Chaucer for Beginners

Chaucer for Beginners Dr Santanu Ganguly Associate Professor of English, Netaji Nagar Day College, Kolkata (Former UGC-Senior Reserch in English, Jadavpur University) The earliest inhabitants of that geographical region known as Britain were the Celts. But as things stand today, the contribution of these Celts to the local language and literature is rather miniscule. The first major impact on British history and culture is made by the twin invasions of Julius Caesar in 55 and 54 B.C. The Romans remained in Britain till 410. When they finally left, it gave many opportunistic Scandinavian tribes a chance to enter into the region in the fifth and sixth centuries and settle down. According to the monastic historians Gildas and Bede, the first to enter in a major way were the Jutes followed by the Angles and the Saxons in the end. Since the Angles and the Saxons were the biggest tribes to settle down and were the last to infiltrate, the country came to be known as Engelond (England) after the Angles and the people were Called the Anglo-Saxons. In course of time, the tribes (especially the Anglo-Saxons) settled down peacefully mixing with the native population. With the establishment of contentment and security came the intense desire of the people to express themselves in literature. Since adventure was an important activity of the people, we have poems like ‘Widsith’ that describe the journeys of the narrator- scop to the courts of different kings, and ‘Waldere’ which narrates the adventure of Walter of Aquitaine and his wife Hildegund escaping imprisonment of Attila the Hun. Since the Anglo-Saxons were also obsessed with establishing themselves as heroes, we have a body of poems called Old English heroic poetry, in which individuals strive to attain ‘lof’, ‘dom’ and ‘hlisa’ even if they have to die in the process. The epic poem Beowulf, the literary monument of this period, is the representative poem in this category. War being the sine qua non of contemporary society, a new body of literature called Old English war poetry also gained prominence. This includes such texts as the fragmentary ‘The Battle of Maldon’, ‘The Battle of Brunanburh’ and ‘The Fight at Finnsburh’. There are poems called the Old English elegies that focus on suffering, the impermanence of happiness and the mutability of life. These include ‘The Wanderer’, ‘The Seafarer’, ‘The Ruin’, ‘Deor's Lament’ and a few shorter poems. With the start of the Christianization of England from 597, a new body of poems called Old English Christian poetry came into existence. The leading writers of this corpus are Caedmon, Cynewulf and their followers. Old English prose involves the action of King Alfred the Great of translating seminal texts from Latin into Old English for the spread of education, along with the literary efforts in prose of Aethelwold, Aelfric and Wulfstan. In 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, defeated the Anglo Saxon King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings and this Norman Conquest brought far-reaching changes in English literature. With a new ruling class, alien in speech, coming into being, the normal literary development of the Old English period was halted, forcing old English prose and poetry into the background. But far from being a negative influence, the Normans brought much that was new and stimulating and valuable. The Norman Conquest thus brought about the merging of two great literary traditions — the existing Teutonic tradition and the Romance tradition with its main source in France — and this heralded the start of the Mediaeval Period in British literary history. At the time of the Norman Conquest, French literature had burst suddenly into flower and was enjoying one of its most productive periods. It was the leading literature of Europe, rich and varied in theme, developed by such literary stalwarts as Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meung, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart and Geoffrey de Vinsauf. Coming into contact with this new, valuable and stimulating material, English literature acquired an ease, skill and polish that it had hitherto lacked. The high point of this achievement in the medieval period is to be found in Geoffrey Chaucer. With the Norman Conquest, the magnificent heroic sagas like Beowulf, which told of the tragic struggles of men and gods, disappeared. In its place evolved a bright and varied literature, which makes a wonderful romance out of every subject it touches. In the medieval period, the length of poems started increasing because the writers seemed to have so much to say.. Whereas Beowulf has 3182 lines, Chaucer's The Romaunt of the Rose has 7696, Mannyng's Handling Synne has 12632 while Ormulum has about 20000. The Norman Conquest affected greatly the mood of English writings. Mournful scenes and sinister landscapes were a part and parcel of Old English literature, as found in poems like 'The Ruin' and the description of Grendel's abode in Beowulf. It seemed as if the Anglo Saxon poets were unable to highlight any luminous detail, so much the hero was in the grip of Wyrd (Fate). But in medieval English, the Anglo-Saxon note of instinctive melancholy changed to hopelessness. After the Conquest, the English poets imbibed the French taste for well-lit pictures. They started dealing with flower-decked meadows ('Pearl', for example) and singing birds ('The Parlement of Fowles'). Thus, instead of the storm-tossed seas and battlefields littered with dead bodies in such old English poems as 'The Seafarer' and 'The Battle of Maldon' respectively, we have in medieval poetry bright details of spring and the clear blue sky. French literature lent many literary conventions to English literature after the Norman Conquest . With the heroic age declining and giving place to feudalism, medical romances describing the adventures of knights and their courtesy to ladies became prominent in the Matters of England, Britain, France and Rome that comprised the medieval romances. Unlike the Old English period where Christianity was a late development, Normans planted Christianity more firmly on English soil, leading to composition of plenty of religious works like 'Poema Morale' ,'Sinners Beware', 'Ormulum', 'Cursor Mundi', 'The Pricke of Conscience' and 'Ancren Riwle'. Following the French convention, many history books were written in verse, such as Layamon's 'Brut' and Robert of Gloucester's 'Chronicle'. Literature of debate is a French convention that is exemplified in 'The Owl and the Nightingale' and 'Wynnere and Wastoure'. Old English allegories (of the type such as 'Phoenix') are few, but now prominent allegories like 'Piers the Plowman' by Langland, along with 'Patience' and 'Purity' were composed. Dream vision poems like 'Pearl', 'The Romaunt of the Rose' and 'The House of Fame' also show French influence. Many famous English poets like Chaucer and Gower were influenced by French writers like Guillaume de Machaut and Jean Froissart. Stylistically, the influence of the Norman Conquest was that the alliteration of Old English poetry and also its regular stress with number of syllables give way to rhyme and assonance with fixed number of syllabus in medieval verse. Chaucer's 'The Legend of Good Wimmen' introduced into English poetry the heroic couplet while 'A Complaint to his Ladie' introduced the terza reina and 'A Complaint unto Pity ' brought the rhyme royal into English. We now come to Geoffrey Chaucer, the representative poet of the period. Chaucer is the first great English poet in the history of English literature and with him, the literary history of England enters into a new phase. Chaucer was born in 1343. The name “Chaucer” is derived from the French word "chaussier" meaning maker of footwear, which indicates that Chaucer's ancestors were connected with the leather trade. Additionally, Chaucer's father John was a wine merchant. As a boy, Chaucer used to help his father in the wine shop, which gave him the opportunity to observe people from different strata of society — the lowest rungs to the refined classes — who visited the wine shop. Chaucer's father was also the deputy butler to King Edward III, and this royal connection enabled him to secure for his son a position as the page of Countess Elizabeth, daughter-in-law of the King. He was 13 or 14 years of age at that time. In 1359, Chaucer was participating in the Hundred Years War as part of the King's army. Later on, he was a part of many diplomatic missions sent by England to France in this connection. In 1373, Chaucer had achieved a stature important enough to be sent on his first diplomatic mission to Italy, followed by another in 1378. In around 1387, he started writing The Canterbury Tales. He died in 1400 and was the first to be buried in the Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey. It is obvious from the above introduction that Chaucer lived an active life and was engaged in diverse professions. The manifold opportunities that life provided him enabled him to study human nature broadly. As a diplomat, he was able to acquaint himself with the literatures of France and Italy when he was a resident of these countries. It is customary to divide his literary output into three periods — the French, the Italian and the English, although the classification is not rigid. The Romaunt of the Rose occurs in the French period and is a translation of the popular medieval French poem Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung. Of the 7696 lines of the poem, critics opine that the first 1705 lines are probably by Chaucer. The octosyllabic couplets of the translation contributed many stock features such as dream-setting, the month of May, twittering birds and the perfume of flowers to the late poems of Chaucer. The convention of chivalrous love is an important feature of the work by Chaucer. Another work of this period is The Boke of the Duchesse written in 1369 which is the only datable work of Chaucer. It is a dream allegory traditionally accepted as the lament over the death of Blanche, wife of Chaucer's patron John of Gaunt, on 12th September 1369. Through skilful dialogue, occasional pathos and introspective imagination, the poem exists as both an elegy and a eulogy. It is influenced by Ovid's Metamorphoses and the French author Guillaume de Machaut. Chaucer's ABC, A Compleynt to his Ladie, and The Compleynt unto Pity are minor poems from this period. In the Italian period we have The Hous of Fame which symbolizes the approaching union between Richard II and Anne of Bohemia. It owes much to Dante's Divine Comedy in form and is likewise divided into three books. Like most of Chaucer's work, this is also a dream poem and Chaucer dreams that he is carried on the back of an eagle to the House of Fame. Digressions, apostrophes, irony and humour are all important elements of Chaucer's style here, and his descriptive power is evident in the description of the temple of Venus and the house of Fame. The Parlement of Fowles celebrates the engagement of King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia through the allegory of birds gathering on St.Valentines' Day to choose their mates. As a social allegory, the classification of the birds into groups may represent different social categories. Troilus and Criseyde is another well-known work of this period frequently recognized as the first great work in English. The work is indebted to II Filostrato by Boccaccio. Although the conversations are protracted and the action deficient, occasionally he excels in mastery over rhyme royal stanzas, in his characteristic naturalness, dialogue, ready humour and understanding of incident and situation. The work shows are notable advance in the poet's narrative power and characterization. In The Legende of Good Wimmen Chaucer admits that he wanted to commemorate nineteen faithful female followers of the God of love, but ends up describing only nine. In the English period of Chaucer’s literary output, the most important work is The Canterbury Tales. Here twenty nine pilgrims (excluding himself) assemble at the Tabard Inn in Southwark intending to go on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. Each pilgrim is supposed to tell two tales on the way to the shrine and two on the way back. Of the 120 tales so contemplated, Chaucer completed only twenty and left four incomplete. Two of the tales — The Tale of Melibeus and The Parson's Tale — are in prose. The General Prologue to this work gives us a wonderful pen-portrait of each of the pilgrims, making us realize the value of Dryden's statement "Here is God's Plenty". Plenitude is also evident in the different genres of stories incorporated into the setup of the storytelling contest: we have the romance, the allegory, the beast fable, hagiography, the Breton lai and the exemplum among others. It is because of this versatility, the propensity to laugh genially at the follies and foibles of society, the ability to criticize society’s blackguards without sacrificing catholicity of vision that Chaucer is accorded such a high position in the British literary canon. Yet, there are also critics like Matthew Arnold who find fault with Chaucer on the ground that he lacks “High Seriousness” of the type to be found in Homer, Dante and Milton. Interest in Chaucer is also on the wane today, with new subjects of study holding centre-stage in post-modernist academic pursuits. Indian universities unfortunately are progressively becoming reluctant to retain Chaucer and mediaeval studies on their curriculum. One hopes that the Father of English Poetry will witness a revival of interest in his works one day.