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Prose

Notes (iv) The New-classical period in English covers almost ............... .
(a) 100 years (b) 140 years
(c) 200 years (d) None of these.

1.7 Summary

• This unit covers the period of discovery in the history of English literary prose. It begins with
the latter half of the fourteenth century, when the writing of prose first assumed importance
in the life of the English people, and it ends with the first quarter of the seventeenth century,
when practice and experiment had made of English prose, in the reigns of Elizabeth and
James, a highly developed and efficient means of expression.
• The origins of English prose come relatively late in the development of English literary
experience. This apparently is true of most prose literatures, and the explanation seems to lie
in the nature of prose. Even in its beginnings the art of prose is never an unconscious, never
a genuinely primitive art. The origins of prose literature can consequently be examined
without venturing far into those misty regions of theory and speculation, where the student
of poetry must wander in the attempt to explain beginnings which certainly precede the age
of historical documents, and perhaps of human record of any kind. Poetry may be the more
ancient, the more divine art, but prose lies nearer to us and is more practical and human.
• Being human, prose bears upon it, and early prose especially, some of the marks of human
imperfection. Poetry of primitive origins, for example the ballad, often attains a finality of
form which art cannot better, but not so with prose. Perhaps the explanation of this may be
that poetry is concerned primarily with the emotions, and the emotions are among the
original and perfect gifts of mankind, ever the same; whereas prose is concerned with the
reasonable powers of man’s nature, which have been and are being only slowly won by
painful conquest. Whether this be a right explanation or not, it is certainly true that in its first
efforts English prose is uncertain and faltering, that it often engages our sympathies more by
what it attempts to do than by what it actually accomplishes.
• Historians normally divide English literature into periods for convenience of discussion.
Sometimes the numbers, dates or the names of the periods seem to vary.
• The four and a half century between the Norman Conquest in 1600, which became the cause
for radical changes in the language, life and culture of England, and about 1500, when the
standard literary language has become “modern English” that is similar to the language of
ours. The period from 1100 to 1350 is sometimes called the Anglo-Norman Period because
the non-Latin literature of the era was written in Anglo-Norman. Among the important
works of the period were Marie de France’s “Lais” and Jean de Meun’s “Roman de La
Rose”. When the native vernacular - descended from Anglo-Saxon period.
• Many historians consider this age an “early modern” age. It refers to a rebirth commonly
applied to the period of European history following the Middle Ages. During this period the
European arts of sculpture, painting and literature reached a peak. The development came
late to England in the 16th century which didn’t have its flowering until the emergence of
Elizabethan or Jacobean period. In fact sometimes, John Milton (1608-74) is considered as the
last greatest renaissance poet.
• English writers of the sixteenth century were self-consciously puzzled about the state of their
language. They knew that it had changed markedly in the past two centuries, but they were
not sure whether too rapid a change was good. They were aware also that its vocabulary was
being influenced by other modern languages, especially French and Italian. They wondered

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