Chaucer and His Times

the old alliterative poetry, and the passion and mysticism of Old English epic and lament had given way to

s Brut is unsteady, never to be trusted, changing its pace without warning in a most uncomfortable way." Nor as a rule is the matter greatly superior to the manner. Such interest as is possessed by the majority of the poems of this period (apart from the definitely historical or philological point of view) arises large

29] is a chi

eginnes to y

cry men ma

t be man

is born it c

man it sa

st letter is

ore-fath

e child a

born it s

st letter an

Eve that bega

tions of Sir Gawayne, The Pearl, and Piers Plowman, but by this time we are already drawing near the era of

te-rum, ram,

must not be taken too serio

ym holde I but

has a daintiness and grace which show that the poetic sense of England was by no means dead. Sumer is icumen in, Lenten is come with love to toune, Of one that is so fair and bright, and n

of enchanted forests haunted by fell enchanters and baleful dragons, but the metrical romances are for the most part more or less direct trans

y pre-Conquest literature-to have consisted chiefly in such grim jests as baking the head of your enemy's son in a pie and inviting the father to dinner. Tenderness, passion, imaginatio

rivers gre

milk, honey

eth there

k at, and f

ng's shrewd commen

saith, we

e none be me

good a

hath ought

reedom is

id und

his horse, that

h He

ons, lives of the saints, etc. Now and then some author happens upon a telling phrase or an apt illustration, but such instances are few and obviously accidental. French influence was too strong for native literature to put

parts of the country, but they were at least varieties of English, and English was the language of the people as a whole. French, whether of Paris or of Stratford atte Bowe, was learned as a foreign tongue, although as late as the end of the fourteenth century we still find Gower writ

standard language of the country. Chaucer, as we have seen, was London born and bred, and wrote naturally in the "cokeneye" dialect, thus helping to establish it as the common speech. The modern reader who turns over the pages

a pelet, in the

urimaury, I couthe

urteley, and a k

rokke were te

e may have to look up a word here and there in the glossary, or find ourselves puzzled by some astronomical or chemical terms, but t

of Chaucer's works, gives a list of no less than thirteen metres which he introduced into English

consists of seven lines of iam

hīldr?n wās ?

ge?n, sēv?n

dāy t? scōl??

wh?r-ās h? s

mōd?r, hādd

ght, t? knēle?

e,??s hē g?th

of the c?sura, and freely adding or suppressing weak syllables when he so desires. Mr. A. W. Pollard, in his article on Chaucer in the Encyclop?dia Britannica, declares that the English poet borrowed both his stanza and his decasyllabic line

alian, and English influence, and although, as Professor Ker has pointed out, this method is open to some obj

itè, the Compleint to his Lady, Merciles Beaute, To Rosemounde, Against Women Unconstant, An Amorous Compleint, and Book I, stanza 3 of Troilus and Criseyde. The poet protests so much that it is difficult to believe that he is describing anything more than a lover bewailing his unhappy lot (in the French fashion). Evidently French love-poetry appealed strongly to his imagination, for one of his earliest works is a translation of the famous Romance of the Rose. This long, allegorical poem (the original consists of over 22,000 lines), falls into two parts. The first, by Guillaume de Lorris, describes the search of the ideal lover for the mystic rose. The hero is admitted by the

haucer himself. Professor Saintsbury, in the Cambridge History of Literature considers that Chaucer is probably the author of A, possibly the author of B, and probably not the author of C. He

slated the Rom

hereyse age

"at the request of Blanch Duchesse of Lancaster, as a praier for her priuat vse, being a woman in her religion very deuout." There is, however, no evidence of this, and Ten Brink believes that the A.B.C. dates from a later period when the poet

to originality of treatment. The poet, after a conventional lament over the conventional hard-heartedness of his mistress, falls into a conventional slumb

of four and

·

clothed a

omplaining to hims

et wonder

fre(n) an

h sorwe and

wes smerte." This opens the way for a long, rambling lament, full of allusions to classical mythology. So involved is it, t

wher is

rief

more than

·

is d

yond the scope of the youthful poet a

os? by god hit

e la Fontaine Amoureuse and Remède de la Fortune, but through all the stiffness and conventionality, all the obvious immaturity, there fl

t fauned me

followed, and

d creep to

it hadde m

s heed and j

l smothe do

ith tender a

irelles,

on the tre

r maner m

nd minstrel, but it would be hard to find another heroine

daunce s

d singe s

d pleye s

e so de

speke and

s I trow t

so blisfu

·

ir liste so

sse was of

t impatience of artificiality which are to be

e Tale of Melibeus; the Persones Tale; and the Man of Lawe's Tale. In addition to these come the Compleint to his Lady; An Amorous Compleint; Womanly Noblesse; Compleint unto Pitè; Anelida and Arcite (containing ten stanzas from Palamon); Of the Wretched Engendring of Mankind (a prose translation of Innocent III's De Miseria Human? Conditionis, of which the title alone remains, though fragments of it are used in the Man of Lawe's Tale); a translation of Bo?thius's Consolations of Philosophy; the Complaint of Mars; Troilus and Criseyde; Wordes to Adam Scriveyn; The Former Age; Fortune. Apart from Troilus and Criseyde and the poems afterwards used in the Canterbury Tales, none of

f metre I set

rt I hadde as

e when I we

e nouther of sh

e lines quoted above from the Troy Book exactly express the point

haucer, and he attributes the A.B.C., the Lyf of St. Cecyle, and the translation of the De Miseria Human? Conditionis to this period. Whether he is right or wrong in this respect (and Professor Skeat dates both the A.B.C. and the Lyf of St. Cecyle before the Italia

stood in gre

llen out of

, and endeth

d in Book I of Troilus and Criseyde, under the heading Cantus Troili, there is little evidence of any direct influence. From Boccaccio he borrowed freely, with a royal bettering in the borrowing. Troilus and Criseyde is taken bodily from the Filostrato, though with numerous additions, omissions, alterations, and adaptations: the Knightes Tale is condensed from the twelve books of the Teseide: the idea of the Canterbury Tales is taken from that of the Decamerone, though with

s De Consolatione Philosophi?, a work which e

pleint of Mars is said to have been written; now he addresses King Richard, and after the fashion of the day clothes in allegorical compliment the story of his wo

and the grave

at neglects hi

bird with the

k. The poet, as usual, falls asleep and has a dream. He is taken by Scipio Africanus (he had just been reading the Somnium Scipionis), to the gate of a park which he is told none but the servants of Love may enter. Although he himself is but dull and has lost the taste of love h

with a curte

s (Venus, Bacchus, Ceres, etc.) follows, and the

e[38] upon a h

nt for every bird to come and choose its mate in

le, of shap the

e among hir

royal eagle to make

ned and with f

Before the formel eagle has summoned u

rcel egle

and seyde, "th

than ye do, b

ce, and after a great deal of chattering and confusion, Nature finally decrees that the choice is to lie with the form

e chosen foul

ere was alwa

oundel at hi

e honour an

nds with the ch

omer with th

worm-foul, water-foul, and seed-foul, must have been even more delightful than it is to-day if-as has been suggested-the "fool cuk

us of Fame. Here again Chaucer makes use of th

ail as well as in the conception of the whole. The method of beginning each book with an invocation, the exact marking of the date on which the poem was begun, the steep rock, the description of the house of Rumour, and numerous other points are borrowed direct from the Divina Commed

with a discussion of dreams in general, what caus

t is an

s a rev

er, and dreams that he is in a temple of glass. On a tablet on the wall is engraved the history of "daun Eneas," and its recital occupies

toun, or h

gras, or c

·

maner

y-formed

s

liness of the place, he casts his eye

om and i

further remarks on dreams, and a declaration that no one, not even Isaiah or Scipio or Nebuchadnezzar, ever had such a dre

e in his c

y as I we

onsciousness, till he is recalled to life by

.

so a-gast

ell-meant attempt

eynte

yous for to

reward for his long and

guerdon

t he is to be taken

som dispo

recompe

r and de

n two hours than there are grains of corn in

were pyped

l manner of "eyrish bestes" until they reach the House of Fame. Here Chaucer is set upon his feet-much to his relief-and is told to enter; he is further warned that every sound which rises from earth may be not only heard but seen, since it takes the form of whatever made it. Book

maner of

s,[44] that

weping an

t longeth

mous harpers and singers of

hat maken

beme[45] an

and entering, Chaucer finds a large number of knights

alf a fo

gol

d touching the heavens. The nine Muses sing her praises eternally, and on either side of her are pillars

was al f

t writen o

trees ro

the hall a multitude of people of every race and every

raunte us no

r werkes ha

recompe

k, give us

ers

, lady

certain,

neither t

al our

eles, yit

we han so

enoun and k

han don nob

he

they were w

r

, lady

wel with al

kepen ha

erkes and

love! for

n doon hit

maner oth

de (Clear Praise), and these trumpets are used as the whim takes her. Evil men have good fame, and good men are slandered, or on the other hand, both receive their deserts without any reason except Fame's good p

other th

swiche thi

follow him to another

that domu

orintus

d twigs and continually

t com so gr

it stonden

e hit han

I trowe

·

roof men

d holes,

wel the s

e of Rumour, to

of pees, o

f labour of

7] of deet

te, accorde, o

ome his guide, and without more ado seizes him "bitweene his toon" and puts him in thr

d herd a th

th to anot

m tellen,

hat to him

furlong-w

omwhat fo

yding in

an hit

o sone de

him, that

ridde; and

,[48] he to

yding soot

e telle hit

eyde had already given promise of genius of a very different order, and it is possible that Chaucer himself grew weary of the smooth monotony of his own verse, and felt within him a growing impulse to produce something more human and more vivid. The Hous of Fame is an almost perfect example of a type of poem whose popularity was to continue undiminished for another century and more. It was imitated again and again, and a comparison between it and such works as Lydgate's Temple of Glas is sufficient to show the difference between genius and talent even when genius in work

there are two distinct versions. The poet describes how in the spring he goes out into the fields to worship the daisy, and he gives a long and poetical description of this "emperice and flour of floures alle." That night he sleeps in a little arbour in his garden, and in a dream he sees the god of love leading by the hand a queen clothed

heresye age

ten of the fickle

ou as wel han

thou hast sey

he irate god that the poet is also the author of the Book of the Duchesse,

mpne for your

hat he may be forgiven, and in token of true co

of a glori

en, maidene

ewe in loving

s not hesitate to alter the originals to suit his purpose. He wishes to show the torments and constancy of love's martyrs, and without scruple he blackens the characters of Jason and ?neas and Theseus, in order to bring out the virtues of Medea, Dido, and Ariadne. The legends show little of the humour and freshness of Chaucer's other poems. Occasionally a description of the lover's passion recalls some similar passage in Troilus and Criseyde, and the mere fact that the interest centres in emotion rather than action is in itself of importance, but Hercules, in the legend of Hypsipyle, is a poor substitute for Pandarus, and the pe

lle flou

f al vertu

··

ernesse and t

rke worlde me w

··

nne wol the f

al my lad

od, so fair,

that ever fa

kings towards their subjects. Part of this wise advice still remains, but evidently Chaucer found it dangerous to call Richard's attention to the

yk tiraunts

reward but

irst version are modernised in the second (e. g. in the first line sythes becomes

or tales, were already in existence-and the composition continued till 1389, when it-like so many of his other poems-was left unfinished. A num

genuine works of his-such as the Book of the Lion (this very probably was no more than a translation of Machault's Le Dit du Lion), have been lost, but to make up for this a number of poems have been attribute

of Love. Thoma

Merci. Sir R. Ros (

ometimes called The Book of Cupid

Considered by some scholars to be the work of the

urt of

Beryn (containing a preliminary account o

of the Black K

the Canterbury Tales. Professor Ten Brink suggests that Cha

r of Cupi