Spenser, as late as the sixteenth century, praised his great predecessor as "the pure well of English undefiled." In histories of literature, Chaucer is frequently called "the father of English poetry"; but his example as a creative artist of the English language was of even greater importance than his influence as a poet upon succeeding generations of poets. Chaucer was to English what Dante was to Italian: the poet who, by means of a universally popular work, accustomed his people to a uniform written language, and first made them intellectually one. It is necessary to have some acquaintance with the stiff and awkward style of English poetry, before, in the time of, and even later than, Chaucer, in order to appreciate correctly his power as a creator of language. Before Chaucer's time English poetry had not been accessible to the whole people; the Norman nobles maintained a cold and unappreciative attitude towards old English verse, and satisfied their literary curiosity with French metrical romances and the frivolous and petty epics (Fabliaux) of northern France. In Chaucer even the English Normans found a poet after their own romantic heart, one who, himself of Norman descent, felicitously combined all the good qualities of the two races. The poetical and linguistic characteristics of Chaucer's creations justly entitle him to be called the apostle of peace. He put an end to the long-standing struggle between the Saxon and Norman languages by directing the two apparently hostile currents into the bed of so uniform a work as the Canterbury Tales. In Chaucer, who was every inch an Englishman, we find more French words than in any of his contemporaries; the mixture of Germanic and Romance elements is pretty much the same as at the present day. In language, he was more Norman than the poets who preceded him, and yet, or rather, just for that very reason, he was the first great English poet in the modern sense of the word. We must first make a few remarks about Chaucer's language. In spite of its strange spelling, it is far easier to understand than it looks. If we read it by the ear rather than the eye (a course recommended with all poetry), a few hundred lines familiarise us with the beautiful old speech. Besides, the majority of editions are provided with explanatory notes. To understand his most musical verse, we must pay attention to the following rules. The E-terminations (e, es, ed, etc.), are, as a rule, reckoned and pronounced as full syllables; the termination E before vowels is usually mute; for the accentuation of French words there is no fixed rule in regard to the rhymes, but in most cases the stress is on the last, or (in words in E) the last syllable but one. Germanic still strove with French accentuation; the struggle lasted till the sixteenth century, and was not definitely decided in favour of the former (the accentuation of the stem or first syllable) until after the eighteenth century. Genius needs a lucky star: the full ripeness of Chaucer's poetic talent coincided with the period when French had yielded precedence to English even in public life. In the year 1362 English was the language of the courts, a Norman king had opened Parliament in an English speech; a few decades later Chaucer was able to compose his Canterbury Tales in the full consciousness that he was writing not only for the lower orders, but also for the nobles, the educated class of the country. Chaucer's example was just as important for the expansion of poetical form as for the crystallisation of the English written language. The metrical systems of his predecessors and contemporaries were unsettled, often terribly clumsy, but at the same time very simple. As compared with these, Chaucer's poems display a remarkable wealth of very effective new metres and intricate rhymes. Just as he himself invented his poetic style, just as he had no equal in descriptive grip and a ready knack of story-telling, he is in like manner indebted to himself for the external forms of his poetry. He is the first English writer in whose poems we find the iambic pentameter regularly employed, which, stripped of its rhyme, has been since Marlowe's time the metre of English and German plays-the simple Germanic line in contrast to the oratorical French Alexandrine metre. He also gives us the first specimens of the seven-lined stanza with its effective arrangement of rhyme (now unfortunately forgotten), at once more lively than the Italian eight-lined stanza, and clearer than the ninelined Spenserian one, which appears to have had its origin in the Chaucerian. The rhymes in this stanza are as follows:-ab abb cc. But we also find in Chaucer an eight-lined stanza, differing from the Italian ottave rime, and wholly his own invention. The following specimen, from the Monk's Tale, will give an idea of the beauty of its construction : Thus day by day this child bigan to crye, And seyde, "Allas, Fortune! and weylaway! (From Ugolino of Pisa, an adaptation of the famous passage in Dante's Inferno.)* • The quotations from Chaucer are given according to SKEAT'S edition. GEOFFREY CHAUCER. = It is now agreed that GEOFFREY CHAUCER was born in 1340 (or between 1340 and 1345); 1328 had previously been accepted as the year. He came of a Norman family (Chaucer Chaucier or Chaussetier, stockingweaver), and, from his coat-of-arms, was of noble birth. He probably studied at a University, whether Oxford or Cambridge is uncertain. His reading was exceptional in its power and range. Not only had he a thorough knowledge of the Bible, theology, Greek and Latin, but he possessed also a very extensive acquaintance with French romances. Dante, Petrarch, and perhaps even Boccaccio were known to him in the original. With such an equipment, he stood forth pre-eminent in the development of English literature. His personal intimacy with the poets of his day, John Gower and the young Thomas Occleve, was a matter of course, for Chaucer was a Civil Servant of considerable position in the Customs. His greatest delight was, he himself admits, On bokes for to rede I me delyte. And it requires but a slight stretch of imagination to picture the poet in his office at the port of London busily engaged in levying and entering the duty on imported "wools, skins, and tanned hides," while in his drawer would lie a copy of the Divina Commedia of Dante ("the grete poete of Ytáille"), Petrarch's Sonnets, or Boccaccio's Decameron, of which his official labours hindered the unabstracted enjoyment. Chaucer loved only one thing better than reading, and that was the beauty of nature, the song of the birds, the scent of the flowers: Save, certeynly, whan that the month of May Is comen and that I here the foules singe, I know no other older poet in whom are to be found such enthusiastic and frequent digressions on the delights of nature, particularly the songs of the birds, which were the especial study of this poet, himself the harbinger of the spring of English literature. In the Introduction to the Canterbury Tales we read : Of Chaucer's personal appearance we have a very faithful description, sketched from memory after the poet's death by Thomas Occleve, a devoted admirer. It is quite in character with the playful picture which we find in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. The landlord there turns to the poet and says:— Approche neer and loke up merily, Now war yow,1 sirs, and lat this man have place; "Elfish" is the very word used in the poem, and the Occleve portrait shows remarkably fine and spiritualised features. In his twentieth year Chaucer entered the army, which Edward III. was leading to disaster in France in 1359, was taken prisoner by the French, but ransomed the following year. His wife, Philippa, whom he married in 1365, was sister to Catharine Swinford, the mistress and, later, the wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, father of King Henry IV. This relationship was of great service to Chaucer in his official career. Thus frequent diplomatic missions to foreign countries were entrusted to him, and, in 1372, he was sent to Genoa to conclude a commercial and naval treaty with the Doge. It was in the course of this journey that he visited Florence and Padua, and probably made the acquaintance of Petrarch. In 1374 he was appointed Commissioner of Customs, but on the express condition that "the said Geoffrey should keep the books with his own hand, in connexion with the aforesaid duties, and devote his whole time to his office, and the work was to be done by himself in person, and not by a deputy." It was not until 1386 that permission was given to Chaucer to avail himself of the assistance of a deputy. But all these relaxations of red tape were due to no recognition of his poetic genius, but to the success of his numerous foreign missions. The English court seems to have been ignorant of the existence of the poet Chaucer. The removal of John of Gaunt from England and the coup d'état carried out by Richard II. against the rebellious Parliament, of which Chaucer was a member, did not tend to improve the worldly position of the poet, who lost his official posts, and was reduced to a pitiful pension. In 1388,4 it is true, he was appointed Clerk of the King's Works at Westminster, the Tower, and Windsor, but this change of fortune was not for long, and, in his latter years, the poet seems to 2 Absent in manner. 1 Beware. have fallen upon evil times. To this date is to be ascribed the playful little elegy, To my empty purse. Chaucer died on October 25th, 1400. The whole literature of the Middle Ages presents no greater work of art, with all the freshness of immortal youth, than the incomparable collection of tales of those jovial Canterbury Pilgrims. Their personal description alone would have given Chaucer a claim to rank as one of the greatest of English poets. They were written about 1393. There is not one of the great Italian literary achievements in the fourteenth century (Boccaccio's Decameron not excepted) that is so entirely the product of its own time, and yet so instinct with fire and life. The very framework and setting of the Canterbury Tales is a masterpiece. What spirit! what action! what flashes of wit and exuberant gaiety! Every class of society in Merry Old England passes through its pages in happy unanimity and friendship, giving such a picture of those joyous times as no learned historical researches could ever achieve. One fine April morning there meet, at the "Sign of the Tabard" in Southwark, nine-and-twenty pilgrims on their way to visit the tomb of St. Thomas a'Becket at Canterbury. The poet joins their band, as does mine host, and so we have thirty-one people agreeing to beguile the length of the journey by telling short stories. But, before the stories begin, the poet introduces to us in the famous Prologue, the gem of the whole poem, each of his travelling companions, and not without reason, for each is the distinguished representative of a whole class, described with such vividness and surpassing humour, that we cannot sufficiently praise this triumph of the poet's creation. The company consists of a Knight, with a Squire, the latter's son, a Yeoman, an Abbess (Prioress). We cannot omit Chaucer's famous description of the noble lady, as eminent for her beauty as for her modesty : Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, That of hir smyling was ful simple and coy; |