A History of English Literature (600-1900) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ' I HHE following history of English literature will only comprise a I sketch of such works as were originally written in English. The Celtic poetryj)f theearly British bajrds does not come under the heading of English national literature. The national language, both in literature and in public life, has been English: the poetry of the Irishman, Thomas Moore, of the Scotchman, Walter Scott, and of Kipling, the Anglo-Indian, is English poetry. In attempting any historical sketch of the development of the English language, we find at the outset grave difficulties in the fact of the name "Anglo-Saxon" having been given to the earliest form of the language, which has caused English ancTAnglo- x. - - - V "? i ?. i - i V. i - . - baxorTTo be treated as two different languages. We propose, in the present work, to adopt the term " Early English," as affording a better standpoint from which to review the most ancient period in the history of the English language and literature. On landing in Britain, in the year 55 B.c., Julius Caesar found a Celtic population, akin to the Celts of Gaul. In the north, in Scotland, were established the Picts, called by the Romans Caledonians; in the south were the Britons; in Ireland the Gaels or Irish. The conquest of the country, commenced under the Roman general Agricola in the year 84 A.d., was not completed till the reign of the emperor Severus (209 A.d.). For two centuries Britain endured the yoke of Rome, until 409 A.d., when the emperor Honorius recalled the Roman troops, or rather until 420, when the last Roman legion left British soil; but in no part of its great western empire did Rome leave less traces of its literary influence than in Britain. It may have been that the number of Roman soldiers and c...