1
Geoffrey Chaucer and the 14th c.: Revival of English literature.
1. 14th century  social and political changes in Europe and England. The three social classes
affected, although it is only realizable with the benefit of hindsight:
a. Bellatores (knights, nobility, aristocracy):
" the war with France  the so-called Hundred Years War (1337-1453)  seemingly
upholding the idea of chivalry (Edward the Black Prince, King Edward III s son as
a popular knightly hero);
" in reality  little by little the military role of knighthood wanes (e.g. most important
English victories achieved thanks to archers and mercenary armies, i.e. lower
classes), the horrors of the war;
" yet the war resulted in the consolidation of English identity against the French
enemy
" slow transformation of the knightly ideal into the idea of a courtier.
" In Chaucer:
- supported by John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster (the ups and downs)
- possible ambivalence in the presentation of nobility by Chaucer
- note the change between the Knight and the Squire (father and son) in the
Prologue to The Canterbury Tales
b. Oratores (clergy and the Church):
" the Church in moral crisis: simony (buying offices and church positions), buying and
selling spiritual or Church benefits such as pardons, relics, etc., or preferments;
" Political influences upon the Church (Clement V, influenced by the French crown,
moves to Avignon; 1309-1378 popes in Avignon )
" the Western Schism (1378-1418, conflicted popes residing both in Avignon and in
Rome, politcal alliances, mutual papal interdicts);
" moral and existential problems stemming from the above;
" first attempts at reformatory movements in England (John Wycliff, d. 1384 and the
Lollards, negation of the Church hierarchy, fragments of the Bible translated into
English).
" In Chaucer s Canterbury Tales:
- note the scathing way in which the clergy is presented
- Chaucer likely to sympathize with Wycliff
c. Laboratores (peasants, artisans, city-dwellers etc., but also the beginnings of the
meritocracy, like Geoffrey Chaucer):
" the plague (the Black Death) of 1348 and returning every ten years  divine
punishment and massive depopulation in Europe and in England;
" depopulation led to labour shortages and thus to first large popular uprisings across
Europe: the Jacquerie (France, 1356), parliamentary and governmental crisis in
England in late 1370s (Good Parliament), the Peasants Revolt against nobility
and the social system in England (1381).
" social unrest seen as directed against the order established by God.
" in Chaucer:
- the laboratores as important characters and narrators in The Canterbury Tales
" Later, in 20th c. literary criticism: the idea of the carnivalesque (reversal of values
and hierarchies).
2. Consolidation of national identity:
 2
a. French language declining as the language of the upper class and the court  the war 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 c. 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 beginning 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 Il 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 amour 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 of various kinds used by Chaucer in The Knight s Tale)
e. "Renaissance influences in Chaucer: certain 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 most
complex of English chivalric romances  the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
composed in central England (last quarter of the 14th c.).
" the romance as both looking back to the chivalric tradition and possibly gently ironic
about it.
" the poetic style 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 political 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 (in English, a lover s confession combining love narratives).
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 Consolatio philosophiae into English).
d. supported by John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster, the uncle of King Richard II.
e. public offices: customs controller in London in late 1370s, in 1386 appointed Member of the
Parliament for Kent.
 3
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 their 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  poetic skills, new ideas and a wealth of information about 14th c. English
society.
a. The Book of the Duchess (ca. 1370)  a poetic lament on the death of Blanche Duchess of
Lancaster.
b. House of Fame (ca. 1379)  a dream vision discussing the nature of fame in the manner
resembling The Divine Comedy.
c. The Legend of Good Women (ca. 1385)  a long poem in iambic pentameter and heroic
couplet, recounting the stories of ten virtuous women from the classical tradition  clear
influences of classical authors, most notably Virgil s Aeneid and Ovid s Metamorphoses.
d. The Parliament of Birds (ca. 1382)  another dream vision (also employing the form of fable
 birds performing human roles) discussing the nature of love and the idea of courtly love in
particular on St. Valentine s.
" Possible criticism of courtly love.
" Very complicated rhyming scheme employed by Chaucer  the so called rhyme
royal (iambic pentameter, rhymed a-b-a-b-b-c-c).
e. Troilus and Criseyde (ca. 1385-6)  chivalric romance set during the Trojan War narrating
the tragic love story of Troilus, a Trojan prince, and Criseyde, a Trojan girl sent as a hostage
to the Greeks. Rhyme royal, influenced by Boccaccio, influenced Shakespeare and later
writing on the theme of love.
8. The Canterbury Tales (begun ca. 1385)  an unfinished collection of tales, preceded by a General
Prologue presenting their narrators from various social classes and of various professions. Subtle
use of irony and often entertaining until today.
a. First important English text employing lower class characters and presenting an immense
range of topics and motifs.
b. Powerful, elegant and novel presentation of characters  irony, social satire, very visual,
very informative as regards details of 14th c. life.
c. A range of narrative styles matching the characters:  from chivalric romance, to fabliau, to
fables (moralizing tales with animals as characters).
" knightly romance (like the Knight s Tale)
" fabliau (pl.  aux), humorous tales, often resorting to erotic and bawdy elements,
frequently ironic of the church and social hierarchies. (Miller s Tale)
" fable, a moralizing tale with animals as characters (Nun s Priest s Tale)
" exemplum (pl.  a), extended moral anecdote used to illustrate a point (Pardoner s
Tale)
" mock-heroic and parodical tales (The Tale of Sir Thopas)
d. Frequent social criticism, some decree of anti-clericalism, some degree of misogyny (The
Wife of Bath s Prologue and Tale)  yet all this presented by Chaucer with a degree of
ambivalence.
e. Chaucer s influence on later English literature: motifs, modes of versification.
f. Chaucer s popularity  The Canterbury Tales as one of the first books printed in England by
the first 15th c. English printer William Caxton in11478.