“God’s prophets of the Beautiful these poets are.”
For three centuries England has luxuriated in a succession of regal poets, wearing, not hereditary crowns, but laurel wreaths bestowed by royal hands in virtue of the loyalty rather than the melody of their stanzas. Two centuries earlier Edward III. indulged Chaucer, the “Father of English Poetry,” in his harmless aspiration to enjoy the title of laureate, and the honor skipped along with irregular movement until Queen Elizabeth wreathed the brow of Spenser in laurel, giving the position such dignity that succeeding monarchs considered it an indispensable luxury to have a rhymer in the royal household to honor the birthday of king and queen, princes and princesses with an ode, graceful, polished, fervent.
The idea of poet laureate is not of English birth, but comes with other literary sentiments from Grecian days, the custom being to enliven the great musical contests by publicly crowning the successful poet. Rome in the days of the empire adopted the custom, adding to the formality and grace of the occasion. Germany revived the long neglected courtesy in the twelfth century, and was the first to christen the crowned bard “Laureate.”
The French had special poets for the rhythmic praises of the imperial household, but from prejudice or neglect did not adopt the German title, while the Spaniards had both the poets and the title, but lacked the favor of the goddess of song. The Saxons, from their earliest days, were lovers of music, though content with a low order of song. For centuries the minstrels were the favorites with the unalloyed Saxon race. Not until the eleventh century, when William the Conqueror grafted the Norman blood into the sturdy Saxon veins, was there call for a higher order of song than the minstrel furnished. As the two nations intermingled their habits and social customs, as the languages blended the strength of the one with the grace of the other for three centuries, the people were prepared in mind and heart, in thought and sentiment, to appreciate a national poet, and after nine centuries without a poet or a language out of which poetry could be woven, they found themselves suddenly possessed with a poet of highest order and a language melodious in its every accent.
The splendor of chivalry had reached its height, and the magnificent court of Edward III. brought to a climax the progressive spirit of the Plantagenets, and the series of victories that initiated his reign exalted the pride of the nation and brought it to a degree of patriotic order that must voice itself in a national poet. For such an hour was Geoffrey Chaucer sent, a poetic genius, whose birth and associations calculated to make the art in his hands chivalric.
His name—Chaussier—of Norman birth, anglicised itself gracefully into Chaucer, indicative of the ease with which, reciprocally, he translated the legends of Saxon life in a new language, the poetic.
Born in London, possibly educated at Cambridge, probably a child of wealth, a page in the service of a noble lady, a soldier of the king, a prisoner in French hands, and ransomed by his king, all before he was twenty, it is easy to see that he ingratiated himself early into a variety of experiences from which a poet can profitably draw. In his young manhood, following the adventures of youth, he was in the service of the king as valet of the chamber. He served as comptroller of customs, and negotiated delicate personal matters for the king at home and in foreign courts, was employed on important embassies open and secret, even negotiating for the marriage of the Prince of Wales in France.
Upon one of these foreign missions he witnessed tourneys, grand receptions and magnificent displays, of such a character that he was possessed with a desire to see his own country follow suit, and as an initiative step aspired at being himself crowned poet laureate to the king, in which he was humored by Edward III., who allowed him also £100 as an annual allowance. The succeeding king, Richard II., the last of the Plantagenets, confirmed him in the position and secured to him its financial reward.
This first laureate purples the horizon of English literature, but so faint is the flush of dawn that it is impossible to fix the year of his birth, which may have been as early as 1328, and may have been as late as 1345. To understand the circumstances under which he wrote we must consider the England in which he lived, and for which he wrote. It was no more thickly settled than the state of Vermont, the entire population being only about the same as that of Missouri. The city of London then had no more than Lynn, Portland, Omaha, or Somerville—35,000. It had been larger, but had suffered from the great plagues. But this must not mislead us, for, notwithstanding her diminutive size, England was the most powerful nation of western Europe, and three nations of historic prominence were suppliants for her favor. The nation was wealthy, and the middle classes appreciated and demanded increased financial, political and social privileges. It was this first hope and purpose of the people that ripened the nation for its poet.
Cæsar set foot on British soil fourteen centuries earlier; the Saxons made permanent abode nine centuries before his day; Alfred the Great glorified the Saxon Heptarchy five centuries before the poet sang; and what wonder that he who created the very language that could be poetic should aspire for the first laurel wreath?