THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORMS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM THE BEGINNINGS TO 1550 The oldest work in English literature is the epic of Beowulf, a narrative poem which was composed at a time before the English went to Britain. Its form is a natural development with no hint of an acquaintance on the part of the author or authors with the epics of Greece and Rome. It tells a tale of a national hero, of his overcoming a half-human monster who was devastating his land and of his victory in later years over a fearful dragon. Beowulf is only one example of a native epic literature widespread among the Germanic peoples until after their migrations from the German forests and marshes to form new nations in France and England. Among the Teutonic peoples who remained in their native land the epic literature survived. In the nineteenth century it furnished the German musician Wagner with the stories for his mighty operas. The successor to the epic was the "romance," the principal literary form of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the age of knighthood, chivalry, and feudalism. The romances, so called because they were written chiefly in the Romance languages, especially in French and Spanish, are elaborate stories in prose and poetry of marvels and adventures written with little regard for probability and with no historic sense. The romancer wanted a tale which would interest a group of knights and ladies; he used traditional stories and characters with no knowledge of and no feeling for historical accuracy. At their best, the romances give us interesting pictures of adventure in a world of chivalry, adventures colored by the glamor of an unreal world; at their worst, they give us wordy jumbles of impossible events constructed with no sense of artistic form. The romances may be divided as follows: 1. DEVELOPMENT OF FORMS TO 1550 21 Classical stories based upon the heroes and the events of Greek and Roman antiquity, such as the life of Alexander or the tale of Troy. 2. Arthurian romance: stories based upon the legends of King Arthur and the Round Table. The most famous collection of these romances in English is the Morte D'Arthur, a translation and adaptation of older material by Sir Thomas Malory. 3. French romance: stories of French heroes such as Charlemagne and Huon of Bordeaux. 4. English romance: Bevis of Hampton, Havelok the Dane. 5. German romance: the Niebelungenlied. The romance as a type could not endure. It was developed from a transient phase of society, the age of chivalry; it existed primarily for entertainment; it depended for its interest upon a background of adventure, marvel, and mystery with no real sense for truth; and it was lacking in all structural qualities. In time it degenerated into mere foolishness and was finally laughed out of existence. Cervantes' satire, Don Quixote, shows how in the Renaissance it had fallen from its high estate. While the romance was flourishing in the courtly circles of chivalry, the growing influence of the Church was bringing into literature the element of instruction. Religious men realized in the middle ages, as they have realized always, that for instruction there was no vehicle equal to that of a story. Moreover there was in men's minds practically no realization of the difference between history and narrative literature. The distinction between "poetry" and "history" which formed the basis of Aristotle's criticism was unknown to the men of the middle ages. An imaginative story they regarded as falsehood unless it were told for purposes of moral instruction. Hence rose the idea of allegory, a form of narrative in which the characters personified virtues and vices or ethical ideals. Illustrations of such allegories are to be found in the medieval stories of animals and in stories in which ideals of courtly love were symbolized by various conventional characters. Gradually these simple allegories became highly elaborated. In the thirteenth century the Italian poet Dante (1265-1302) wrote the greatest of all allegories, the Divine Comedy, a magnificent poem relating the poet's imaginary experiences in Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. In this poem every incident and every character has an inner meaning; the entire poem has a political, an ethical, and a personal interpretation. The Divine Comedy became the greatest poem of the middle ages, summing up for the men of that time the whole of their intellectual and religious experience. In England the allegory was highly popular. The great example of this form before 1550 is Piers Plowman, a powerful allegory of social conditions in the fourteenth century formerly attributed to William Langland, but now believed to be the work of several writers. In addition to the three types - national epic, romance, and allegory there flourished before 1550 a large variety of minor types of literature: the exemplum, a moral tale illustrating some ethical truth, much used by popular preachers; the fabliau, a coarse and humorous tale of vulgar life; and the saint's legend, a tale of a miracle in the life of a Christian saint. Lyrical poetry in the forms of songs and carols was present in English literature from the earliest times. The best way of understanding the variety of types of English literature at the end of the middle ages is to study the works of the great English poet Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340-1400). Chaucer wrote lyrics, several of which were in the popular French forms of rondel and ballade, e. g., Fortune, Merciles Beaute, and The Compleint of Chaucer to his empty Purse; allegories, e. g., Hous of Fame; fabliaux, e. g., The Miller's Tale; courtly romances, e. g., The Knight's Tale; a burlesque romance, Sir Thopas; saints' legends, e. g. The Second Nun's Tale; a beast fable, The Nun's Priest's Tale; and many other types. He popularized in his Canterbury Tales the idea, begun in Italy by Boccaccio (13131375), of a series of tales fitted into a framework and supposed to be told by various members of a company of people for their common diversion. Before 1550 are found also the beginnings of the drama. Modern European drama had its beginnings not in Greek and Roman drama which, after the decay of Roman civilization, seem to have been practically forgotten, but in short Latin dialogues introduced into the church services at Christmas and Easter. Thence was but a step to the dramatized stories of the Biblical narrative which we know as "mystery" or "miracle plays," and from them to the dramatized allegories which we know as "morality plays." The immense popularity of these crude plays led before 1550 to dramatized stories of history, which we know as "chronicle plays" and dramatized fabliaux or farces." One other literary type needs mention, the "popular ballads," little stories in verse which were sung or recited by simple, unlearned people about a national hero like Robin Hood, about such exploits in border warfare as The Battle of Otterburn, about superstitious tales of ghosts or enchantment like The Wife of Usher's Well and Kemp Owyne, or about legends of treachery, murder, and cruelty like Lord Randal, Edward, and The Cruel Brother. The origin of these ballads is obscure. They are anonymous, they were handed down orally for many generations, they are simple and crude in story and highly condensed and dramatic in presentation. Many of them sound as if they had been recited or sung by a leader with his hearers joining in the chorus. Alliterative formulas are common: "When shaws beene sheene, and shradds full fayre, "Me thought they did me beate and binde." In Conventional epithets are common: "fayre forest;" "merry greenwood;" "wealthy wife;" "blude-reid wine." cremental repetition is common: "They hadna been a week from her A week but barely ane". "They hadna been a week from her These characteristics are all marks of traditional poetry of great age, of interest to simple people, and adapted to group singing and reciting. The same characteristics can be seen in children's games to-day. It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that ballads were brought to the attention of educated readers and of students of poetry. Then their freshness, their spontaneity, their vigor, and their condensation made them highly influential in their effect upon narrative poetry, and "literary ballads," narrative poems influenced by the old forms, became more and more common. The following outline will give some idea of the main types of English literature which flourished before 1550: I. Lyrical poetry Songs, carols, and imitations of French forms II. Narrative poetry a. Epic |