History of English Literature
Lecture XI
2. Consolidation of national identity in language:
a) French language declining as the language of the upper class and the court  the was with France
as a consolidating element
b) Growing popularity of poetry in English  large number of recorded ballads, popular songs;
chivalric romances  in many of them rhymes are already used, in quite a few the Old English
(Anglo-Saxon) alliteration is still employed as a poetic technique.
c) Literary English is changing  losing inflections, little by little resembling contemporary English.
d) 14th . English spelling is partly going to be fossilized with the arrival of the printing press in mid
15th c.
3. The European scene: Italy sees the beginnings of the so-called Renaissance -clear influences in
England (evident in Chaucer):
a) Francesco Petrarca (Eng. Petrarch, 1304-1374) and his Sonnets;
b) Giovanni Boccaccio (1315-1375) and his II Decamerone (Decameron), Filostrato (inspiration for
Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde) and Teseida (inspiring Chaucer's Knight's Tale from the Canterbury
Tales.)
c) In France: the tradition of fin amor continues; Guillame de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377), a poet and
a musician (composer of roundeaux)
d)  Gothic influences in literature: extravagant ornamentation, extravagant and sophisticated
rhyming schemes and extravagant literary techniques, based on the rhetorical figures known from
the classical sources and from Poetria Nova, a 13th c. treatise on literary rhetoric.
(some 60 rhetorical figures if various kings used by Chaucer in The Knight's Tale)
e)  Renaissance influences in Chaucer: some focus on social realism
4.Simultaneously with Chaucer in England ( last quarter of the 14th c.)
a) the work of the Pearl-Poet (Gawain-Poet): the alliterative tradition preserved in the ost complex
of English chivalric romances  the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Ggreen Knight composed in
central Engliand (last quarter of the 14th c.).
- the romance as both looking back to the chivalric tradition and possibly gently ironic about it.
-the poetic stlye as both the mixture of the old (alliterative) and new (re-fined stanzas and stanzaic
structure with rhymed fragments).
-four other poems by the same poet: Pearl, Patience, Purity (Cleanliness). Religious and moralizing
dimension set in poetic form.
b) William Langland: Vision of Piers Plowman  an allegorical dream vision of late 14th c. English
society in the times of poitical and moral crisis.
c) John Gower (1330?-1408), author of three long poems Mirroir de l'Omme (in French), Vox
Clamantis )elegy in Latin relating the events of the Peasants' Revolt), and Confessio Amantis
5. Geoffrey Chaucer's life (ca. 1340-1400)  cosmopolitan and well-off (despite non-upper class
background).
a. familiar with court life  served as a page when a young boy.
b. travels around Europe (France in 1360s and Italy in 1370s) in his youth  royal errands and
diplomatic missions.
c. erudition and learning  familiar with Latin, French and Italian literature (translated fragments of
Le roman de la rose and Boethius' Consolation philosophiae in English)
d. supported by John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster, the uncle of King Richard II
e. public offices: customs comptroller [accountant] in London in late 1370s, in 1386 appointed
Member of Parliament for Kent.
6. The social changes as reflected in The Canterbury Tales (composed in 1380s).
a. the so-called General Prologue  sometimes more, sometimes less ironic presentation of various
characters, according to the social position;
b. Chaucer's ability to change the tone and style of his narrative and his incorporation of various
social classes into his tales.
7. Chaucer's works (aside from the Canterbury Tales)  poetic skills, new ideas and a wealth of
onformation about 14th c. English society.
a. The Book of the Duchess -ca. 1370
b. House of Fame -ca. 1379
c. The Legend of Good Women -ca. 1385
d. The Parliament of Birds -ca. 1382
e. Troilus and Criseyde -ca. 1385-6