Age of Chaucer : view of Literature
The period between 1343 and 1450 is known as the Age of Chaucer . It marked the first significant literary age in English literature. It heralded a new era of learning. Chaucer’s age also witnessed many social, political, and religious challenges.
- There was a strong dislike for the Papal or Church’s interference, which had previously been the citadel of moral authority, social prestige but now suffered from corruption, turpitude and superstitions.
- There were "strong nationalistic passions"due to the 100 Years’ War between England and France.
- There was also the "charged atmosphere "due to the Peasant upheavals in England.
- The "middle class also emerged "as a strong social stratum.
All of this represented a transition from a feudal social setup toward a free society where men and women could exercise their individual whims and fancies without fear of reprimand.
There is a transition from the age of Medievalism to the age of Modernism. Geoffrey Chaucer was the night star of the former and the morning sun of the latter.
Another significant event of the age was the Black Death or plague that affected a third of the country’s population. This affected various social dynamics like limiting labour and employable bodies.
Characteristics of the Age :
Here are the main characteristics of the period
☞Language
☞Curiosity and Criticism
☞Prose
☞Poetry
☞Age of Termination
Language:
The age saw the
"emergence of the standard English language".
This was the single biggest development of the age as English had previously been heavily curbed by the influence of French and Latin.
The East Midland dialect became the accepted form of standardized English. The language saw great achievement and expression in the masterpieces of Chaucer.
French and Latin saw a waning influence on the language of the day. Chaucer’s use of language to describe the man and his place is embellished with beauty, simplicity and humour.
The common examples from the daily life account details of blooming gardens in spring to unique human characteristics. The language glorified themes of
⏺beauty,
⏺vitality and
⏺The secular sentiment.
Curiosity and Criticism:
The age is known for its scathing criticism of the established order and religion. Church’s control over temporal affairs of common men was challenged during this period.
There is a renewed interest in the common man’s affairs. There is a
"theme of derision of romance,"
especially by Chaucer. The drama takes the prominent stage. The dominance of historical fables and romance of Medieval agewas eschewed for more humanistic themes.
It was a period of great social and intellectual movements as well as poverty, unrest, and revolt. It had the plague called the Black Death as well as the growth of the scientific temper and inquiry.
It had great criticisms of the Church as well as the celebration of the commoners. It is often regarded as the precursor to the Renaissance Movement of the Elizabethan age.
Prose:
The English prose had its beginning in this age. Due to the ripening of the language, the prose could now be experimented with. The Biblical translation of John Wycliffe is an example of it.
The prose writing is both origional and individual . There are experimental works like that of Thomas Mallory and also a desire to shed the grip of Latin as seen in demand for an English Bible.
The formation of allegory was refined in this period. There was a return of alliteration which had been replaced with rhymes in the middle ages.
The prominent prose writers of Chaucer’s age were Chaucer,John of Trevisa and John wycliffe .There is also a great influence of Scottish works like Barbour.
Poetry:
The Age of Chaucer saw the birth of English Poetry. In Chaucer’s age, poetry continued to flourish and assumed an unparalleled position. The most noted poets of this age were Chaucer,John Gower and William Langland.
"Spencer became the father of poetic diction"
as there was no poetic diction before this age. The poetry saw the amalgamation of
⏺ Religion ⏺Humanism ⏺Secular passions.
There were new forms of poetrylike narrative and descriptive poetry that were enhanced during this time period.
Chaucer himself was known for his trenchant observations. He was sociable and loved mingling with people from diverse backgrounds as evidenced in his work; ‘The Canterbury Tales’.
In it, he has been able to pen minute peculiarities and complexities of human nature.
"Chaucer uses seven lined stanza ABABBCC, known as the Chaucerian rhyme meter"
There is liberal use of humour. There is an insistence on human sentiment like in ‘The Legend of Good Women’.
Normally the Chaucerian poems are divided into three stages :
☞Italian
☞ French
☞ English
However, there is also some criticism for the inordinate length of some speeches and preachy discourse on ethics etc.
Age of Termination:
Even though there were no novels or drama in his age, Chaucer’s work did plant the seeds for its development in the succeeding Elizabethan age. If ‘The Canterbury Tales’ had been in prose and divided into scenes and acts, it would have been the language’s first drama.
Biography of chaucer:
Before William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer was the preeminent English poet, and he remains in the top tier of the English canon. He also was the most significant poet to write in Middle English. Chaucer was born in the early 1340s to a fairly rich though not aristocratic family. His father, John Chaucer, was a vintner and deputy to the king's butler. His family's financial success came from work in the wine and leather businesses, and they had considerable inherited property in London. Little information exists about Chaucer's education, but his writings demonstrate a close familiarity with a number of important books of his contemporaries and of earlier times . Chaucer likely was fluent in several languages, including French, Italian, and Latin. Sons of wealthy London merchants could receive good educations at this time, and there is reason to believe that, if Chaucer did not attend one of the schools on Thames Street near his boyhood home, then he was at least well-educated at home. Certainly his work showcases a passion for reading a huge range of literature, classical and modern.
Chaucer first appears in public records in 1357 as a member of the house of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster. This was a conventional arrangement in which sons of middle-class households were placed in royal service so that they could obtain a courtly education. Two years later, Chaucer served in the army under Edward III and was captured during an unsuccessful offensive at Reims, although he was later ransomed. Chaucer served under a number of diplomatic missions.
Chaucer's first published work was The Book of the Duchess, a poem of over 1,300 lines, supposed to be an elegy for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, addressed to her widower, the Duke. For this first of his important poems, which was published in 1370, Chaucer used the dream-vision form, a genre made popular by the highly influential 13th-century French poem of courtly love, the Roman de la Rose, which Chaucer translated into English. Throughout the following decade, Chaucer continued with his diplomatic career. During his missions to Italy, Chaucer encountered the work of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, which were later to have profound influence upon his own writing. In 1374, Chaucer was appointed comptroller of the customs and subsidy of wool, skins, and tanned hides for the Port of London; his first position away from the British court. Chaucer's only major work during this period was House of Fame , a poem of around 2,000 lines in dream-vision form, which ends so abruptly that some scholars consider it unfinished.
In October 1385, Chaucer was appointed a justice of the peace for Kent, and in August 1386 he became knight of the shire for Kent. Around the time of his wife's death in 1387, Chaucer moved to Greenwich and later to Kent. Changing political circumstances eventually led to Chaucer falling out of favor with the royal court and leaving Parliament, but when Richard II became King of England, Chaucer regained royal favor.
During this period, Chaucer used writing primarily as an escape from public life. His works included Parlement of Foules, a poem of 699 lines. This work is a dream-vision for St. Valentine's Day that makes use of the myth that each year on that day the birds gather before the goddess Nature to choose their mates. This work was heavily influenced by Boccaccio and Dante.
Chaucer's next work was Troilus and Criseyde, which was influenced by The Consolation of philisophy which Chaucer himself translated into English. Chaucer took some the plot of Troilus from Boccaccio's Filostrato. The Canterbury Talessecured Chaucer's literary reputation and was his great literary accomplishment; a compendium of stories by pilgrims traveling to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury.
Geoffrey Chaucer is said to have died around the year 1400, although the exact date is not known. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Famous works by chaucer:
☞The book of the Duchess
☞The Canturbary Tales
☞Troilus and Criseyde
☞The Legend of Good Women
☞The House of Fame
☞Anelida and Arcite
☞Parlement of Foules
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