[alert-success] History of English Literature - William J. Long
[/alert-success] [alert-warn] Chapter IV THE AGE OF CHAUCER
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THE NEW NATIONAL LIFE AND LITERATURE
HISTORY OF THE PERIOD
In 14th-century England, two major movements occurred. First, Edward III rules politically. It shows how English national pride grew after Edward and the Black Prince's Hundred Years' War victories in France. French lost its official prestige, and English became the language of courts and Parliament.
The second movement is social; it largely occurs during Edward's successor Richard II's reign and marks growing discontent with the contrast between luxury and poverty, between idle wealthy classes and overtaxed peasants.
Other than these two movements, the age was tumultuous and progressive. England, like Spain and Italy, has a national literature when the Renaissance begins.
FIVE WRITERS OF THE AGE
The literary movement reflects the era's excitement.
1) Langland, voicing social discontent, preached men's equality and the dignity of labour;
2) Wyclif, the greatest English religious reformer, gave the Gospel in the people's language.
3) Gower, a scholar and writer, criticises and fears this vigorous life.
4) Mandeville, the traveller, romanticising foreign wonders.
5) Above all, there's Chaucer—scholar, traveller, businessman, courtier who reflected his times in literature like only Shakespeare.
Outside of England, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio's works greatly influenced European literature.
CHAUCER (1340?-1400)
Chaucer's life:
Chaucer's life was divided into three periods.
1. His first thirty years were influenced almost exclusively by French literary models.
2. The second 15-year period covers Chaucer's active life as a diplomat and man of affairs, where Italian influence seems stronger than French.
3. The third period, known as the English period, is Chaucer's richest.
First Period
Chaucer spent his childhood on Thames Street near the river, where world trade was constant. At 19, he joined the king on one of the Hundred Years' War expeditions and saw chivalry. During this time, he married the queen's maid of honour. Philippa Roet was John of Gaunt's wife's sister.
Second Period
Chaucer's diplomatic career lasted 15 years, beginning in 1370. Two years later, he visited Italy to arrange a commercial treaty with Genoa, and his literary powers and Italian literary influences grew rapidly.
Third Period
In 1386, Chaucer was elected to Parliament from Kent, beginning his English period. From then until his death, he has money and good prospects. During this time he also had poverty and neglect, thus he wrote "Complaint to His Empty Purs," which he humorously calls "saveour doun in this werlde here." This poem brought the king's attention to the poet's need and increased his pension, but he had few months to enjoy its effects. In 1400, he died and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
PLAN OF THE CANTERBURY TALES
At the southern end of London Bridge, opposite old London, stood the Tabard Inn of Southwark, made famous by the Canterbury Tales and the first playhouses where Shakespeare trained.
Southwark was the starting point for all travel to the south of England, especially mediaeval pilgrimages to Canterbury.
In the spring, when "longen folk to goon on pilgrimages," Chaucer arrives at the Tabard Inn to find it occupied by pilgrims. It was pilgrim custom to wait at a friendly inn until a large enough group was assembled to make the journey pleasant and safe from robbers. Chaucer joins this company, which includes Oxford scholars and drunken millers, and accepts their invitation to go with them tomorrow.
At supper, the Tabard Inn's jovial host suggests that each traveller tell two going and two coming tales on any subject. The host will travel with them as master of ceremonies, and whoever tells the best story will be given a fine supper.
The poet begins "Sir Thopas" in dreary imitation of the day's metrical romances. From the 32 people in the company, only 24 stories were written; some are incomplete. Chaucer is our first short-story teller and first modern poet.
Canterbury Tales prologue
In "Prologue," the poet introduces his drama's characters.
Madame Eglantyne, the fat monk, the parish priest, the kind ploughman, and the poor scholar seem like friends. Dryden says, "I see all the pilgrims' humours, features, and dress as if I'd supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark." Chaucer was the first English writer to romanticise men and women.
Knight's Tale
"Palamon and Arcite" is the best of the Canterbury Tales, reflecting romantic love and knightly duty ideals of the time.
Boccaccio borrowed the story's idea, but parts of the original tale were much older and Middle Ages literature. Like Shakespeare, Chaucer found material everywhere.
The "Knight's Tale" is about two friends who are wounded on the battlefield and taken to Athens as prisoners. From their dungeon window, they see Emily and fall in love; their friendship turns into rivalry. One is pardoned; the other escapes; then knights, empires, nature, and the whole universe follow their desperate efforts to win one small maiden, who prays to be delivered from both her suitors.
The Prioress' tale of Hugh of Lincoln, the Clerk's tale of Patient Griselda, and the Nun's Priest's tale of Chanticleer and the Fox are all the famous tales of Canterbury Tales.
The Clerk's Tale
In "The Clerk's Tale," a nobleman named Walter puts his virtuous, lowborn wife through horrifying ordeals. According to the Clerk's Prologue, Petrarch wrote the story. Boccaccio's Decameron was translated by Petrarch."Clerk's Tale" is a modern retelling of the Biblical story.The Clerk claims the story is an allegory of the soul's relationship to God, with Grisilde representing the ideal Christian's devotion and obedience.
Many elements of the tale make us question this interpretation, leaving us with a story about a nobleman torturing his wife and rewarding her for submitting.
Miller's Tale
The Miller interrupts the Host's proposed order of tale-telling in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. The Host has asked the Monk to continue the game, but the drunken Miller interrupts to tell a story "somewhat like the Knightes tale."
"The Miller's Tale" has a love triangle, but it's lowbrow. "The Miller's Tale" is fabliau. Fabliaux were adulterous stories. The Knight's romance is about order, fraternity, and love; the fabliau is about sex and the body. In the Canterbury Tales, he uses ten-syllable lines with five accents.
Importance of Chaucer's works:
Chaucer's works roughly correspond to his three periods of life. Most of his works' dates are unknown. Some of his Canterbury Tales were written before the English period and arranged later.
The best-known poem of the first period is the Romaunt of the Rose, a translation from the French Roman de la Rose, the most popular poem of the Middle Ages–a graceful but tiresome allegory of love.
The mystic Rose garden represents Beauty. Gathering the Rose represents the lover's attempt to win his lady's favour. Love, Hate, Envy, Jealousy, Idleness, and Sweet Looks are the poet's allegorical characters.
Chaucer translated this universal favourite, adding original English touches, but only the first 17,000 lines are believed to be his.
The "Dethe of Blanche the Duchesse," also known as the "Boke of the Duchess," was written after Blanche, Chaucer's patron's wife, died.
"Compleynte to Pite" is a graceful love poem. "A B C" is a prayer to the Virgin, translated from a Cistercian monk's French.
Troilus and Criseyde, an 8,000-line poem, is the period's masterpiece. Shakespeare uses the Middle Ages favourite in Troilus and Cressida. Boccaccio's Il Filostrato is Chaucer's main source.
"Hous of Fame" is one of Chaucer's unfinished poems, showing the influence of the great Italian master. In a dream, the poet is carried from the brittle Venus temple in a sandy wilderness to the hall of fame.
Legende of Goode Wimmen is the third great poem. "Thisbe" is the best of Chaucer's nine legends. Chaucer probably intended to make this his masterpiece, devoting years to stories of famous women who were true to love, but he abandoned the task in the middle of his ninth legend. The Canterbury Tales, one of literature's most famous works, fills Chaucer's third period.
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