Outlines of English and American Literature
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William J. Long >> Outlines of English and American Literature
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And as for me, though that my wit be lyte,
On bokes for to rede I me delyte.
Again, in _The House of Fame_ he speaks of finding his real
life in books after his daily work in the customhouse is ended.
Some of the "rekeninges" (itemized accounts of goods and duties) to
which he refers are still preserved in Chaucer's handwriting:
For whan thy labour doon al is,
And hast y-maad thy rekeninges,
In stede of reste and newe thinges
Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon,
And, also domb as any stoon,
Thou sittest at another boke
Til fully dawsed is thy loke,
And livest thus as an hermyte,
Although thine abstinence is lyte.
Such are the scanty facts concerning England's first great poet,
the more elaborate biographies being made up chiefly of guesses or
doubtful inferences. He died in the year 1400, and was buried in
St. Benet's chapel in Westminster Abbey, a place now revered by all
lovers of literature as the Poets' Corner.
ON READING CHAUCER. Said Caxton, who was the first to print
Chaucer's poetry, "He writeth no void words, but all his matter is
full of high and quick sentence." Caxton was right, and the modern
reader's first aim should be to get the sense of Chaucer rather
than his pronunciation. To understand him is not so difficult as
appears at first sight, for most of the words that look strange
because of their spelling will reveal their meaning to the ear if
spoken aloud. Thus the word "leefful" becomes "leveful" or
"leaveful" or "permissible."
Next, the reader should remember that Chaucer was a master of
versification, and that every stanza of his is musical. At the
beginning of a poem, therefore, read a few lines aloud, emphasizing
the accented syllables until the rhythm is fixed; then make every
line conform to it, and every word keep step to the music. To do
this it is necessary to slur certain words and run others together;
also, since the mistakes of Chaucer's copyists are repeated in
modern editions, it is often necessary to add a helpful word or
syllable to a line, or to omit others that are plainly superfluous.
This way of reading Chaucer musically, as one would read any other
poet, has three advantages: it is easy, it is pleasant, and it is
far more effective than the learning of a hundred specifications
laid down by the grammarians.
[Sidenote: RULES FOR READING]
As for Chaucer's pronunciation, you will not get that accurately
without much study, which were better spent on more important
matters; so be content with a few rules, which aim simply to help
you enjoy the reading. As a general principle, the root vowel of a
word was broadly sounded, and the rest slurred over. The
characteristic sound of _a_ was as in "far"; _e_ was
sounded like _a_, _i_ like _e_, and all diphthongs
as broadly as possible,--in "floures" (flowers), for example, which
should be pronounced "floores."
Another rule relates to final syllables, and these will appear more
interesting if we remember that they represent the dying
inflections of nouns and adjectives, which were then declined as in
modern German. Final _ed_ and _es_ are variable, but the
rhythm will always tell us whether they should be given an extra
syllable or not. So also with final _e_, which is often
sounded, but not if the following word begins with a vowel or with
_h_. In the latter case the two words may be run together, as
in reading Virgil. If a final _e_ occurs at the end of a line,
it may be lightly pronounced, like _a_ in "China," to give
added melody to the verse.
Applying these rules, and using our liberty as freely as Chaucer
used his, [Footnote: The language was changing rapidly in Chaucer's
day, and there were no printed books to fix a standard. Sometimes
Chaucer's grammar and spelling are according to rule, and again as
heaven pleases.] the opening lines of _The Canterbury Tales_
would read something like this:
Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
_Whan that Apreele with 'is shoores sohte_
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
_The drooth of March hath paarced to the rohte_
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
_And bahthed ev'ree vyne in swech lecoor,_
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
_Of whech varetu engendred is the floor;_
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
_Whan Zephirus aik with 'is swaite braith_
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
_Inspeered hath in ev'ree holt and haith_
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
_The tendre croopes, and th' yoonge sonne_
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
_Hath in the Ram 'is hawfe coors ironne,_
And smale fowles maken melodye,
_And smawle fooles mahken malyodiee,_
That slepen al the night with open ye
_That slaipen awl the nicht with open ee_
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages)
_(So priketh 'eem nahtur in hir coorahges)_
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.
_Than longen folk to goon on peelgrimahges._
EARLY WORKS OF CHAUCER. In his first period, which was dominated by French
influence, Chaucer probably translated parts of the _Roman de la
Rose_, a dreary allegorical poem in which love is represented as a
queen-rose in a garden, surrounded by her court and ministers. In
endeavoring to pluck this rose the lover learns the "commandments" and
"sacraments" of love, and meets with various adventures at the hands of
Virtue, Constancy, and other shadowy personages of less repute. Such
allegories were the delight of the Middle Ages; now they are as dust and
ashes. Other and better works of this period are _The Book of the
Duchess_, an elegy written on the death of Blanche, wife of Chaucer's
patron, and various minor poems, such as "Compleynte unto Pitee," the
dainty love song "To Rosemunde," and "Truth" or the "Ballad of Good
Counsel."
Characteristic works of the second or Italian period are _The House of
Fame_, _The Legend of Good Women_, and especially _Troilus and
Criseyde_. The last-named, though little known to modern readers, is one
of the most remarkable narrative poems in our literature. It began as a
retelling of a familiar romance; it ended in an original poem, which might
easily be made into a drama or a "modern" novel.
[Sidenote: STORY OF TROILUS]
The scene opens in Troy, during the siege of the city by the
Greeks. The hero Troilus is a son of Priam, and is second only to
the mighty Hector in warlike deeds. Devoted as he is to glory, he
scoffs at lovers until the moment when his eye lights on Cressida.
She is a beautiful young widow, and is free to do as she pleases
for the moment, her father Calchas having gone over to the Greeks
to escape the doom which he sees impending on Troy. Troilus falls
desperately in love with Cressida, but she does not know or care,
and he is ashamed to speak his mind after scoffing so long at love.
Then appears Pandarus, friend of Troilus and uncle to Cressida, who
soon learns the secret and brings the young people together. After
a long courtship with interminable speeches (as in the old
romances) Troilus wins the lady, and all goes happily until Calchas
arranges to have his daughter brought to him in exchange for a
captured Trojan warrior. The lovers are separated with many tears,
but Cressida comforts the despairing Troilus by promising to
hoodwink her doting father and return in a few days. Calchas,
however, loves his daughter too well to trust her in a city that
must soon be given over to plunder, and keeps her safe in the Greek
camp. There the handsome young Diomede wins her, and presently
Troilus is killed in battle by Achilles.
Such is the old romance of feminine fickleness, which had been written a
hundred times before Chaucer took it bodily from Boccaccio. Moreover he
humored the old romantic delusion which required that a lover should fall
sick in the absence of his mistress, and turn pale or swoon at the sight of
her; but he added to the tale many elements not found in the old romances,
such as real men and women, humor, pathos, analysis of human motives, and a
sense of impending tragedy which comes not from the loss of wealth or
happiness but of character. Cressida's final thought of her first lover is
intensely pathetic, and a whole chapter of psychology is summed up in the
line in which she promises herself to be true to Diomede at the very moment
when she is false to Troilus:
"Allas! of me unto the worldes ende
Shal neyther ben ywriten nor y-songe
No good word; for these bookes wol me shende.
O, rolled shal I ben on many a tonge!
Thurghout the world my belle shal be ronge,
And wommen moste wol haten me of alle.
Allas, that swich a cas me sholde falle!
They wol seyn, in-as-much as in me is,
I have hem doon dishonour, weylawey!
Al be I not the firste that dide amis,
What helpeth that to doon my blame awey?
But since I see ther is no betre wey,
And that too late is now for me to rewe,
To Diomede, algate, I wol be trewe."
THE CANTERBURY TALES. The plan of gathering a company of people and letting
each tell his favorite story has been used by so many poets, ancient and
modern, that it is idle to seek the origin of it. Like Topsy, it wasn't
born; it just grew up. Chaucer's plan, however, is more comprehensive than
any other in that it includes all classes of society; it is also more
original in that it does not invent heroic characters but takes such men
and women as one might meet in any assembly, and shows how typical they are
of humanity in all ages. As Lowell says, Chaucer made use in his
_Canterbury Tales_ of two things that are everywhere regarded as
symbols of human life; namely, the short journey and the inn. We might add,
as an indication of Chaucer's philosophy, that his inn is a comfortable
one, and that the journey is made in pleasant company and in fair weather.
An outline of Chaucer's great work is as follows. On an evening in
springtime the poet comes to Tabard Inn, in Southwark, and finds it
filled with a merry company of men and women bent on a pilgrimage
to the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury.
After supper appears the jovial host, Harry Bailey, who finds the
company so attractive that he must join it on its pilgrimage. He
proposes that, as they shall be long on the way, they shall furnish
their own entertainment by telling stories, the best tale to be
rewarded by the best of suppers when the pilgrims return from
Canterbury. They assent joyfully, and on the morrow begin their
journey, cheered by the Knight's Tale as they ride forth under the
sunrise. The light of morning and of springtime is upon this work,
which is commonly placed at the beginning of modern English
literature.
As the journey proceeds we note two distinct parts to Chaucer's record. One
part, made up of prologues and interludes, portrays the characters and
action of the present comedy; the other part, consisting of stories,
reflects the comedies and tragedies of long ago. The one shows the
perishable side of the men and women of Chaucer's day, their habits, dress,
conversation; the other reveals an imperishable world of thought, feeling,
ideals, in which these same men and women discover their kinship to
humanity. It is possible, since some of the stories are related to each
other, that Chaucer meant to arrange the _Canterbury Tales_ in
dramatic unity, so as to make a huge comedy of human society; but the work
as it comes down to us is fragmentary, and no one has discovered the order
in which the fragments should be fitted together.
[Illustration: PILGRIMS SETTING OUT FROM THE "TABARD"]
[Sidenote: THE PROLOGUE]
The Prologue is perhaps the best single fragment of the _Canterbury
Tales_. In it Chaucer introduces us to the characters of his drama: to
the grave Knight and the gay Squire, the one a model of Chivalry at its
best, "a verray parfit gentil knight," the other a young man so full of
life and love that "he slept namore than dooth a nightingale"; to the
modest Prioress, also, with her pretty clothes, her exquisite manners, her
boarding-school accomplishments:
And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe.
In contrast to this dainty figure is the coarse Wife of Bath, as garrulous
as the nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_. So one character stands to another
as shade to light, as they appear in a typical novel of Dickens. The
Church, the greatest factor in medieval life, is misrepresented by the
hunting Monk and the begging Friar, and is well represented by the Parson,
who practiced true religion before he preached it:
But Christes lore and his apostles twelve
He taughte, and first he folwed it himselve.
Trade is represented by the Merchant, scholarship by the poor Clerk of
Oxenford, the professions by the Doctor and the Man-of-law, common folk by
the Yeoman, Frankelyn (farmer), Miller and many others of low degree.
Prominent among the latter was the Shipman:
Hardy he was, and wys to undertake;
With many a tempest hadde his berd been shake.
From this character, whom Stevenson might have borrowed for his _Treasure
Island_, we infer the barbarity that prevailed when commerce was new,
when the English sailor was by turns smuggler or pirate, equally ready to
sail or scuttle a ship, and to silence any tongue that might tell tales by
making its wretched owner "walk the plank." Chaucer's description of the
latter process is a masterpiece of piratical humor:
If that he faught and hadde the hyer hond,
By water he sente hem hoom to every lond.
[Sidenote: VARIETY OF TALES]
Some thirty pilgrims appear in the famous Prologue, and as each was to tell
two stories on the way to Canterbury, and two more on the return, it is
probable that Chaucer contemplated a work of more than a hundred tales.
Only four-and-twenty were completed, but these are enough to cover the
field of light literature in that day, from the romance of love to the
humorous animal fable. Between these are wonder-stories of giants and
fairies, satires on the monks, parodies on literature, and some examples of
coarse horseplay for which Chaucer offers an apology, saying that he must
let each pilgrim tell his tale in his own way.
A round dozen of these tales may still be read with pleasure; but, as a
suggestion of Chaucer's variety, we name only three: the Knight's romance
of "Palamon and Arcite," the Nun's Priest's fable of "Chanticleer," and the
Clerk's old ballad of "Patient Griselda." The last-named will be more
interesting if we remember that the subject of woman's rights had been
hurled at the heads of the pilgrims by the Wife of Bath, and that the Clerk
told his story to illustrate his different ideal of womanhood.
THE CHARM OF CHAUCER. The first of Chaucer's qualities is that he is an
excellent story-teller; which means that he has a tale to tell, a good
method of telling it, and a philosophy of life which gives us something to
think about aside from the narrative. He had a profound insight of human
nature, and in telling the simplest story was sure to slip in some nugget
of wisdom or humor: "What wol nat be mote need be left," "For three may
keep counsel if twain be away," "The lyf so short, the craft so long to
lerne," "Ful wys is he that can himselven knowe,"
The firste vertue, sone, if thou wilt lere,
Is to restreine and kepen wel thy tonge.
There are literally hundreds of such "good things" which make Chaucer a
constant delight to those who, by a very little practice, can understand
him almost as easily as Shakespeare. Moreover he was a careful artist; he
knew the principles of poetry and of story-telling, and before he wrote a
song or a tale he considered both his subject and his audience, repeating
to himself his own rule:
Ther nis no werkman, whatsoever he be,
That may bothe werke wel and hastily:
This wol be doon at leysur, parfitly.
A second quality of Chaucer is his power of observation, a power so
extraordinary that, unlike other poets, he did not need to invent scenes or
characters but only to describe what he had seen and heard in this
wonderful world. As he makes one of his characters say:
For certeynly, he that me made
To comen hider seyde me:
I shoulde bothe hear et see
In this place wonder thinges.
In the _Canterbury Tales_ alone he employs more than a score of
characters, and hardly a romantic hero among them; rather does he delight
in plain men and women, who reveal their quality not so much in their
action as in their dress, manner, or tricks of speech. For Chaucer has the
glance of an Indian, which passes over all obvious matters to light upon
one significant detail; and that detail furnishes the name or the adjective
of the object. Sometimes his descriptions of men or nature are microscopic
in their accuracy, and again in a single line he awakens the reader's
imagination,--as when Pandarus (in _Troilus_), in order to make
himself unobtrusive in a room where he is not wanted, picks up a manuscript
and "makes a face," that is, he pretends to be absorbed in a story,
and fand his countenance
As for to loke upon an old romance.
A dozen striking examples might be given, but we shall note only one. In
the _Book of the Duchess_ the poet is in a forest, when a chase sweeps
by with whoop of huntsman and clamor of hounds. After the hunt, when the
woods are all still, comes a little lost dog:
Hit com and creep to me as lowe
Right as hit hadde me y-knowe,
Hild down his heed and jiyned his eres,
And leyde al smouthe doun his heres.
I wolde han caught hit, and anoon
Hit fledde and was fro me goon.
[Sidenote: CHAUCER'S HUMOR]
Next to his power of description, Chaucer's best quality is his humor, a
humor which is hard to phrase, since it runs from the keenest wit to the
broadest farce, yet is always kindly and human. A mendicant friar comes in
out of the cold, glances about the snug kitchen for the best seat:
And fro the bench he droof awey the cat.
Sometimes his humor is delicate, as in touching up the foibles of the
Doctor or the Man-of-law, or in the Priest's translation of Chanticleer's
evil remark about women:
_In principio_
_Mulier est hominis confusio._
Madame, the sentence of this Latin is:
Woman is mannes joye and al his blis.
The humor broadens in the Wife of Bath, who tells how she managed several
husbands by making their lives miserable; and occasionally it grows a
little grim, as when the Maunciple tells the difference between a big and a
little rascal. The former does evil on a large scale, and,
Lo! therfor is he cleped a Capitain;
But for the outlawe hath but small meynee,
And may not doon so gret an harm as he,
Ne bring a countree to so gret mischeef,
Men clepen him an outlawe or a theef.
[Sidenote: FREEDOM FROM BIAS]
A fourth quality of Chaucer is his broad tolerance, his absolute
disinterestedness. He leaves reforms to Wyclif and Langland, and can laugh
with the Shipman who turns smuggler, or with the worldly Monk whose
"jingling" bridle keeps others as well as himself from hearing the chapel
bell. He will not even criticize the fickle Cressida for deserting Troilus,
saying that men tell tales about her, which is punishment enough for any
woman. In fine, Chaucer is content to picture a world in which the rain
falleth alike upon the just and the unjust, and in which the latter seem to
have a liberal share of the umbrellas. He enjoys it all, and describes its
inhabitants as they are, not as he thinks they ought to be. The reader may
think that this or that character deserves to come to a bad end; but not so
Chaucer, who regards them all as kindly, as impersonally as Nature herself.
So the Canterbury pilgrims are not simply fourteenth-century Englishmen;
they are human types whom Chaucer met at the Tabard Inn, and whom later
English writers discover on all of earth's highways. One appears unchanged
in Shakespeare's drama, another in a novel of Jane Austen, a third lives
over the way or down the street. From century to century they change not,
save in name or dress. The poet who described or created such enduring
characters stands among the few who are called universal writers.
* * * * *
CHAUCER'S CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS
Someone has compared a literary period to a wood in which a few giant oaks
lift head and shoulders above many other trees, all nourished by the same
soil and air. If we follow this figure, Langland and Wyclif are the only
growths that tower beside Chaucer, and Wyclif was a reformer who belongs to
English history rather than to literature.
LANGLAND. William Langland (_cir_. 1332--1400) is a great figure in
obscurity. We are not certain even of his name, and we must search his work
to discover that he was, probably, a poor lay-priest whose life was
governed by two motives: a passion for the poor, which led him to plead
their cause in poetry, and a longing for all knowledge:
All the sciences under sonne, and all the sotyle craftes,
I wolde I knew and couthe, kyndely in myne herte.
His chief poem, _Piers Plowman_ (_cir_. 1362), is a series of
visions in which are portrayed the shams and impostures of the age and the
misery of the common people. The poem is, therefore, as the heavy shadow
which throws into relief the bright picture of the _Canterbury Tales_.
For example, while Chaucer portrays the Tabard Inn with its good cheer and
merry company, Langland goes to another inn on the next street; there he
looks with pure eyes upon sad or evil-faced men and women, drinking,
gaming, quarreling, and pictures a scene of physical and moral degradation.
One must look on both pictures to know what an English inn was like in the
fourteenth century.
Because of its crude form and dialect _Piers Plowman_ is hard to
follow; but to the few who have read it and entered into Langland's
vision--shared his passion for the poor, his hatred of shams, his belief in
the gospel of honest work, his humor and satire and philosophy--it is one
of the most powerful and original poems in English literature. [Footnote:
The working classes were beginning to assert themselves in this age, and to
proclaim "the rights of man." Witness the followers of John Ball, and his
influence over the crowd when he chanted the lines:
When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?
Langland's poem, written in the midst of the labor agitation, was the first
glorification of labor to appear in English literature. Those who read it
may make an interesting comparison between "Piers Plowman" and a modern
labor poem, such as Hood's "Song of the Shirt" or Markham's "The Man with
the Hoe."]
MALORY. Judged by its influence, the greatest prose work of the fifteenth
century was the _Morte d'Arthur_ of Thomas Malory (d. 1471). Of the
English knight who compiled this work very little is known beyond this,
that he sought to preserve in literature the spirit of medieval knighthood
and religion. He tells us nothing of this purpose; but Caxton, who received
the only known copy of Malory's manuscript and published it in 1485, seems
to have reflected the author's spirit in these words:
"I according to my copy have set it in imprint, to the intent that
noble men may see and learn the noble acts of chivalry, the gentle
and virtuous deeds that some knyghts used in those days, by which
they came to honour, and how they that were vicious were punished
and put oft to shame and rebuke.... For herein may be seen noble
chivalry, courtesy, humanity, hardness, love, friendship,
cowardice, murder, hate, virtue and sin. Do after the good, and
leave the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and renommee."
[Illustration: A STREET IN CAERLEON ON USK
The traditional home of King Arthur]
Malory's spirit is further indicated by the fact that he passed over all
extravagant tales of foreign heroes and used only the best of the Arthurian
romances. [Footnote: For the origin of the Arthurian stories see above,
"Geoffrey and the Legends of Arthur" in Chapter II. An example of the way
these stories were enlarged is given by Lewis, _Beginnings of English
Literature_, pp 73-76, who records the story of Arthur's death as told,
first, by Geoffrey, then by Layamon, and finally by Malory, who copied the
tale from French sources. If we add Tennyson's "Passing of Arthur," we
shall have the story as told from the twelfth to the nineteenth century.]
These had been left in a chaotic state by poets, and Malory brought order
out of the chaos by omitting tedious fables and arranging his material in
something like dramatic unity under three heads: the Coming of Arthur with
its glorious promise, the Round Table, and the Search for the Holy Grail:
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