English Literature
people and speaks with the English tongue, has behind him all the culture
and literary resources of the Latin language. The effect is seen instantly
in our early prose and poetry.
NORTHUMBRIAN LITERATURE. In general, two great schools of Christian
influence came into England, and speedily put an end to the frightful wars
that had waged continually among the various petty kingdoms of the
Anglo-Saxons. The first of these, under the leadership of Augustine, came
from Rome. It spread in the south and center of England, especially in the
kingdom of Essex. It founded schools and partially educated the rough
people, but it produced no lasting literature. The other, under the
leadership of the saintly Aidan, came from Ireland, which country had been
for centuries a center of religion and education for all western Europe.
The monks of this school labored chiefly in Northumbria, and to their
influence we owe all that is best in Anglo-Saxon literature. It is called
the Northumbrian School; its center was the monasteries and abbeys, such as
Jarrow and Whitby, and its three greatest names are Bede, Cædmon, and
Cynewulf.
BEDE (673-735)
The Venerable Bede, as he is generally called, our first great scholar and
"the father of our English learning," wrote almost exclusively in Latin,
his last work, the translation of the Gospel of John into Anglo-Saxon,
having been unfortunately lost. Much to our regret, therefore, his books
and the story of his gentle, heroic life must be excluded from this history
of our literature. His works, over forty in number, covered the whole field
of human knowledge in his day, and were so admirably written that they were
widely copied as text-books, or rather manuscripts, in nearly all the
monastery schools of Europe.
The work most important to us is the _Ecclesiastical History of the English
People_. It is a fascinating history to read even now, with its curious
combination of accurate scholarship and immense credulity. In all strictly
historical matters Bede is a model. Every known authority on the subject,
from Pliny to Gildas, was carefully considered; every learned pilgrim to
Rome was commissioned by Bede to ransack the archives and to make copies of
papal decrees and royal letters; and to these were added the testimony of
abbots who could speak from personal knowledge of events or repeat the
traditions of their several monasteries.
Side by side with this historical exactness are marvelous stories of saints
and missionaries. It was an age of credulity, and miracles were in men's
minds continually. The men of whom he wrote lived lives more wonderful than
any romance, and their courage and gentleness made a tremendous impression
on the rough, warlike people to whom they came with open hands and hearts.
It is the natural way of all primitive peoples to magnify the works of
their heroes, and so deeds of heroism and kindness, which were part of the
daily life of the Irish missionaries, were soon transformed into the
miracles of the saints. Bede believed these things, as all other men did,
and records them with charming simplicity, just as he received them from
bishop or abbot. Notwithstanding its errors, we owe to this work nearly all
our knowledge of the eight centuries of our history following the landing
of Cæsar in Britain.
CÆDMON (Seventh Century)
Now must we hymn the Master of heaven,
The might of the Maker, the deeds of the Father,
The thought of His heart. He, Lord everlasting,
Established of old the source of all wonders:
Creator all-holy, He hung the bright heaven,
A roof high upreared, o'er the children of men;
The King of mankind then created for mortals
The world in its beauty, the earth spread beneath them,
He, Lord everlasting, omnipotent God.[28]
If _Beowulf_ and the fragments of our earliest poetry were brought into
England, then the hymn given above is the first verse of all native English
song that has come down to us, and Cædmon is the first poet to whom we can
give a definite name and date. The words were written about 665 A.D. and
are found copied at the end of a manuscript of Bede's _Ecclesiastical
History_.
LIFE OF CæDMON. What little we know of Cædmon, the Anglo-Saxon Milton, as
he is properly called, is taken from Bede's account[29] of the Abbess Hilda
and of her monastery at Whitby. Here is a free and condensed translation of
Bede's story:
There was, in the monastery of the Abbess Hilda, a brother distinguished by
the grace of God, for that he could make poems treating of goodness and
religion. Whatever was translated to him (for he could not read) of Sacred
Scripture he shortly reproduced in poetic form of great sweetness and
beauty. None of all the English poets could equal him, for he learned not
the art of song from men, nor sang by the arts of men. Rather did he
receive all his poetry as a free gift from God, and for this reason he did
never compose poetry of a vain or worldly kind.
Until of mature age he lived as a layman and had never learned any poetry.
Indeed, so ignorant of singing was he that sometimes, at a feast, where it
was the custom that for the pleasure of all each guest should sing in turn,
he would rise from the table when he saw the harp coming to him and go home
ashamed. Now it happened once that he did this thing at a certain
festivity, and went out to the stall to care for the horses, this duty
being assigned to him for that night. As he slept at the usual time, one
stood by him saying: "Cædmon, sing me something." "I cannot sing," he
answered, "and that is why I came hither from the feast." But he who spake
unto him said again, "Cædmon, sing to me." And he said, "What shall I
sing?" and he said, "Sing the beginning of created things." Thereupon
Cædmon began to sing verses that he had never heard before, of this import:
"Now should we praise the power and wisdom of the Creator, the works of the
Father." This is the sense but not the form of the hymn that he sang while
sleeping.
When he awakened, Cædmon remembered the words of the hymn and added to them
many more. In the morning he went to the steward of the monastery lands and
showed him the gift he had received in sleep. The steward brought him to
Hilda, who made him repeat to the monks the hymn he had composed, and all
agreed that the grace of God was upon Cædmon. To test him they expounded to
him a bit of Scripture from the Latin and bade him, if he could, to turn it
into poetry. He went away humbly and returned in the morning with an
excellent poem. Thereupon Hilda received him and his family into the
monastery, made him one of the brethren, and commanded that the whole
course of Bible history be expounded to him. He in turn, reflecting upon
what he had heard, transformed it into most delightful poetry, and by
echoing it back to the monks in more melodious sounds made his teachers his
listeners. In all this his aim was to turn men from wickedness and to help
them to the love and practice of well doing.
[Then follows a brief record of Cædmon's life and an exquisite picture of
his death amidst the brethren.] And so it came to pass [says the simple
record] that as he served God while living in purity of mind and serenity
of spirit, so by a peaceful death he left the world and went to look upon
His face.
CæDMON'S WORKS. The greatest work attributed to Cædmon is the so-called
_Paraphrase_. It is the story of Genesis, Exodus, and a part of Daniel,
told in glowing, poetic language, with a power of insight and imagination
which often raises it from paraphrase into the realm of true poetry. Though
we have Bede's assurance that Cædmon "transformed the whole course of Bible
history into most delightful poetry," no work known certainly to have been
composed by him has come down to us. In the seventeenth century this
Anglo-Saxon _Paraphrase_ was discovered and attributed to Cædmon, and his
name is still associated with it, though it is now almost certain that the
_Paraphrase_ is the work of more than one writer.
Aside from the doubtful question of authorship, even a casual reading of
the poem brings us into the presence of a poet rude indeed, but with a
genius strongly suggestive at times of the matchless Milton. The book opens
with a hymn of praise, and then tells of the fall of Satan and his rebel
angels from heaven, which is familiar to us in Milton's _Paradise Lost_.
Then follows the creation of the world, and the _Paraphrase_ begins to
thrill with the old Anglo-Saxon love of nature.
Here first the Eternal Father, guard of all,
Of heaven and earth, raisèd up the firmament,
The Almighty Lord set firm by His strong power
This roomy land; grass greened not yet the plain,
Ocean far spread hid the wan ways in gloom.
Then was the Spirit gloriously bright
Of Heaven's Keeper borne over the deep
Swiftly. The Life-giver, the Angel's Lord,
Over the ample ground bade come forth Light.
Quickly the High King's bidding was obeyed,
Over the waste there shone light's holy ray.
Then parted He, Lord of triumphant might,
Shadow from shining, darkness from the light.
Light, by the Word of God, was first named day.[30]
After recounting the story of Paradise, the Fall, and the Deluge, the
_Paraphrase_ is continued in the Exodus, of which the poet makes a noble
epic, rushing on with the sweep of a Saxon army to battle. A single
selection is given here to show how the poet adapted the story to his
hearers:
Then they saw,
Forth and forward faring, Pharaoh's war array
Gliding on, a grove of spears;--glittering the hosts!
Fluttered there the banners, there the folk the march trod.
Onwards surged the war, strode the spears along,
Blickered the broad shields; blew aloud the trumpets....
Wheeling round in gyres, yelled the fowls of war,
Of the battle greedy; hoarsely barked the raven,
Dew upon his feathers, o'er the fallen corpses--
Swart that chooser of the slain! Sang aloud the wolves
At eve their horrid song, hoping for the carrion.[31]
Besides the _Paraphrase_ we have a few fragments of the same general
character which are attributed to the school of Cædmon. The longest of
these is _Judith_, in which the story of an apocryphal book of the Old
Testament is done into vigorous poetry. Holofernes is represented as a
savage and cruel Viking, reveling in his mead hall; and when the heroic
Judith cuts off his head with his own sword and throws it down before the
warriors of her people, rousing them to battle and victory, we reach
perhaps the most dramatic and brilliant point of Anglo-Saxon literature.
CYNEWULF (Eighth Century)
Of Cynewulf, greatest of the Anglo-Saxon poets, excepting only the unknown
author of _Beowulf_, we know very little. Indeed, it was not till 1840,
more than a thousand years after his death, that even his name became
known. Though he is the only one of our early poets who signed his works,
the name was never plainly written, but woven into the verses in the form
of secret runes,[32] suggesting a modern charade, but more difficult of
interpretation until one has found the key to the poet's signature.
WORKS OF CYNEWULF. The only signed poems of Cynewulf are _The Christ,
Juliana, The Fates of the Apostles_, and _Elene_. Unsigned poems attributed
to him or his school are _Andreas_, the _Phoenix_, the _Dream of the Rood_,
the _Descent into Hell_, _Guthlac_, the _Wanderer_, and some of the
Riddles. The last are simply literary conundrums in which some well-known
object, like the bow or drinking horn, is described in poetic language, and
the hearer must guess the name. Some of them, like "The Swan"[33] and "The
Storm Spirit," are unusually beautiful.