CHAPTER 2. PERIODS OF ENGLISH Three Main Stages of Development: Old, Middle, and Modern English-The Literary The development of English falls into three main stages, Old, Middle, and Modern, distinguished by Sweet as the periods of full, levelled, and lost inflection, respectively. The periods may be subdivided as follows: (1) Old English: Early Period c. 700-900; Late c. 900-1100. (Transition Period c. 1050-1150.) (2) Middle English: Early c. 1100-1250; Middle c. 1250-1350; Late c. 1350-1450. (Transition Period c. 1400-1500.) (3) Modern English: Early Modern (Tudor) c. 1450-1611; 17th century (Transition c. 16001660); 18th century (First Modern c. 1660-1800); Present day (Second Modern) c. 1800-. THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD Literary Language and Dialects.-Dialectal divergences can be traced in the earliest literary records of Old English, dating back to c. 700. There are four distinct dialects: (1) Northumbrian, (2) Mercian, grouped together as Anglian ; (3) West-Saxon, (4) Kentish, sometimes grouped as Southern. Evidences of other varieties of Saxon also exist (Saxon patois). The early literary prominence of the north, represented in the older poetry, was checked at the end of the 8th century by the Danish invasions, and from the time of Alfred up to the Conquest WestSaxon became the literary language of England, and appears, probably in a normalized form, in the mass of Old English prose and in the later poetry. Foreign Influences.-Old English seems to have been little influenced by the native Celtic or by Latin spoken in Britain, but Latin terms of civilization had already entered the West Germanic languages through early contact with the Romans, and the vocabulary was considerably enlarged in respect of terms of intellectual and religious life through the monasteries after the coming of St. Augustine in 597. In the north the Scandinavian settlements from the 9th century led to the development of Anglo-Scandinavian dialects, the result of which upon the vocabulary is mainly apparent after the Conquest, though some loan-words are found in Old English. French influence was dominant at the court of Edward the Confessor, and a few French loan-words are traced before the Conquest. THE MIDdle EnglISH PERIOD The literary development of Old English was checked by the Norman Conquest. Although no attempt was made to repress the native language, and William the Conqueror showed himself sympathetic towards it, there were now two speeches in the land, and the superior culture and resources of the Normans gave them the lead. Norman-French became for a time the language of the court and aristocracy,' and gradually took its place beside Latin for official purposes, and in the schools and universities, where it was reinforced by Continental French from the famous University of Paris. In common usage a gradual fusion of Anglo-Norman with English took place, and here, as at court, the influence of "Frenssh of Paris" was added to that of Anglo-Norman. It was not until the 15th century that French finally disappeared from the national usage. Foreign Influences.-The influence of French (both Anglo-Norman and Continental) can be traced (a) in the vocabulary, where new terms of scientific knowledge and intellectual life were introduced, such terms as existed in Old English having largely fallen out of use; (b) in the spelling, remodelled on French lines ; (c) in the syntactical usage. Many Scandinavian words were added to the vocabulary in the north and east, Norse influence extending even to the pronouns (cf. they, their, them), and mixed English and Norse forms, such as give, pointing to the close intermingling of the languages. A number of words apparently of Low German origin, found from 1200 on, are nearly akin to English or Danish forms, and may in many cases represent unrecorded Old English words. Literary Language and Dialects. The decay of literary Old English is seen in the last annals of the Peterborough Chronicle, written c. 1154. The early Middle English literature extant is scanty and dialectal in character, and until 1350 the literature is clearly representative of the main dialectal divisions of the country: (a) Northern, differentiated after 1350 from Lowland Scots; (b) Midland (East and West), reaching from the Humber to the Thames; (c) Southern, differentiated into (1) South-Eastern and Kentish, (2) South-Western, a shrunken survival of WestSaxon. 2 No standard literary usage can be traced until the later 14th century, when the London dialect (approximately East Midland) began to rank as a standard, and to replace both French and Latin in the official usage and in the schools. In literature its predominance for poetry was assured by Chaucer and his school, and for prose by Wyclif (the Oxford usage being apparently modified by that of London), and by 1 Cf. Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, c. 1297: So þat heiemen of þis lond þat of hor blod come Holdep alle pulke speche þat hii of hom (the Normans) nome. Ac lowe men holdep to Engliss and to hor owe speche zute. 2 At the beginning of the Middle English period the London dialect was still approximately SouthWestern, and the process of assimilation to the adjacent Eastern dialects, both Midland and Southern, was a gradual one. It is very probable that the Ancren Riwle and some other early South-Western texts represent the London dialect of the 12th century, and that the literary prestige of West Saxon survived to some extent, though in a steadily diminishing area, up to c. 1200. 15th-century writers. Thus the Middle English period is marked by the gradual triumph of English over French, and to a less degree Latin, and by the establishment of a standard usage. MODERN ENGLISH The 16th Century. In England, as on the Continent, the cultivation of the vernacular as a literary medium was an outcome of the wider studies and interests of the Renaissance, while, as in Germany, it was directly furthered by the Reformation; and the 16th century, which witnessed the appearance of successive translations of the Bible and the classics, witnessed also the steady evolution of English style through a maze of literary fashions, the fixing of the basis of modern spelling, and the beginning of linguistic study. In 1476 Caxton set up his press at Westminster, and began to busy himself with the translation and printing of standard works, anticipating the work of the 16th century in his attempt to normalize the spelling, and to establish a standard prose which should be neither archaic, dialectal, nor pedantic, but "modern." Sixteenthcentury writers were largely occupied with the same aims. The rapid increase of printed literature, the revived study of the classics and interest in contemporary foreign literature, and the discovery of new lands, all had their effect upon 16thcentury English, reflected in such literary fashions as euphuism, inkhornisms, and "over-sea language," and in the great expansion of the vocabulary. The advocates of a puristic English style based on the study of Chaucer and native models were opposed by those who aimed at the imitation of the classics and the enrichment of the language by means of foreign words. Meantime, a steady development of literary style and diction may be traced from Caxton in prose, and Surrey and Wyatt in verse, culminating in the vigorous modern usage of Shakespeare, and the more conservative prose of the Authorized Version of 1611. The 17th and 18th Centuries. In the 17th century further development was checked for a time by national disturbances, and it was not until the end of the century that inkhorn terms and other pedantries were finally discredited, the result being evident in the new prose of the 18th century. The use of Latin as a literary medium, which Bacon advocated in mistrust of the stability of modern languages, was practically given up before 1700, and the old puristic movement manifested itself in a new campaign against foreign words, and especially against the exaggerated use of French which Butler and Dryden deplore. The proposal to found an English Academy for the purification and standardizing of the language was made in the 17th century, and urged again by Swift and Defoe. The language was held to be menaced by three dangers: the tendency to an excessive use of foreign words, the growing freedom in the use of fashionable slang, which arose in reaction from the pedantry of the preceding age, and the constantly changing, unstandardized pronunciation. The old fear that works written in so unstable a language would speedily become unintelligible found expression in attempts to fix a standard pronunciation and spelling, and these efforts were the direct source of Johnson's Dictionary, which finally regulated English spelling. A uniform pronunciation on the basis of the educated London usage was also established towards the end of the century, and has developed slowly since 1800 in the wake of the more progressive vulgar usage. The 19th Century. The puristic tendencies of the 18th century gave way to the more catholic attitude of the 19th. The growing interest in other peoples and literatures, both ancient and modern, the progress in science and invention, and the development of imperialist ideals, have all combined to swell the Modern English vocabulary and to develop the possibilities of literary expression, while the widespread interest in the scientific study of language and dialect, and the general acceptance of dialect literature, have thrown open the old storehouses of the language and enabled it to draw new life and material from itself. SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST BRADLEY, H.: The Making of English (Macmillan, 1904); Changes in the Language to the Days of Chaucer (Cambridge History of English Literature, Vol. I., ch. xix., 1907).-CLASSEN, E.: Outlines of the History of the English Language (1919).—Cook, A. S.: A First Book in Old English (Ginn, 1903).—EARLE, J.: Philology of the English Tongue (Oxford University Press, 1887).—ELLIS, A. J.: Early English Pronunciation (Early English Text Society, 1869-89).—Emerson, O.: The History of the English Language (Macmillan, 1894).-JESPERSEN, O.: Progress in Language, with Special Reference to English (G. Allen, 1894); Growth and Structure of the English Language (Leipzig, 1912); A Modern English Grammar (Heidelberg, 1909, 1914).—KINGTON OLIPHANT, T. L.: Old and Middle English (1891); The New English (Macmillan, 1886).-Kluge, F. Geschichte der englischen Sprache (Paul's Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, ed. 2, Strassburg, 1901).-MORRIS, R.: Historical Outlines of English Accidence (Kellner and Bradley, 1897).—MURRAY, Sir J. A. H.: article on English Language (Encyclopædia Britannica).—SKEAT, W. W. Principles of English Etymology (Oxford, 1891-2).—SWEET, H.: History of English Sounds (Oxford University Press, 1888); A New English Grammar (Oxford University Press, 1892-9).—WYLD, H. C.: A Short History of English (1914); The Growth of English (Murray, 1910); Historical Study of the Mother-Tongue (Murray, 1906); History of Modern Colloquial English (Fisher Unwin, 1920). II. THE BEGINNINGS CHAPTER I. GENERAL VIEW General View-Historical Conditions-Social and Political Organization-The Church- The Old English literature extends from the 8th to the 12th century. Few of the MSS. in which it has come down to us are earlier than the 10th century, and though these may be copies of earlier MSS., they are probably not much later in date. This literature is extant almost entirely in the West-Saxon dialect, either Early West-Saxon of the time of King Alfred, or Late West-Saxon of the time of Ælfric (fl. 1006) and later. Of the literature thus handed down the earliest national poetry dates from the time when the English tribes-the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons were still on the Continent, and it was there preserved by oral repetition, not being written down till after the settlement in Britain. "Half-heathen " Poetry. With the adoption of the Christian religion the pagan minstrelsy was doomed, but during the spread of Christianity and for a hundred years after its establishment-into the 9th century-the pagan temper and sentiment is observable in literature, e.g., in the Elegies and the Riddles. There is a group of elegies that have been styled “half-heathen poetry," heathen in spirit with some Christian additions, as well as a series of riddles, also instinct with the old Viking spirit. Christian Poetry.-The Old English Christian poetry, beginning in the 7th century (before the Elegies and the Riddles), is largely the work of two schools, the Cadmonian and the Cynewulfian, of which the former is the earlier in tone and feeling, the latter more subjective and lyrical, more conscious in art. Probably very little of the former is by Cædmon himself, while of the latter almost certainly four important poems, perhaps three others, and even more, are by Cynewulf. Besides these two series there are several minor Christian poems. Prose.-Prose writing was at first in Latin. It began with Gildas, who wrote in the middle of the 6th century while the English raids were in progress; but most of it before Alfred's reign was produced in the 8th century. Canterbury and Ealdhelm (640-709) represent it in the south; Bede (673-735) and Alcuin (735-804), at Jarrow and York, in the north. Bede's only English work is lost-it was a translation of St. John's Gospel, and was not finished; but it is with Alfred's trans |