John Gower, to whom Chaucer dedicated his Troilus and Cressida, dubbing him "moral Gower", an epithet Gower that has stuck to him ever since, was born and his Confessio probably about the same time as Chaucer, Amantis". and died in 1408. He was buried in St. Saviour's Church, Southwark, where his figure is represented on his tomb, his head resting on the books containing his three poems. They serve to show that as yet men were in some uncertainty as to what was to be the literary language, for each is written in a different tongue. One is in Latin, another in French, and the last, the Confessio Amantis (the confession of a lover), in English, because, as he says himself, "few men endite in our English". It is a collection of tales, illustrating the seven deadly sins, each with a very obvious moral, and of dull and tedious style. It has an interest, however, inasmuch as Chaucer told two of Gower's stories again in his Canterbury Tales; the Wife of Bath's tale is that of the knight Florentius, the Man of Law's tale that of the pious Constance. Shakespeare also was indebted to Gower for the plot of Pericles. The Confessio Amantis was written at the request of Richard II., probably in 1393, when Gower was already old. Older students may consult Stopford Brooke's History of Early English Literature (2 vols., Macmillan, 1892); Ten Brink's Early English Literature (2 vols., Bell, 1883-1893); Jusserand's Piers Plowman (Fisher Unwin, 1894). CHAPTER II. GEOFFREY CHAUCER. Chaucer, "the morning star" of song, is the first Chaucer, the great figure in English poetry. Very few, infirst great deed, of the later poets have equalled or surEnglish poet. passed him. He fixed what was to be the literary and national language of our country, and intro duced many of the verse forms in which our subsequent poetry has been written. His birth and Like Spenser and Milton, Chaucer was a native of London. His father, a well-to-do wine merchant, and a person of good position in the city, lived in Thames Street, and there, in 1340, education. Chaucer was born. We have no record of his boyhood or education. In those days a boy often entered a great household in the capacity of page. There he would learn good manners, and such accomplishments as riding and shooting. In 1357 Chaucer entered the service of Elizabeth, wife to Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III. The French wars were proceeding, the battle of Poitiers had been won the year before, and John, the French king, had been taken prisoner and brought to England. Hoping perhaps for some share in the glory, and infected, doubtless, with the warlike spirit of the noblemen and gentlemen with whom he daily came in contact, Chaucer became a soldier, and set sail for France. Aeschylus and Sophocles, soldier. the great Greek poets, had in the same way fought bravely for their country against Persia. Unluckily, in 1359, Chaucer was taken prisoner, but he was ransomed and set free about two months before the signing of the treaty of Bretigny in 1360. His Chaucer as a His early poems. Chaucer's early literary work plainly shows the influence of French poetry, and there is little doubt that to the study of it he owed much of the ease and finish that distinguish his verse. first literary venture was a translation of the very popular French poem, the Romaunt (Romance) of the Rose, a poem that exercised an enormous influence on the literature, not only of France, but of the whole of modern Europe. begun by Guillaume de Loris (died about 1260), and finished by Jean de Meung (1260-1320). The poem is in the form of an allegory1, a very favourite style, if not absolutely the invention, of medieval times. It was The 1 An allegory (Greek allegoria, literally, speaking otherwise than one In the chivalric days of the middle ages every young man was expected to fall in love with and worship a fair lady; and so in the favourite poem, the Romaunt of the Rose, a rose represents the object of love, and the hero goes through countless difficulties and dangers before he reaches the garden in which it grows and is able to gather it. Nearly all the love poems that followed were based on the form and manner of the Romaunt of the Rose. As to whether the English version we now possess is that of Chaucer, the critics and scholars are at issue; but in the Legend of Good Women Chaucer gives a list of the poems he had written, and includes among them a translation of the Romaunt of the Rose. A French poet, Eustace Deschamps (1328-1415), Chaucer's contemporary, wrote a ballad in his praise with the refrain, Great translator, noble Geoffrey Chaucer, doubtless referring to his translation of the French poem. The date is probably 1366. The "Book of the Duchess". Chaucer is next heard of in 1367, when, with John of Gaunt for his patron, he was employed about the court. On the death of his wife, John of Gaunt asked Chaucer to write a poem in her memory, and in 1369 he produced the Book of the Duchess. The poet is still writing under French influence, and although the poem is not perhaps very remarkable, it shows Chaucer's love of English country scenery and of birds, and notwithstanding its dreams and Its seems to speak) has been defined as an extended and sustained metaphor accompanied by personification. Generally a story is told that has a double meaning, one being obvious, the other implied, a story in which, as Milton puts it, "more is meant than meets the ear". The mediæval literature of France and Italy abounds in allegories. beginnings may perhaps be traced in the early church, and examples are certainly to be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. (Cf. parable of the "trees choosing a king", Judges, ix. 7-15, and Psalm 1xxx., where Israel is spoken of as a vine.) In many cases virtues and vices are personified, and sometimes a real person is represented by an allegorical person. The first allegory in English literature, though not in English, was by Athelard of Bath, De Eodem et Diverso (On the Same and the Different), written before 1116. allegorical machinery, contains notes of genuine feeling. The following picture of a young girl foreshadows the power of describing character that has made immortal the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales: I saw her dance so comelily, So goodly speak and so friendly Chaucer as a diplomatist. abroad. We have seen Chaucer a soldier and a courtier. He now became a diplomatist, a man of affairs, and was employed by the king on not less than seven missions abroad. He went three times to Italy, and the knowledge of Italian literature gained, doubt- His travels less, during his visits to the country, greatly influenced his writing. Dante, the greatest of all the poets of Italy, the author of the Divine Comedy, and one of the world's greatest poets, had died in 1321. But his spirit lived on, and in 1373 Boccaccio, than whom none told stories more beautifully, was appointed to the chair of Dante in the University of Padua, and had to give lectures explaining Dante's poem. The first lecture was delivered on August 1 of that year, and as we know that Chaucer was in Italy at that date, it is quite possible that he formed one of Boccaccio's audience. From numerous 1 In reading Chaucer the final e is usually sounded, unless the following word begins with a vowel or is one of certain words beginning with h. It should be pronounced like the a in China. The letter represents an inflexion marking certain cases of nouns, forms of adjectives, &c., since fallen into disuse. Cp. Skeat's Introduction to the Student's Chaucer. 2 treasure. 3 Book of the Duchess, 848-860. passages in his poetry, we know that Chaucer was acquainted with Dante's great work. In fragments he even imitated Dante's metre, the terza-rima.1 Most likely, too, he met Petrarch the poet, who perfected the sonnet form of verse (invented in the thirteenth century, probably by Guittone d'Arezzo) in which to sing the praises of his lady-love, Laura, a form that our poets afterwards copied, and one in which many of them have excelled. The Clerk of Oxford, who tells the tale of Patient Griselda in the Canterbury Tales, says that he learned it at Padua of a worthy clerk, Francis Petrarch, the laureate poet. It is not known whether Chaucer was acquainted with Petrarch and Boccaccio in person, but it is very sure that he knew their works well. Some of the stories of his poems are taken from them, and he often models his style on theirs. After 1382 Chaucer settled in London, where he held the post of comptroller of the petty customs, Chaucer as a man of busi- and of the wool customs. He thus became a man of business, and had opportunities of experience and observation in another phase of life. In his leisure time he loved to read and study: ness. His occupations and tastes. For when thy labour all done is, And also dumb as any stone Thou sittest at another book, Till fully dazéd is thy look.2 In another place Chaucer tells us of his love of books— 1 An example will be found in A Complaint to his Lady "Thus am I slain, with sorrows full diverse; Full long ago, I ought to have taken heed. Now soothly, what she's called I will reherse". The metre does not suit the English language. The happiest use of it is to be found in Rossetti's translation of the Paolo and Francesca episode in Dante's Divina Commedia. 2 House of Fame, book ii., 144-150. |