Survey of English Story recognition

Nu sculon herigean   heofonrices Weard,

Meotodes meahte   on his modgeðanc,

weorc Wuldorfæder,   swa he wundra gehwæs,

Cædmon’s Hymn

I never heard before of a ship so well furbished with battle-tackle, bladed weapons and coats of mail. The massed treasure was loaded on top of him: it would travel far on out into the ocean’s sway.

They decked his body no less bountifully with offerings than those first ones did who cast him away when he was a child and launched him alone out over the waves. And they set a gold standard up high above his head and let him drift to wind and tide, bewailing him and mourning their loss.

Beowulf

Whan that Aprill with his° shoures° soote°

The droghte° of March hath perced° to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour°

Of which vertu° engendred° is the flour;°

Whan Zephirus° eek° with his sweete breeth

The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales: Geoffrey Chaucer

Whan that the Knyght had thus his tale ytoold,

In al the route° nas° ther yong ne oold

That he ne seyde it was a noble storie,

And worthy for to drawen to memorie;

And namely the gentils° everichon.°

The Miller’s Prologue, Geoffrey Chaucer

In th’ olde dayes of the Kyng Arthour,

Of which that Britons speken greet honour,

Al was this land fulfild of fayerye.

The elf-queene, with hir joly compaignye,

Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede.

The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale - Geoffrey Chaucer

A povre wydwe, somdeel stape in age

Was whilom dwellyng in a narwe cotage,

Biside a grove, stondynge in a dale.

This wydwe, of which I telle yow my tale,

Syn thilke day that she was last a wyf,

The Nun's Priest's Tale - Chaucer

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT

Once the siege and assault of Troy had ceased,

with the city a smoke-heap of cinders and ash,

the traitor who contrived such betrayal there

was tried for his treachery, the truest on earth;

JULIAN OF NORWICH

And when I was thirty year old and a half, God sent me a bodily sickness in
the which I lay three days and three nights; and on the fourth night I took
all my rites of holy church, and went 2 not to have liven till day. And after
this I lay two days and two nights; and on the third night I weened

MARGERY KEMPE

And then our Lord Jesus Christ with great sweetness spoke to this creature,
commanding her to go again to her husband and pray him to grant her what
she desired. “And he shall have what he desires. For, my worthy daughter, this
was the cause that I bade you to fast, for you should the sooner obtain and get
your desire, and now it is granted you. I wish no longer for you to fast, there-
fore I bid you in the name of Jesus eat and drink as your husband does.”

The Faerie Queene, book 1

A Gentle° Knight was pricking° on the plaine,

Ycladd° in mightie armes and siluer shielde,

Wherein old dints° of deepe wounds did remaine,

 The cruell markes of many’ a bloudy fielde;

Yet armes till that time did he neuer wield:

His angry steede did chide° his foming bitt,

BRABANTIO

The worser welcome:
I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors:
In honest plainness thou hast heard me say
My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness,
Being full of supper and distempering draughts,
Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come
To start my quiet.

Othello, the Moore of Venice, Shakespeare

Our two soules therefore, which are one,

Though I must goe, endure not yet

A breach,° but an expansion

Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate

A Valediction, Forbidding Mourning, John Donne

A  broken  Altar,  Lord,  thy  servant  rears

Made  of  a  heart  and  cemented  with  tears

Whose  parts  are  as  thy  hand  did  frame

No workman’s tool hath touch’d the same

The Altar, George Herbert, shape of alter

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a flying:

And this same flower that smiles to day,
To morrow will be dying.

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, Robert Herrick

Have ye beheld (with much delight)

A red-Rose peeping through a white?

Or else a Cherrie (double grac’t)

Within a Lillie? Center plac’t?

“Upon the Nipples of Julia’s Breast”, Robert Herrick

No sooner was the lady brought before the emperor, but he conceived
her to be some goddess, and offered to worship her; which she refused, tell-
ing him, (for by that time she had pretty well learned their language) that
although she came out of another world, yet was she but a mortal; at which
the emperor rejoicing, made her his wife, and gave her an absolute power to
rule and govern all that world as she pleased. But her subjects, who could
hardly be persuaded to believe her mortal, tendered her all the veneration
and worship due to a deity.

Cavendish Blazing World

Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the art
of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make
an artificial 2 animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the begin-
ning whereof is in some principal part within, why may we not say that all
automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a
watch) have an artificial life?3

Hobbes Leviathan

I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the church and com-
monwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean1 themselves as well as
men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them
as malefactors: For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a
potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they
are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that
living intellect that bred them.

Milton Areopagitica

Wher brooding darknes spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-Raven sings;

There under Ebon° shades, and low-brow’d Rocks

As ragged as thy Locks

L’Allegro John Milton

Yet thou art higher far descended,

Thee bright-hair’d Vesta long of yore,

To solitary Saturn bore;

His daughter she (in Saturns raign,

Such mixture was not held a stain).

Il Penseroso, John Milton

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree,° whose mortal° tast

Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Paradise Lost Book 1John Milton

O For that warning voice, which he° who saw

Th’ Apocalyps, heard cry in Heaven aloud

Then when the Dragon, put to second rout,

Came furious down to be reveng’d on men,

Wo to the inhabitants on Earth! that now,

Paradise Lost Book 4, John Milton

No more of talk where God or Angel Guest

With Man, as with his Friend, familiar us’d

To sit indulgent, and with him partake

Rural repast,° permitting him the while

Venial° discourse unblam’d: I now must change

Paradise Lost Book 9, John Milton

Come, my Lucasia, since we see

That Miracles Mens faith do move,

By wonder and by prodigy

To the dull angry world let’s prove

There’s a Religion in our Love.

Friendship’s Mystery, To my dearest Lucasia

By Katherine Philips (“Orinda”)

When night’s blacke Mantle° could most darknesse prove,

And sleepe (death’s Image) did my senses hyre

 From Knowledge of my selfe, then thoughts did move

Swifter than those, most switnesse neede require.

Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, By Mary Wroth

As some brave admiral, in former war,

Deprived of force, but pressed with courage still,

Two rival fleets appearing from afar,

Crawls to the top of an adjacent hill;

The Disabled Debauchee, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

I do not pretend, in giving you the History of this Royal Slave, to entertain my Reader with the Adventures of a feign’d Hero, whose Life and Fortunes Fancy may manage at the Poets Pleasure; nor in relating the Truth, design to adorn it with any Accidents, but such as arriv’d in earnest to him: And it shall come simply into the World, recommended by its own proper Merits, and natural Intrigues; there being enough of Reality to support it, and to render it diverting, without the Addition of Invention.

OROONOKO: OR, THE Royal Slave. A TRUE HISTORY. By Mrs. A. BEHN.

Still to one Bishop Ph—ps seem a Wit?

Still Sapho — “Hold! nay see you, you’ll offend:

No Names! — be calm! — learn Prudence of a Friend!

I too could write, and I am twice as tall;

An Epistle to Arbuthnot, By Alexander Pope

The Curfeu° tolls the Knell of parting Day,

The lowing° Herd winds° slowly o’er the Lea,

The Plow-man homeward plods° his weary Way,

And leaves the World to Darkness, and to me

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray

The works of fiction, with which the present generation seems more particularly delighted, are such as exhibit life in its true state, diversified° only by the accidents° that daily happen in the world, and influenced by those passions° and qualities which are really to be found in conversing° with mankind.

Rambler 4, Saturday, 31 March 1750, By Samuel Johnson

Nobody, then, will I write my Journal! since To Nobody can I be
wholly unreserved— to Nobody can I reveal every thought, every wish of my
heart, with the most unlimited confidence, the most unremitting sincerity
to the end of my life! For what chance, what accident can end my connec-
tions with Nobody? No secret can I conceal from No—body, and to No—
body can I be ever unreserved. Disagreement cannot stop our affection,
Time itself has no power to end our friendship. The love, the esteem I
entertain for Nobody, No-body’s self has not power to destroy. From Nobody
I have nothing to fear, the secrets sacred to friendship, Nobody will not
reveal, when the affair is doubtful, Nobody will not look towards the side
least favourable.

Frances Burney Diary

Every day now brought me nearer my freedom, and I was impatient till we
proceeded again to sea, that I might have an opportunity of getting a sum
large enough to purchase it. I was not long ungratified; for, in the beginning
of the year 1766, my master bought another sloop, named the Nancy, the
largest I had ever seen.

OLAUDAH EQUIANO

But I, the most forlorn,° lost man alive,

To show my wished obedience vainly strive

I sigh, alas! and kiss, but cannot swive

Eager desires confound° my first inteny

Succeeding shame does more success prevent,'

And rage at last confirms me impotent.

The Imperfect Enjoyment, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester