English literature, in the strict sense of the word, dates its beginning
from the latter half of the fourteenth century. Not but an English
literature had existed long previous to that period. Furthermore, it
reckoned among its possessions works of value, and a few which in the
opinion of some display genius. But though the name was the same, the
thing was essentially different. A special course of study is required
for any comprehension whatever of the productions of that earliest
literature; and for the easy understanding of those written even but a
half-century or so before the period indicated, a mastery of many
peculiar syntactical constructions is demanded and an acquaintance with
a vocabulary differing in a large number of words from that now in use.
But by the middle of the fourteenth century this state of things can
hardly be said to exist any longer for us. Everything by that time had
become ripe for the creation of a literature of a far higher type than
had yet been produced. Furthermore, conditions prevailed which, though
their results could not then be foreseen, were almost certain to render
the literature thus created comparatively easy of comprehension to the
modern reader. The Teutonic and Romanic elements that form the
groundwork of our present vocabulary had at last become completely
fused. Of the various dialects prevailing, the one spoken in the
vicinity of the capital had gradually lifted itself up to a pre-eminence
it was never afterwards to lose. In this parent of the present literary
speech, writers found for the first time at their command a widely
accepted and comparatively flexible instrument of expression. As a
consequence, the literature then produced fixed definitely for all time
the main lines upon which both the grammar and the vocabulary of the
English speech were to develop. The result is that it now presents few
difficulties for its full comprehension and appreciation that are not
easily surmounted. The most effective deterrent to its wide study is one
formidable only in appearance. This is the unfamiliar way in which its
words are spelled; for orthography then sought to represent
pronunciation, and had not in consequence crystallized into fixed forms
with constant disregard of any special value to be attached to the signs
by which sounds are denoted.
Of the creators of this literature--Wycliffe, Langland, Chaucer, and
Gower--Chaucer was altogether the greatest as a man of letters. This is
no mere opinion of the present time: there has never been a period since
he flourished in which it has not been fully conceded. In his own day,
his fame swept beyond the narrow limits of country and became known to
the outside world. At home his reputation was firmly established, and
seems to have been established early. All the references to him by his
contemporaries and immediate successors bear witness to his universally
recognized position as the greatest of English poets, though we are not
left by him in doubt that he had even then met detractors. Still the
general feeling of the men of his time is expressed by his disciple
Occleve, who terms him
"The firste finder[1] of our fair langage."
[1] Poet.
Yet not a single incident of his life has come down to us from the men
who admired his personality, who enrolled themselves as his disciples,
and who celebrated his praises. With the exception of a few slight
references to himself in his writings, all the knowledge we possess of
the events of his career is due to the mention made of him in official
documents of various kinds and of different degrees of importance. In
these it is taken for granted that whenever Geoffrey Chaucer is spoken
of, it is the poet who is meant, and not another person of the same
name. The assumption almost approaches absolute certainty; it does not
quite attain to it. In those days it is clear that there were numerous
Chaucers. Still, no one has yet risen to dispute his being the very
person spoken of in these official papers. From these documents we
discover that Chaucer, besides being a poet, was also a man of affairs.
He was a soldier, a negotiator, a diplomatist. He was early employed in
the personal service of the king. He held various positions in the civil
service. It was a consequence that his name should appear frequently in
the records. It is upon them, and the references to him in documents
covering transactions in which he bore a part, that the story of his
life, so far as it exists for us at all, has been mainly built. It was
by them also that the series of fictitious events which for so long a
time did duty as the biography of the poet had their impossibility as
well as their absurdity exposed.
[Illustration: GEOFFREY CHAUCER.]
The exact date of Chaucer's birth we do not know. The most that can be
said is that it must have been somewhere in the early years of the reign
of Edward III. (1327-77). The place of his birth was in all probability
London. His father, John Chaucer, was a vintner of that city, and there
is evidence to indicate that he was to some extent connected with the
court. In a deed dated June 19th, 1380, the poet released his right to
his father's former house, which is described as being in Thames Street.
The spot, however unsuitable for a dwelling-place now, was then in the
very heart of urban life, and in that very neighborhood it is reasonable
to suppose that Chaucer's earliest years were spent.
The first positive information we have, however, about the poet himself
belongs to 1356. In that year we find him attached to the household of
Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward III. He is there in
the service of the wife of that prince, but in what position we do not
know. It may have been that of a page. He naturally was in attendance
upon his mistress during her various journeyings; but most of her time
was passed at her residence in Hatfield, Yorkshire. Chaucer next appears
as having joined the army of Edward III. in his last invasion of France.
This expedition was undertaken in the autumn of 1359, and continued
until the peace of Bretigny, concluded in May, 1360. During this
campaign he was captured somewhere and somehow--we have no knowledge of
anything beyond the bare fact. It took place, however, before the first
of March, 1360; for on that date the records show that the King
personally contributed sixteen pounds towards his ransom.
From this last-mentioned date Chaucer drops entirely out of our
knowledge till June, 1367, when he is mentioned as one of the valets of
the King's chamber. In the document stating this fact he is granted a
pension--the first of several he received--for services already rendered
or to be rendered. It is a natural inference from the language employed,
that during these years of which no record exists he was in some
situation about the person of Edward III. After this time his name
occurs with considerable frequency in the rolls, often in connection
with duties to which he was assigned. His services were varied; in some
instances certainly they were of importance. From 1370 to 1380 he was
sent several times abroad to share in the conduct of negotiations. These
missions led him to Flanders, to France, and to Italy. The subjects were
very diverse. One of the negotiations in which he was concerned was in
reference to the selection of an English port for a Genoese commercial
establishment; another was concerning the marriage of the young monarch
of England with the daughter of the king of France. It is on his first
journey to Italy of which we have any record--the mission of 1372-73 to
Genoa and Florence--that everybody hopes and some succeed in having an
undoubting belief that Chaucer visited Petrarch at Padua, and there
heard from him the story of Griselda, which the Clerk of Oxford in the
'Canterbury Tales' states that he learned from the Italian poet.
But Chaucer's activity was not confined to foreign missions or to
diplomacy; he was as constantly employed in the civil service. In 1374
he was made controller of the great customs--that is, of wool, skins,
and leather--of the port of London. In 1382 he received also the post in
the same port of controller of the petty customs--that is, of wines,
candles, and other articles. The regulations of the office required him
to write the records with his own hand; and it is this to which Chaucer
is supposed to refer in the statement he makes about his official duties
in the 'House of Fame.' In that poem the messenger of Jupiter tells him
that though he has done so much in the service of the God of Love, yet
he has never received for it any compensation. He then goes on to add
the following lines, which give a graphic picture of the poet and of his
studious life:--
"Wherfore, as I said ywis,[2]
Jupiter considereth this,
And also, beau sir, other things;
That is, that thou hast no tidings
Of Loves folk, if they be glad,
Ne of nought elles, that God made;
And nought only from far countree
That there no tiding cometh to thee,
But of the very neighebours,
That dwellen almost at thy doors,
Thou hearest neither that nor this;
But when thy labor all done is,
And hast made all thy reckonings,
Instead of rest and newe things,
Thou goest home to thine house anon,
And also[3] dumb as any stone,
Thou sittest at another book,
Till fully dazed is thy look.
And livest thus as an eremite,
Although thine abstinence is lyte.[4]"
[2] Certainly.
[3] As.
[4] Little.
In 1386 Chaucer was elected to Parliament as knight of the shire for
the county of Kent. In that same year he lost or gave up both his
positions in the customs. The cause we do not know. It may have been due
to mismanagement on his own part: it is far more likely that he fell a
victim to one of the fierce factional disputes that were going on during
the minority of Richard II. At any rate, from this time he again
disappears for two years from our knowledge. But in 1389 he is mentioned
as having been appointed clerk of the King's works at Westminster and
various other places; in 1390 clerk of the works for St. George's chapel
at Windsor. Both of these places he held until the middle of 1391. In
that last year he was made one of the commissioners to repair the
roadway along the Thames, and at about the same time was appointed
forester of North Petherton Park in Somerset, a post which he held till
his death. After 1386 he seems at times to have been in pecuniary
difficulties. To what cause they were owing, or how severe they were, it
is the emptiest of speculations to form any conjectures in the obscurity
that envelops this portion of his life. Whatever may have been his
situation, on the accession of Henry IV. in September, 1399, his
fortunes revived. The father of that monarch was John of Gaunt, the
fourth son of Edward III. That nobleman had pretty certainly been from
the outset the patron of Chaucer; it is possible--as the evidence fails
on one side, it cannot be regarded as proved--that by his marriage with
Katharine Swynford he became the poet's brother-in-law. Whatever may
have been the relationship, if any at all, it is a fact that one of the
very first things the new king did was to confer upon Chaucer an
additional pension. But the poet did not live long to enjoy the favor of
the monarch. On the 24th of December, 1399, he leased for fifty-three
years or during the term of his life a tenement in the garden of St.
Mary's Chapel, Westminster. But after the 5th of June, 1400, his name
appears no longer on any rolls. There is accordingly no reason to
question the accuracy of the inscription on his tombstone which
represents him as having died October 25th, 1400. He was buried in
Westminster Abbey. He was the first, and still remains perhaps the
greatest, of the English poets whose bones have there found their last
resting-place.
This comprises all the facts of importance we know of Chaucer's life.
Before leaving this branch of the subject, however, it may be well to
say that many fuller details about his career can be found in all older
accounts of the poet, and in spite of the repeated exposure of their
falsity still crop up occasionally in modern books of reference. Some
are objectionable only upon the ground of being untrue. Of these are
such statements as that he was born in 1328; that he was a student of
Oxford, to which Cambridge is sometimes added; that he was created
poet-laureate; and that he was knighted. But others are objectionable
not only on the ground of being false, but of being slanderous besides.
Of these the most offensive is the widely circulated and circumstantial
story that he was concerned in the conflict that went on in 1382 between
the city of London and the court in regard to the election of John of
Northampton to the mayoralty; that in consequence of his participation
in this contest he was compelled to seek refuge in the island of
Zealand; that there he remained for some time, but on his return to
England was arrested and thrown into the Tower; and that after having
been imprisoned for two or three years he was released at last on the
condition of betraying his associates, which he accordingly did. All
these details are fictitious. They were made up from inferences drawn
from obscure passages in a prose work entitled 'The Testament of Love.'
This was once attributed to the poet, but is now known not to have been
written by him. Even had it been his, the statements derived from it and
applied to the life of the poet would have been entirely unwarranted, as
they come into constant conflict with the official records. Not being
his, this piece of spurious biography has the additional discredit of
constituting an unnecessary libel upon his character.
From Chaucer the man, and the man of affairs, we proceed now to the
consideration of Chaucer the writer. He has left behind a body of verse
consisting of more than thirty-two thousand lines, and a smaller but
still far from inconsiderable quantity of prose. The latter consists
mainly if not wholly of translations--one a version of that favorite
work of the Middle Ages, the treatise of Boetius on the 'Consolation of
Philosophy'; another the tale of Melibeus in the 'Canterbury Tales,'
which is taken directly from the French; thirdly, the Parson's Tale,
derived probably from the same quarter, though its original has not as
yet been discovered with certainty; and fourthly, an unfinished treatise
on the Astrolabe, undertaken for the instruction of his son Lewis. The
prose of any literature always lags behind, and sometimes centuries
behind, its poetry. It is therefore not surprising to find Chaucer
displaying in the former but little of the peculiar excellence which
distinguishes his verse. In the latter but little room is found for
hostile criticism. In the more than thirty thousand lines of which it is
composed there occur of course inferior passages, and some positively
weak; but taking it all in all, there is comparatively little in it,
considered as a whole, which the lover of literature as literature finds
it advisable or necessary to skip. In this respect the poet holds a
peculiar position, which makes the task of representation difficult. As
Southey remarked, Chaucer with the exception of Shakespeare is the most
various of all English authors. He appeals to the most diversified
tastes. He wrote love poems, religious poems, allegorical poems,
occasional poems, tales of common life, tales of chivalry. His range is
so wide that any limited selection from his works can at best give but
an inadequate idea of the variety and extent of his powers.
The canon of Chaucer's writings has now been settled with a reasonable
degree of certainty. For a long time the fashion existed of imputing to
him the composition of any English poem of the century following his
death which was floating about without having attached to it the name of
any author. The consequence is that the older editions contain a mass of
matter which it would have been distinctly discreditable for any one to
have produced, let alone a great poet. This has now been gradually
dropped, much to the advantage of Chaucer's reputation; though modern
scholarship also refuses to admit the production by him of two or three
pieces, such as 'The Court of Love,' 'The Flower and the Leaf,' 'The
Cuckoo and the Nightingale,' none of which was unworthy of his powers.
It is possible indeed that the poet himself may have had some dread of
being saddled with the responsibility of having produced pieces which he
did not care to father. It is certainly suggestive that he himself took
the pains on one occasion to furnish what it seems must have been at the
time a fairly complete list of his writings. In the prologue to the
'Legend of Good Women' he gave an idea of the work which up to that
period he had accomplished. The God of Love, in the interview which is
there described as having taken place, inveighs against the poet for
having driven men away from the service due to his deity, by the
character of what he had written. He says:--
"Thou mayst it not deny:
For in plain text, withouten need of glose,[5]
Thou hast translated the Romance of the Rose;
That is an heresy agains my law,
And makest wise folk fro me withdraw.
And of Cressid thou hast said as thee list;
That makest men to women lesse trist,[6]
That be as true as ever was any steel."
[5] Commentary.
[6] Trust.
Against this charge the queen Alcestis is represented as interposing to
the god a defense of the poet, in which occurs the following account of
Chaucer's writings:--
"Albeit that he cannot well endite,
Yet hath he maked lewed[7] folk delight
To serve you, in praising of your name.
He made the book that hight[8] the House of Fame,
And eke the Death of Blanche the Duchess,
And the Parliament of Fowles, as I guess,
And all the love of Palamon and Arcite
Of Thebes, though the story is knowen lyte[9];
And many an hymne for your holy days
That highten[10] ballades, roundels, virelays;
And for to speak of other holiness,
He hath in prose translated Boece,
And made the Life also of Saint Cecile;
He made also, gone sithen a great while,[11]
Origenes upon the Maudelain[12]:
Him oughte now to have the lesse pain;
He hath made many a lay and many a thing."
[7] Ignorant.
[8] Is called.
[9] Little.
[10] Are called.
[11] A great while ago.
[12] Origen upon Mary Magdalen.
This prologue is generally conceded to have been written between 1382
and 1385. Though it does not profess to furnish a complete list of
Chaucer's writings, it can fairly be assumed that it included all which
he then regarded as of importance either on account of their merit or
their length. If so, the titles given above would embrace the
productions of what may be called the first half of his literary career.
In fact, his disciple Lydgate leads us to believe that 'Troilus and
Cressida' was a comparatively early production, though it may have
undergone and probably did undergo revision before assuming its present
form. The 'Legend of Good Women'--in distinction from its
prologue--would naturally occupy the time of the poet during the opening
period of what is here termed the second half of his literary career.
The prologue is the only portion of it, however, that is of distinctly
high merit. The work was never completed, and Chaucer pretty certainly
came soon to the conclusion that it was not worth completing. It was in
the taste of the times; but it did not take him long to perceive that an
extended work dealing exclusively with the sorrows of particular
individuals was as untrue to art as it was to life. It fell under the
ban of that criticism which in the 'Canterbury Tales' he puts into the
mouth of the Knight, who interrupts the doleful recital of the tragical
tales told by the Monk with these words:--
"'Ho,' quoth the knight, 'good sir, no more of this:
That ye have said is right enow, ywis,[13]
And muchel[14] more; for little heaviness
Is right enow to muchel folk, I guess.
I say for me it is a great disease,[15]
Where-as men have been in great wealth and ease,
To hearen of hir sudden fall, alas!
And the contrary is joy and great solas,[16]
As when a man hath been in poor estate,
And climbeth up and waxeth fortunate,
And there abideth in prosperity.
Such thing is gladsome, as it thinketh[17] me,
And of such thing were goodly for to tell.'"
[13] Certainly.
[14] Much.
[15] Discomfort.
[16] Solace.
[17] Seems.
Accordingly, from the composition of pieces of the one-sided and
unsatisfactory character of those contained in the 'Legend of Good
Women,' Chaucer turned to the preparation of his great work, the
'Canterbury Tales.' This gave him the fullest opportunity to display all
his powers, and must have constituted the main literary occupation of
his later life.
It will be noticed that two of the works mentioned in the prologue to
the 'Legend of Good Women' are translations, and are so avowed. One is
of the 'Roman de la Rose,' and the other of the philosophical treatise
of Boetius. In regard to the version of the former which has come down,
it is sufficient to say that there was not long ago a disposition to
deny the genuineness of all of it. This now contents itself with denying
the genuineness of part of it. The question cannot be considered here:
it is enough to say that in the opinion of the present writer, while the
subject is attended with certain difficulties, the evidence is strongly
in favor of Chaucer's composition of the whole. But setting aside any
discussion of this point, there can scarcely be any doubt that Chaucer
began his career as a translator. At the period he flourished he could
hardly have done otherwise. It was an almost inevitable method of
procedure on the part of a man who found neither writers nor writings in
his own tongue worthy of imitation, and who could not fail to be struck
not merely by the excellence of the Latin classic poets but also by the
superior culture of the Continent. In the course of his literary
development he would naturally pass from direct translation to
adaptation. To the latter practice he assuredly resorted often. He took
the work of the foreign author as a basis, discarded what he did not
need or care for, and added as little or as much as suited his own
convenience. In this way the 5704 lines of the 'Filostrato' of Boccaccio
became 8246 in the 'Troilus and Cressida' of Chaucer; but even of the
5704 of the Italian poet, 2974 were not used by the English poet at all,
and the 2730 that were used underwent considerable compression. In a
similar way he composed the 'Knight's Tale,' probably the most perfect
narrative poem in our tongue. It was based upon the 'Theseide' of
Boccaccio. But the latter has 9896 lines, while the former comprises but
2250; and of these 2250 fully two-thirds are entirely independent of the
Italian poem.
With such free treatment of his material, Chaucer's next step would be
to direct composition, independent of any sources, save in that general
way in which every author is under obligation to what has been
previously produced. This finds its crowning achievement in the
'Canterbury Tales'; though several earlier pieces--such as the 'House of
Fame,' the 'Parliament of Fowls,' and the prologue to the 'Legend of
Good Women,'--attest that long before he had shown his ability to
produce work essentially original. But though in his literary
development Chaucer worked himself out of this exact reproduction of
his models, through a partial working over of them till he finally
attained complete independence, the habits of a translator clung to him
to the very end. Even after he had fully justified his claim to being a
great original poet, passages occur in his writings which are nothing
but the reproduction of passages found in some foreign poem in Latin, or
French, or Italian, the three languages with which he was conversant.
His translation of them was due to the fact that they had struck his
fancy; his insertion of them into his own work was to please others with
what had previously pleased himself. Numerous passages of this kind have
been pointed out; and doubtless there are others which remain to be
pointed out.
There is another important thing to be marked in the history of
Chaucer's artistic development. Not only was poetic material lacking in
the tongue at the time of his appearance, but also poetic form. The
measures in use, while not inadequate for literary expression, were
incapable of embodying it in its highest flights. Consequently what
Chaucer did not find, he had either to borrow or to invent. He did both.
In the lines which have been quoted he speaks of the "ballades,
roundels, and virelayes" which he had composed. These were all favorite
poetical forms in that Continental country with whose literature Chaucer
was mainly conversant. There can be little question that he tried all
manner of verse which the ingenuity of the poets of Northern France had
devised. As many of his shorter pieces have very certainly disappeared,
his success in these various attempts cannot be asserted with
positiveness. Still, what have survived show that he was a great
literary artist as well as a great poet. His feats of rhyming, in
particular in a tongue so little fitted for it as is ours, can be seen
in his unfinished poem of 'Queen Anelida and False Arcite,' in the
'Complaint to Venus,' and in the envoy which follows the Clerk's Tale.
In this last piece, though there are thirty-six lines, the rhymes are
only three; and two of these belong to fifteen lines respectively.
But far more important than such attempts, which prove interest in
versification rather than great poetic achievement, are the two measures
which he introduced into our tongue. The first was the seven-line
stanza. The rhyming lines in it are respectively the first and third;
the second, fourth, and fifth; and the sixth and seventh. At a later
period this was frequently called "rhyme royal," because the 'Kingis
Quair' was written in it. For fully two centuries it was one of the most
popular measures in English poetry. Since the sixteenth century,
however, it has been but little employed. Far different has been the
fate of the line of ten syllables, or rather of five accents. On account
of its frequent use in the 'Canterbury Tales' it was called for a long
period "riding rhyme"; but it now bears the title of "heroic verse." As
employed by Chaucer it varies in slight particulars from the way it is
now generally used. With him the couplet character was never made
prominent. The sense was not apt to end at the second line, but
constantly tended to run over into the line following. There was also
frequently with him an unaccented eleventh syllable; and this, though
not unknown to modern verse, is not common. Still, the difference
between the early and the later form are mere differences of detail, and
of comparatively unimportant detail. The introduction of this measure
into English may be considered Chaucer's greatest achievement in the
matter of versification. The heroic verse may have existed in the tongue
before he himself used it. If so, it lurked unseen and uninfluential. He
was the first to employ it on a grand scale, if not to employ it at all,
and to develop its capabilities. Much the largest proportion of his
greatest work is written in that measure. Yet in spite of his example,
it found for two centuries comparatively few imitators. It was not till
the end of the sixteenth century that the measure started on a new
course of life, and entered upon the great part it has since played in
English versification.
The most important of what are sometimes called the minor works of
Chaucer are the 'Parliament of Fowls,' the 'House of Fame,' 'Troilus and
Cressida,' and the 'Legend of Good Women.' These are all favorable
examples of his genius. But however good they may be in particular
portions and in particular respects, in general excellence they yield
place unquestionably to the 'Canterbury Tales.' It seems to have been
very clearly the intention of the poet to embody in this crowning
achievement of his literary life everything in the shape of a story he
had already composed or was purposing to compose. Two of the pieces, the
love of Palamon and Arcite and the Life of St. Cecilia, as we know from
the words of his already quoted, had appeared long before. The plan of
the work itself was most happily conceived; and in spite of most
painstaking efforts to find an original for it or suggestion of it
somewhere else, there seems no sufficient reason for doubting that the
poet himself was equal to the task of having devised it. No one
certainly can question the felicity with which the framework for
embodying the tales was constructed. All ranks and classes of society
are brought together in the company of pilgrims who assemble at the
Tabard Inn at Southwark to ride to the shrine of the saint at
Canterbury. The military class is represented by the Knight, belonging
to the highest order of the nobility, his son the Squire, and his
retainer the Yeoman; the church by the Abbot, the Friar, the Parson, the
Prioress with her attendant Nun, and the three accompanying Priests,
and less distinctly by the Scholar, the Clerk of Oxford, and by the
Pardoner and the Summoner. For the other professions are the Doctor of
Physic and the Serjeant of Law; for the middle-class landholders the
Franklin; and for the various crafts and occupations the Haberdasher,
the Carpenter, the Weaver, the Dyer, the Upholsterer, the Cook, the
Ploughman, the Sailor, the Reeve, the Manciple, and (joining the party
in the course of the pilgrimage) the assistant of the alchemist, who is
called the Canon's Yeoman. Into the mouths of these various personages
were to be put tales befitting their character and condition.
Consequently there was ample space for stories of chivalry, of religion,
of love, of magic, and in truth of every aspect of social life in all
its highest and lowest manifestations. Between the tales themselves were
connecting links, in which the poet had the opportunity to give an
account of the incidents that took place on the pilgrimage, the critical
opinions expressed by the hearers of what had been told, and the
disputes and quarrels that went on between the various members of the
party. So far as this portion of his plan was finished, these connecting
links furnish some of the most striking passages in the work. In one of
them--the prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale--the genius of the poet
reaches along certain lines its highest development; while the general
prologue describing the various personages of the party, though not
containing the highest poetry of the work as poetry, is the most acute,
discriminating, and brilliant picture of men and manners that can be
found in our literature.
[Illustration: _CHAUCER_
Title-page of the first attempt to collect his works into one volume.
The imprint reads:
Imprinted at London by Thomas Godfray,
The yeare of our lorde
M.D.XXXII.
Title:
The Workes of Geffray Chaucer newly printed, with dyuers workes
whiche were neuer in print before: As in the table more playnly
dothe appere.
Cum priuilegio.