For the language: Anglo-Saxon can be learned in Sweet’sPrimerandReader(Clarendon Press). Sweet’sFirst Middle English Primergives extracts from theAncren Riwleand theOrmulum, with separate grammars for the two dialects. But it is generally most convenient to learn the language of Chaucer before attempting the earlier books. Morris and Skeat’sSpecimens of Early English(two volumes, Clarendon Press) range from the end of the English Chronicle (1153) to Chaucer; valuable for literary history as well as philology. The nature of the language is explained in Henry Bradley’sMaking of English(Clarendon Press), and in Wyld’sStudy of the Mother Tongue(Murray).
The following books should be noted: Stopford Brooke,Early English Literature(Macmillan); Schofield,English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer(Macmillan); Jusserand,Literary History of the English People(Fisher Unwin); Chambers’Cyclopædia of English Literature, I; Ten Brink,Early English Literature(Bell); Saintsbury,History of English Prosody, I (Macmillan); Courthope,History of English Poetry, I and II (Macmillan).
Full bibliographies are provided in theCambridge History of English Literature.
The bearings of early French upon English poetry are illustrated in Saintsbury’sFlourishing of Romance and Rise of Allegory(Blackwood). Much of the common medieval tendencies may be learned from the earlier part of Robertson’sGerman Literature(Blackwood), and Gaspary’sItalian Literature, translated by Oelsner (Bell). Some topics have been already discussed by the present author in other works:Epic and Romance(Macmillan);The Dark Ages(Blackwood);Essays on Medieval Literature(Macmillan).
The history of medieval drama in England, for which there was no room in this book, is clearly given in Pollard’sMiracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes(Clarendon Press).
By R. W.Chambers
Many years have passed since the publication of Ker’s volume in theHome University Library,yet there is hardly a paragraph in it which demands any serious addition or alteration. It is a classic of English criticism, and any attempt to alter it, or ‘bring it up to date’, either now or in future years, would be futile.
Ker deliberately refused to add an elaborate bibliography. But hisNote on Booksreminds us how, though his own work remains unimpaired, the whole field of study has been altered, largely as a result of that work.
Sweet’s books mark an epoch in Anglo-Saxon study, and have not lost their practical value: to hisPrimerandReader(Clarendon Press) must be added theAnglo-Saxon Readerof A. J. Wyatt (Cambridge University Press, 1919, etc.). The earlier portion of Morris’sSpecimens of Early English, Part I (1150-1300), has been replaced by Joseph Hall’sSelections from Early Middle English, 1130-1250, 2 vols. (Clarendon Press, 1920); Part II,Specimens(1298-1393), edited by Morris and Skeat, has been replaced byFourteenth Century Verse and Prose, edited by Kenneth Sisam (Clarendon Press, 1921). To Wyld’sStudy of the Mother Tonguemust now be added hisHistory of Modern Colloquial Englishand Otto Jespersen’sGrowth and Structure of the English Language(Blackwell, 1938).
The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, edited by G. P. Krapp and others (Columbia Univ. Press and Routledge, 6 vols, 1931, etc.), provide a corpus of Anglo-Saxon poetry.
It is impossible to review editions of, or monographs on, individual poems or authors, but some work done onBeowulfand Chaucer may be noted: editions ofBeowulf, by Sedgefield (Manchester Univ. Press, 1910, etc.), by Wyatt and Chambers (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1914, etc.) and by Klaeber (Heath & Co., 1922, etc.); R. W. Chambers,Beowulf, an Introduction(Cambridge Univ. Press, 1921, etc.), and W. W. Lawrence,Beowulf and Epic Tradition(Harvard Univ. Press, 1928, etc.); G. L. Kittredge,Chaucer and his Poetry(Harvard Univ. Press, 1915); J. L. Lowes,Geoffrey Chaucer(Oxford Univ. Press, 1934); F. N. Robinson,The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer(Oxford Univ. Press, 1933).
Fresh aspects of medieval literature are dealt with in G. R. Owst’sPreaching in Medieval England(Cambridge Univ. Press, 1926) andLiterature and the Pulpit in Medieval England(Cambridge Univ. Press, 1933); R. W. Chambers,The Continuity of English Prose(Oxford Univ. Press, 1932); C. S. Lewis,Allegory of Love(Clarendon Press, 1936); Mr. Owst’s books serve to remind us that Ker’s work can still be supplemented by minute study of fields which he, with his vast range over the literatures of all Western Europe, had of necessity to leave unexplored, when he closed his little book with Chaucer. The two most startling new discoveries in Medieval English Literature fall outside the limits which Ker set himself; they areThe Book of Margery Kempe, edited in 1940 for the Early English Text Society by Prof. S. B. Meech and Miss Hope Emily Allen, and the Winchester manuscript of Malory’sMorte Darthur, upon which Prof. Eugene Vinaver is now engaged.
The student will find particulars of the books he wants by consulting the new bibliography of theCambridge History of English LiteratureorA Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1400, by Prof. J. E. Wells (Yale and Oxford Univ. Presses, 1916, with supplements).
[1]The Cædmon MS. in Oxford.The Exeter Book.The Vercelli Book.The book containing the poemsBeowulfandJudithin the Cotton Library at the British Museum.
[1]The Cædmon MS. in Oxford.The Exeter Book.The Vercelli Book.The book containing the poemsBeowulfandJudithin the Cotton Library at the British Museum.
The Cædmon MS. in Oxford.The Exeter Book.The Vercelli Book.The book containing the poemsBeowulfandJudithin the Cotton Library at the British Museum.
The Cædmon MS. in Oxford.
The Exeter Book.
The Vercelli Book.
The book containing the poemsBeowulfandJudithin the Cotton Library at the British Museum.
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