CHAUCER AND HIS HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The transitional period between the middle Ages and Modern Era was studded with important landmarks. (1) Literature, esp. poetry, changed over from the oral to the written – literature was now a matter of books and readers. (2) With the advent of printing, anonymity was succeeded by authorship – till then a piece of writing had stood for itself; now it claimed attention as the work of a particular author. The age of invention, of originality, of individual self-expression had begun. (3) Though French and Latin were still popular among the nobility and the clergy, English had established itself as the literary language. This encouraged translations, adaptations and imitations. (4) The age of chivalry and feudalism was in its decline. (5) Constitutional liberty has been asserted; the king was no longer the unquestioned authority. When Chaucer was young, England was at the height of glory. (victories at war, patriotic national poetry). But the glory was soon to disappear. Between 1348 and 1376 Black Death visited the country several times and half the population disappeared. Economic troubles followed; serfdom changed to wage system. There was social unrest and the royal house became increasingly unpopular. The Seven Years’ War with France went disastrously, a new poll-tax was imposed in 1380 and the next year, the peasants rose in revolt which was ultimately suppressed.

Chaucer gave little heed to these disturbing events. He lived the inner life of a man of letters, detached from the storms of the world, studying and adapting to his own uses French and Italian poetry, and finally, in The Canterbury Tales, making his mature art the obedient instrument of his native genius. His contemporary Langland was very different from him in spirit – Langland’s was the voice of the poor, the voice of revolution, and he was a chastiser of the vices of his age. Gower too denounced the follies of his contemporaries though not as sharply as Langland. Another voice of spiritual protest in this age was that of John Wyclif, the leader of the Lollard Movement that prophesied the Reformation. Supported by his patron, John of Gaunt, Wycliff attacked the corrupt clergy in strong persuasive English prose that breathed a fervent moral and religious spirit. Untiringly he led a crusade against papal demands and for church reform. Wyclifism was finally suppressed and this in turn extinguished not only religious freedom but also all intellectual life at the University until the Renaissance. The literary outburst in the 14th century produced one of the greatest of all English poets—Geoffrey Chaucer—and several lesser ones, the result of which was to fix the English language. In spite of their antiquity Chaucer’s works are still read with the sense that their vocabulary and the style are Modern English.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340 – 1400)

Chaucer may be called the founder of the true line of English poets. His greatness and national importance have never been in doubt from the first. His genius had been recognised in all ages including his own. Chaucer served for some time in the court and was employed on several diplomatic missions to Italy and France. His earliest work was perhaps the translation of Roman de la Rose. Some scholars divide Chaucer’s career into the French period, the middle period (both French and Latin influences) and the Italian period, but this division is not very appropriate. An important early work is The Book of the Duchess written on the death of Blanche, the wife of Chaucer’s patron John of Gaunt. Other works of Chaucer are Legend of St. Cicilia, Parliament of Fowls, Troilus and Criseyde (based on Boccaccio’s Filostrato), House of Fame (unfinished), Palamon and Arcite (based on Boccaccio’s Teseida and revised as the Knight’s Tale), Legend of Good Women (9 stories of famous women: Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle and Medea, Lucrece, Ariadne, Philomela, Phyllis, Hypermnestra) and a translation of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. Another prose work (apart from this translation) is A Treatise on the Astrolabe written for “Little Lewis”, probably the author’s son. But the greatest of all his works is indeed The Canterbury Tales – 17000 lines in prose and verse of various metres.

The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales describes the meeting of 29 pilgrims in the Tabard Inn at Southwark (31 pilgrims, including the poet and Harry Bailey, the innkeeper). Detailed pen-pictures of 21 of them are given which include Knight, Squire, Miller, Reeve, Cook, Wife of Bath, Clerk of Oxford, Friar, Summoner, Pardoner, Prioress, Merchant, Monk, Parson, etc. The host proposes that the pilgrims should shorten the road by telling 4 stories each—2 on the way to Canterbury and 2 on the way back; he will award a free supper on their return to the teller of the best story. The work is incomplete – only 23 pilgrims tell stories and there are only 24 stories altogether. The narrative begins with the Knight’s Tale and concludes with the Parson’s Tale which is a long prose treatise.

Chaucer was primarily a storyteller. He also possessed the technique and the temper of a lyricist. He introduced personal touches into many of his poems, sometimes charming, sometimes humorous; and very

rarely philosophized on human affairs and the mysteries of existence. But though Chaucer was primarily a

Storyteller, he had little gift of plot – a gift very rare in his day. (Almost every work of his had a direct source and his poems, he left incomplete). However, being a court poet, Chaucer was bound to handle themes for which no model could be found. (Blanche’s death, Richard II’s marriage). He did produce a charming poem on every occasion but they were always short and made use of conventional forms. The device of dream, for instances, is used in the prologue to The Book of the Duchess, in The Parliament of Fowls, and again in the Legend of Good Women and in the House of Fame. It cannot be denied that Chaucer overcame his shortcomings through hard work and became a master of his craft. He set to work as a translator, often using his materials in original combinations. From the outset he possessed two great gifts—music and descriptive power; coupled with these we find him enriching his abridged material with philosophy and humour, making it more human and dramatic until he retold the story in his own way, which was often better than that of his authorities. Chaucer recognised the power of abridgement and the value of swiftness in a narration. While in the Knight’s Tale he shortens the descriptions of three temples of Mass, Venus and Diana, to make his poems appeal to the more thoughtful readers, he adds ethical and philosophical passages from Latin, French and Italian sources, especially the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. In romance, Chaucer showed great dramatic power, especially in Troilus and Criseyde and Palamonand Arcite. In Troilus he translates half of Boccaccio’s Filostrato and adds twice as much of his own. Thus having outlined the plot, he ornaments it with Dante, Petrarch and Boethius, and investing Criseyde with a pathos and Pandarus with a humour and worldly wisdom of which there is little trace in the original. Palamonand Arcite is a model of condensation but Chaucer adds his own touches to the theme and characterization making it more powerful and dramatic. By now Chaucer seems to be confident that if he followed a story he had read or heard he could realize the characters in it for himself and know the details of the action by which they would carry out the plot. He needed to keep no book in front of him while he wrote; all he needed was a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, which he could rehandle in his own way. In The Canterbury Tales he gave scope to his gift for minute description in the Prologue. It is virtually a portrait gallery of 14th century England, an assembly of all classes of Englishmen from the noble Knight to a humble cook. The whole poem is a valuable historical document, unsurpassable as evidence of the feeling and culture of English men of the time. Chaucer had a perennial interest in the lives of human beings ranging from noblemen to rogues. He seems to have been very observant – he watched how people behaved, noted their physiognomic details and the way they wore their clothes. He was ready to call every rascal a good fellow if he was ready to sit for his portrait. He admired goodness with an open mind, but it has been said that he had too much admiration from his rascals than his noblemen. Chaucer’s world is distinguished by its happiness. There is pain and perplexity in it but no agony or rebellion. Fortune is all powerful but never too harsh. Of moral and spiritual tragedies Chaucer seems to have been ignorant, he knew only of the material ones that Fortune can bring about, and to the victims of these he was very sympathetic. However he had a deep sense of sorrow in human life. He may also be said to have excelled in comedy in pure mirth and laughter. Chaucer’s characters never shared any part of his own personality or life. He was always present with the audience rather than the characters themselves. In short, his genius was essentially narrative.