Holland's Influence on English Language and Literature

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Chapter VI Results of the Study of Comparative Philology and of Mediaeval Literature for the Study of English Language and Literature.

After having mentioned the importance of the study of comparative philology especially for a knowledge of the English language (1), the general results of comparative philology (2), and the share which Holland had in its inception (3), in its further development (4), and consequently in the study of mediaeval literature the only thing still to be done in this short review is to mention in a few words (5), the results of the study of comparative philology and of mediaeval literature for the knowledge of English language and literature.

Whoever studies even the works of W.W. Skeat alone, and especially his Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, may notice the importance of these results in a very short time. With the utmost care, the origin of every word has now been traced as far as possible; all the different parts of the great mixture, which is called the English language, have been isolated, every point of the English grammar has been investigated, the whole history and all the changes of this language have been discovered. The results are marvelous indeed, more than for any other language because no other language is such a mixture of different elements. Not less are the results for the knowledge of English literature.

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Scholars of several nations when once they had been attracted and absorbed by the wonderful charms of comparative philology, studied not only their own national literature, and language, but they found interesting sources for research in the literature of all those languages of which the mutual relationship was discovered. This was a consequence of the idea itself of comparative philology, which meant to compare the different languages as found in the literature of many nations. So for instance a man like Franciscus Junius published not only the Gothic, but at the same time the Anglo-Saxon, version of the Gospels, and his transcripts of many Anglo-Saxon manuscripts have been the subject of a special essay by Dr. Logeman. Not less was Junius' work in publishing Caedmon's Paraphrase, an immediate consequence of his researches in the field of comparative philology. From these few examples one sees how this science influences the development of the study of English language and literature. Only the development of comparative philology has made it possible to study the influence of one nation on the language and the literature of another, as that of Holland on the English language and literature, to distinguish the different elements of a language, which, like the English has been mixed during many centuries with elements from many different sources; to trace the origin and genesis of every piece of literature and the influences that have inspired their respective authors. It is in this whole movement in which, as I showed, Holland had such a remarkable share, that from the time of Junius till our present day the numerous monographs, essays, pamphlets and articles in periodicals have been published, which now taken together furnish the material for a general glance over the whole field and for finding out, for

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instance, what influence England exerted on the literature and language of other nations, as well as that which other nations exerted on the English language and literature. It is by collecting this scattered material that I will try to recapitulate the results of men like Skeat and De Hoog, and in continuing the epoch-making work of such men, to bring to the attention of the English-speaking people the influence of Holland on English language and literature as set forth in a concise form in the following pages.