Halleck's New English Literature. Reuben Post Halleck
the personality of the pilgrims? Has Chaucer any philosophy of life? Are there any references to the delights of nature? Note any passages that show special powers of melody and mastery over verse. Does the poem reveal anything of Chaucer's personality? In your future reading see if you can find another English story-teller in verse who can be classed with Chaucer.
FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER II:
[Footnote 1: The Tempest, V., I.]
[Footnote 2: For the location of all the English cathedral towns, see the Literary Map, p. XII.]
[Footnote 3: and.]
[Footnote 4: April.]
[Footnote 5: little.]
[Footnote 6: in her language.]
[Footnote 7: Spring.]
[Footnote 8: in its turn.]
[Footnote 9: birds.]
[Footnote 10: song.]
[Footnote 11: sigh.]
[Footnote 12: sorely.]
[Footnote 13: called.]
[Footnote 14: against.]
[Footnote 15: will.]
[Footnote 16: them.]
[Footnote 17: arrayed.]
[Footnote 18: garments.]
[Footnote 19: shepherd.]
[Footnote 20: hermit.]
[Footnote 21: hills.]
[Footnote 22: wonder.]
[Footnote 23: tired out with wandering.]
[Footnote 24: brook.]
[Footnote 25: reclined.]
[Footnote 26: sounded.]
[Footnote 27: to make dykes or ditches.]
[Footnote 28: to dig.]
[Footnote 29: to thrash (ding).]
[Footnote 30: sheaves.]
[Footnote 31: dazed.]
[Footnote 32: hermit.]
[Footnote 33: The Prologue, Lines 331–335.]
[Footnote 34: The cuts of the Pilgrims are from the Fourteenth Century
Ellesmere MS. of Canterbury Tales.]
[Footnotes 35–36: Knightes Tale.]
[Footnote 37: Truth: Balade de bon Conseyl.]
[Footnote 38: black.]
[Footnote 39: The Parlement of Foules.]
[Footnote 40: For full titles, see p. 50.]
[Footnote 41: For full titles, see p. 6.]
CHAPTER III: FROM CHAUCER'S DEATH, 1400, TO THE ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH, 1558
The Course of English History.—The century and a half that followed the death of Chaucer appealed especially to Shakespeare. He wrote or helped to edit five plays that deal with this period—Henry IV., Henry V., Henry VI., Richard III., and Henry VIII. While these plays do not give an absolutely accurate presentation of the history of the time, they show rare sympathy in catching the spirit of the age, and they leave many unusually vivid impressions.
Henry IV. (1399–1413), a descendant of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, one of the younger sons of Edward III., and therefore not in the direct line of succession, was the first English king who owed his crown entirely to Parliament. Henry's reign was disturbed by the revolt of nobles and by contests with the Welsh. Shakespeare gives a pathetic picture of the king calling in vain for sleep, "nature's tired nurse," and exclaiming:—
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."
Henry V. (1413–1422) is one of Shakespeare's romantic characters. The young king renewed the French war, which had broken out in 1337 and which later became known as the Hundred Years' War. By his victory over the French at Agincourt (1415), he made himself a national hero. Shakespeare has him say:—
"I thought upon one pair of English legs
Did march three Frenchmen."
In the reign of Henry VI. (1422–1461), Joan of Arc appeared and saved
France.
The setting aside of the direct succession in the case of Henry IV. was a pretext for the Wars of the Roses (1455–1485) to settle the royal claims of different descendants of Edward III. While this war did not greatly disturb the common people, it occupied the attention of those who might have been patrons of literature. Nearly all the nobles were killed during this prolonged contest; hence when Henry VII. (1485–1509), the first of the Tudor line of monarchs, came to the throne, there were no powerful nobles with their retainers to hold the king in check. He gave a strong centralized government to England.
The period following Chaucer's death opens with religious persecution. In 1401 the first Englishman was burned at the stake for his religious faith. From this time the expenses of burning heretics are sometimes found in the regular accounts of cities and boroughs. Henry VIII. (1509–1547) broke with the Pope, dissolved the monasteries, proclaimed himself head of the church, and allowed the laity to read the Bible, but insisted on retaining many of the old beliefs. In Germany, Martin Luther (1483–1546) was in the same age issuing his famous protests against religious abuses. Edward VI. (1547–1553) espoused the Protestant cause. An order was given to introduce into all the churches an English prayer book, which was not very different from that in use to-day in the Episcopal churches. Mary (1553–1558) sought the aid of fagots and the stake to bring the nation back to the old beliefs.
[Illustration: HENRY VIII. GIVING BIBLES TO CLERGY AND LAITY. From frontispiece to Coverdale Bible.]
While this period did not produce a single great poet or a statesman of the first rank, it witnessed the destruction of the majority of the nobility in the Wars of the Roses, the increase of the king's power, the decline of feudalism, the final overthrow of the knight by the yeoman with his long bow at Agincourt(1415), the freedom of the serf, and the growth of manufactures, especially of wool. English trading vessels began to displace even the ships of Venice.
In spite of the religious persecution with which the period began and ended, there was a remarkable change in religious belief, the dissolution of the monasteries and the subordination of church to state being striking evidences of this change. An event that had far-reaching consequences on literature and life was the act of Henry VIII. in ordering a translation of the Bible to be placed in every parish church in England. The death of Mary may in a measure be said to indicate the beginning of modern times.
Contrast between the Spirit of the Renaissance and of the Middle Ages.—One of the most important intellectual movements of the world is known as the Renaissance or Revival of Learning. This movement began in Italy about the middle of the fourteenth century and spread slowly westward. While Chaucer's travels in Italy; and his early contact with this new influence are reflected in his work, yet the Renaissance did not reach its zenith in England until the time of Shakespeare. This new epoch followed a long period, known as the Middle ages, when learning was mostly confined to the church, when thousands of the best minds retired to the cloisters, when many questions, like those of the revolution of the sun around the earth or the cause of disease, were determined, not by observation and scientific proof, but by the assertion of those in spiritual authority. Then, scientific investigators, like Roger Bacon, were thought to be in league with the devil and were thrown into prison. In 1258 Dante's tutor visited Roger Bacon, and, after seeing his experiments with the mariner's compass, wrote to an Italian friend:—
"This discovery so useful to all who travel by sea, must remain concealed until other times, because no mariner