A history of English literature

by Edward Albert

POETRY

For the sake of convenience we can classify the different poems into three groups, according to the nature of their subjects.

1. The Rhyming Chronicles. During this period there is an unusual abundance of chronicles in verse. They are distinguished by their ingenuous use of incredible stories, the copiousness of their invention, and in no small number of cases by the vivacity of their style.

(a) The Brut. This poem was written by a certain Layamon about the year 1205. We gather a few details about the author in a brief prologue to the poem itself. He seems to have been a monk in Gloucestershire; his language certainly is of a nature that corresponds closely to the dialect of that district. The work, thirty thousand lines in length, is a paraphrase and expansion of the Anglo-Norman Brut d’Angleterre of Wace, who in turn simply translated from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Latin history of Britain. In the Brut the founder of the British race is Brutus, great-grandson of Æneas of Troy. Brutus lands in England, founds London, and becomes the progenitor of the earliest line of British kings. In style the poem is often lifeless, though it has a naïve simplicity that is attractive. The form of the work, however, is invaluable as marking the transition from the Old English to the Middle English method.

Alliteration, the basis of the earlier types, survives in a casual manner; at irregular intervals there are rudely rhyming couplets, suggesting the newer methods; the lines themselves, though they are of fairly uniform length, can rarely be scanned; the basis of the line seems to be four accents, occurring with fair regularity. The following extract should be scrutinized carefully to bring out these features:

To niht a mine slepe,	At night in my slepe
Their ich læi on bure,	Where I lay in bower [chamber]
Me imæette a sweuen;	I dreamt a dream—
Ther oure ich full sari æm.	Therefore I full sorry am.
Me imætte that mon me hof	I dreamt that men lifted me
Uppen are halle.	Up on a hall;
Tha halle ich gon bestriden,	The hall I gan bestride,
Swulc ich wolde riden	As if I would ride;
Alle tha lond tha ich ah	All the lands that I owned,
Alle ich ther ouer sah.	All I there overlooked.
And Walwain sat biuoren me;	And Walwain sate before me;
Mi sweord he bar an honde.	My sword he bare in hand.
Tha com Moddred faren ther	Then approached Modred there,
Mid unimete uolke.	With innumerable folk.

(b) Robert of Gloucester is known only through his rhyming history. From internal evidence it is considered likely that he wrote about 1300. From his dialect, and from local details that he introduces into the poem, it is probable that he belonged to Gloucestershire. Drawing largely upon Layamon, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and other chroniclers, he begins his history of England with Brutus and carries it down to the year 1270. The style of the poem is often lively enough; and the meter, though rough and irregular, often suggests the later “fourteener.” As a rule the lines are longer than those of the Brut, and the number of accents is greater.

(c) Robert Manning (1264–1340) is sometimes known as Robert of Brunne, or Bourne, in Lincolnshire. In 1288 he entered a Gilbertine monastery near his native town. His Story of Ingelond (1338) begins with the Deluge, and traces the descent of the English kings back to Noah. The latter portion of the book is based upon the work of Pierre de Langtoft, and the first part upon Wace’s Brut. The meter is a kind of chaotic alexandrine verse; but an interesting feature is that the couplet rhymes are carefully executed, with the addition of occasional middle rhymes.

Manning’s Handlyng Synne (1303) is a religious manual based on a French work, Manuel des Pechiez. The poem, which is thirteen thousand lines in length, is a series of metrical sermons on the Ten Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Seven Sacraments. The author knows how to enliven the work with agreeable anecdotes, and there are signs of a keen observation. The meter is an approximation to the octosyllabic couplet.

Manning’s language is of importance because it marks a close approach to that of Chaucer: a comparative absence of old words and inflections, a copious use of the later French terms, and the adoption of new phrases.

(d) Laurence Minot, who probably flourished about 1350, appears as the author of eleven political songs, which were first published in 1795. The pieces, which sing of the exploits of Edward III, are violently patriotic in temper, and have a rudely poetical vigor. Their meters are often highly developed.

2. Religious and Didactic Poetry. Like most of the other poetry of the period, this kind was strongly imitative, piously credulous, and enormous in length.

(a) The Ormulum, by a certain Orm, or Ormin, is usually dated at 1200. As it survives it is an enormous fragment, twenty thousand lines in length, and composed in the East Midland dialect. It consists of a large number of religious homilies addressed to a person called Walter. Of poetical merit the poem is destitute; but it is unique in the immense care shown over a curious and complicated system of spelling, into which we have not the space to enter. Its metrical form is noteworthy: a rigidly iambic measure, rhymeless, arranged in alternate lines of eight and seven syllables respectively. This regularity of meter is another unique feature of the poem, which we illustrate by an extract:

An Romanisshe Kaserrking	A Roman Kaiser-king
Wass Augusstuss [gh]ehatenn	Was called Augustus
And he wass wurrthenn Kaserrking	And he became Kaiser-king
Off all mannkinn onn eorthe,	Of all mankind on earth,
And he gann thenkenn off himmsellf	And he gan think of himself
And off hiss micle riche.	And of his muckle kingdom,
And he bigann to thenkenn tha,	And he began to think
Swa summ the goddspell kithethth	Just as the gospel tells
Off thatt he wollde witenn wel	Of what he would well know
Hu mikell fehh himm come,	How much money [fee] would come to him
[GH]iff himm off all hiss kinedom.	If to him of all his kingdom
Illc mann an penning [gh]æfe.	Each man a penny gave.

(b) The Owl and the Nightingale, the date of which is commonly given as 1250, is attributed to Nicholas of Guildford. The poem consists of a long argument between the nightingale, representing the lighter joys of life, and the owl, which stands for wisdom and sobriety. The poem is among the most lively of its kind, and the argument tends to become heated. In meter it is rhyming octosyllabic couplets, much more regular than was common at the time.

(c) The Orison to Our Lady, Genesis and Exodus, the Bestiary, the Moral Ode, the Proverbs of Alfred, and the Proverbs of Hendyng are usually placed about the middle of the thirteenth century. Of originality there is little to comment upon; but as metrical experiments they are of great importance. The Proverbs show some regular stanza-formation, and the Moral Ode is remarkable for the steadiness and maturity of its measure, a long line coming very close to the fourteener.

(d) The Cursor Mundi was composed about 1320. It is a kind of religious epic, twenty-four thousand lines long, composed in the Northern dialect. The author, who divides his history into seven stages, draws upon both the Old and the New Testaments. The meter shows a distinct advance in its grip of the octosyllabic couplet.

(e) Richard Rolle of Hampole, who died in 1349, is one of the few contemporary figures about whom definite personal facts are recorded. He was born in Yorkshire, educated at Oxford, and ran away from home to become a hermit. Subsequently he removed to Hampole, near Doncaster, where he enjoyed a great reputation for sanctity and good works.

He wrote some miscellaneous prose and a few short poems, but his chief importance lies in his authorship of the long poem The Pricke of Conscience. This work, which is based upon the writings of the early Christian Fathers, describes the joys and sorrows of a man’s life as he is affected in turn by good and evil. The meter is a close approximation to the octosyllabic couplet, which shows extensions and variations that often resemble the heroic measure. It has been suggested that Hampole is the first English writer to use the heroic couplet; but it is almost certain that his heroic couplets are accidental.

(f) The Alliterative Poems. In a unique manuscript, now preserved in the British Museum, are found four remarkably fine poems in the West Midland dialect: Pearl, Cleannesse, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. There is no indication of the authorship, but judging from the similarity of the style it is considered likely that they are by the same poet. The date is about 1300. The first three poems are religious in theme, and of them Pearl is undoubtedly the best. This poem, half allegorical in nature, tells of a vision in which the poet seeks his precious pearl that has slipped away from him. In his quest he spies his pearl, which seems to be the symbol of a dead maiden, and obtains a glimpse of the Eternal Jerusalem. The poem, which contains long discussions between the poet and the pearl, has some passages of real, moving beauty, and there is a sweet melancholy inflection in some of the verses that is rare indeed among the fumbling poetasters of the time. The meter is extraordinarily complicated: heavily alliterated twelve-lined stanzas, with intricate rhymes arranged on a triple basis (see p. 149). Cleannesse and Patience, more didactic in theme, are of less interest and beauty, but they have an exultation and stern energy that make them conspicuous among the poems of the period. They are composed in a kind of alliterative blank verse. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the most captivating of the romances. Its meter also is freely alliterated and built into irregular rhyming stanzas which sometimes run into twenty lines.

3. The Metrical Romances. The great number of the romances that now appear in our literature can be classified according to subject.

(a) The romances dealing with early English history and its heroes were very numerous. Of these the lively Horn and Havelock the Dane and the popular Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Hampton were among the best. Even contemporary history was sometimes drawn upon, as in the well-known Richard Cœur-de-Lion.

(b) Allied to the last group are the immense number of Arthurian romances, which are closely related and often of high merit. Sir Tristrem, one of the earliest, is by no means one of the worst; to it we may add the famous Arthur and Merlin, Ywain and Gawain, the Morte d’Arthure, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

(c) There was also a large number of classical themes, such as the exploits of Alexander the Great and the siege of Troy. King Alisaunder is very long, but of more than average merit. Further examples are Sir Orpheo and The Destruction of Troy.

(d) The group dealing with the feats of Charlemagne is smaller, and the quality is lower. Rauf Coilyear, an alliterative romance, is probably the best of them, and to it we may add Sir Ferumbras.

(e) A large number of the romances deal with events which are to some extent contemporary with the composition. They are miscellaneous in subject, but they are of much interest and some of them of great beauty. Amis and Amiloun is a touching love-story; William of Palerne is on the familiar “missing heir” theme; and The Squire of Low Degree, who loved the king’s daughter of Hungary, is among the best known of all the romances.

It would take a volume to comment in detail upon the romances. The variety of their meter and style is very great; but in general terms we may say that the prevailing subject is of a martial and amatory nature; there is the additional interest of the supernatural, which enters freely into the story; and one of the most attractive features to the modern reader of this delightful class of fiction is the frequent glimpses obtainable into the habits of the time.