present.

. Faerie Queene.

pret.

. preterit.

fern. .

. feminine.

pron. . .

. pronoun.

freq. .

. frequentative.

fut. .

. future.

. Rape of the Lock.

gen. .

. . genitive

Ger. .

. German.

Sans. . .

. Sanskrit.

Gloss. .

. Glossary.

Sax. . .

. Saxon.

Goth. .

. Gothic.

sing. . .

. singular.

Gr. .

. . Greek.

. Spanish.

Heb.

Hebrew.

sup. . .

. superlative.

i. e.

that is.

syn. . .

. synonym.

imp.

imperative.

term. . .

. termination.

imperf.

. imperfect.

ind.

indicative.

inf.

infinitive.

int.

. . interjection.

. . the same as.

ver. . .

. verse.

*A

ENGLISH LITER AT ORE.

PART I.

HISTORY AND SELECTIONS.

Chapter I. Origin And Affinities

1. The most advanced investigations of philological science significantly point to an original unity of race and of language; and the Biblical narrative of the dispersion of the human family, and of the contemporaneous confusion of human speech, is the most trustworthy theory of race and dialect that the science of language and of literature, at its present stage, can propose to itself.

According to that narrative, a few centuries after the Deluge, the race of man, that up to that time had been kept together in the use of the same language, broke asunder, to seek in families or in larger tribal communities separate abodes for themselves, and in the separation framed to themselves separate dialects. . This was the great historical epoch of the dispersion of the race and of the confusion of speech.

Whatever may have been the particular dialect spoken before the dispersion, whether more or less developed, it was among the necessities of things that, in a few cenl txiries, or even in a few generations, possibly in a single century, there should be a diversity of dialects which would be hardly intelligible beyond the respective families or tribes that spoke them. Small roving bands, scattering themselves over the unoccupied earth, with few wants to express, with no literature, no laws, no government, no social organization but that of the family, with no arts, dwelling in tents, in cabins, or in caves, could have had but the most meager vocabularies, and the rudest forms of speech. Moreover, even if the original speech had been as highly developed and inflected as the family of the Hebrew dialects, it could not but be that in a few generations, in such fovinsr communities ever coming into collision with other .jimilar migratory bands, the inflectional elements, together with all the formative words which are used to show the relations of thought, would fall away, and language would lapse io its primitive stock of root-words denoting only objects, with perhaps the common sign of negation, and the few pronominal elements. In communities, especially, of but little intellectual activity, this would be inevitably the result ; while families or tribes characterized by great activity of thought in social directions, by enterprise, by inventive or poetic genius, might develop, in brief periods of time, dialects of great richness in number of words, and also in formative elements.

Such was the condition of the race, and of its speech, in the period just preceding the dawn of history. The race nyas migratory ; the speech was diversified.

2. The migrations of the human family were, under general and diverse providential promptings, yet controlled by the affinities of descent and blood.

The descendants of Shem spread themselves over the extensive plains drained by the Euphrates and the Tigris, and passed over southwardly into Arabia, and westwardly into Syria.

The descendants of Ham occupied territories along the

Persian Gulf and in Southern Arabia, and also the southern coasts of the Levant, with Egypt and Ethiopia.

The descendants of Japheth, in one division, occupied Armenia, and the coasts of the Euxine. In another they moved southeastwardly over into Media, and thence down into Hindostan. In other divisions still, they moved westwardly to the coasts and islands of the JEgean, and northwardly spread over the higher latitudes of Asia and of Europe. This branch of the descendants of Noah, choosing the less inviting regions, and the less propitious climates of the earth, scattered themselves the most widely, and became incomparably the most numerous of the three original branches, and most diversified in their speech. The great mass of the earth's inhabitants are descendants of Japheth ; the great body of human dialects are Japhetic. Of Japhetic descent are the most elevated and also the most degraded portions of the race, as the most squalid poverty, the greatest ignorance, and the basest vice are found in closest proximity with the greatest affluence, the most advanced culture, and the highest refinement. ; 3. Human speech originates in the instinct divinely implanted in man's nature to communicate thought. The internal principle, the life of speech, is thought, not feeling, not purpose ; and not mere thought, but thought that is to be communicated. While language proceeds from thought, it proceeds only in forms that can be understood in common by him that speaks, and by him that is spoken to. A primary and indispensable condition of the rise of speech is this : that the thought be expressed in a sound that shall be identified with the thought in the minds of both speaker and hearer.

This sound, which shall be the symbol of the thought to be communicated, may, in some cases, be identified with it, by its being the natural expression of the thought. The root of the word horror, the elements of which are the rough breathing and the vibrant r connected by a related vowel, night easily symbolize the feeling of cold, of fear, and like sensations and emotions, when such a feeling happened to modify and characterize the thought to be communicated. From this partial fact, the inter} ectional theory of the origin of language has proceeded. See Part 1L, Chap. I., § 9.

The object thought may be identified with the sound also through the resemblance of the sound to that which may be given out, or occasioned in some way by the object. Many attributes are symbolized through this mode of identification, as caw, coo, bark, yelp, ivhistle, creak, etc., suggest the objects which give forth sounds resembling these vocal utterances. From this partial fact another theory of the origin of speech has arisen, called the imitative, or so-called onomatopoetic theory.

The object thought may, further, be identified with the sound through some accidental association with it in time and place. Or still further, a visible object already named may be identified in some way with the thought to be expressed. Rock comes to denote thus, shelter from heat or storm, protection, security, and the like. So other senses furnish their respective symbols of objects. And generally through identification, in some way more or less direct, of the thought with the sound, in the common experience of speaker and hearer, all language comes to be.

4. The first words were doubtless names of objects, which were either subjects or attributes. A very common name of father, is a syllable composed of a p, b, m, or other labial consonant, and the vowel a. The child bestows that sound on its parent as a seen and known concrete being, without necessai-y reference to any one attribute. Or some attribute of the object may be in the thought, and the word is provided to denote that ; man may have come from the already thought and named attribute expressed by that sound — minding or thinking.

As all language contains, besides the proper pronominal elements, two others — the object or matter which is thought, and the thinking element itself, in the early stages of speech only the former of these two elements, the matter, finds distinct expression ; the second element, the thought, is left to the hearer to supply. The copula is not expressed even in highly developed languages, unless emphasized ; it is still- wanting in the Chinese. The relations of objects in thought, and generally all the so-called formative elements, whether those of inflection or separate words, as conjunctions and prepositions, find expression only later in the progress of language. The order is : first, the matter thought is named ; afterwards the forms of thought itself obtain distinct verbal expression. The sign of negation, however, comes very early, and from necessity, into language ; not improbably is the first form for expressing a modification of the thought itself, as distinguished from the object of thought, or that of which we think. The first and lowest, and the most essential modification of thought, of a judgment, or assertion, is that which distinguishes a negative from an affirmative. The positive assertion needs no sign ; Numa rex means Numa is king. The negative assertion requires a sign.

There is a third class of elements, distinct from the two mentioned, which came very early into language — not improbably the third in order of appearance. They are those which express the distinctions of persons, as speaking, spoken to, and spoken of— the so-called pronominal elements. The articulate sounds taken to represent these distinctions are the same in languages otherwise most widely separated from one another.

5. Language, primitively, was in all probability chiefly monosyllabic. Such we should suppose, beforehand, would be the case ; the thought would be symbolized in the simplest sound. The words in some of the least developed existing languages are of one syllable. But that dissyllabic words should occasionally be introduced is not at all improbable in itself; and some of the ruder languages, as the Finnish, have dissyllabic roots.

The first noticeable step in the progress of language would be by the combination of these primitive monosyllables to express some modifications, either of property or relation. Thus, in Hungarian, kes means knife, em the person speaking ; kes-em denotes my knife (= knife-me) ; nek means to, and kes-em-nek, to my knife. Here three separable words are joined together under one accent ; but the roots are kept distinct in every combination, and the relation between them is not signified otherwise than by the mere union under the accent. As languages of the former class are called Monosyllabic, those of this class are called Agglutinative.

The third and last step is reached when an element is introduced to denote the relation or condition generally, and to be applied to all roots that admit the relation, as in the Latin cultellus meus, my knife, the us in mens expresses the kind of relation between the root me and knife. Languages using freely such forms are called Inflectional.

Linguistic science accordingly distributes languages into the three classes according as they are more characteristically monosyllabic without accentuated combinations, or with such accentuated combinations without proper inflections, or lastly inflectional. It must not be supposed, however, that any language actually exists which is purely monosyllabic or uninflectional, or that any inflectional language has not words formed as in the agglutinative dialects by mere combination of separable roots. See, for a fuller view of the subject of this section, Part II., Chap. I.

6. Of the Inflectional class of languages, those of Japhetic origin, called the Indo-European, have been gathered into one family, as they exhibit many signs of a close affinity. The family, distributed in respect to geographical locality, includes in the Eastern Division, (1.) the Sanskrit, with its kindred Indian dialects, and (2.) the Iranian in

Persia, Armenia, etc. ; and in the Western Division, (1.) ihe Greek ; (2.) the lllyrian in Albania ; (3.) the Italic, embracing the Latin, and the languages of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France ; (4.) the Celtic, embracing the Cymric or Welsh and the Gaelic in Scotland and Ireland ; (5.) the Slavic, including the Lithuanian; and (6 ) the Teutonic, embracing the three groups of the High German ; the Low German or languages of England, Holland, Friesland, and the north of Germany ; and the Scandinavian, or the languages of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

The Semitic are generally inflected, but in different degrees in the different dialects ; in none however so fully as in some Japhetic languages. The Hamitic, so far as represented in the old Egyptian, is somewhat less perfectly and fully inflected than the Semitic. The Japhetic family includes the most fully inflected dialects and also the purest monosyllabic tongues, the richest and the rudest and all intermediate gradations of dialects.

It is a significant fact bearing on the question of the original unity of languages, and thus of the original unity of the race, as also on the chronology of ancient peoples and their affinities, that the earliest known dialects in the three great divisions of the race, the Hebrew dialect of the Semitic, the old Egyptian of the Hamitic, and the Celtic of the Japhetic division, in the first place, are inflected ; in the second place, are inflected only to a like limited extent ; in the third place, have their inflections formed in leading particulars in the same way, as, for instance, having pronominal suffixes for personal inflections of verbs ; and finally, have similar sounds for the sign of negation, and for the pronominal elements. In connection with this very remarkable coincidence in the three earliest dialects of which we have any knowledge, should be considered for the better understanding of the history of the rise and changes of dialects, the well established facts that, on the one hand, a given monosyllabic dialect may, under favoring conditions, in a brief period be made a highly inflected language, and that on the other hand, a highly inflected dialect may also, in a brief period, wear oft' its inflectional elements and become characteristically monosyllabic. Either of these transformations may in rude migratory tribes be consummated in the course of several generations of men.

7. The English language belongs to the Teutonic branch of the Indo-European family, and to the Low German division of the Teutonic branch. It is hence closely allied to the dialects of Holland and of Friesland, but from the peculiarities in the condition of the people among whom it has had its growth, it is marked by very distinctive characteristics. As various tribes or peoples speaking various dialects have been brought into communication with one another in England, the modern English tongue has received its shape and character from divers sources.

8. The earliest inhabitants of England, so far as known, were of the Gomeric or Celtic family. The Celtic dialect being the least developed of the Indo-European family, that is, having its formative or grammatical elements which express the relations of the thought least developed, it has left no traceable effect on the language in its grammatical character ; and the modern vocabulary contains but few words of well established Celtic origin except names of places, rivers, men, etc. Pen in Welsh and Ben in Gaelic was the Celtic word for hill or mountain ; we have hence the familiar names Pen-rose, Pen-zance, Pen-dennis, Ben Lomond, Ben Nevis, etc. Aber meant mouth ; hence Aberdeen (=a mouth of the Dee). Wans-beclc-ioater, is made up of three words of different sources, all signifying water, the first being Celtic, the second Saxon. Most names of mountains and of rivers in England are Celtic. In names of men, 0% Mac, and Ap, are Erse, Gaelic, and Welsh respectively, signifying son or descendant ; we have thus the names of 0' Oonnell, Macaulay, Ap Richard, now Prirhard, Ap Owen, now Bowen.

It is claimed with much plausibility by a late critic that the English literature owes its proper aesthetic spirit — its' element of style by which it is distinguished from its kindred Teutonic literatures — to the Celts.

9. In the year 55 b. a, the Romans under Julius Csesar invaded Britain, and followed up their invasion till, under Agricola, they subjugated all the southern part of Great Britain beyond the Forth, together with the Orkney Islands. They made little impression on the language, however, and early in the fifth century they were driven out of the island. They occupied fortified places and have left traces of their tongue in names of places, as Colchester, a compound of Lat. colonia and castrum ; Stratton (= street town), from Lat. stratum. In subsequent times the Latin tongue won its way into England through the learned professions of the church and of the law, and the rites and forms which religion and civil polity thus introduced.

10. About the middle of the fifth century commenced the invasions of Britain by the Teutonic tribes. The Jutes led the way ; they were followed by the Saxons and Angles, and still others from the neighboring islands and coasts of the continent. These invaders from Low German and Scandinavian tribes gradually supplanted the ancient Britons, and mingling together in modes and times to a great extent beyond the reach of historic research, introduced a new speech, the vocabulary of which was derived from sources as diverse as the origins of the invading bands, and the grammatical structure of which was heterogeneous and peculiar. The Angles and the Saxons predominating, the resulting language was known as the Anglo-Saxon. It is the proper ground-form and germ of the modern English. But it was subject to the conditions of growth imposed upon it by the growth and destiny of those who used it. It became, in fact, subject to very remarkable influences determining its growth and character.

11. In the ninth century the Northmen from Denmark and Norway, of Scandinavian race, began then- invasions of Britain, and in 1016, under Canute, achieved the sovereignty of England. They brought in a new element and a new force into the language, affecting, to some extent, its vocabulary and its grammatical forms, but without destroying the general identity of the dialect. Some new words were brought in ; and the tendency to drop inflections, ever attending the mingling of dialects, was considerably strengthened. Words and roots, as well as grammatical forms, common to the Saxon and Scandinavian, were naturally more in use and so became more permanent and fixed in the growing language.