ENGLISH LITERATURE. I. AGE OF CHAUCER. 1350-1400. REIGNS OF EDWARD III., RICHARD II., AND HENRY IV. THIS may be regarded as the transition period of our language from the Old English to the modern form. It has sometimes been called the Resurrection English. Rich streams were flowing into the language from various sources, all of which now began to mingle and harmonize in the formation of modern English. Chaucer, who is the chief author of the period, encouraged his countrymen to speak and write their mother-tongue, leaving the Latin and the French to the learned and the court-followers. As a result, the new language became the speech of all England, and it has so remained to the present day, though many changes have been wrought in it even since Chaucer's time. 1. GEOFFREY CHAUCER, 1328-1400. THE chief and, indeed, the greatest literary representative of the age in which he lived was GEOFFREY CHAUCER, the son of a London vintner. By most authorities the date of his birth is given as the year 1328. He died on the 25th of October, 1400 Of Chaucer's early life and education little is known. According to Warton and other authorities, he first entered the University at Cambridge, but afterward removed to Oxford, where he completed his collegiate studies, and then returned to London. Soon after this he left England, and traveled through France, Holland, and other portions of Continental Europe for the purpose of adding to his accomplishments of both mind and manners. Having returned to London, he entered the Inner Temple as a student of law, but on account of his beauty of person and his graceful and accomplished manners he was soon afterward made a page to King Edward III., with a stipend of twenty marks per annum, equal to about two hundred pounds. Chaucer was promoted rapidly from one post to another in the king's service, and finally he was sent as ambassador on several missions to Italy, where, it is claimed, he met the famous Italian poet Petrarch at Padua. It is thought that this was the turning-point in his career, and that his love for the poetry of Italy inspired him with the desire to become famous as a poet. The Divina Commedia of Dante, the sonnets of Petrarch, and the tales of Boccaccio, all had their influence in forming the captivating style which characterizes the literary work of Chaucer. Even in some of The Canterbury Tales, the most celebrated of his literary productions, this same influence of Boccaccio, the most polished and elegant of Italian story-tellers, is discernible. Chaucer's earlier productions were mainly translations from the French and the Italian, but largely changed, and in some cases with such additions as to double the length of the poems. His fame, however, rests almost wholly on The Canterbury Tales, the plan of which seems to have been modeled after Boccaccio's Decameron. In the Canterbury Tales, a party of thirty-two "sundry folk" meet at an inn and sup together. The landlord suggests that they travel together to Canterbury, and, in order to shorten the journey and make time pass pleasantly, that each shall tell two stories both in going and in returning, and whoever shall tell the best shall have a supper at the expense of the others, the landlord being the judge who is to decide as to the merits of the stories. Among the personages represented in the poem are a knight, a monk, a friar, a nun, a yeoman, a parson, a merchant, a clerk, a sergeant-of-law, and others representing the English life of the time. Chaucer's chief minor poems are The Court of Love, The Flower and the Leaf, The House of Fame, and Troilus and Cresseide. CRITICISM BY REV. STOPFORD BROOKE. OF Chaucer's work it is not easy to speak briefly, because of its great variety. No one could hit off character better, and in his Prologue, and in the prologues to the several tales, the whole of the new, vigorous English society which had grown up since Edward I. is painted with astonishing vividness. "I see all the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales," says Dryden, "their humors, their features, and their very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard Inn in Southwark." The tales themselves take in the whole range of the poetry of the Middle Ages-the legend of the saint, the romance of the knight, the wonderful fables of the traveler, the coarse tale of common life, the love-story, the allegcry, the satirical lay, and the apologue. And they are pure tales. He is said to have had dramatic power, but he has none. He is simply our great story-teller in verse. All the best tales are told easily, sincerely, with great grace, and yet with so much homeliness that a child would understand them. Sometimes his humor is broad, sometimes sly, sometimes gay; sometimes he brings tears into our eyes, and he can make us smile or be sad as he pleases. He had a very fine ear for the music of verse, and the tale and the verse go together like voice and music. Indeed, so softly flowing and bright are they that to read them is like listening in a meadow full of sunshine to a clear stream rippling over its bed of pebbles. The English in which they are written is almost the English of our time; and it is literary English. Chaucer made our tongue into a true means of poetry. He did more he welded together the French and English elements in our language, and made them into one English tool for the use of literature, and all our prose-writers and poets derive their tongue from the language of The Canterbury Tales. They give him honor for this, but still more for that he was the first English artist. Poetry is an art, and the artist in poetry is one who writes for pure pleasure, and for nothing else, the thing he writes, and who desires to give to others the same fine pleasure by his poems which he had in writing them. The thing he most cares about is that the form in which he puts his thoughts or feelings may be perfectly fitting to the subject, and as beautiful as possible; but for this he cares very greatly, and in this Chaucer stands apart from the poets of his time. Gower wrote with a moral object, and nothing can be duller than the form in which he puts his tales. The author of Piers Ploughman wrote with the object of reform in social and ecclesiastical affairs, and his form is uncouth and harsh. Chaucer wrote because he was full of emotion and joy in his own thoughts, and thought that others would weep and be glad with him; and the only time he ever moralizes is in the tales of the "Yeoman" and the "Manciple," written in his decay. He is our first English artist. SKETCH OF A POOR PARSON. NOTE.—In general, Chaucer was inclined to write satires on the clergy, but the following, taken from The Canterbury Tales, is a redeeming sketch. A GOOD man was ther of religioun, And was a poure Parsoun of a toun; But riche he was of holy thought and werk. Ful loth were him to curse for his tythes, This noble ensample to his scheep he gaf, NOTES.-5. Christes. In Old 6. parischens, parishioners. IC curse, contend. 13. offrynge, dues. eek, also. 15. lafte, left or ceased. moche and lite, great and 19. his scheep, his flock, ANALYSIS.-7. wonder diligent. What part of speech is wonder? For what word is it substituted? 8. ful pacient. Parse both words. 19. What figure in this line? Give all the modifiers of ensample. 20 |