Outlines of English and American Literature. William J. Long

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СКАЧАТЬ Our guid schip sails the morne."

       "O say na sae, my master deir,

       For I feir a deadlie storme:

      "Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone

       Wi the auld moone in hir arme,

       And I feir, I feir, my deir master,

       That we will cum to harme."

      At the end there is no wailing, no moral, no display of the poet's feeling, but just a picture:

      O lang, lang may the ladies stand,

       Wi thair gold kems in their hair,

       Waiting for thair ain deir lords,

       For they'll se thame na mair.

      Haf owre, haf owre to Aberdour,

       It's fiftie fadom deip,

       And thair lies guid Sir Patrick Spence,

       Wi the Scots lords at his feit.

      Directness, vigor, dramatic action, an ending that appeals to the imagination—most of the good qualities of story-telling are found in this old Scottish ballad. If we compare it with Longfellow's "Wreck of the Hesperus," we may discover that the two poets, though far apart in time and space, have followed almost identical methods.

      Other good ballads, which take us out under the open sky among vigorous men, are certain parts of "The Gest of Robin Hood," "Mary Hamilton," "The Wife of Usher's Well," "The Wee Wee Man," "Fair Helen," "Hind Horn," "Bonnie George Campbell," "Johnnie O'Cockley's Well," "Catharine Jaffray" (from which Scott borrowed his "Lochinvar"), and especially "The Nutbrown Mayde," sweetest and most artistic of all the ballads, which gives a popular and happy version of the tale that Chaucer told in his "Patient Griselda."

      * * * * *

      SUMMARY. The period included in the Age of Chaucer and the Revival of Learning covers two centuries, from 1350 to 1550. The chief literary figure of the period, and one of the greatest of English poets, is Geoffrey Chaucer, who died in the year 1400. He was greatly influenced by French and Italian models; he wrote for the middle and upper classes; his greatest work was The Canterbury Tales.

      Langland, another poet contemporary with Chaucer, is famous for his Piers Plowman, a powerful poem aiming at social reform, and vividly portraying the life of the common people. It is written in the old Saxon manner, with accent and alliteration, and is difficult to read in its original form.

      After the death of Chaucer a century and a half passed before another great writer appeared in England. The time was one of general decline in literature, and the most obvious causes were: the Wars of the Roses, which destroyed many of the patrons of literature; the Reformation, which occupied the nation with religious controversy; and the Renaissance or Revival of Learning, which turned scholars to the literature of Greece and Rome rather than to English works.

      In our study of the latter part of the period we reviewed: (1) the rise of the popular ballad, which was almost the only type of literature known to the common people. (2) The work of Malory, who arranged the best of the Arthurian legends in his Morte d'Arthur. (3) The work of Caxton, who brought the first printing press to London, and who was instrumental in establishing the East-Midland dialect as the literary language of England.

      SELECTIONS FOR READING. Typical selections from all authors of the

       period are given in Manly, English Poetry, and English Prose;

       Newcomer and Andrews, Twelve Centuries of English Poetry and Prose;

       Ward, English Poets; Morris and Skeat, Specimens of Early English.

      Chaucer's Prologue, Knight's Tale, and other selections in

       Riverside Literature, King's Classics, and several other school

       series. A good single-volume edition of Chaucer's poetry is Skeat,

       The Student's Chaucer (Clarendon Press). A good, but expensive,

       modernized version is Tatlock and MacKaye, Modern Reader's Chaucer

       (Macmillan).

      Metrical version of Piers Plowman, by Skeat, in King's Classics;

       modernized prose version by Kate Warren, in Treasury of English

       Literature (Dodge).

      Selections from Malory's Morte d'Arthur in Athenæum Press Series

       (Ginn and Company); also in Camelot Series. An elaborate edition of

       Malory with introduction by Sommer and an essay by Andrew Lang (3

       vols., London, 1889); another with modernized text, introduction by

       Rhys, illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley (London, 1893).

      The best of the old ballads are published in Pocket Classics, and

       in Maynard's English Classics; a volume of ancient and modern

       English ballads in Ginn and Company's Classics for Children;

       Percy's Reliques, in Everyman's Library. Allingham, The Ballad

       Book; Hazlitt, Popular Poetry of England; Gummere, Old English

       Ballads; Gayley and Flaherty, Poetry of the People; Child, English

       and Scottish Popular Poetry (5 vols.); the last-named work, edited

       and abridged by Kittredge, in one volume.

      BIBLIOGRAPHY. The following works have been sifted from a much

       larger number dealing with the age of Chaucer and the Revival of

       Learning. More extended works, covering the entire field of English

       history and literature, are listed in the General Bibliography.

      HISTORY. Snell, the Age of Chaucer; Jusserand, Wayfaring Life in the Fourteenth Century; Jenks, In the Days of Chaucer; Trevelyan, In the Age of Wyclif; Coulton, Chaucer and His England; Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century; Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century; Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England; Froissart, Chronicles; Lanier, The Boy's Froissart.

      LITERATURE. Ward, Life of Chaucer (English Men of Letters Series); Kittredge, Chaucer and His Poetry (Harvard University Press); Pollard, Chaucer Primer; Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer; Lowell's essay in My Study Windows; essay by Hazlitt, in Lectures on the English Poets; Jusserand, Piers Plowman; Roper, Life of Sir Thomas More.

      FICTION AND POETRY. Lytton, Last of the Barons; Yonge, Lances of Lynwood; Scott, Marmion; Shakespeare, Richard II, Henry IV, Richard III; Bates and Coman, English History Told by English Poets.

CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

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