Chaucer, the Genesis of English Literature (part 1)

NET/SLET/TRB Study Guide
Date: 18th February, 2018

Profile of Chaucer
1.Name – Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 – 1400)

2.Contemporary Writers -  William Langland, John Wycliff, John Gower, John Lydgate and Nicholas Love, Italian writers: Petrarch (1304 -74) and Boccaccio (1313-75)

3.Contemporary Rulers and events – Edward III, Rechard II and Henry IV
(I)The Hundred Years War (1337 -53)
(II)The Black Death (1347 – 51)
(III)Peasants Revolt (1381)

4.Chaucer's major works –
(I)Book of the Duchess (1369-72)
(II)The House of fame (1379-80)
(III)Parliament of Foules (1382)
(IV)The Legend of Good Women (1386-88)
(V)Troilus and Criseyde (1391)
(VI)The Canterbury Tales(1380a to 1390s)

(VII)Translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy
(VIII)Translation of French poem: The Romance of the Rose
(IX)Prose : A Treatise on the Astrolabe

5.Chaucer’s Influences –
(I)Travelled to France, Italy and Spain and much influenced by its culture and writers
(II)Chiefly Influenced by the works of Italian poets Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio
(III)Book of Duchess – French Influence, The House of Fame  - French and Italian influence(Virgil and Ovid), Troilus and Criseyde – Italian influence
(IV)Influenced by his active career as a British courtier, soldier and diplomat

6.Chaucer's literary style –
(I)Recognised as Father of English Poetry and Language
(II)Introduced Rhyme Royal – a stanza of seven lines usually in iambic pentameter with ababbcc rhyme scheme
(III)Named as rhyme royal since James I of Scotland used it for his chaucerian poem The Kingis Quaire and later Shakespeare used it in The Rape of Lucrece
(IV)Best known for his powerful description of characters and contemporary life
(V)Being the first great story teller in verse
(VI)His works showing  extraordinary insight into human nature
(VII)Produced works in three languages French, Latin and English
(VIII)Used frame narrative, a literary technique for setting up a story within a story

7.What critics say about Chaucer?
(I)Dryden in his Preface to Fables in 1700: “As he is the Father of English Poetry, so I hold him in the same Degree of Veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil: He is a perpetual Fountain of good Sense;  and admires his work as “Here is God’s Plenty.”

(II)Matthew Arnold in his “Study of Poetry”(1888): “His view of life is large, free, simple, clear and kindly.  He has shown the power to survey the world from a central, a human point of view.” However, Chaucer lacks high and excellent seriousness…..Homer’s criticism of life has it, Shakespeare has it, Dante has it,”

(III)Lord Byron: “Chaucer, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on him, I think obscene and contemptible;—he owes his celebrity, merely to his antiquity, which he does not deserve so well as Pierce Plowman, or Thomas of Ercildoune”

(IV)Edmund Spencer in “The Faerie Queene": Dan Chaucer, well of English undefil'd /On Fame's eternal bead-roll worthy to be fil'd.” and “Dan Geffrey, in whose gentle spright /The pure well-head of poetry did dwell.”

(V)Lord Tennyson in “A Dream of Fair Woman"(1832) :
“The morning star of song, who made
His music heard below;
Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.”

8. Critical Summary of  Chaucer’s works:
(I)Book of the Duchess (1368-72):
Chaucer's patron is John of Gaunt whose wife Blanche died in 1368 and the occasion prompted Chaucer to write an elegy on her death. As in most of his poems, Chaucer here falls in sleep and has a dream vision.  Before sleep he reads a book that narrates the story of Ceyx who is lost in the sea.  His lady Alcyone on the shore prays to goddess Juno for a dream vision to know what happened to her husband. Juno summons Morpheus, the God of sleep to inhabit the body of Ceyx and visit Alcyone. Ceyx meets Alcyone and asks her to bury his body to end her sorrow. When she wakes up, Ceyx is gone and Alcyone also does after three days.

Now it's Chaucer's turn who falls in sleep and in his dream finds himself in a chamber in which glasses have the story of Troy and the walls have the story of Romance of the Rose. Following a hunting dog outside, Chaucer enters a forest where he sees a knight dressed in black. On asking about grief, he narrates how he played the game of chess with Fortuna and lost his queen being checkmated.  He also talks about his love affair and the sweet moments he had with his lady “good, fair White" who is dead now. Chaucer consoles the Knight and wakes up from sleep and decides to write his dream in verse. 
It's Chaucer's earliest long dream poet in 1334 lines penned in octosyllabic couplets. The man in black is apparently Chaucer's patron John of Gaunt and the Lady White is his dead wife.  Maintaining the story within a story technique, he reveals his love for the story of Troy and the French poem the Romance of the Rose. However some critics like Edward I. Condran read this poem as “a plea for patronage.”