THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS
From the time when it first appears till it is swamped by the Norman Conquest Old English literature undergoes a quite noticeable development. In the mass the advance appears to be considerable, but when we reflect that it represents the growth of some five hundred years, we see that the rate of progress is undoubtedly slow. We shall take the poetical and prose forms separately.
1. Poetry. Poetry is much earlier in the field, and its development is the greater. It begins with the rude forms of Beowulf and concludes with the more scholarly paraphrases of Cynewulf.
(a) The epic in its untutored form exists in Beowulf. This poem lacks the finer qualities of the epic: it is deficient in the strict unity, the high dignity, and the broad motive of the great classical epic; but a crude vigor and a certain rude majesty are not wanting. It is no mean beginning for the English epic. The later poems of the Cædmon and Cynewulf types are too discursive and didactic to be epics, though in places they are like The Battle of Maldon and The Fight at Finnesburgh in their narrative force.
(b) The lyric—that is, the short and passionate expression of a personal feeling—hardly exists at all. The nearest approach to it lies in the dramatic monologues, such as Deor’s Complaint. These poems are too long and diffuse to be real lyrics, but they have some of the expressive melancholy and personal emotion of the lyric.
2. Prose. The great bulk of Old English prose consists of translation; and in its various shapes English prose adopts the methods of its originals. We have many homilies, some history, and a few pastoral letters, all based strictly upon Latin works. There are very few passages of real originality, and they are short and disjointed. Of historical writing we have the rudiments in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. On the whole, the development is very small, for the prose is bound by the curse of imitativeness.