Up to the period of the second literary generation of the writers
of the reign of Henry VIII, the literature is easy to analyze be-
cause the work has the extreme characteristics that mark all be-
ginnings. The change in the language, due to the long contin-
uance of civil strife, had broken the literary continuity. The works
of Chaucer and his contemporaries were no longer available as
precedents. Yet the social stability given by the first two Tudor
kings stimulated a demand for literature. Under the circumstan-
ces those that wished to supply this demand necessarily experi-
mented in literary forms, each choosing that form most consonant
to his aims and his predilection. In this new age there was no one
dominant literary tradition. Consequently there is apparent con-
fusion. Books were written contemporaneously which yet de-
pend upon entirely different theories and to judge which requires
a knowledge of entirely different literatures. Such a statement
may seem to imply that it was a critical age, an age in which there
was eager discussion of literary theory. But this is untrue. Aside
from the humanists there was no literary propaganda,--and with
them the stress was upon morality, not upon literature. As in the
time of the Judges, each man did what was right in his own eyes.
Moreover, as each wrote according to his natural bent, instead of
electing one literary type and spurning all the others, actually in
his work he may show the result of two quite different forces.
This is quite natural. They were alive, and, being alive, each was
affected in varying degrees by the literary impulses of his age. Yet
in each author one (and only one) impulse is major; the other im-
pulse, (or other impulses) is definitely subordinated. For this reason
it is possible, by arranging them according to the dominant impulse,
to show the gradual progress and modification of the types. But
by so doing a judgment is passed upon them. Great writers can-
not be listed according to single traits, because they draw from

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