"bone-house," battle is "war-play," the arrow is a "waradder," the chief is a "gold-friend." There is little circumlocution, but much repetition and parallelism of expression, giving the effect, not of fulness and richness, but rather of emphasis and vehemence. In fine, the best Anglo-Saxon poetry is direct, concrete, vigorous, and intensely serious. It may be crude, barbaric, and unrefined; but it is unquestionably the utterance of men who were fighters and poets as well. Advent of CHAPTER II ANGLO-SAXON CHRISTIAN POETRY (670-871) - IN the Anglo-Saxon pagan poetry, and especially in Beowulf, there was the promise of a genuine English epos; but this epos was, as Ten Brink phrases it, “frozen in its development." It was thus arrested, not because the impulses behind it were inadequate or because they were exhausted, but because a new and more powerful influence was suddenly introduced. This new influence - so mighty as to turn the whole tide of the literature forever into new channels was the advent of Christianity. No Christianity wonder that the pagan literature lost its vitality and failed of its natural growth. No wonder that a new life and a new literary development began under the force of an impulse so strange and so powerful, under the influence of ideals so different and so exalted. It is precisely the advent of great life forces like this that marks the beginning of new literary periods. Yet right here we are met by certain significant and at first sight startling facts. The old impulse did not immediately die out, nor did the new influence come quickly to supremacy. The spirit of pagan heroism continued to breathe through many a Christian poem; and no Anglo-Saxon poem written under Christian auspices begins to equal in poetic power the essentially pagan Beowulf. What accounts for these facts? Many causes, doubtless, but among others these. The preaching of ChrisChristianity tianity was necessarily slow, and paganism gave vs. Paganism way but slowly before it. The old poetic impulses were strong and had great momentum, and later phide haled hapa heappan cýðan. pa se halize maple gobnoht onha bunge velde papeand rebuena on mode blide bunga tatoon potree da berhtan idese mid pidle mid pome be firaan. nepoldet pulones dena apian pny mes hynde achehi paf inges gefonde. any loan duzeða pal And geparda redio pul cunda gal philid Fumana Pratce beilo pull his beddes san pap hefcaloe his blad poplava Ape binnan anne mhze harde Sahus Sande gebroenne on ondan un fpæslicne pylene he an de pontree pearl mod Vidih gumena penden he ondÿffe porulde punode und polena hope sexolda pine spa drunch. Squca on his peeze middan fpahenýfte nada nanne onze prelocan pizzatis fropon FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF JUDITH MANUSCRIPT Cotton Vitellius A, XV, British Museum poets did not readily find new ways even when they felt in full measure the new influence. Most important of all, Christianity was essentially a foreign influence, and no foreign influence becomes greatly effective in the making of literature so long as it really remains foreign. It must first be thoroughly assimilated, must enter into the very life-blood of a people, must become bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. This is a process of generations, and, under some conditions, of centuries. Even when the process has been fully accomplished, the old nature is likely to reappear in sporadic cases. We must remember that the race remains the same, however powerfully it may have been modified. Nevertheless, the literary influence of Christianity is easily and distinctly traceable from the seventh century onward. Augustine, the first Christian missionary to the Anglo-Saxons, had come to England from Rome in 597. From the ecclesiastical centre which he established at Canterbury, Christianity spread throughout the Spread of south of England; and during the first half of Christianity the seventh century it was extended throughout the north by both Roman and Irish missionaries. The new religion henceforth infused into literature a new tone and spirit. It was new in a national as well as in a religious sense. The old pagan poetry contains no allusion to English men or to English scenes, and it remained for Christian poets to begin the history of English litera- and Literature in the stricter sense of the term. The first definite creative period in English literary history began in the monasteries of Northumbria toward the close of the seventh century. Its best work was accomplished during the eighth century, and it probably came to a close early in the ninth. During this time, and indeed throughout the remainder of the Anglo-Saxon Period, the great guiding impulse of literature is the impulse of Christianity in Christianity ture |