English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction by Henry Coppee
page 65 of 561 (11%)
page 65 of 561 (11%)
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Saxon alliterative lines, and partly of verses which seem to have thrown
off this trammel; so that a different decision as to its date would be reached according as we consider these diverse parts of its structure. It is not improbable that, like English poets of a later time, Layamon affected a certain archaism in language, as giving greater beauty and interest to his style. The subject of the _Brut_ was presented to him as already treated by three authors: first, the original Celtic poem, which has been lost; second, the Latin chronicle of Geoffrey; and, third, the French poem of Wace. Although Layamon's work is, in the main, a translation of that of Wace, he has modified it, and added much of his own. His poem contains more than thirty thousand lines. THE ORMULUM.--Next in value to the Brut of Layamon, is the Ormulum, a series of metrical homilies, in part paraphrases of the gospels for the day, with verbal additions and annotations. This was the work of a monk named _Orm_ or _Ormin_, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth century, during the reign of King John and Henry III., and it resembles our present English much more nearly than the poem of Layamon. In his dedication of the work to his brother Walter, Orm says--and we give his words as an illustration of the language in which he wrote: Ice hafe don swa summ thu bad Annd forthedd te thin wille Ice hafe wennd uintill Ennglissh Goddspelless hallghe lare Affterr thatt little witt tatt me Min Drihhten hafethth lenedd I have done so as thou bade, |
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