CHAUCER (CONTINUED.)--PROGRESS OF SOCIETY, AND OF LANGUAGES.
Social Life. Government. Chaucer's English. His Death. Historical
Facts. John Gower. Chaucer and Gower. Gower's Language. Other Writers.
SOCIAL LIFE.
A few words must suffice to suggest to the student what may be learned, as
to the condition of society in England, from the Canterbury Tales.
All the portraits are representatives of classes. But an inquiry into the
social life of the period will be more systematic, if we look first at the
nature and condition of chivalry, as it still existed, although on the eve
of departure, in England. This is found in the portraits of certain of
Chaucer's pilgrims--the knight, the squire, and the yeoman; and in the
special prologues to the various tales. The _knight_, as the
representative of European chivalry, comes to us in name at least from the
German forests with the irrepressible Teutons. _Chivalry_ in its rude
form, however, was destined to pass through a refining and modifying
process, and to obtain its name in France. Its Norman characteristic is
found in the young _ecuyer_ or squire, of Chaucer, who aspires to equal
his father in station and renown; while the English type of the
man-at-arms (_l'homme d'armes_) is found in their attendant yeoman, the
_tiers état_ of English chivalry, whose bills and bows served Edward III.
at Cressy and Poictiers, and, a little later, made Henry V. of England
king of France in prospect, at Agincourt. Chivalry, in its palmy days,
was an institution of great merit and power; but its humanizing purpose
now accomplished, it was beginning to decline.
What a speaking picture has Chaucer drawn of the knight, brave as a lion,
prudent in counsel, but gentle as a woman. His deeds of valor had been
achieved, not at Cressy and Calais, but--what both chieftain and poet
esteemed far nobler warfare--in battle with the infidel, at Algeçiras, in
Poland, in Prussia, and Russia. Thrice had he fought with sharp lances in
the lists, and thrice had he slain his foe; yet he was
Of his port as meke as is a mayde;
He never yet no vilainie ne sayde
In all his life unto ne manere wight,
He was a very parfit gentil knight.
The entire paradox of chivalry is here presented by the poet. For, though
Chaucer's knight, just returned from the wars, is going to show his
devotion to God and the saints by his pilgrimage to the hallowed shrine at
Canterbury, when he is called upon for his story, his fancy flies to the
old romantic mythology. Mars is his god of war, and Venus his mother of
loves, and, by an anachronism quite common in that day, Palamon and Arcite
are mediæval knights trained in the school of chivalry, and aflame, in
knightly style, with the light of love and ladies' eyes. These
incongruities marked the age.
Such was the flickering brightness of chivalry in Chaucer's time, even
then growing dimmer and more fitful, and soon to "pale its ineffectual
fire" in the light of a growing civilization. Its better principles, which
were those of truth, virtue, and holiness, were to remain; but its forms,
ceremonies, and magnificence were to disappear.
It is significant of social progress, and of the levelling influence of
Christianity, that common people should do their pilgrimage with community
of interest as well as danger, and in easy, tale-telling conference with
those of higher station. The franklin, with white beard and red face, has
been lord of the sessions and knight of the shire. The merchant, with
forked beard and Flaundrish beaver hat, discourses learnedly of taxes and
ship-money, and was doubtless drawn from an existing original, the type of
a class. Several of the personages belong to the guilds which were so
famous in London, and
Were alle yclothed in o livere
Of a solempne and grete fraternite.
GOVERNMENT.--Closely connected with this social progress, was the progress
in constitutional government, the fruit of the charters of John and Henry
III. After the assassination of Edward II. by his queen and her paramour,
there opened upon England a new historic era, when the bold and energetic
Edward III. ascended the throne--an era reflected in the poem of Chaucer.
The king, with Wiclif's aid, checked the encroachments of the Church. He
increased the representation of the people in parliament, and--perhaps the
greatest reform of all--he divided that body into two houses, the peers
and the commons, giving great consequence to the latter in the conduct of
the government, and introducing that striking feature of English
legislation, that no ministry can withstand an opposition majority in the
lower house; and another quite as important, that no tax should be imposed
without its consent. The philosophy of these great facts is to be found in
the democratic spirit so manifest among the pilgrims; a spirit tempered
with loyalty, but ready, where their liberties were encroached upon, to
act with legislative vigor, as well as individual boldness.
Not so directly, but still forcibly, does Chaucer present the results of
Edward's wars in France, in the status of the knight, squire, and yeoman,
and of the English sailor, and in the changes introduced into the language
and customs of the English thereby.
CHAUCER'S ENGLISH.--But we are to observe, finally, that Chaucer is the
type of progress in the language, giving it himself the momentum which
carried it forward with only technical modifications to the days of
Spenser and the Virgin Queen. The _House of Fame_ and other minor poems
are written in the octosyllabic verse of the Trouvères, but the
_Canterbury Tales_ give us the first vigorous English handling of the
decasyllabic couplet, or iambic pentameter, which was to become so
polished an instrument afterward in the hands of Dryden and Pope. The
English of all the poems is simple and vernacular.
It is known that Dante had at first intended to compose the Divina
Commedia in Latin. "But when," he said to the sympathizing Frate Ilario,
"I recalled the condition of the present age, and knew that those generous
men for whom, in better days, these things were written, had abandoned
(_ahi dolore_) the liberal arts into vulgar hands, I threw aside the
delicate lyre which armed my flank, and attuned another more befitting the
ears of moderns." It seems strange that he should have thus regretted what
to us seems a noble and original opportunity of double creation--poem and
language. What Dante thus bewailed was his real warrant for immortality.
Had he written his great work in Latin, it would have been consigned, with
the Italian latinity of the middle ages, to oblivion; while his Tuscan
still delights the ear of princes and lazzaroni. Professorships of the
Divina Commedia are instituted in Italian universities, and men are
considered accomplished when they know it by heart.
What Dante had done, not without murmuring, Chaucer did more cheerfully in
England. Claimed by both universities as a collegian, perhaps without
truth, he certainly was an educated man, and must have been sorely tempted
by Latin hexameters; but he knew his mission, and felt his power. With a
master hand he moulded the language. He is reproached for having
introduced "a wagon-load of foreign words," i.e. Norman words, which,
although frowned upon by some critics, were greatly needed, were eagerly
adopted, and constituted him the "well of English undefiled," as he was
called by Spenser. It is no part of our plan to consider Chaucer's
language or diction, a special study which the reader can pursue for
himself. Occleve, in his work "_De Regimine Principium"_ calls him "the
honour of English tonge," "floure of eloquence," and "universal fadir in
science," and, above all, "the firste findere of our faire language." To
Lydgate he was the "Floure of Poetes throughout all Bretaine." Measured by
our standard, he is not always musical, "and," in the language of Dryden,
"many of his verses are lame for want of half a foot, and sometimes a
whole one;" but he must be measured by the standards of his age, by the
judgment of his contemporaries, and by a thorough intelligence of the
language as he found it and as he left it. Edward III., a practical
reformer in many things, gave additional importance to English, by
restoring it in the courts of law, and administering justice to the people
in their own tongue. When we read of the _English_ kings of this early
period, it is curious to reflect that these monarchs, up to the time of
Edward I., spoke French as their vernacular tongue, while English had only
been the mixed, corrupted language of the lower classes, which was now
brought thus by king and poet into honorable consideration.
HIS DEATH.--Chaucer died on the 25th of October, 1400, in his little
tenement in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel, Westminster, and left his
works and his fame to an evil and unappreciative age. His monument was not
erected until one hundred and fifty-six years afterward, by Nicholas
Brigham. It stands in the "poets' corner" of Westminster Abbey, and has
been the nucleus of that gathering-place of the sacred dust which once
enclosed the great minds of England. The inscription, which justly styles
him "Anglorum vates ter maximus," is not to be entirely depended upon as
to the "annus Domini," or "tempora vitae," because of the turbulent and
destructive reigns that had intervened--evil times for literary effort,
and yet making material for literature and history, and producing that
wonderful magician, the printing-press, and paper, by means of which the
former things might be disseminated, and Chaucer brought nearer to us than
to them.
HISTORICAL FACTS.--The year before Chaucer died, Richard II. was starved
in his dungeon. Henry, the son of John of Gaunt, represented the
usurpation of Lancaster, and the realm was convulsed with the revolts of
rival aristocracy; and, although Prince Hal, or Henry V., warred with
entire success in France, and got the throne of that kingdom away from
Charles VI., (the Insane,) he died leaving to his infant son, Henry VI.,
an inheritance which could not be secured. The rival claimant of York,
Edward IV., had a strong party in the kingdom: then came the wars of the
Roses; the murders and treason of Richard III.; the sordid valor of Henry
VII.; the conjugal affection of Henry VIII.; the great religious
earthquake all over Europe, known as the Reformation; constituting all
together an epoch too stirring and unsettled to permit literature to
flourish; an epoch which gave birth to no great poet or mighty master, but
which contained only the seeds of things which were to germinate and
flourish in a kindlier age.
In closing this notice of Chaucer, it should be remarked that no English
poet has been more successful in the varied delineation of character, or
in fresh and charming pictures of Nature. Witty and humorous, sententious
and didactic, solemn and pathetic, he not only pleases the fancy, but
touches the heart.
JOHN GOWER.--Before entering upon the barren period from Chaucer to
Spenser, however, there is one contemporary of Chaucer whom we must not
omit to mention; for his works, although of little literary value, are
historical signs of the times: this is _John Gower_, styled variously Sir
John and Judge Gower, as he was very probably both a knight and a justice.
He seems to owe most of his celebrity to his connection, however slight,
with Chaucer; although there is no doubt of his having been held in good
repute by the literary patrons and critics of his own age. His fame rests
upon three works, or rather three parts of one scheme--_Speculum
Meditantis_, _Vox Clamantis_, and _Confessio Amantis_. The first of these,
_the mirror of one who meditates_, was in French verse, and was, in the
main, a treatise upon virtue and repentance, with inculcations to conjugal
fidelity much disregarded at that time. This work has been lost. The _Vox
Clamantis_, or _voice of one crying in the wilderness_, is directly
historical, being a chronicle, in Latin elegiacs, of the popular revolts
of Wat Tyler in the time of Richard II., and a sermon on fatalism, which,
while it calls for a reformation in the clergy, takes ground against
Wiclif, his doctrines, and adherents. In the later books he discusses the
military and the lawyers; and thus he is the voice of one crying, like the
Baptist in the wilderness, against existing abuses and for the advent of a
better order. The _Confessio Amantis_, now principally known because it
contains a eulogium of Chaucer, which in his later editions he left out,
is in English verse, and was composed at the instance of Richard II. The
general argument of this Lover's Confession is a dialogue between the
lover and a priest of Venus, who, in the guise of a confessor, applies the
breviary of the Church to the confessions of love.[21] The poem is
interspersed with introductory or recapitulatory Latin verses.
CHAUCER AND GOWER.--That there was for a time a mutual admiration between
Chaucer and Gower, is shown by their allusion to each other. In the
penultimate stanza of the Troilus and Creseide, Chaucer calls him "O
Morall Gower," an epithet repeated by Dunbar, Hawes, and other writers;
while in the _Confessio Amantis_, Gower speaks of Chaucer as his disciple
and poet, and alludes to his poems with great praise. That they were at
any time alienated from each other has been asserted, but the best
commentators agree in thinking without sufficient grounds.
The historical teachings of Gower are easy to find. He states truths
without parable. His moral satires are aimed at the Church corruptions of
the day, and yet are conservative; and are taken, says Berthelet, in his
dedication of the Confessio to Henry VIII., not only out of "poets,
orators, historic writers, and philosophers, but out of the Holy
Scripture"--the same Scripture so eloquently expounded by Chaucer, and
translated by Wiclif. Again, Gower, with an eye to the present rather than
to future fame, wrote in three languages--a tribute to the Church in his
Latin, to the court in his French, and to the progressive spirit of the
age in his English. The latter alone is now read, and is the basis of his
fame. Besides three poems, he left, among his manuscripts, fifty French
sonnets, (cinquantes balades,) which were afterward printed by his
descendant, Lord Gower, Duke of Sutherland.
GOWER'S LANGUAGE.--Like Chaucer, Gower was a reformer in language, and was
accused by the "severer etymologists of having corrupted the purity of the
English by affecting to introduce so many foreign words and phrases;" but
he has the tribute of Sir Philip Sidney (no mean praise) that Chaucer and
himself were the leaders of a movement, which others have followed, "to
beautifie our mother tongue," and thus the _Confessio Amantis_ ranks as
one of the formers of our language, in a day when it required much moral
courage to break away from the trammels of Latin and French, and at the
same time to compel them to surrender their choicest treasures to the
English.
Gower was born in 1325 or 1326, and outlived Chaucer. It has been
generally believed that Chaucer was his poetical pupil. The only evidence
is found in the following vague expression of Gower in the Confessio
Amantis:
And greet well Chaucer when ye meet
As _my disciple_ and my poete.
For in the flower of his youth,
In sondry wise as he well couth,
Of ditties and of songes glade
The which he for my sake made.
It may have been but a patronizing phrase, warranted by Gower's superior
rank and station; for to the modern critic the one is the uprising sun,
and the other the pale star scarcely discerned in the sky. Gower died in
1408, eight years after his more illustrious colleague.
OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD OF CHAUCER.
John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, a Scottish poet, born about 1320:
wrote a poem concerning the deeds of King Robert I. in achieving the
independence of Scotland. It is called _Broite_ or _Brute_, and in it, in
imitation of the English, he traces the Scottish royal lineage to Brutus.
Although by no means equal to Chaucer, he is far superior to any other
English poet of the time, and his language is more intelligible at the
present day than that of Chaucer or Gower. Sir Walter Scott has borrowed
from Barbour's poem in his "Lord of the Isles."
Blind Harry--name unknown: wrote the adventures of Sir William Wallace,
about 1460.
James I. of Scotland, assassinated at Perth, in 1437. He wrote "The Kings
Quhair," (Quire or Book,) describing the progress of his attachment to the
daughter of the Earl of Somerset, while a prisoner in England, during the
reign of Henry IV.
Thomas Occleve, flourished about 1420. His principal work is in Latin; De
Regimine Principum, (concerning the government of princes.)
John Lydgate, flourished about 1430: wrote _Masks_ and _Mummeries_, and
nine books of tragedies translated from Boccaccio.
Robert Henryson, flourished about 1430: Robin and Makyne, a pastoral; and
a continuation of Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, entitled "The Testament
of Fair Creseide."
William Dunbar, died about 1520: the greatest of Scottish poets, called
"The Chaucer of Scotland." He wrote "The Thistle and the Rose," "The
Dance," and "The Golden Targe."