, ENGLISH LITERATURE, like every other mental product, is qualified by the history of the nation to which it belongs. The great social eras of a country's history have always been found to correspond with the great intellectual eras of her growth. It will, however, be sufficient for our purpose to arrange the literary annals of England into three periods: 1. The period antecedent to the Norman conquest; 2. The period extending from the Norman conquest to the English reformation; and 3. The period extending from the English reformation to the present day.
1. The Period antecedent to the period possesses a literature composed in three distinct languages the Celtic, the Latin., and the English. Regarding the Celtic literature, see CELTIC NATION, IRISH LITERATURE, and WELSH LITERATURE. The introduction of Latin literature into this country was considerably later than the Roman invasion of it. The cultivation of the letters of Rome followed as a necessary consequence on the introduction of Christianity into the country. Thwards the close of the 6th c., St. Augustine landed in the south of England, and laid the foundations of the Anglo-Catholic church. These great evangelists, however, rather prepared the way for literary effort on the part of others, than were themselves literary. The earliest names that we encounter are Gildas, Nennius, Bede, Alcuin, Asser, and Erigena. After the immigration of the Angles and Saxons into Britain, this people began to form a literature of their own. Their three historical poems—The Gleeman's Song, The Battle of Finnesburgh, and The Tale of Beowulf (q.v.)—are mainly versions of events which hap pened on the continent before the descent on the shores of England. Except the remarkable religious poems of the Northumbrian monk Cwdmon, in the 7th c., little more of any moment in verse has been handed down to us by the English people who lived before the conquest. But this people, though comparatively poor in poetry, are eminently simple and straightforward prose writers. King Alfred discarded Latin in all his communications with his subjects, and in consequence the native language made an impressive start throughout the whole of England. From the Chronicle, which is made up from the MS. of several conventual records, modern scholars have derived special and valuable information. Portions of the sacred Scriptures were translated into English, several of the leading men of the time, such as Aldhelm, Bede, and Alfred, lending their assistance. Sermons and grammars, glossaries and medical treatises, geographies and dialogues between Solomon and Saturn, make up the file of this period of the literature.
2, The Period extending from the Norman Conquest to the English Reformation.—The conquest had the effect of changing the language of the court, the schools, and the tri bunals of justice; it took but little effect on the native inhabitants. In a few centuries, owing partly to the obstinacy with which the English -people clung to their mother tongue, and partly to the circumstance that long settlement in England and political antagonism to France had practically changed the descendants of the Norman conquer ors into English .iipbles, aId spir l them with,Engligh latter began to abandon the use of French. "In 1349, boys ceased to learn their Latin through the medium of this tongue; and in 1362 (the 36th year of Edward III.), it was directed by
act of parliament that all pleadings in the law-courts should henceforth be conducted in English, because, as is stated in the preamble to the act, French was become much unknown in the realm " (Morris's Historical Outlines of English Accidence, 1872). In a generation or two after the conquest, classical and theological learning made very con siderable progress. Monasteries were busy, and the English universities were both by this time founded; while an interchange of teachers and pupils constantly went on between the English seminaries and those of France and other countries. Lanfranc and Anselm, Hales and Duns Scotus, Michael Scot and Roger Bacon, had attained to a great eminence in speculative and in physical philosophy. Doubtless their thinking was more characterized by its hair-splitting ingenuity than by its solidity, but the 12th and 13th centuries stand out in a distinguished manner in England, and indeed throughout Europe, for their peculiar devotion to speculative studies. But all these philosophers wrote in Latin, as did the historical writers of the same period, of whom the chief were William of Malmesbury, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Giraldus Cambrensis, and Matthew Paris. A literary feature of the age which must not be overlooked was the frequency of satire expressed in rhymed Latin verse. The most notable of the medieval satirists was Wal ter Mapes, to whom is ascribed (though the evidence of his authorship isnot conclusive) certain clever half-scurrilous poems, from one of which, the Confessi,o Golice, have been extracted a number of verses, commonly but erroneously spoken of as a "drinking song " (see MAPF.S). The satire passed from the clergy, and was directed against the feeble king (John). De Montfort and the other great barons who distinguished them selves at Runnymede, are the theme of popular praise. In the same Latin tongue was composed the oldest legendary work of the middle ages. The Gesta Romanorum (q.v.) is a compilation of uncertain origin. The stories themselves are in many cases of great antiquity, and in their earliest forms can be traced to the distant east. In their Latin dress they were the property, not of England only, but of all western Christendom, and their only claim to notice in a special survey of E. L. arises from the fact that their edi tor, Elinandus, was perhaps an Englishman, and that they have furnished (at second or third hand) incidents and plots to the genius of Shakespeare and Scott. In the same relation to E. L. stands The Seven Wise Masters, traceable back to India, but known to all western Europe in a Latin form, and to England in particular under the title of the Process of the Sevyn Sages. The French Fabliaux affected our literature but little before the time of Chaucer. On the other hand, the romances of chivalry, rude and spirited, pathetic and imaginative, are well worth the attention of the student of English litera ture. The best of these, first written in French, but afterwards translated into English, celebrate the gloiy and fall of king Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, of which splendid use has recently been made by Alfred Tennyson in his Idyls of the King.