Six Centuries of English Poetry (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ...e eighth there were in England some com-ng o- axon posers of verse in the Anglo-Saxon tongue; that the songs of these poets were chiefly of religion or of war, and that being written in a language very different from our modern English they can scarcely be considered as belonging properly to our literature; that among them, however, is a noble poem, Beowulf, the oldest epic of any modern people, which was probably sung or recited by pagan minstrels long before it was written down in permanent form; thai, after the conquest of England by the Normans, the early language of the English people underwent a long and tedious process of transition, a blending, in a certain sense, with the Latinized and more polished tongue of their conquerors, and that the result was the language which we now call English and are proud to claim as our own; that it was about three hundred years after the Norman Conquest, namely, in 1362, that this new tongue was officially recognized and authorized to be used in the courts at law throughout the land; and that about the same time reoffrey Chaucer composed and wrote his first poems. We should learn, moreover, that, during the transition period mentioned above, there were many attempts Pen d radS1 10D at writing poetry, resulting in the production of tedious metrical romances (chiefly translated from the French) and interminable rhyming chronicles, pleasing, of e, to the people of that time, but wholly devoid of poetic excellence and unspeakably dull to modern readers; that these poems, so called, were little better than rhymed doggerels, written in couplets of eight-syllabled lines and having for their subjects the miraculous deeds of saints and heroes and the occurrence oi supernatural or impossible phenomena; that the composers...