It
killed the splendid prose school of Malory and Berners, and prose did not
run clear again for a century. It bewildered and confused the minds of
poets, and blending itself with the national tradition, produced the rich
lawlessness of the English sixteenth century. It was a strong tributary
to the stream of our national literature; but the popular usage, which
assigns all that is good in the English literature of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries to a mysterious event called the Renaissance, is
merely absurd. Modern scholars, if they are forced to find a beginning
for modern literature, would prefer to date it from the wonderful
outburst of vernacular poetry in the latter part of the twelfth century,
and, if they must name a birthplace, would claim attention for the Court
of King Henry II.
In some of its aspects, the Romantic revival may be exhibited as a
natural consequence of the Renaissance. Classical scholarship at first
scorned the vernacular literatures, and did all its work of criticism and
imitation in the Latin tongue. By degrees the lesson was widened, and
applied to the modern languages. Study; imitation in Latin; extension of
classical usages and principles to modern literature,--these were the
regular stages in the progress of the classical influence. When the
poets of France and England, to name no others, had learned as much as
they were able and willing to learn from the masters of Greece and Rome,
the work of the Renaissance was done.


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