A primer of English Literature [antikvár]

A PRIMER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAPTER I The Making of the English Speech Introduction.—The fabric of our literature is shot with the varying tints of racial characteristics ; the sombre imagination of the Celt, the flaming passion of the Saxon, the golden gaiety of France, and the prismatic fancy of the South. Many have been the influences brought to bear upon our speech ; yet in this composite texture the Anglo-Saxon element dominâtes. That is the outstanding fact. We have only to take some passage of modern poetry, say a few lines from Tennyson's Passing of Arthur, to realize clearly the complex character of our tongue, and the persistence of the Saxon element— " Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint As from beyond the limit of the world, Like the last echo born of a great cry, Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice Around a king returning from his wars." Here we have in the ancient story of Arthur the earliest strand in our literature—the Celtic element ; though the legend of the Mysterious Passing was inter-woven with it at a later date by the French Romancers. Looking at the words, forty-three in number, it will be seen that of these thirty-three are of Anglo-Saxon (2,615) 17 2