The Interdependence of Literature

by Georgina Pell Curtis

There are also prose chronicles, said to be the outcome of others of a still earlier period, and which give a contemporary history of the country in the Gaelic language of the fifth century. There is no other modern nation in Europe that can point to such a literary past. The Scotch Celts had early metrical verse, of which the Ossian, wherein is related the heroic deeds of Fingal, was supposed to have been sung by all the ancient Celtic bards. In the eighteenth century, Macpherson, a Scotchman, found some of these poems sung in the Highlands of Scotland; and, making a careful study of them, he translated all he could find from the Gaelic into English, and gave them to the world. At the time of publication, in 1762, their authenticity was questioned, and even at the present day scholars are divided in their opinion as to their genuineness. The literature of the Cymric Celts, the early inhabitants of Britain, has given us the glorious legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. All the bardic songs refer to this mighty prince, who resisted the Saxon invaders, and whose deeds were sung by all the Welsh Britons. Some of these people took refuge in France, and gradually the fame of their legends spread all over Europe, and were eagerly seized upon and rendered into song, by the chivalric poets of all countries. From these tales Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century compiled a Latin historical work of Britain, while in later times Tennyson in England, and Richard Wagner in Germany, have made the deeds of Arthur and his Knights the theme of some of their most magnificent creations.

Other ancient Welsh writings are still extant, among them the Triads, which is a work that has come down from primitive times. It comprises a collection of historical and mythological maxims, traditions, theological doctrines, and rules for constructing verse.

The Mabinogi, or "Tales of Youth," are old Welsh romances similar to the Norse Sagas, which are supposed by critics to date from a very rude and early age.

The Anglo-Saxon is very different from these ancient literatures. It has no legends or romances, no national themes, and its early prose and verse were written more in the style of religious narrative, and to give practical information, than to amuse.

The poems of Beowulf, a thorough Norse Saga, embodies the doings of the Anglo-Saxons before they emigrated to England, and must have been written long before they set foot on English soil. Older than Beowulf is the lyric poem of Widsith, which has some historical interest as depicting the doings of kings, princes and warriors. It contains traces of the epic, which in Beowulf, whose English poem is next in point of time, is more markedly developed.

During the fifth and sixth centuries the Germanic tribes who emigrated to Britain brought with them a heathen literature. The oldest fragment now extant are the Hexenspruche and the Charms. They have elements of Christian teaching in them, which would seem to imply that the Church tried to give them a Christian setting. In some respects they resemble the old Sanskrit, and are supposed to be among the earliest examples of lyric poetry in England.

Alfred the Great improved the Anglo-Saxon prose and soon after his time a translation of the Bible in that language was made, forming the second known copy in a national language, the first being the Moeso-Gothic of Bishop Ulphilus. The Saxon Chronicles, dating from the time of Alfred to 1154 were copies of the Latin Chronicles kept in the monasteries.

The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw the age of the Crusades, which added a new impulse to learning through the co-mingling of different races. French poetry was translated into English, which, in the thirteenth century, in its evolution from the Anglo-Saxon became a fixed language. Classical learning in this age was generally diffused through the schoolmen, of whom Lanfranc, Anselm, John of Salisbury, Duns Scotius, William of Malmesbury, and other great names of this period, mentioned elsewhere, are instances.

In the thirteenth century appeared also the Gesta Romanorum, a collection of fables, traditions, and various pictures of society, changing with the different countries that the stories dealt with. The romance of Apollonius in this collection gave Chaucer the plots for two or three of his tales, and furnished Cowers with the theme for most of his celebrated poem, the Confessio Amantis. This poem, in its turn, suggested to Shakespeare the outlines for his characters of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and the Merchant of Venice. Other and less celebrated works are also taken from the Gesta Romanorum.

After the accession of the Norman kings of England, the chief literary works in England for two centuries are those of the Norman poets. Wace in the twelfth century wrote in French his "Brut d'Angleterre." Brutus was the mythical son of Aeneas, and the founder of Britain. The Britons were settled in Cornwall, Wales and Bretagne, and were distinguished for traditionary legends, which had been collected by Godfrey of Monmouth in 1138. They formed the groundwork for Wace's poem, which was written in 1160, and from that time proved to be an inexhaustible treasury from which romantic writers of fiction drew their materials.