A History of English Literature
A History of English Literature
A History of English Literature
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eality the men <strong>of</strong> the Middle Ages were moved by the same emotions and<br />
impulses as our own, and their lives presented the same incongruous mixture<br />
<strong>of</strong> nobility and baseness. Yet it is true that the externals <strong>of</strong> their<br />
existence were strikingly different from those <strong>of</strong> more recent times. In<br />
society the feudal system--lords with their serfs, towns struggling for<br />
municipal independence, kings and nobles doing, peaceably or with violence,<br />
very much what they pleased; a constant condition <strong>of</strong> public or private war;<br />
cities walled as a matter <strong>of</strong> course for protection against bands <strong>of</strong> robbers<br />
or hostile armies; the country still largely covered with forests,<br />
wildernesses, and fens; roads infested with brigands and so bad that travel<br />
was scarcely possible except on horseback; in private life, most <strong>of</strong> the<br />
modern comforts unknown, and the houses, even <strong>of</strong> the wealthy, so filthy and<br />
uncomfortable that all classes regularly, almost necessarily, spent most <strong>of</strong><br />
the daylight hours in the open air; in industry no coal, factories, or<br />
large machinery, but in the towns guilds <strong>of</strong> workmen each turning out by<br />
hand his slow product <strong>of</strong> single articles; almost no education except for<br />
priests and monks, almost no conceptions <strong>of</strong> genuine science or history, but<br />
instead the abstract system <strong>of</strong> scholastic logic and philosophy, highly<br />
ingenious but highly fantastic; in religion no outward freedom <strong>of</strong> thought<br />
except for a few courageous spirits, but the arbitrary dictates <strong>of</strong> a<br />
despotic hierarchy, insisting on an ironbound creed which the remorseless<br />
process <strong>of</strong> time was steadily rendering more and more inadequate--this<br />
<strong>of</strong>fers some slight suggestion <strong>of</strong> the conditions <strong>of</strong> life for several<br />
centuries, ending with the period with which we are now concerned.<br />
In medieval literature likewise the modern student encounters much which<br />
seems at first sight grotesque. One <strong>of</strong> the most conspicuous examples is the<br />
pervasive use <strong>of</strong> allegory. The men <strong>of</strong> the Middle Ages <strong>of</strong>ten wrote, as we<br />
do, in direct terms and <strong>of</strong> simple things, but when they wished to rise<br />
above the commonplace they turned with a frequency which to-day appears<br />
astonishing to the devices <strong>of</strong> abstract personification and veiled meanings.<br />
No doubt this tendency was due in part to an idealizing dissatisfaction<br />
with the crudeness <strong>of</strong> their actual life (as well as to frequent inability<br />
to enter into the realm <strong>of</strong> deeper and finer thought without the aid <strong>of</strong><br />
somewhat mechanical imagery); and no doubt it was greatly furthered also by<br />
the medieval passion for translating into elaborate and fantastic symbolism<br />
all the details <strong>of</strong> the Bible narratives. But from whatever cause, the<br />
tendency hardened into a ruling convention; thousands upon thousands <strong>of</strong><br />
medieval manuscripts seem to declare that the world is a mirage <strong>of</strong> shadowy<br />
forms, or that it exists merely to body forth remote and highly surprising<br />
ideas.<br />
Of all these countless allegories none was reiterated with more unwearied<br />
persistence than that <strong>of</strong> the Seven Deadly Sins (those sins which in the<br />
doctrine <strong>of</strong> the Church lead to spiritual death because they are wilfully<br />
committed). These sins are: Covetousness, Unchastity, Anger, Gluttony,<br />
Envy, Sloth, and, chief <strong>of</strong> all, Pride, the earliest <strong>of</strong> all, through which<br />
Lucifer was moved to his fatal rebellion against God, whence spring all<br />
human ills. Each <strong>of</strong> the seven, however, was interpreted as including so<br />
many related <strong>of</strong>fences that among them they embraced nearly the whole range<br />
<strong>of</strong> possible wickedness. Personified, the Seven Sins in themselves almost<br />
dominate medieval literature, a sort <strong>of</strong> shadowy evil pantheon. Moral and<br />
religious questions could scarcely be discussed without regard to them; and<br />
they maintain their commanding place even as late as in Spenser's 'Faerie<br />
Queene,' at the very end <strong>of</strong> the sixteenth century. To the Seven Sins were<br />
commonly opposed, but with much less emphasis, the Seven Cardinal Virtues,<br />
Faith, Hope, Charity (Love), Prudence, Temperance, Chastity, and Fortitude.<br />
Again, almost as prominent as the Seven Sins was the figure <strong>of</strong> Fortune with<br />
her revolving wheel, a goddess whom the violent vicissitudes and tragedies