A History of English Literature
A History of English Literature
A History of English Literature
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now.<br />
The next is the first stanza <strong>of</strong> 'Alysoun' ('Fair Alice'):<br />
Bytuene Mersh ant Averil,<br />
When spray beginnth to springe,<br />
The lutel foul hath hire wyl<br />
On hyre lud to synge.<br />
Ieh libbe in love-longinge<br />
For semlokest <strong>of</strong> alle thinge;<br />
He may me blisse bringe;<br />
Icham in hire baundoun.<br />
An hendy hap ichabbe ybent;<br />
Iehot from hevene it is me sent;<br />
From alle wymmen mi love is lent<br />
Ant lyht on Alysoun.<br />
Between March and April, When the sprout begins to spring, The little bird<br />
has her desire In her tongue to sing. I live in love-longing For the<br />
fairest <strong>of</strong> all things; She may bring me bliss; I am at her mercy. A lucky<br />
lot I have secured; I think from heaven it is sent me; From all women my<br />
love is turned And is lighted on Alysoun.<br />
There were also political and satirical songs and miscellaneous poems <strong>of</strong><br />
various sorts, among them certain 'Bestiaries,' accounts <strong>of</strong> the supposed<br />
habits <strong>of</strong> animals, generally drawn originally from classical tradition, and<br />
most <strong>of</strong> them highly fantastic and allegorized in the interests <strong>of</strong> morality<br />
and religion. There was an abundance <strong>of</strong> extremely realistic coarse tales,<br />
hardly belonging to literature, in both prose and verse. The popular<br />
ballads <strong>of</strong> the fourteenth century we must reserve for later consideration.<br />
Most numerous <strong>of</strong> all the prose works, perhaps, were the Chronicles, which<br />
were produced generally in the monasteries and chiefly in the twelfth and<br />
thirteenth centuries, the greater part in Latin, some in French, and a few<br />
in rude <strong>English</strong> verse. Many <strong>of</strong> them were mere annals like the Anglo-Saxon<br />
Chronicle, but some were the lifelong works <strong>of</strong> men with genuine historical<br />
vision. Some dealt merely with the history <strong>of</strong> England, or a part <strong>of</strong> it,<br />
others with that <strong>of</strong> the entire world as it was known to medieval Europe.<br />
The majority will never be withdrawn from the obscurity <strong>of</strong> the manuscripts<br />
on which the patient care <strong>of</strong> their authors inscribed them; others have been<br />
printed in full and serve as the main basis for our knowledge <strong>of</strong> the events<br />
<strong>of</strong> the period.<br />
THE ROMANCES. But the chief form <strong>of</strong> secular literature during the period,<br />
beginning in the middle <strong>of</strong> the twelfth century, was the romance, especially<br />
the metrical (verse) romance. The typical romances were the literary<br />
expression <strong>of</strong> chivalry. They were composed by the pr<strong>of</strong>essional minstrels,<br />
some <strong>of</strong> whom, as in Anglo-Saxon times, were richly supported and rewarded<br />
by kings and nobles, while others still wandered about the country, always<br />
welcome in the manor-houses. There, like Scott's Last Minstrel, they<br />
recited their sometimes almost endless works from memory, in the great<br />
halls or in the ladies' bowers, to the accompaniment <strong>of</strong> occasional strains<br />
on their harps. For two or three centuries the romances were to the lords<br />
and ladies, and to the wealthier citizens <strong>of</strong> the towns, much what novels<br />
are to the reading public <strong>of</strong> our own day. By far the greater part <strong>of</strong> the<br />
romances current in England were written in French, whether by Normans or<br />
by French natives <strong>of</strong> the <strong>English</strong> provinces in France, and the <strong>English</strong> ones<br />
which have been preserved are mostly translations or imitations <strong>of</strong> French<br />
originals. The romances are extreme representatives <strong>of</strong> the whole class <strong>of</strong>