PHILOSOPHY
Aurelius
Cicero
Epictetus
Lucretius
Plato
Seneca
The Dark Ages. 500 A.D.–1000 A.D. Crippled by pride and selfishness Roman civilization was swept away by wave after wave of barbarian invasions. Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Huns, Lombards, and Vandals in turn swarmed over the face of Europe, spreading terror and desolation. Learning, art, industry, and government perished. But the invaders brought a love of freedom, a hatred of bondage and captivity, to offset their contempt for the progress effected by the great thinkers and rulers of antiquity.
There is but little left to us of the scanty literature produced in those dim centuries. It is all primitive, Homeric; rhythmic tales of the heroic lives and deaths of national leaders constitute the sole endeavor that has lasted. But in these is the note of freedom, for the masses of the people as well as the rulers and nobles delighted in Charlemagne and his peerless knight Roland, or in Eric, the Viking adventurer, who dared to sail far forth to Vinland. The great ruler was not a mere commander but a leader whom men of every class gladly followed with love as well as respect. Yet the ideals were low, mainly of physical prowess and sheer brute strength.
Anglo-Saxon Lit. French Lit. German Lit. Norse Lit. Spanish Lit.
The Middle Ages. 1000 A.D.–1400 A.D. However, as soon as the dread of barbarian havoc had passed and peace and government had been restored to some extent, a new and brighter era began. The thirst for learning has never been greater than at this time. Students flocked to the universities of Paris, Oxford, and Bologna in thousands, begging their way, traveling on foot for hundreds of miles. Religion seized men even more firmly, finding them active or meditative occupations either in the monasteries or in the Crusades. The aspirations of the time appear in the legends of King Arthur and the Round Table, as told in the prose of the day by Sir Thomas Malory or in the more recent verse of Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." This is the chivalric ideal of perfect knighthood. The religious feeling is shown in such hymns as the "Stabat Mater," the "Dies Iræ," or "Jerusalem the Golden." Dante, commonly reckoned the second of the world's poets, proves the zeal for learning and scholarship. The spirit of freedom gleams from the "Old English Ballads" of Robin Hood, the enemy of the oppressive nobles and the friend of the poor and the humble. It is even more evident in the work of John Wyclif, who translated the Bible into English so that the common peasant might have the advantage of hearing the Gospel message read to him in a tongue that he understood, and that he might feel that the teachings of religion were meant for him as much as for the wealthy and the learned.
But science and thought had not yet startled men into recognition of the wonder round about them. Knowledge was assumed to be complete. To probe into the mysteries of nature was unholy and wicked in those days. The awakening from unseeing and unreasoning childhood to the adventuresome zest of youth and young manhood was yet to come.
POETRY
Chaucer
Dante
Old English Ballads
Petrarch
Tasso
FICTION
Boccaccio
Malory