1.7: Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer’s influence on later British literature is difficult to overstate. The most important English writer before Shakespeare (who re-wrote Chaucer’s version of the Troilus and Criseyde story), Chaucer introduced new words into English (such as “cosmos”), and his stories draw on a wealth of previous authors, especially Ovid and Boccaccio. Part of his importance to English literature is that Chaucer chose to write in English, despite his understanding of French, Italian, and Latin; his friend and contemporary poet John Gower chose to write in French, Latin, and English, specifically because he was not sure which language would preserve his writing the best. Chaucer is part of a line of poets who chose to write in their own country’s vernacular. In the ancient world, Virgil had written in Latin, rather than in Greek, despite Greek’s prestige at the time, and in doing so had elevated Latin to a prestigious literary language. Dante had followed the same pattern with Italian. After Chaucer, Cervantes would write in his Don Quixote that the poet’s goal should be to make the literature of his own language competitive with that of any other country, citing poets such as Virgil. Chaucer lays the foundation for the English writers who followed him.

Chaucer was a product of what we would now call the middle class, although that term did not exist in Chaucer’s time. Medieval England followed the three estates model, recognizing only aristocracy, clergy, and the workers. As certain groups became more prosperous, the usual goal was to work for and marry into the lower levels of the aristocracy, which is the route that Chaucer takes. Chaucer received an excellent education, and he had the opportunity to serve as a page in the household of the Countess of Ulster. Chaucer married Philippa de Roet, a lady- in-waiting, whose sister Katherine was first the mistress and then the third wife of John of Gaunt (one of the sons of Edward III and Chaucer’s patron). Chaucer served as a soldier when younger, and he held a variety of jobs over the years: diplomat, customs official, justice of the peace, and member of parliament (MP) for Kent, among others, all while writing. Although Chaucer received royal annuities from both Edward III and Richard II, his most important patron remained John of Gaunt, whose son became Henry IV after deposing Richard II in 1399 (and granted Chaucer an annuity shortly thereafter).

For individuals who were not as highly educated as Chaucer, it was a more difficult prospect to advance. The British class system was not based on money, but on bloodlines; a dirt-poor aristocrat was still an aristocrat, while a rich peasant was still a peasant. Chaucer’s Miller in The Canterbury Tales is keenly aware of this distinction. The Miller objects to the idea that a “better man” (line 22) than he is—namely, the Monk—should tell the next tale, claiming to have a story every bit as good as the tale just finished by the Knight. If he is insulted by being forced to yield to the Monk, the Miller threatens to leave the pilgrimage. Several of the middle class characters show a similar reluctance to accept a lower place in the social hierarchy.

Social class plays a role in Chaucer’s Parlement of Fowles (sometimes called The Parliament of Birds in modern translations), which is an example of one of Chaucer’s dream visions. Dream visions were popular with medieval writers because anything can happen in a dream; the narrator can talk to anyone from the past, or find himself in any location, and the writer can present the action metaphorically, rather than literally. As in all of his poems, a version of Chaucer appears as the narrator of the story: a socially-awkward book lover who portrays himself as a romantic failure. The poem begins with the narrator reading Cicero’s Dream of Scipio ( Somnium Scipionis), after which he falls asleep. In his dream, Scipio Africanus the Elder leads him to a garden gate with inscriptions on it (a parallel to Virgil guiding Dante to the gate of Hell in Inferno). Inside, the narrator first encounters the temple of Venus, and then a gathering of birds presided over by Nature. The birds represent various groups in society, with the birds of prey as the nobility. Three male eagles use the language of courtly love poetry to attempt to win the same formel (female) eagle; when there is no immediate choice made, all the birds of lower class levels begin to offer their comic opinions. Courtly love poetry often focuses on the male perspective exclusively; the female is the object to be obtained, and she usually is not given a voice (or, ultimately, a choice) in the matter. The Parliament of Fowles gives the female a voice, if not necessarily a choice, about whether she wants any of them.

The Canterbury Tales is Chaucer’s masterpiece of social satire. The story was incomplete at his death (although scholars have debated whether the story is, in some ways, thematically complete). Unlike previous versions of frame tales, such as Boccaccio’s Decameron, Chaucer’s frame is every bit as important as the stories. The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales may be about group on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, but the travelers do nothing that identifies them as pilgrims; they eat too much instead of fasting, get drunk, wear fancy clothes, ride instead of walk, and tell stories instead of saying prayers (plus it begins and will end in a tavern). The narrator offers no overt judgment of the pilgrims, while providing enough information in the General Prologue for the audience to judge for themselves. Among the many topics satirized in Chaucer’s work is, once again, courtly love. The Miller’s Tale is a mocking revision of the genre by the Miller, who is responding to the story of courtly love that had just been told by the Knight. The Wife of Bath’s Tale and The Franklin’s Tale both offer fascinating alternatives to the regular courtly love scenario, while the Pardoner’s Tale takes aim at every vice imaginable. Chaucer may follow standard medieval procedure by offering a Retraction at the end of The Canterbury Tales (asking forgiveness for anything he wrote that tended towards sin), but it is worth noting that the reader has finished his collection of stories before reaching it.

Bibliography

Sections taken from my introduction to Chaucer in The Compact Anthology of World Literature and World Literature I: Beginnings to 1650