III.

DARK AGE.

A.D. 1400-1558.

DESTITUTION OF EMINENT LITERARY GENIUS.

CHAUCERIAN INFLUENCE OVER POETRY IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

REVIVAL OF CLASSICAL LEARNING.

DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH PROSE STYLE BY SIR THOMAS MORE AND JOHN TYNDALE.

INTRODUCTION OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE BY WYATT AND

SURREY.

DAWN OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.

Persecution of the Lollards.

Discovery of

ands, 1405.

the Canary Isl

DESTITUTION OF EMINENT LITERARY GENIUS. AFTER the death of Chaucer no literary masterpiece was produced for more than one hundred and fifty years. From 1400 there was a steady intellectual decline, and the reigns of Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III., and Henry VII. constitute the darkest period in English literature; but under Henry VIII. appeared a gleam of light which waxed brighter till the brilliant Elizabethan Age. The causes of this dark age are manifest: 1. The Hundred Years' War oppressed the people with heavy taxations -thereby producing a civil discontent, greatly aggregated by the losses in France under the Lancastrian House; 2. The Wars of the Roses filled England for thirty years with bloodshed and political confusion-rendering the country

First collision
House of Com-
House of
whence it was

between the

mons and the

Lords, 1407;

established

that all money inate in the

bills must orig

House of Com

mons.

Burning or Wycliffe's ashes, 1409.

Madeira discovered, 1413.

unfit for literary culture; 3. When at last the nation was enclosed in the peace and security of an absolute monarchy, it became intellectually embroiled in religious disputes—the Anglican Reformation, though sowing the seeds of a future literary expansion, for a time engrossed men's minds with doctrinal thought. However, there were a few poetasters and several prosewriters of considerable ability during the age.

CHAUCERIAN INFLUENCE OVER POETRY IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

English language adopted by the House of Commons, 1414.

Chaucerian influence is perceptible throughout the works of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century poets, both in England and Scotland. Of Chaucer's immediate disciples three acquired some celebrity-Occleve, Lydgate, and James I. of Scotland; they were his professed followers, and used the Chaucerian stanza in of the Hundred their poetry.

Continuation

Years' War.

Thomas Occleve was a miserable versifier of the reign of Henry V. His famous lament for his "maister Chaucer" has secured for him a place in literature; but the rest of his poetry is captured by the worthless. [See "Chaucer-Friends."]

Joan of Arc

English and burned for a witch in 1431.

Eton School and King's College, Cambridge, founded

about 1442.

Wars of the

Roses, 1455

1485.

John Lydgate (1374–1460) was for half a century the most popular poet of England. He wrote pageants for the court of Henry VI., masquerades and May entertainments for the sheriffs of London, a miracle-play for the festival of Corpus Christi, and ballads for the amusement of his fellow-monks. His chief poems were: "The Storie of Thebes," a translation from the Latin, thrown into the form of an additional Canterbury Tale told by the author, who supposes himself to have met Chaucer's pilgrims at Canterbury and returned with them. to London; "The Falls of Princes," taken from

Boccaccio; and "The Troye Book," from the French. The doubtful Chaucerian poems, "The Flower and the Leaf" and "The Compleynte of the Black Knight," have been attributed to him by some critics. Lydgate's works are characterized by an easy flow of versification, goodhumor, considerable spirit, and general tedious

ness.

1474- Caxton sent out printed editions of the

works of the

old English poets, Chaucer,

Lydgate, and

Gower, thereby awakening a general fondness for poetry among the

James I. of Scotland was the star among Chaucer's followers. During his nineteen years' imprisonment in England (1403-1422) he became acquainted with the works of the great poet, and celebrated his love for Lady Jane Beaufort, niece of Henry IV., in "The King's English people. Quhair," written in direct imitation of him; and the Chaucerian stanza, on account of his use of it, is often called Rime Royal. "The Quhair" is the best poem between Chaucer and Spenser; it contains about fourteen hundred lines, and is distinguished by its vivid imagery, beauty of expression, and poetic sentiment.

Hawes and Skelton.-With the death of Lydgate, in 1460, poetry seemed to have completely died out in England. But in the reign of Henry VII. a new impulse was given by Caxton's publication of the works of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, which led to more imitative poetry. In 1506 Hawes put forth "The Pastime of Pleasure," a tedious allegorical poem after the manner of Chaucer's "Romaunt de la Rose." In some respects it resembles Bunyan's famous allegory, and does in an inferior manner for philosophy what "The Pilgrim's Progress" does for religion. Of the later imitators of Chaucer in England, however, John Skelton (1460-1529) was the most original. He was the satirist of his time, an eminent scholar, and pronounced by Erasmus the "glory and light of English

Production of the famous "Morte d'Arthur" by Sir

ry in the reign

It was taken

Thomas Maloof Henry IV. from the icles, and was Sir Walter prose romance the language can boast.

French chron

pronounced by

Scott "the best