"The corn-craik was chirming
His sad eerie cry [30]
And the wee stars were dreaming
Their path through the sky."
In order to produce a poet able to write both A Midsummer Night's
Dream and Hamlet, the Celtic imagination must blend with the
Anglo-Saxon seriousness. As we shall see, this was accomplished by the
Norman conquest.
ANGLO-SAXON PROSE
When and where written.—We have seen that poetry normally precedes prose. The principal part of Anglo-Saxon poetry had been produced before much prose was written. The most productive poetic period was between 650 and 825. Near the close of the eighth century, the Danes began their plundering expeditions into England. By 800 they had destroyed the great northern monasteries, like the one at Whitby, where Caedmon is said to have composed the first religious song. As the home of poetry was in the north of England, these Danish inroads almost completely silenced the singers. What prose there was in the north was principally in Latin. On the other hand, the Saxon prose was produced chiefly in the south of England. The most glorious period of Anglo-Saxon prose was during Alfred's reign, 871-901.
Bede.—This famous monk (673-735) was probably the greatest teacher and the best known man of letters and scholar in all contemporary Europe. He is said to have translated the Gospel of St. John into Saxon, but the translation is lost. He wrote in Latin on a vast range of subjects, from the Scriptures to natural science, and from grammar to history. He has given a list of thirty-seven works of which he is the author. His most important work is the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is really a history of England from Julius Caesar's invasion to 731. The quotation from Bede's work relative to Caedmon shows that Bede could relate things simply and well. He passed almost all his useful life at the monastery of Jarrow on the Tyne.
Alfred (849-901).—The deeds and thoughts of Alfred, king of the West Saxons from 871 until his death in 901, remain a strong moral influence an the world, although he died more than a thousand years ago. Posterity rightly gave him the surname of "the Great," as he is one of the comparatively few great men of all time. E.A. Freeman, the noted historian of the early English period, says of him:—
"No man recorded in history seems ever to have united so many great and good qualities… A great part of his reign was taken up with warfare with an enemy [the Danes] who threatened the national being; yet he found means personally to do more for the general enlightenment of his people than any other king in English history."
After a Danish leader had outrageously broken his oaths to Alfred, the Dane's two boys and their mother fell into Alfred's hands, and he returned them unharmed. "Let us love the man," he wrote, "but hate his sins." His revision of the legal code, known as Alfred's Laws, shows high moral aim. He does not forget the slave, who was to be freed after six years of service. His administration of the law endeavored to secure the same justice for the poor as for the rich.
Alfred's example has caused many to stop making excuses for not doing more for their kind. If any one ever had an adequate excuse for not undertaking more work than his position absolutely demanded, that man was Alfred; yet his ill health and the wars with the Danes did not keep him from trying to educate his people or from earning the title, "father of English prose." Freeman even says that England owes to Alfred's prose writing and to the encouragement that he gave to other writers the "possession of a richer early literature than any other people of western Europe" and the maintenance of the habit of writing after the Norman conquest, when English was no longer used in courtly circles.
[Illustration: THE BEGINNING OF ALFRED'S LAWS. Illuminated MS.,
British Museum.]