Charles Sears Baldwin

An Introduction to English Medieval Literature Charles Sears Baldwin

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914. Excerpt: ... tences are often so loose that it is hard to discern whether the poet thought of the members as separate statements or as one whole. Simple sentences are commonest of all--short, detached, single statements. Hrothgar's hall was so famous that its light shone over many lands. That is not our epic poet's way of putting it. He expressed that thought, not in one complex sentence, but in three simple sentences: That was foremost for folk of earth of houses under heaven. In it Hrothgar bode, Lightened its light over lands full many. Beowulf, 309-311. The sentences of Homer are in much the same way simpler and looser than those of later Greek poets. But the syntax of English epic is even less developed than Homer's. The language is obviously poorer, for instance, in conjunctions and relatives; and the average sentence is shorter. This bespeaks, not only a different race, but also an inferior sense of form. It has its own strength of directness and swiftness; but it is sometimes rudely abrupt. Such, then, is the Beowulf, our English epic. It is a heropoem in our Germanic mother-tongue, made in England out of earlier Germanic hero-songs, made in the short, beating rhythms used by Germanic peoples to celebrate courage and heighten the mirth of the hall. Like all epic, it is simple, noble, and concrete; like the men that made it, it is a little rude and stinted, but straightforward and strong. 2. OLD ENGLISH CHRISTIAN POETRY (o) The Progress Of Christian Civilization In England The Old English folk that made and sang the Beowulf were heathen. They worshipped, not the white Christ, but Thunder (Thunor), the mighty god of the hammer. Echoes of their Germanic mythology are still heard in our heathen names for the days of the week. Other modern nations call the first da...