1 INTRODUCTION
2 ORAL TRADITION IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND
2.1 Medieval literature and the oral tradition
2.2 Epic and religious epic : Beowulf and Caedmon´s Hymn
2.3 The Arthurian legend
A The historical and legendary figure of King Arthur
B Chivalric literature
C Literary manifestations of the Arthurian Legend
3 GEOFFREY CHAUCER: THE CANTERBURY TALES
3.1 Biography and chronology of Chaucer´s works
3.2 Literary characteristics of his works
3.3 The Canterbury Tales
A Literary techniques and conventions
B Originality of Chaucer
C Topics
4 STUDY GUIDE
5 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 INTRODUCTION
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (encompassing the one thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca. AD 500 to the beginning of the Florentine Renaissance in the late 15th century). The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works. Just as in modern literature, it is a complex and rich field of study, from the utterly sacred to the exuberantly profane, touching all points in-between. Because of the wide range of time and place it is difficult to speak in general terms without oversimplification, and thus the literature is best characterized by its place of origin and/or language, as well as its genre.
In the following topic we shall study the relations of the oral tradition with the medieval literature and the main exponent of it, the so-called Arthurian legend. We will also analyse the figure of King Arthur and the main literary manifestations of the myth.
Since Latin was the language of the Roman Catholic Church, which dominated Western and Central Europe, and since the Church was virtually the only source of education, Latin was a common language for Medieval writings, even in some parts of Europe that were never Romanized. However, in Eastern Europe, the influence of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Eastern Orthodox Church made Greek and Old Church Slavonic the dominant written languages.
The common people continued to use their respective vernaculars. A few examples, such as the Old English Beowulf, the Middle High German Nibelungenlied, the Medieval Greek Digenis Acritas and the Old French Chanson de Roland, are well known to this day. Although the extant versions of these epics are generally considered the works of individual (but anonymous) poets, there is no doubt that they are based on their peoples’ older oral traditions. Celtic traditions have survived in the lais of Marie de France, the Mabinogion and the Arthurian cycles.
On the other hand, by the “Arthurian legend,” or Matiere de Bretagne, we mean the subject-matter of that important body of medieval literature known as the Arthurian cycle (see Arthur). The period covered by the texts in their present form represents, roughly speaking, the century 1150-1250. The History of Nennius is, of course, considerably earlier, and that of Geoffrey of Monmouth somewhat antedates 1150 (1136), but with these exceptions the dates above given will be found to cover the composition of all our extant texts.
In the second part of this topic, we will study the literary figure of Geoffrey Chaucer, who was best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales. Sometimes called the father of English literature, Chaucer is credited by some scholars as being the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular language.
2 ORAL TRADITION IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND
2.1 Medieval literature and oral tradition
A notable amount of medieval literature is anonymous. This is not only due to the lack of documents from a period, but also due to an interpretation of the author‘s role that differs considerably from the romantic interpretation of the term in use today. Medieval authors were often overawed by the classical writers and the Church Fathers and tended to re-tell and embellish stories they had heard or read rather than invent new stories. And even when they did, they often claimed to be handing down something from an author instead. From this point of view, the names of the individual authors seemed much less important, and therefore many important works were never attributed to any specific person.
As shown in the chart to the right, theological works were the dominant form of literature typically found in libraries during the Middle Ages. Catholic clerics were the intellectual center of society in the Middle Ages, and it is their literature that was produced in the greatest quantity.
Countless hymns survive from this time period (both liturgical and paraliturgical). The liturgy itself was not in fixed form, and numerous competing missals set out individual conceptions of the order of the mass. Religious scholars such as Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, and Pierre Abélard wrote lengthy theological and philosophical treatises, often attempting to reconcile the teachings of the Greek and Roman pagan authors with the doctrines of the Church. Hagiographies, or “lives of the saints”, were also frequently written, as an encouragement to the devout and a warning to others.
The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine reached such popularity that, in its time, it was reportedly read more often than the Bible. Francis of Assisi was a prolific poet, and his Franciscan followers frequently wrote poetry themselves as an expression of their piety. Dies Irae and Stabat Mater are two of the most powerful Latin poems on religious subjects. Goliardic poetry (four-line stanzas of satiric verse) was an art form used by some clerics to express dissent. The only widespread religious writing that was not produced by clerics were the mystery plays: growing out of simple tableaux re-enactments of a single Biblical scene, each mystery play became its village’s expression of the key events in the Bible. The text of these plays was often controlled by local guilds, and mystery plays would be performed regularly on set feast-days, often lasting all day long and into the night.
During the Middle Ages, the Jewish population of Europe also produced a number of outstanding writers. Maimonides, born in Cordoba, Spain, and Rashi, born in Troyes, France, are two of the best-known and most influential of these Jewish authors.
Secular literature in this period was not produced in equal quantity as religious literature, but much has survived and we possess today a rich corpus. The subject of “courtly love” became important in the 11th century, especially in the Romance languages (in the French, Spanish, Provençal, Galician and Catalan languages, most notably) and Greek, where the traveling singers—troubadours—made a living from their songs. The writings of the troubadours are often associated with unrequited longing, but this is not entirely accurate (see aubade, for instance). In Germany, the Minnesänger continued the tradition of the troubadours.
In addition to epic poems in the Germanic tradition (e.g. Beowulf and Nibelungenlied), epic poems in the tradition of the chanson de geste (e.g. The Song of Roland & Digenis Acritas) which deal with the Matter of France and the Acritic songs respectively, courtly romances in the tradition of the roman courtois which deal with the Matter of Britain and the Matter of Rome achieved great and lasting popularity. The roman courtois is distinguished from the chanson de geste not only by its subject matter, but also by its emphasis on love and chivalry rather than acts of war.
Political poetry was written also, especially towards the end of this period, and the goliardic form saw use by secular writers as well as clerics. Travel literature was highly popular in the Middle Ages, as fantastic accounts of far-off lands (frequently embellished or entirely false) entertained a society that, in most cases, limited people to the area in which they were born. (But note the importance of pilgrimages, especially to Santiago de Compostela, in medieval times, also witnessed by the prominence of Geoffrey Chaucer‘s Canterbury Tales.)
Medieval English literature is regarded to start after the Norman conquest (second half of the 11th century) lasting until the 16th century. When the Normans came to Britain under William the Conqueror, the literature made by its Anglo-Saxon inhabitants consisted basically of heroic poems. Heroic poems are narrative verse in an elevated style, describing the extraordinary deeds of aristocratic warriors and rulers. As Anglo-Saxons were Germanic, they took the material from the period between the 4th and the 6th century, which was their heroic age: the time of the great migrations of the Germanic peoples across Europe in which they politically and militarily triumphed over Rome. Although some of the heroes portrayed in these poems are historical personages, for artistic reasons their actions are often combined with fantastic events and without a precise historical chronology. Nevertheless, a heroic tale is assumed by the listeners to be somehow true thanks to the impersonal and objective style and the graphic realism of its details.
Out of the wanderings of the Germanic tribes came a rich oral tradition from which developed in the Middle Ages many heroic poems. It was oral literature not composed to be read but to be chanted or recited to the accompaniment of instruments. In order to remember them they had the form of poems, because they were more easily memorised. But they were extremely long, so the poets or bards used certain techniques to remember the lines:
– Music, based on rhythm and alliteration. Rhythm was given by the position of stresses. Lines were divided into two parts, with two stresses in each, and the predominant stress, which was in the second part, determined the predominant sound (alliteration) which linked these two parts.
– Formulaic expressions, common sets of stock phrases and phrase patterns which were repeated at intervals, such as “hwaet, we” (“listen!”).
Therefore, knowing the essentials of a number of traditional stories and armed with a stock of ready made formulaic expressions to describe common happenings (battles, feasts, victories, meetings, …) bards could improvise their tale as they were going along with new incidents and details.
However, the Norman invasion brought about great changes in England. Apart from the political and cultural influence, the linguistic and literary influences were enormous.
The language spoken by the upper classes and at court was Norman French, while the English language was reduced to being the language of the common folk. Therefore English became simplified in structure and vocabulary.
Rhymed verse was introduced as opposed to alliterative Old English literature, as well as a new prosody based on syllabic verse as opposed to stressed verse.
There were also new formal structures in the poems such as the division into strophes.
The Normans also introduced new topics, such as the Code of Chivalry and Courtly love. Women were to be worshipped and men to suffer. Women were idealised, they represented the ideal part of life.
2.2 Epic and religious epic: Beowulf and Caedmon´s Hymn
The Anglo-Saxon epic is traditionally classified into two great themes: the epic, inspired in the war and the heroes of the battles and the religious epic, which uses the formulas of the classic epic as the framework for religious topics.
The main example of early Anglo-Saxon epic is the poem Beowulf, which we will analysis in depth.
The events described in the poem take place in the late 5th century and during the 6th century after the Anglo-Saxons had begun their migration and settlement in England, and before it had ended, a time when the Saxons were either newly arrived or in close contact with their fellow Germanic kinsmen in Scandinavia and Northern Germany. The poem could have been transmitted in England by people of Geatish origins. It has been suggested that Beowulf was first composed in the 7th century at Rendlesham in East Anglia, as Sutton Hoo also shows close connections with Scandinavia, and also that the East Anglian royal dynasty, the Wuffings, were descendants of the Geatish Wulfings. Others have associated this poem with the court of King Alfred, or with the court of King Canute.
The poem was composed for entertainment and does not separate between fictional elements and real historic events, such as the raid by King Hygelac into Frisia, ca. 516. Scholars generally agree that many of the personalities of Beowulf also appear in Scandinavian sources, but this does not only concern people, but also clans and some of the events.
Beowulf was written in England, but is set in Scandinavia. It is an epic poem told in historical perspective; a story of epic events and of great people of a heroic past. Although the author is unknown, its themes and subject matter are generally believed to be formed through oral tradition, the passing down of stories by scops (tale singers) and is considered partly historical. At the same time some scholars argue that, rather than transcription of the tale from the oral tradition by a literate monk, Beowulf reflects an original interpretation of the story by the poet.
The spellings in the poem mix the West Saxon and Anglian dialects of Old English, though they are predominantly West Saxon, as are other Old English poems copied at the time.
Many scholars have proposed the idea that the poem was passed down from recitation to recitation under the theory of Oral-Formulaic Composition, which hypothesizes that epic poems were (at least to some extent) improvised by whoever was reciting them.
Beowulf is considered an epic poem in that the main character is a historic hero who travels great distances to prove his strength at impossible odds against supernatural demons and beasts. The poet who composed Beowulf, while objective in telling the tale, nonetheless utilizes a certain style to maintain excitement and adventure within the story. An elaborate history of characters and their lineages are spoken of, as well as their interactions with each other, debts owed and repaid, and deeds of courage.
In historical terms, the poem’s characters would have been Germanic pagans (the events of the poem took place before the Christianization of Scandinavia). Beowulf thus depicts a Germanic warrior society, in which the relationship between the lord of the region and those who served under him was of paramount importance.
Scholars disagree, however, as to whether the poem is ultimately pagan or Christian in nature.
On the other hand, as the main exponent of the earliest religious epic is Caedmon´s Hymn. Caedmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known. An Anglo-Saxon herdsman attached to the double monastery of Streonæshalch (Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy of St. Hilda (657–680), he was originally ignorant of “the art of song” but supposedly learned to compose one night in the course of a dream. One evening, while the monks were feasting, singing, and playing a harp, Caedmon left early to sleep with the animals because he knew no songs. While asleep, he had a dream in which “someone” (quidem) approached him and asked him to sing principium creaturarum, “the beginning of created things.” After first refusing to sing, Caedmon subsequently produced a short eulogistic poem praising God as the creator of heaven and earth.
Upon awakening the next morning, Caedmon remembered everything he had sung and added additional lines to his poem. He told his foreman about his dream and gift and was taken immediately to see the abbess. The abbess and her counsellors asked Caedmon about his vision and, satisfied that it was a gift from God, gave him a new commission, this time for a poem based on “a passage of sacred history or doctrine”, by way of a test. When Caedmon returned the next morning with the requested poem, he was ordered to take monastic vows. The abbess ordered her scholars to teach Caedmon sacred history and doctrine, which after a night of thought, Bede records, Caedmon would turn into the most beautiful verse. After a long and zealously pious life, Caedmon died like a saint: receiving a premonition of death, he asked to be moved to the abbey’s hospice for the terminally ill where, having gathered his friends around him, he expired just before nocturns. Although often listed as a saint, this is not confirmed by Bede and it has recently been argued that such assertions are incorrect.
According to Bede, Caedmon was responsible for a large oeuvre of splendid vernacular poetic texts on a variety of Christian topics.
Caedmon is one of twelve Anglo-Saxon poets identified in medieval sources, and one of only three for whom both roughly contemporary biographical information and examples of literary output have survived. His story is related in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (“Ecclesiastical History of the English People”) by St. Bede.
Caedmon’s only known surviving work is Caedmon’s Hymn, the nine-line alliterative vernacular praise poem in honour of God he supposedly learned to sing in his initial dream. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is, with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language.
2.3 The “Arthurian legend”
A The historical and legendary figure of King Arthur
The 12th century witnessed the creation of the literary figure of King Arthur thanks to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, which is the primary written source for the legends of King Arthur and his knights, a British warrior, the terror of the Saxons. There are some elements of truth in Geoffrey’s story.
Welsh texts from the 7th and 8th century that speak about a warrior called Arthur (The Black Book of Camarthen).
Nennius, a Welsh historian of the 9th century, author of the Historia Britonum says that Arthur was a Briton military chief (dux belorum) who fought and defeated the Saxons at Mons Baudonicus (circa 500 AD)
Gildas (6th century) in his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae also speaks about that battle.
The Annales Cambriae (anonymous author) speak about Arthur’s death in battle.
As to the origin of this Matiere de Bretagne, and the circumstances under which it became a favourite theme for literary treatment, two diametrically opposite theories are held.
One body of scholars, headed by Professor Wendelin Forster of Bonn, while admitting that, so far as any historic basis can be traced, the events recorded must have happened on insular ground, maintain that the knowledge of these events, and their romantic development, are due entirely to the Bretons of the continent. The British who fled before the Teutonic and Scandinavian invasions of the 6th and 8th centuries, had carried with them to Armorica, and fondly cherished, the remembrance of Arthur and his deeds, which in time had become interwoven with traditions of purely Breton origin. On the other side of the Channel, i.e. in Arthur’s own land, these memories had died out, or at most survived only as the faint echo of historic tradition. Through the medium of French-speaking Bretons these tales came to the cognizance of Northern French poets, notably Chretien de Troyes, who wove them into romances. According to Professor Forster there were no Arthurian romances previous to Chretien, and equally, of course, no insular romantic tradition. This theory reposes mainly on the supposed absence of pre-Chretien poems, and on the writings of Professor H. Zimmer, who derives the Arthurian names largely from Breton roots. This represents the prevailing standpoint of German scholars, and may be called the “continental” theory.
In opposition to this the school of which the late Gaston Paris was the leading, and most brilliant, representative, maintains that the Arthurian tradition, romantic equally with historic, was preserved in Wales through the medium of the bards, was by them communicated to their Norman conquerors, worked up into poems by the AngloNormans, and by them transmitted to the continental poets. This, the “insular” theory, in spite of its inherent probability, has hitherto been at a disadvantage through lack of positive evidence, but in a recently acquired MS. of the British Museum, Add. 36614, we find the first continuator of the Perceval, Wauchier de Denain, quoting as authority for stories of Gawain a certain Bleheris, whom he states to have been “born and bred in Wales.” The identity of this Bleheris with the Bledhericus mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis as Famosus ille fabulator, living at a bygone and unspecified date, and with the Breri quoted by Thomas as authority for the Tristan story, has been fully accepted by leading French scholars. Further, on the evidence of certain MSS. of the Perceval, notably the Paris MS. (Bibl. Nat. 1450), it is clear that Chretien was using, and using freely, the work of a predecessor, large fragments of which have been preserved by the copyists who completed his unfinished work. The evidence of recent discoveries is all in favour of the insular, or French, view.
The most accepted conclusion is that Arthur was probably a romanized Celtic leader who lived at the beginning of the 6th century and who led Britons in victory against the Saxons for some years. Arthur probably defended what Britain retained of the imperial Roman heritage. Geoffrey of Monmouth is likely to have adapted oral traditions, amplifying and distorting them with his own imagination. He for example presents the inhabitants of Britain as descendants of the Trojans and British kings as stemming from Brutus, their leader, descendant of Aeneas.
B Chilvalry literature
Chivalry was more than literature, it became a fashionable philosophy of life for medieval knights. It was the means by which the aggressive instincts of noble young men could be controlled and canalised. Two were its basic constituents: knighthood and courtly love.
Knighthood. By the 12th century medieval society was clearly divided into three complementary groups or estates: peasants, churchmen and warriors. The duty of warriors was to protect the community. They were rigidly organised hierarchically, being bound to their overlords, to whom they had to pay service and obedience in exchange for protection and privileges. This system of organising society is what is known as the feudal system.
By that time the Germanic military system had been refined by a complex pattern of rituals and a very specific code of conduct which a warrior had to follow in order to obtain the category of knight. This code for warriors, common throughout Western Europe, included a ritual bath, a night’s vigil, a sacramental confession, a binding oath of loyalty to his lord, and an oath to protect the weak, to right wrongs and to defend the Christian faith.
At the same time, there was a clean concept of war: the knight met his opponent face to face and fought man to man, with courage, loyalty and honour. Tournaments with very strict rules provided training for warfare and allowed the setting of disputes and quarrels between knights.
As far as courtly love is concerned its main characteristics are:
– The woman emerges as the dominant partner in a love-affair.
It resembles the feudal relationships between a vassal and a lord. A true lover had to pay service to his lady in much the same way as a vassal knight had to pay service to his lord, because the lover must be humble, obedient and, above all, loyal.
It resembles a religion: love as one of the most intense and ennobling experiences that a young man can have. It is an all-absorbing passion which makes the lover sick and weak, longing for his lady, dedicating himself to her service, hoping to win her favour, and to receive her grace. The courtly lover existed to serve his lady, and he saw himself serving the God of Love, performing his ceremonies and obediences and worshipping his lady.
– Love is a long process. It has stages requiring patient service and devotion until it is finally fulfilled. The early ones are of suffering, and lovers have physical symptoms associated to illness, and there is often separation that makes lovers grow miserable.
It functioned beyond or outside marriage, being adulterous very often, as marriage at that time was frequently the result of business interest or power alliances. However, the shared passion of the lovers was recognised as semi-religious in its intensity and ennobling, as love makes the lover better and braver in every way, improving his whole nature.
The garden played an important role in this type of love: it was the perfect physical setting. It was always a walled garden, planted in a delicate way, with lots of flowers and trees, where lovers met and temptations arose.
C Literary manifestations of the Arthurian legend
Royal courts were fascinated by king Arthur, and tried to live up to his ideals. Looking back nostalgically to the reign of the largely mythical Arthur, Edward III founded the Order of the Garter in 1344 and he presided as a pseudo-Arthur, at a mock Round Table, participating in ceremonies and festivities and watching over tournaments designed to show off the valour of his knights. The Tudors presented themselves as descendants from King Arthur because they wanted to legitimise their monarchy. Henry VII considered himself Arturus Redivivus.
This chivalric literature, which was expressed in poems, was greatly encouraged by Henry II’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, granddaughter of the great troubadour William IX, duke of Aquitaine. What she did was to favour a new kind of poetry which linked the elevated view of sexual love cultivated by troubadours with the exploits associated to Arthur and his knights. Similarly, two other very influential French poets of this movement, who are likely to have worked in Britain, inserted the figure of King Arthur in their poetry, Mary of France and Chretien de Troyes. Mary wrote short rhymed compositions, lais, on love meetings of ladies and knights in a world informed by supernatural influence. Chretien’s stories are mainly centred in Camelot, Arthur’s kingdom.
In much the same way, quite a few other authors wrote about King Arthur after Geoffrey of Monmouth, imitating his work. The figure of Arthur became so important and successful after Geoffrey of Monmouth because he was inserted in a Medieval context as he was identified with the ideas of chivalry. He seemed to be a real hero, and therefore emerged as the mirror of all Christian kings. These stories about Arthur constituted the so called matter of Brittany and he became one of the main subjects of a literary genre that substituted heroic poems: romances. In romances unlike in heroic poems no models for national heroism were shown, but they were mere entertainment in the form of adventure stories with a strong component of courtly love, very extravagant and fantastic, with material from very diverse sources, such as supernatural elements, Celtic myths and Christian and pagan legends.
These romances were centred on the legendary King Arthur, the sovereign of a knightly fellowship of the Round Table, his life, the adventures of his knights -Lancelot, Perceval and Gawain- and the adulterous love between his wife Guinevere and his knight Sir Lancelot. This last and the quest for the Holy Grail brought about the dissolution of the knightly fellowship, the death of Arthur, and the destruction of his kingdom.
Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae provides an imaginative account of the British kings from Brutus to Cadaver in 689. The reign of King Arthur is the highest spot of the narrative: he is the son of Uther Pendragon, becomes king at the age of 15 and conquers Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and Orkney with his sword Excalibur. He marries Guinevere and has a son with his half-sister Morgawse, Mordred. Mordred betrays Arthur and is slain in a final battle, where Arthur is also mortally wounded and borne to the island of Avalon. Some features of Geoffrey’s story were marvellous fabrications, and certain features of the Celtic stories were adapted to suit feudal times. In Geoffrey’s book Arthur is a warrior, a war leader. He is not so romanticised as in other versions of the Arthurian legend. He reconstructs churches and shows mercy to the prisoners. The concept of Arthur as a world conqueror was clearly inspired by legends surrounding great leaders such as Alexander the Great and Charlemagne.
Later writers filled out certain details, especially in connection with Arthur’s knightly fellowship.
Wace of Jersey made an adaptatiojn of it into French in the Roman de Brut, written in 1155. He paints vivid pictures and dramatises important incidents. Wace is more romantic than Geoffrey of Monmouth. He presents a more attractive introduction of Guinevere. He also introduces an important innovation: the Round Table.
Layamon wrote the Brut, which was an adaptation into English of Wace’s work, depicting Arthur with all the qualities of a medieval knight.
Using Celtic sources Chretien de Troyes, a French writer of the late 12th century, made Arthur the ruler of a realm of marvels in five romances of adventure, all written in octosyllabic couplets. He also introduced the theme of the Grail into Arthurian legend. The Grail, the cup used by Christ in the Last Supper, was a symbol of perfection.
Prose romances of the 13th century began to explore two major themes: the quest for the Grail and the love story of Guinevere and Lancelot.
An early prose romance centring on Lancelot seems to have become the kernel of a cyclic work known as the Prose Lancelot or Vulgate Cycle (c. 1225). The Lancelot theme was connected with the Grail story through Lancelot’s son, the pure knight Sir Galahad, who achieved the vision of god through the Grail, whereas Sir Lancelot was impeded in his progress along the mystic way because of his adultery with Guinevere.
Another branch of the Vulgate Cycle was based on a very early 13th century verse romance, the Merlin, by Robert de Borron, that told of Arthur’s birth and childhood and his winning of the crown by drawing a magic sword from a stone. The writer of the Vulgate Cycle turned this into prose, adding a pseudo-historical narrative dealing with Arthur’s military exploits.
A final branch of the Vulgate Cycle contained an account of Arthur’s Roman campaign and war with Mordred, to which was added a story of Lancelot’s renewed adultery with Guinevere and the disastrous war between Lancelot and Sir Gawain.
A later prose romance known as the Post-Vulgate Grail Romance (1240) combined Arthurian legend with material from the Tristan romance.
This matter of Brittany continued all through the Middle Ages, shown in important works, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (from the mid 14th century), and Sir Orfeo, and it reached its peak in La Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory (late 15th century). The legend told by the Vulgate Cycle and the Post-Vulgate Romance was transmitted to English speaking readers in Thomas Mallory’s late 15th century prose Le morte D’Arthur. It was the complete story of king Arthur’s life, recounting the foundation, history and destruction of King Arthur’s court and the knights of the Round table. Mallory’s work is the principal responsible for the survival of the myth so far.
3 GEOFFREY CHAUCER: THE CANTERBURY TALES
3.1 Biography and chronology of Chaucer´s works
Writer, official and bureaucrat, he is the outstanding English poet before William Shakespeare. Geoffrey Chaucer is remembered as the author of Canterbury Tales, which ranks as one of the greatest epic works of world literature. Chaucer made a crucial contribution to English literature in writing in English at a time when much court poetry was still composed in Anglo-Norman or Latin. Although he spent one of two brief periods of disfavour, Chaucer lived the whole of his life close the centres of English power.
Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London. His name was of French origin and meant shoemaker. Chaucer was the son of a prosperous wine merchant and deputy to the kings’s butler, and his wife Agnes. Little is known of his early education, but his works show that he could read French, Latin, and Italian.
Chaucer’s career in the royal service began in 1357, when he was appointed to the household of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, and her husband Prince Lionel. In 1359-1360 Chaucer went to France with Edward III’s army during the Hundred Years’ War. He was captured in the Ardennes and returned to England after the treaty of Brétigny in 1360. It it said that during this period he translated from the French the allegory Romaunt of the Rose, which was his first literary work. Chaucer was so valued as a skilled professional soldier that his ransom, £16, then a tidy sum, was paid by his friends and King Edward. There is no certain information of his life from 1361 until c.1366, when he perhaps married Philippa Roet, the sister of John Gaunt’s future wife, and one of Queen Philippa’s ladies. Philippa apparently gave him two sons, ‘little Lewis’, to whom Chaucer addressed A Treatise on the Astrolabe (1391), and Thomas, who was later highly successful in public service. Philippa died in 1387 and Chaucer enjoyed Gaunt’s patronage throughout his life. He was in the King’s service, held a number of positions at court, and spent some time in Spain.
Between 1367 and 1378 Chaucer made several journeys abroad on diplomatic and commercial missions. It is possible that he met Giovanni Boccaccio or Petrarcha in pre-Renaissance Italy in 1372-73. And it is said that the example of Dante gave him the idea of writing in the vulgar English rather than in the court French of the day. In 1374 he became a government official at the port of London, holding the post of Comptroller of the Customs and Subside of Wools, Skins, and Tanned Hides. During that time he was charged with rape, but his guilt or innocence has never been determined. In 1380 he paid Cecile Champaigne for withdrawing the suit. In 1385 he lost his employment and rent-free home, and moved to Kent where he was appointed as justice of the peace. He was also elected to Parliament. This was a period of great creativity for Chaucer, during which he produced most of his best poetry, among others Troilus and Cressida (c. 1385), based on a love story by Boccaccio.
When his wife died, according to records, Chaucer was sued for debt. Several of his friends were executed by the Merciless Parliament. In 1389 Richard II regained control and Chaucer reentered the service of the crown as Clerk of the King’s Works, to upkeep and repair governmental buildings in and out of London. Later 1390s he received royal gifts and pensions. Chaucer seems to have been in attendance (1395-96) on Henry Bolingbroke, John of Gaunt’s son, who deposed Richard II in 1399 and who, as Henry IV, increased Chaucer’s annuity.
The last years of his life Chaucer lived at Greenwich, “an Inne of Shrews,” as the Host calls it in the Canterbury Tales, referring perhaps to the occasion when he was held up or mugged there, not once but twice in the same day. According to tradition, Chaucer died in London on October 25, 1400. He did not leave a will and it has been speculated that he was murdered. The regime of Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, did not accept attacks on the clergy and the ideas of the Lollards, who wanted to return to the apostolic poverty. Chaucer himself had friends who supported the reformist movement. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the part of the church which afterwards came to be called Poet’s Corner. Virtually all the surviving manuscripts of his work date from the fifteenth century. A monument was erected to him in 1555.
Chaucer took his narrative inspiration for his works from several sources, such as the Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Loris, Ovid‘s poems, and such Italian authors as Dante, Petrarcha, and Boccaccio. Their works he may have read during his travels in Italy. Chaucer remained still entirely individual poet, gradually developing his personal style and techniques. He must have heard a number of tales in his life time, it was the most common entertainment in the period of Black Death, popular unrest, serfdom, peasant revolts, foreign and local wars.
His first narrative poem, The Book of the Duchess, was probably written shortly after the death of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, first wife of John Gaunt, in September 1369. It was based largely on French sources, particularly the Roman de la Rose and several works of Guillaume de Machaut. His next important work, The House of Fame, was written between 1374 and 1385, and draw on the works of Ovid, Vergil, and Dante. Soon afterward Chaucer translated the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, and wrote the poem Parliament of Birds.
Chaucer’s writing developed from a period of French influence in the late 1360s, through his ‘middle period’ of both French and Italian Influences, to the last period. Chaucer did not begin working on the Canterbury Tales until he was in his early 40s. The book, which was left unfinished when the author died, has a framing narrative like much medieval literature. It depicts a pilgrimage by some 30 people, who are going on a spring day in April to the shrine of the martyr, St. Thomas à Becket. En route to and from Canterbury they amuse themselves by telling stories. Harry Bailly, the innkeeper, promises a free meal for the best storyteller. Chaucer himself knew well the road and its inns. When Dante’s journey in The Divine Comedy ended in spiritual purification, Chaucer’s pilgrims learn about the weakness of human nature, women’s mastery over men, and how a canon cheated a priest. However, Chaucer do not deny that “the period of pilgrimage” could not end with blessedness. The rather democratic band of pilgrims consists of unprivileged and aristocrats – there is a knight, a monk, a prioress, a ploughman, a miller, a merchant, a clerk, and an oft-widowed wife from Bath. It must be remembered, that Chaucer himself did not belong even the minor nobility, but from his youth he was used to associate with highly influential people.
Chaucer’s innovation was to use such a diverse assembly of narrators, whose stories are interrupted and interlinked with interludes in which the characters talk with each other, revealing much about themselves. His sources included Boccaccio’s Teseida, on which he based ‘The Knight’s Tale,’ The Wedding of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He never mentions Decamerone, which he perhaps never read thoroughly. The rhyming verse was written in what is called Middle English, an old form of the language that differs from the English used today, but Chaucer’s style and techniques were imitated through centuries. Shakespeare borrowed his plot for the drama Troilus and Cressida, John Dryen and Alexander Pope modernized some of his tales. – “He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales the various manners and humour (as we now call them) of the whole English nation in his age.” (John Dryden in Preface to the Fables, 1700)
3.2 Literary characteristics
He had a special ability to contemplate the varieties of human nature with a combination of sympathy , irony and amusement together with the fortune of knowing men in all ranks of society. He writes in the South East Midland dialect with some Kentish characteristics. He was in part responsible to convert it into the medium of all later major literature. His greatness is due to his capacity to assimilate the techniques of French and Italian poets, using them to enrich his native language.
Probably the most interesting fact about Chaucer is the enormous success that he always enjoyed in his lifetime. As writing was very expensive because the printing press did not exist , he depended on powerful patrons and had to please them by reflecting in his works the tastes of the courtly audience for whom he wrote. And he did so by making a great use of the stereotypes and conventions of his time, both in form and in contents:
– The dream poem. The poet falls asleep and has a dream or a vision. This is a very convenient device to deal with delicate topics (such as recommending resignation to powerful nobles) in a tactful, indirect way without intruding. This is the case of The Book of the Duchess, a poem of consolation for John of Gaunt, after the loss of his wife. This form is also used in The House of fame, The Parliament of Fowls and The Legend of Good Women. The pattern of his dream-poems was an immensely influential French romance: the Roman de la Rose, which he knew very well and translated into English. In it courtly love was treated in an allegorical and philosophical way: in a dream the poet discovers a beautiful walled garden, in the midst of which a well reflects the image of a rose, which cannot be picked and represents the perfection of the poet’s love. The dreamer tries to achieve the rose and in his quest he is assisted or opposed by allegorical figures who embody aspects of his beloved.
– Knighthood. It is especially reflected in Troylus and Criseyde, a lively picture of the conventions and conditions of medieval warfare, with hostilities conducted in a very gentlemanly way.
Courtly love. This refined and sophisticated cultivation of love is a recurrent topic in The Parliament of Fowls, which takes the form of a disputatio or debate between birds (another literary convention) about the different types of love. It is also a central topic in Troylus and Criseyde, based on Bocaccio’s poem Il Filostrato, dealing with women’s unfaithfulness in love (represented by Criseyde), set in classical Troy, but with all the ingredients of courtly love, since Troylus serves and worships the lady object of his love.
Verse forms. In his earlier works, such as The Book of the Duchess, he used the octosyllabic couplet (with four stresses in each line). This was a rather constricting form as he had to keep rigidly to the rhythmic pattern. Later on he adopted a longer line with five stresses which allowed him more flexibility, especially for dialogues. He also introduced the rhyme royal, consisting of a five stressed line rhyming ababbcc.
3.3 The Canterbury Tales
From 1386 onwards Chaucer was working on the Canterbury Tales, a series of linked stories told by a number of pilgrims on their way to that city. In “The General Prologue” Chaucer tells how, at the Tabard Inn in Southwark the night before his pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury, he fell in with a company of some twenty nine pilgrims. At the suggestion of the host of the inn they agreed to tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back, and the best tale would earn its teller a free supper at the Tabard on their return. The pilgrims accept the host as judge of the tale-telling game. The first teller is the knight, afterwards comes the Miler, the Reeve, the Cook, and so on, in a number of twenty-two tale tellers, including Chaucer himself, who tells two, and the Parson, whose tale ends the collection.
The book thus comes to an end before Canterbury is reached. The Canterbury Tales is an incomplete work, perhaps because of the poet’s death. However the design of the book is clear enough. As in other medieval collections of popular stories, such as The Arabian Nights or Decamerone, the primary story forms a convenient framework to a miscellany of many different kinds of tales.
A Literary techniques and conventions
This work follows a number of literary techniques and conventions characteristic of medieval literature.
Estates satire. This was a type of literature that described the characteristic qualities and failings of the members of the different estates and professions. Almost all the social classes of 14th century England are represented by Chaucer, thus giving a panorama of that society.
Inclusion of many literary genres. In The Canterbury Tales we can see the following:
– Romance, such as in “The Knights Tale”, presenting idealised characters, the theme of love and the supernatural element.
– Fabliaux, popular bawdy stories dealing with adultery, where jealous husbands are frequently outwitted by lusty and clever young priests or students, such as “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Reeve’s Tale”.
– Saint’s lives, such as “The Prioress’ Tale”.
– Exemplum, such as “The Pardoner’s Tale”.
– Confession, such as “The Pardoner’s Prologue” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”.
– Beast fable, such as “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”.
– The presence of the poet in his work as story teller. Chaucer as a poet takes part in the poem as a modest, innocent narrator and participant. This was a convention in an age when poems and short stories were most frequently read aloud to an audience by their author. Chaucer presents himself as a gullible and naive man, easily impressed, repeating the idea that he is telling things as he heard them from the characters.
B Originality of Chaucer
The realistic portrayal of characters is one of the original ideas of Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales is not just a collection of stories, tales often relate to each other by original linking passages where characters hold very lively, naturalistic and spontaneous dialogues, talking, drinking and often clashing with each other. Thus they become individualised dramatic characters, not mere story-tellers as characters turn to fellow pilgrims to know their opinions about the story just told.
The “General Prologue” is the general narrative introduction to the tales as a whole. It is the concise portrait of an entire nation, the pilgrims are introduced by brief vivid sketches. Interspersed between the 24 tales told by the pilgrims are short dramatic scenes presenting lively exchanges, called links and usually involving the host and one or more of the pilgrims. The pilgrims are representatives of every class and profession in the England of his day: nobility (knight and squire), ecclesiastics (prioress, monk, friar, pardoner, summoner and parson), well-to-do secular people (merchant, lawyer, doctor, wife of Bath), the lower secular people (the five guildsmen, the clerk of Oxford and the shipman) and the servants (the knights Yeoman, the manciple, …). They are seen as typical medieval human beings. The introduction to these portraits is narrative and dramatic. They are set in their degree, according to a hierarchy which is both social and moral: the Military Estate is followed by the Clerical Estate, the clerics by the laity, the upper-middle class by the lower-middle class, with the servants at the end.
The idea of a collection of tales diversified in style to suit their tellers and unified in form by uniting the tellers in a common purpose is really Chaucer’s own. Although collections of stories were common at the time, only Chaucer hit on this simple device for securing natural probability, psychological variety and a wide range of narrative interest. The characters move between the inn and the shrine, the two places where different classes are likely to mingle. But their daily lives, their habits of thinking, their prejudices, professional bias, most familiar ideas and personal idiosyncrasies come out in their conversation and their behaviour. Their conduct affects and is affected by the telling of the tales. We have the presence of men and a little minority of women because this was the situation in the Middle Ages, when women were not as free as men to be seen in public.
Humour and irony. Chaucer presents himself as a rather comic character, but his audience must have been amused at seeing the contrast between the humble looking character and the famous and able courtier that they knew Chaucer to be. So Chaucer’s naivety is assumed for purposes of irony, and he uses irony all the time when referring to the pilgrims.
Only the Knight, the poor Parson and the Ploughman are treated without any touch of irony at all. The knight represents the highest ideals of Chivalry and courtesy, the Parson’s Christian behaviour is contrasted with that of the other representatives of the Church and the Ploughman, honest, hardworking, good-hearted, would be hard to find in the age of the Peasant’s Revolt. These three characters seem like nostalgic idealisations.
Chaucer is intrigued by the weakness of human nature and irony is used for moral implications. He attacks corruption in the Church, though here it is done obliquely through the presentation of individual characters. For instance, the monk, the Friar and the Summoner are amusing and comic, but the Pardoner is portrayed as a hypocrite.
With regards to language, the poetry of Chaucer, along with other writers of the era, is credited with helping to standardize the London Dialect of the Middle English language from a combination of the Kentish and Midlands dialects. This is probably overstated; the influence of the court, chancery and bureaucracy—of which Chaucer was a part—remains a more probable influence on the development of Standard English. Modern English is somewhat distanced from the language of Chaucer’s poems owing to the effect of the Great Vowel Shift some time after his death. This change in the pronunciation of English, still not fully understood, makes the reading of Chaucer difficult for the modern audience, though it is thought by some that the modern Scottish accent is closely related to the sound of Middle English. The status of the final -e in Chaucer’s verse is uncertain: it seems likely that during the period of Chaucer’s writing the final -e was dropping out of colloquial English and that its use was somewhat irregular. Chaucer’s versification suggests that the final -e is sometimes to be vocalized, and sometimes to be silent; however, this remains a point on which there is disagreement. When it is vocalized, most scholars pronounce it as a schwa. Apart from the irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary is recognizable to the modern reader. Chaucer is also recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first author to use many common English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in the language at the time but Chaucer, with his ear for common speech, is the earliest manuscript source. Acceptable, alkali, altercation, amble, angrily, annex, annoyance, approaching, arbitration, armless, army, arrogant, arsenic, arc, artillery and aspect are just some of those from the first letter of the alphabet.
C Topics
Some of the most important topics in the book are:
– Chivalry. The knight in “The Knight’s Tale” is a living embodiment of the ideal warrior: he has taken part in many battles and sieges, and fought for his faith as a crusader. Despite his many campaigns he is neither ruthless nor aggressive nor belligerent, but a devout Christian and a peace-maker when quarrels break out between the pilgrims: the medieval knight saw his profession perfectly compatible with his religion.
– Courtly love. This is beautifully illustrated by “The Knight’s Tale” in the noble and pure love that links the characters Palamon and Emily. The pains of love are very well described in “The Clerk’s Tale” (the pains of Damian for May), in “The Franklin’s Tale” (Averagus has to go through woe and suffering before winning Dorigen’s love) and in “The Squire’s Tale” (in this case lovers are symbolised by two birds, a falcon and a tercelet).
– Sex. Chaucer described mere sexual love, lust and adultery, typical of students or priests who outwit jealous husbands. This is not condemned, but it is associated with characters who are not noble or admirable.
– Religion. Religion was everywhere in the Middle Ages, it permeated everybody’s everyday life. The teaching of the Church was that life itself is a pilgrimage, a journey that ends with the Last Judgement. Within this topic several aspects are present in the Tales:
– Corruption and ill practices by Churchmen. Hypocrisy and greed of mendicant friars who extort money and goods from people using emotional and spiritual blackmail (“The Summoner’s Tale”), the cheating of people by means of false relics (“The Pardoner’s Tale”), lust and coarse sexual love of parish clerks (“The Miller’s Tale”).
– Devotion to the Virgin Mary, who, as the mother of Christ, was the means of salvation as she interceded for men before God. This cult of Mary was very popular in the 13th and 14th centuries. Thus she created a pattern and role for women: their function is to intercede with men to have pity and to show mercy. In “The Knight’s Tale” the Queen and Emily beg Theseus to spare Palamon and Arcite and in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” the Queen pleads with King Arthur to spare the life of a knight who had raped a young girl.
Divine providence. It emphasises the importance of patience, implying the acceptance of what God sent believing that it is ultimately for the best. God’s loving providence must be shared as “The Franklin’s Tale” shows.
– Free-will and predestination. This was a very common subject for debate in the 14th century. Chaucer seems to come to the conclusion that man does have free-will and can freely choose and act in the different life situations, but God already knows what choice he will make, for God is outside time. This is fully dealt in Troylus and Criseyde and in “The Nun’s Priest Tale” (the cock Chanticleer saw in a dream a danger, the fox, was he predestined to be caught by the fox?).
4 STUDY GUIDE
Medieval English literature is regarded to start after the Norman conquest (second half of the 11th century) lasting until the 16th century. When the Normans came to Britain under William the Conqueror, the literature made by its Anglo-Saxon inhabitants consisted basically of heroic poems. Heroic poems are narrative verse in an elevated style, describing the extraordinary deeds of aristocratic warriors and rulers. As Anglo-Saxons were Germanic, they took the material from the period between the 4th and the 6th century, which was their heroic age: the time of the great migrations of the Germanic peoples across Europe in which they politically and militarily triumphed over Rome. Although some of the heroes portrayed in these poems are historical personages, for artistic reasons their actions are often combined with fantastic events and without a precise historical chronology. Nevertheless, a heroic tale is assumed by the listeners to be somehow true thanks to the impersonal and objective style and the graphic realism of its details.
Out of the wanderings of the Germanic tribes came a rich oral tradition from which developed in the Middle Ages many heroic poems. It was oral literature not composed to be read but to be chanted or recited to the accompaniment of instruments. In order to remember them they had the form of poems, because they were more easily memorised.
However, the Norman invasion brought about great changes in England. Apart from the political and cultural influence, the linguistic and literary influences were enormous. The language spoken by the upper classes and at court was Norman French, while the English language was reduced to being the language of the common folk. Therefore English became simplified in structure and vocabulary.
Rhymed verse was introduced as opposed to alliterative Old English literature, as well as a new prosody based on syllabic verse as opposed to stressed verse. There were also new formal structures in the poems such as the division into strophes. The Normans also introduced new topics, such as the Code of Chivalry and Courtly love.
The first English epic poem was Beowulf. It was written in England, but is set in Scandinavia. Although the author is unknown, its themes and subject matter are generally believed to be formed through oral tradition, the passing down of stories by scops (tale singers) and is considered partly historical. At the same time some scholars argue that, rather than transcription of the tale from the oral tradition by a literate monk, Beowulf reflects an original interpretation of the story by the poet. The main character is a historic hero who travels great distances to prove his strength at impossible odds against supernatural demons and beasts.
On the other hand, as the main exponent of the earliest religious epic is Caedmon´s Hymn. Caedmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known. An Anglo-Saxon herdsman attached to the double monastery of Streonæshalch (Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy of St. Hilda (657–680), he was originally ignorant of “the art of song” but supposedly learned to compose one night in the course of a dream. One evening, while the monks were feasting, singing, and playing a harp, Caedmon left early to sleep with the animals because he knew no songs. While asleep, he had a dream in which “someone” (quidem) approached him and asked him to sing principium creaturarum, “the beginning of created things.” After first refusing to sing, Caedmon subsequently produced a short eulogistic poem praising God as the creator of heaven and earth.
The 12th century witnessed the creation of the literary figure of King Arthur thanks to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, which is the primary written source for the legends of King Arthur and his knights, a British warrior, the terror of the Saxons. There are some elements of truth in Geoffrey’s story.
Nennius, a Welsh historian of the 9th century, author of the Historia Britonum says that Arthur was a Briton military chief (dux belorum) who fought and defeated the Saxons at Mons Baudonicus (circa 500 AD).Gildas (6th century) in his De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae also speaks about that battle. The Annales Cambriae (anonymous author) speak about Arthur’s death in battle.
Royal courts were fascinated by king Arthur, and tried to live up to his ideals. This chivalric literature, which was expressed in poems, was greatly encouraged by Henry II’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, granddaughter of the great troubadour William IX, duke of Aquitaine. What she did was to favour a new kind of poetry which linked the elevated view of sexual love cultivated by troubadours with the exploits associated to Arthur and his knights. Similarly, two other very influential French poets of this movement, who are likely to have worked in Britain, inserted the figure of King Arthur in their poetry, Mary of France and Chretien de Troyes. Mary wrote short rhymed compositions, lais, on love meetings of ladies and knights in a world informed by supernatural influence. Chretien’s stories are mainly centred in Camelot, Arthur’s kingdom.
In much the same way, quite a few other authors wrote about King Arthur after Geoffrey of Monmouth, imitating his work. The figure of Arthur became so important and successful after Geoffrey of Monmouth because he was inserted in a Medieval context as he was identified with the ideas of chivalry. He seemed to be a real hero, and therefore emerged as the mirror of all Christian kings. These stories about Arthur constituted the so called matter of Brittany and he became one of the main subjects of a literary genre that substituted heroic poems: romances. They were centred on the legendary King Arthur, the sovereign of a knightly fellowship of the Round Table, his life, the adventures of his knights -Lancelot, Perceval and Gawain- and the adulterous love between his wife Guinevere and his knight Sir Lancelot. This last and the quest for the Holy Grail brought about the dissolution of the knightly fellowship, the death of Arthur, and the destruction of his kingdom.
An early prose romance centring on Lancelot seems to have become the kernel of a cyclic work known as the Prose Lancelot or Vulgate Cycle (c. 1225). The Lancelot theme was connected with the Grail story through Lancelot’s son, the pure knight Sir Galahad. Another branch of the Vulgate Cycle was based on a very early 13th century verse romance, the Merlin, by Robert de Borron, that told of Arthur’s birth and childhood and his winning of the crown by drawing a magic sword from a stone. And a final branch of the Vulgate Cycle contained an account of Arthur’s Roman campaign and war with Mordred, to which was added a story of Lancelot’s renewed adultery with Guinevere and the disastrous war between Lancelot and Sir Gawain.
Geoffrey Chaucer, who was born in the early 1340’s and died in 1400, marks the brilliant culmination of Middle English literature. It was probably in France that Chaucer’s interest in poetry was first aroused. His literary experience was further increased by visits to the Italy of Bocaccio on the King’s business, and he was well read in several languages and on many topics such as astronomy, medicine, physics and alchemy. He seems to have travelled in France, Spain, and Flanders, possibly as a messenger and perhaps even going on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
The Canterbury Tales contrasts with other literature of the period in the naturalism of its narrative, the variety of stories the pilgrims tell and the varied characters who are engaged in the pilgrimage. Many of the stories narrated by the pilgrims seem to fit their individual characters and social standing, although some of the stories seem ill-fitting to their narrators, perhaps as a result of the incomplete state of the work. Chaucer drew on real life for his cast of pilgrims: the innkeeper shares the name of a contemporary keeper of an inn in Southwark, and real-life identities for the Wife of Bath, the Merchant, the Man of Law and the Student have been suggested. The many jobs Chaucer held in medieval society—page, soldier, messenger, valet, bureaucrat, foreman and administrator—probably exposed him to many of the types of people he depicted in the Tales. He was able to shape their speech and satirize their manners in what was to become popular literature among people of the same types.
Chaucer’s works are sometimes grouped into, first a French period, then an Italian period and finally an English period, with Chaucer being influenced by those countries’ literatures in turn. Certainly Troilus and Criseyde is a middle period work with its reliance on the forms of Italian poetry, little known in England at the time, but to which Chaucer was probably exposed during his frequent trips abroad on court business. In addition, its use of a classical antiquity/classical subject and its elaborate, courtly language sets it apart as one of his most complete and well-formed works. In Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer draws heavily on his source, Bocaccio, and on the late Latin philosopher Boethius. However, it is The Canterbury Tales, wherein he focuses on English subjects, with bawdy jokes and respected figures often being undercut with humour, that has cemented his reputation.
Chaucer also translated such important works as Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy and The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (extended by Jean de Meun).
5 BIBLIOGRAPHY
– A Companion to Chaucer Studies by B. Rowland, Oxford (rev. ed. 1979)
– An Arthurian Dictionary by Moorman, Charles, and Ruth Minary, Chicago, Academy Chicago (1990)
– Canterbury Tales, edited from the Hengwrt Manuscript by N.F. Blake, Cambridge (1980)
– Chaucer and the French Tradition by C. Muscatine, Lognman (1957)
– Chaucer Life Records by M.C. Crow and C.C. Olson, Oxford (1966)
– Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, ed. by Steve Ellis, Oxford (1998);
– Chaucer: The Life and Times of the First English Poet by Richard Wes, ed New York (2000)
– Gender and Language in Chaucer by Catherine S. Cox, Oxford (1997)
– Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. by D.S. Brewer, Longman (1974)
– Medieval Arthurian Literature: A Guide to Recent Research by Lacy, Norris J., ed New York,Garland (1996)
– Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Reference Guide by Blanch, Robert J Troy, N.Y., Whitston (1983)
– The Arthurian Name Dictionary by Bruce, Christopher W., New York, Garland (1998).
– The Cambridge Chaucer Companion, ed. by Piero Boitani (1986)
– The Structure of the Canterbury Tales by H. Cooper (1983)
– Who Murdered Chaucer? by Terry Jones, Juliette Dor, Allan Fletcher and Robert Yeager (2003)