Halleck's New English Literature. Reuben Post Halleck
States Catalogue and Cumulative Book Index.
SELECTIONS FROM ENGLISH LITERATURE[2]:
*Pancoast and Spaeth's Early English Poems. (P. & S.)[3]
*Warren's Treasury of English Literature, Part I. (Origins to Eleventh Century: London, One Shilling.) (Warren.)
*Ward's English Poets, 4 vols. (Ward.)
*Bronson's English Poems, 4 vols. (Bronson.)
Oxford Treasury of English Literature, Vol. I., Beowulf to Jacobean;
*Vol. II., Growth of the Drama; Vol. III., Jacobean to Victorian. (Oxford Treasury.)
*Oxford Book of English Verse. (Oxford.)
*Craik's English Prose, 5 vols. (Craik.)
*Page's British Poets of the Nineteenth Century. (Page.)
Chambers's Cyclopedia of English Literature. (Chambers.)
Manly's English Poetry (from 1170). (Manly I.)
Manly's English Prose (from 1137). (Manly II.)
Century Readings for a Course in English Literature. (Century.)
CHAPTER I: FROM 449 A.D. TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST, 1066
Subject Matter and Aim.—The history of English literature traces the development of the best poetry and prose written in English by the inhabitants of the British Isles. For more than twelve hundred years the Anglo-Saxon race has been producing this great literature, which includes among its achievements the incomparable work of Shakespeare.
This literature is so great in amount that the student who approaches the study without a guide is usually bewildered. He needs a history of English literature for the same reason that a traveler in England requires a guidebook. Such a history should do more than indicate where the choicest treasures of literature may be found; it should also show the interesting stages of development; it should emphasize some of the ideals that have made the Anglo-Saxons one of the most famous races in the world; and it should inspire a love for the reading of good literature.
No satisfactory definition of "literature" has ever been framed. Milton's conception of it was "something so written to after times, as they should not willingly let it die." Shakespeare's working definition of literature was something addressed not to after times but to an eternal present, and invested with such a touch of nature as to make the whole world kin. When he says of Duncan:—
"After life's fitful fever he sleeps well,"
he touches the feelings of mortals of all times and opens the door for imaginative activity, causing us to wonder why life should be a fitful fever, followed by an incommunicable sleep. Much of what we call literature would not survive the test of Shakespeare's definition; but true literature must appeal to imagination and feeling as well as to intellect. No mere definition can take the place of what may be called a feeling for literature. Such a feeling will develop as the best English poetry and prose: are sympathetically read. Wordsworth had this feeling when he defined the poets as those:—
"Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares."
The Mission of English Literature.—It is a pertinent question to ask, What has English literature to offer?
In the first place, to quote Ben Jonson:—
"The thirst that from the soul cloth rise
Doth ask a drink divine."
English literature is of preëminent worth in helping to supply that thirst. It brings us face to face with great ideals, which increase our sense of responsibility for the stewardship of life and tend to raise the level of our individual achievement. We have a heightened sense of the demands which life makes and a better comprehension of the "far-off divine event" toward which we move, after we have heard Swinburne's ringing call:—
" … this thing is God,
To be man with thy might,
To grow straight in the strength
of thy spirit, and live out thy life
as the light."
We feel prompted to act on the suggestion of—
" … him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on striping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."[4]
In the second place, the various spiritual activities demanded for the interpretation of the best things in literature add to enjoyment. This pleasure, unlike that which arises from physical gratification, increases with age, and often becomes the principal source of entertainment as life advances. Shakespeare has Prospero say:—
" … my library
Was dukedom large enough."
The suggestions from great minds disclose vistas that we might never otherwise see. Browning truly says:—
" … we're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred tunes nor cared to see."
Sometimes it is only after reading Shakespeare that we can see—
" … winking Mary buds begin
To ope their golden eyes.
With everything that pretty is."
and only after spending some time in Wordsworth's company that the common objects of our daily life become invested with—
"The glory and the freshness of a dream."
In the third place, we should emphasize the fact that one great function of English literature is to bring deliverance to souls weary with routine, despondent, or suffering the stroke of some affliction. In order to transfigure the everyday duties of life, there is need of imagination, of a vision such as the poets give. Without such a vision the tasks of life are drudgery. The dramas of the poets bring relief and incite to nobler action.
"The soul hath need of prophet and redeemer.
Her outstretched wings against her prisoning bars
She waits for truth, and truth is with the dreamer
Persistent as the myriad light of stars."[5]
We need to listen to a poet like Browning, who—
"Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph.
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake."
In the fourth place, the twentieth century is emphasizing the fact that neither happiness nor perpetuity of government is possible without the development of a spirit of service—a truth long since taught by English literature. We may learn this lesson from Beowulf, the first English epic, from Alfred the Great, from William Langland, and from Chaucer's Parish Priest. All Shakespeare's greatest and happiest characters, all the great failures of his dramas, are sermons on this text. In The Tempest he presents Ariel, tendering his service to Prospero:—
"All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure."
Shakespeare delights to show Ferdinand winning Miranda through service, and Caliban remaining an abhorred creature because he detested service. Much of modern literature is an illuminated text on the glory of service. Coleridge voiced for all the coming years what has grown to be almost an elemental feeling to the English-speaking race:—
"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small."
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