[HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE]
History of English Literature
Two years before the appearance of his "Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise" Taine had aroused a lively interest in England by his "Notes sur l'Angleterre," a work showing much wayward sympathy for the English character, and an irregular understanding of English institutions. The same mixed impression was produced by the laboriously conceived and brilliantly written "History of English Literature." Taine (see Vol. XXIV, p. 177) wrote to a theory that often worked out into curious contradictions. His method was to show how men have been shaped by the environments and tendencies of their age. Unfortunately, having formed an idea of the kind of literature our age should produce according to his theory, he had eyes for nothing except what he expected to find. He went to literature for his confirmations of his reading of history. Taine's criticism, in consequence, is often incomplete, and more piquant than trustworthy. The failure to appreciate some of the great English writers—notably Shakespeare and Milton—is patent. Still, the critic always had the will to be just, and no foreigner has devoted such complimentary labour to the formation of a complete estimate of English literature. The book was published in 1863–4.
Saxon and Norman
History has been revolutionised by the study of literatures. A work of literature is now perceived, not to be a solitary caprice, but a transcript of contemporary manners, from which we may read the style of man's feelings for centuries back. By the study of a literature, one may construct a moral history, the psychology of a people. To find a complete literature is rare. Only ancient Greece, and modern France and England offer a complete series of great literary monuments. I have chosen England because it is alive, and one can see it with more detachment than one can see France.
Huge white bodies, cool-blooded, with fierce blue eyes, reddish flaxen hair; ravenous stomachs filled with meat and cheese and heated by strong drinks; a cold temperament, slow to love, home-staying, prone to drunkenness—these are to this day the features which descent and climate preserve to the English race. The heavy human brute gluts himself with sensations and noise, and this appetite finds a grazing-ground in blows and battle. Strife for strife's sake such is their pleasure. A race so constituted was predisposed to Christianity by its gloom, and beyond Christianity foreign culture could not graft any fruitful branch on this barbarous stock. The Norman conquerors of France had by intermarriage become a Latin race, and nimbly educated themselves from the Gauls, who boasted of "talking with ease." When they crossed to England, they introduced new manners and a new spirit. They taught the Saxon how ideas fall in order, and which ideas are agreeable; they taught him how to be clear, amusing, and pungent. At length, after long impotence of Norman literature, which was content to copy, and of Saxon literature, which bore no fruit, a definite language was attained, and there was room for a great writer.
Chaucer
Then Geoffrey Chaucer appeared, inventive though a disciple, original though a translator, and by his genius, education, and life was enabled to know and depict a whole world, but above all to satisfy the chivalric world and the splendid courts which shone upon the heights. He belonged to it, and took such part in it that his life from end to end was that of a man of the world and a man of action.
Two motives raised the middle age above the chaos of barbarism, one religious, which fashioned the gigantic cathedrals, the other secular, which built the feudal fortresses. The one produced the adventurous hero, the other the mystical monk. These master-passions gave way at last to monotony of habit and taste for worldliness. Something was then needed to make the evening hours flow sweetly. The lords at table have finished dinner; the poet arrives; they ask him for his subject, and he answers "Love."