The beginning of the English literature

Lecture 1

English literature has sometimes been described as particular. In its beginnings English literature is like a river, which proceeds not from a single wellhead but from many springs. In English literature there is a time when it becomes national rather than tribal, and English rather than Saxon or Celtic or Norman. That time was in the fifteenth century, when the poems of Chaucer and the printing press of Caxton exalted the Midland above all other dialects and established it as
the literary language of England.

Before that time you meet several different tribes and races of men: the native Celt, the law-giving Roman, the colonizing Saxon, the sea-roving Dane, the feudal baron of Normandy, each with his own language and literature reflecting the traditions of his own people. With these pagan spells are found the historical writings of the Venerable Bede (Беда Достопочтенный), the Welsh legends, Irish and Scottish fairy stories, Scandinavian myths. All these and more, held each to its own course for a time, then met and mingled in the stream which became English literature.

There were two main branches of early English literature. The first is the Anglo-Saxon, which came into England in the middle of the fifth century with the
colonizing Angles, Jutes and Saxons from the shores of the North Sea and
the Baltic; the second is the Norman-French, which arrived six centuries
later at the time of the Norman invasion.

ANGLO-SAXON OR OLD-ENGLISH PERIOD (450-1050)

Our English speech has changed so much in the course of centuries that it is now impossible to read our earliest records without special study; but that Anglo-Saxon is our own and not a foreign tongue may appear from the following examples.

BEOWULF. The old epic poem, consisting of 3182 long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature. It is called after its hero Beowulf, is more than myth or legend, more even than history; it is a picture of a life and a world that once had real existence. This old poem is a living voice, speaking with truth and sincerity of the daily habit of the fathers of modern England, of their adventures by sea or land, their stern courage and grave courtesy, their ideals of manly honor, their thoughts of life and death.

The events described in the poem take place in the late 5th century, after the Anglo-Saxons had begun migration and settlement in England. The poem deals with legends, was composed for entertainment, and does not separate between fictional elements and real historic events

The structure of BEOWULF is divided into 3 part: 3 battles – a battle with Grendel, a battle with grendel’s mother, a battle with the dragon.

First battle: grendel

Boewulf begins with the story of King Hroðgar, who constructed the great hall Heorot for his people. In it he, his wife Wealhþeow, and his warriors spend their time singing and celebrating, until Grendel, a troll-like monster who is pained by the noise, attacks the hall and kills and devours many of Hroðgar's warriors while they sleep.

Beowulf, a young warrior from Geatland, hears of Hroðgar's troubles and with his king's permission leaves his homeland to help Hroðgar.

Beowulf and his men spend the night in Heorot. Beowulf bears no weapon because this would be an "unfair advantage" over the unarmed beast. After they fall asleep, Grendel enters the hall and attacks, devouring one of Beowulf's men. Beowulf has been feigning sleep and leaps up to clench Grendel's hand. Beowulf's retainers draw their swords and rush to his aid, but their blades can not pierce Grendel's skin. Finally, Beowulf tears Grendel's arm from his body at the shoulder and Grendel runs to his home in the marshes to die.

Second battle: Grendel's mother

The next night, after celebrating Grendel's death, Hrothgar and his men sleep in Heorot. Grendel's mother, angered by the death of her son, appears and attacks the hall. She kills Hroðgar's most trusted warrior,

Hroðgar, Beowulf and their men track Grendel's mother to her lair under a lake. Beowulf prepares himself for battle; Beowulf dives into the lake. He is swiftly detected and attacked by Grendel's mother. Beowulf grabs a magical sword from Grendel's mother's treasure, and with it beheads her.

Third battle: The dragon

Beowulf returns home and eventually becomes king of his own people. One day, fifty years after Beowulf's battle with Grendel's mother, a slave steals a golden cup from the lair логово of an unnamed dragon at Earnaness. When the dragon sees that the cup has been stolen, it leaves its cave in a rage, burning everything in sight. Beowulf and his warriors come to fight the dragon, but Beowulf tells his men that he will fight the dragon alone and that they should wait on the barrow. Beowulf descends to do battle with the dragon but finds himself outmatched. His men, upon seeing this display and fearing for their lives, creep back into the woods. The two slay the dragon, but Beowulf is mortally wounded.

Beowulf is buried in Geatland on a cliff overlooking the sea, where sailors are able to see his tumulus

Besides beowulf’s battles in the poem funerals describes. Beowulf can also be structured by three funerals:

The first funerals:

The gleeman tells a beautiful legend of how King Scyld came and went: how he arrived as a little child, in a war-galley that no man sailed, asleep amid jewels and weapons; and how, when his life ended at the call of Wyrd or Fate.

The second funeral in the poem is that of Hildeburg’s kin. is the daughter of the Danish King Hoc and the wife of the Finn, King of the Frisians.

The final funeral of the poem is Beowulf's. During the final battle against the dragon, Beowulf receives fatal wounds and dies. The greatness of Beowulf's life is demonstrated through this funeral, particularly through the many offerings of his people.

ANGLO-SAXON SONGS. Beside the epic of _Beowulf_ a few mutilated poems have been preserved, and these are as fragments of a plate or film upon which the life of long ago left its impression. One of the oldest of these poems is "Widsith," the "wide-goer," which describes the wanderings and rewards of the ancient gleeman.

Widsith is an Old English poem of 144 lines that draws on earlier oral traditions of Anglo-Saxon tale singing. The poem is for the most part a survey of the peoples, kings, and heroes of Europe in the Heroic Age of Northern Europe:

LATER PROSE AND POETRY.

The works we have just considered were wholly pagan in spirit, but all reference to Thor or other gods was excluded by the monks who first wrote down the poetry.

With the coming of these monks a reform swept over pagan England, and literature reflected the change in a variety of ways:

· early Anglo-Saxon poetry was mostly warlike, for the reason that the various earldoms were in constant strife; but now the peace of good will was preached, and moral courage, the triumph of self-control, was exalted above mere physical hardihood.

· the unlettered scop, who carried his whole stock of poetry in his head, was replaced by the literary monk, who had behind him the immense culture of the Latin language, and who was interested in world history or Christian doctrine rather than in tribal fights or pagan mythology. These monks were capable men; they understood the appeal of pagan poetry, and their motto was, "Let nothing good be wasted." So they made careful copy of the scop's best songs.

· many monasteries were established in Britain, each a center of learning and of writing.

BEDE

The good work of the monks is finely exemplified in the life of the Venerable Bede, or Bada, who is well called the father of English learning. As a boy he entered the Benedictine monastery at Jarrow; the temper of his manhood may be judged from a single sentence of his own record: "While attentive to the discipline of mine order and the daily care of singing in the church, my constant delight was in learning or teaching or writing."

It is hardly too much to say that this gentle scholar was for half a century the teacher of Europe. He collected a large library of manuscripts; he was the author of some forty works, covering the whole field of human knowledge in his day; and to his school at Jarrow came hundreds of pupils from all parts of the British Isles, and hundreds more from the Continent.

Of all his works the most notable is the so-called "Ecclesiastical History"
which should be named the "History of the Race of Angles." This book marks the beginning of our literature of knowledge, and to it we are largely indebted for what we know of English history from the time of Casar's invasion to the early part of the eighth century.

ANGLO-NORMAN OR MIDDLE-ENGLISH PERIOD (1066-1350)

A glance at the following selections will show how Anglo-Saxon was slowly approaching our English speech of today.

THE NORMAN CONQUEST. For a century after the Norman conquest native poetry disappeared from England. During all this time French was the language not only of literature but of society and business.

NORMAN LITERATURE. One who reads the literature that the conquerors brought
to England must be struck by the contrast between the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman-French spirit.

THE NEW NATION. So much, then, the Normans accomplished: they brought
nationality into English life, and romance into English literature. They bound England with their laws, covered it with their feudal institutions, filled it with their ideas and their language. The Normans speedily forgot France, and even warred against it. They began to speak English.

So in the space of two centuries a new nation had arisen, combining the best elements of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French people, with a considerable mixture of Celtic and Danish elements. Out of the union of these races and tongues came modern English life and letters.

TYPES OF MIDDLE-ENGLISH LITERATURE. It has long been customary to begin the study of English literature with Chaucer; but that does not mean that he
invented any new form of poetry or prose.

In the thirteenth century, for example, the favorite type of literature in
England was the metrical romance, which was introduced by the French poets,
and written at first in the French language. The typical romance was a rambling story dealing with the three subjects of love, chivalry and religion; it was filled with adventures among giants, dragons, enchanted castles; and in that day romance was not romance unless liberally supplied with magic and miracle.

One of the best of the metrical romances is "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," which may be read as a measure of all the rest. If, as is commonly believed, the unknown author of "Sir Gawain" wrote also "The Pearl" (a beautiful old elegy, or poem of grief, which immortalizes a father's love for his little girl), he was the greatest poet of the early Middle-English period.

Other types of early literature are the riming chronicles or verse histories, stories of travel, translations, religious poems, books of devotion, miracle plays, fables, satires, ballads, hymns, lullabies, lyrics of love and nature,--an astonishing collection for so ancient a time, indicative at once of our changing standards of poetry and of our unchanging human nature.

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