THE object of this volume is to place before the general reader
our two early poetic masterpieces — The Canterbury Tales and
The Faerie Queen; to do so in a way that will render their
“popular perusal” easy in a time of little leisure and unbounded
temptations to intellectual languor; and, on the same conditions,
to present a liberal and fairly representative selection from the
less important and familiar poems of Chaucer and Spenser.
There is, it may be said at the outset, peculiar advantage and
propriety in placing the two poets side by side in the manner
now attempted for the first time. Although two centuries divide
them, yet Spenser is the direct and really the immediate
successor to the poetical inheritance of Chaucer. Those two
hundred years, eventful as they were, produced no poet at all
worthy to take up the mantle that fell from Chaucer’s shoulders;
and Spenser does not need his affected archaisms, nor his
frequent and reverent appeals to “Dan Geffrey,” to vindicate for
himself a place very close to his great predecessor in the literary
history of England. If Chaucer is the “Well of English
undefiled,” Spenser is the broad and stately river that yet holds
the tenure of its very life from the fountain far away in other
and ruder scenes.
The Canterbury Tales, so far as they are in verse, have been
printed without any abridgement or designed change in the
sense. But the two Tales in prose — Chaucer’s Tale of
Melibœus, and the Parson’s long Sermon on Penitence — have
been contracted, so as to exclude thirty pages of unattractive
prose, and to admit the same amount of interesting and
characteristic poetry. The gaps thus made in the prose Tales,
however, are supplied by careful outlines of the omitted matter,
so that the reader need be at no loss to comprehend the whole
scope and sequence of the original. With The Faerie Queen a
bolder course has been pursued. The great obstacle to the
popularity of Spencer’s splendid work has lain less in its
language than in its length. If we add together the three great
poems of antiquity — the twenty-four books of the Iliad, the
twenty-four books of the Odyssey, and the twelve books of the
Aeneid — we get at the dimensions of only one-half of The
Faerie Queen. The six books, and the fragment of a seventh,
which alone exist of the author’s contemplated twelve, number
about 35,000 verses; the sixty books of Homer and Virgil
number no more than 37,000. The mere bulk of the poem, then,
has opposed a formidable barrier to its popularity; to say
nothing of the distracting effect produced by the numberless
episodes, the tedious narrations, and the constant repetitions,
which have largely swelled that bulk. In this volume the poem
is compressed into two-thirds of its original space, through the
expedient of representing the less interesting and more
mechanical passages by a condensed prose outline, in which it
has been sought as far as possible to preserve the very words of
the poet. While deprecating a too critical judgement on the
bare and constrained precis standing in such trying
juxtaposition, it is hoped that the labour bestowed in saving the
reader the trouble of wading through much that is not essential
for the enjoyment of Spencer’s marvellous allegory, will not be
unappreciated.
As regards the manner in which the text of the two great works,
especially of The Canterbury Tales, is presented, the Editor is
aware that some whose judgement is weighty will differ from
him. This volume has been prepared “for popular perusal;” and
its very _raison d’être_ would have failed, if the ancient
orthography had been retained. It has often been affirmed by
editors of Chaucer in the old forms of the language, that a little
trouble at first would render the antiquated spelling and
obsolete inflections a continual source, not of difficulty, but of
actual delight, for the reader coming to the study of Chaucer
without any preliminary acquaintance with the English of his
day — or of his copyists’ days. Despite this complacent
assurance, the obvious fact is, that Chaucer in the old forms has
not become popular, in the true sense of the word; he is not
“understanded of the vulgar.” In this volume, therefore, the text
of Chaucer has been presented in nineteenth-century garb. But
there has been not the slightest attempt to “modernise”
Chaucer, in the wider meaning of the phrase; to replace his
words by words which he did not use; or, following the example
of some operators, to translate him into English of the modern
spirit as well as the modern forms. So far from that, in every
case where the old spelling or form seemed essential to metre,
to rhyme, or meaning, no change has been attempted. But,
wherever its preservation was not essential, the spelling of the
monkish transcribers — for the most ardent purist must now
despair of getting at the spelling of Chaucer himself — has been
discarded for that of the reader’s own day. It is a poor
compliment to the Father of English Poetry, to say that by such
treatment the bouquet and individuality of his works must be
lost. If his masterpiece is valuable for one thing more than any
other, it is the vivid distinctness with which English men and
women of the fourteenth century are there painted, for the study
of all the centuries to follow. But we wantonly balk the artist’s
own purpose, and discredit his labour, when we keep before his
picture the screen of dust and cobwebs which, for the English
people in these days, the crude forms of the infant language
have practically become. Shakespeare has not suffered by
similar changes; Spencer has not suffered; it would be surprising
if Chaucer should suffer, when the loss of popular
comprehension and favour in his case are necessarily all the
greater for his remoteness from our day. In a much smaller
degree — since previous labours in the same direction had left
far less to do — the same work has been performed for the
spelling of Spenser; and the whole endeavour in this department
of the Editor’s task has been, to present a text plain and easily
intelligible to the modern reader, without any injustice to the old
poet. It would be presumptuous to believe that in every case
both ends have been achieved together; but the laudatores
temporis acti - the students who may differ most from the plan
pursued in this volume — will best appreciate the difficulty of
the enterprise, and most leniently regard any failure in the
details of its accomplishment.
With all the works of Chaucer, outside The Canterbury Tales, it
would have been absolutely impossible to deal within the scope
of this volume. But nearly one hundred pages, have been
devoted to his minor poems; and, by dint of careful selection
and judicious abridgement — a connecting outline of the story in
all such cases being given — the Editor ventures to hope that he
has presented fair and acceptable specimens of Chaucer’s
workmanship in all styles. The preparation of this part of the
volume has been a laborious task; no similar attempt on the
same scale has been made; and, while here also the truth of the
text in matters essential has been in nowise sacrificed to mere
ease of perusal, the general reader will find opened up for him a
new view of Chaucer and his works. Before a perusal of these
hundred pages, will melt away for ever the lingering tradition or
prejudice that Chaucer was only, or characteristically, a coarse
buffoon, who pandered to a base and licentious appetite by
painting and exaggerating the lowest vices of his time. In these
selections — made without a thought of taking only what is to
the poet’s credit from a wide range of poems in which hardly a
word is to his discredit — we behold Chaucer as he was; a
courtier, a gallant, pure-hearted gentleman, a scholar, a
philosopher, a poet of gay and vivid fancy, playing around
themes of chivalric convention, of deep human interest, or
broad-sighted satire. In The Canterbury Tales, we see, not
Chaucer, but Chaucer’s times and neighbours; the artist has lost
himself in his work. To show him honestly and without disguise,
as he lived his own life and sung his own songs at the brilliant
Court of Edward III, is to do his memory a moral justice far
more material than any wrong that can ever come out of
spelling. As to the minor poems of Spenser, which follow The
Faerie Queen, the choice has been governed by the desire to
give at once the most interesting, and the most characteristic of
the poet’s several styles; and, save in the case of the Sonnets,
the poems so selected are given entire. It is manifest that the
endeavours to adapt this volume for popular use, have been
already noticed, would imperfectly succeed without the aid of
notes and glossary, to explain allusions that have become
obsolete, or antiquated words which it was necessary to retain.
An endeavour has been made to render each page self-
explanatory, by placing on it all the glossarial and illustrative
notes required for its elucidation, or — to avoid repetitions that
would have occupied space — the references to the spot where
information may be found. The great advantage of such a plan
to the reader, is the measure of its difficulty for the editor. It
permits much more flexibility in the choice of glossarial
explanations or equivalents; it saves the distracting and time-
consuming reference to the end or the beginning of the book;
but, at the same time, it largely enhances the liability to error.
The Editor is conscious that in the 12,000 or 13,000 notes, as
well as in the innumerable minute points of spelling,
accentuation, and rhythm, he must now and again be found
tripping; he can only ask any reader who may detect all that he
could himself point out as being amiss, to set off against
inevitable mistakes and misjudgements, the conscientious labour
bestowed on the book, and the broad consideration of its fitness
for the object contemplated.
From books the Editor has derived valuable help; as from Mr
Cowden Clarke’s revised modern text of The Canterbury Tales,
published in Mr Nimmo’s Library Edition of the English Poets;
from Mr Wright’s scholarly edition of the same work; from the
indispensable Tyrwhitt; from Mr Bell’s edition of Chaucer’s
Poem; from Professor Craik’s “Spenser and his Poetry,”
published twenty-five years ago by Charles Knight; and from
many others. In the abridgement of the Faerie Queen, the plan
may at first sight seem to be modelled on the lines of Mr Craik’s
painstaking condensation; but the coincidences are either
inevitable or involuntary. Many of the notes, especially of those
explaining classical references and those attached to the minor
poems of Chaucer, have been prepared specially for this edition.
The Editor leaves his task with the hope that his attempt to
remove artificial obstacles to the popularity of England’s
earliest poets, will not altogether miscarry.