The Chaucerian age saw a great and significant advance in poetical forms of literature, and a noteworthy one in the domain of prose.
1. Poetry. With regard to poetry, we can observe the various forms separating themselves and straightening out into form and coherence.
(a) The lyric, chiefly the religious and love-lyric, continues to be written and developed. Chaucer himself contributes very little toward it, but a number of anonymous bards add to the common stock. It is seldom that we can give precise dates to the lyrics of this period; but about this time were composed such exquisite pieces as The Nut-brown Maid, a curious hybrid between the lyric and the ballad, and the lovely carols of the Church.
(b) The Rise of the Ballad. The origin of the ballad has always been a question in dispute. There is little doubt, however, that ballads began to assume a position of importance at the end of the fourteenth century.
The true ballad-form had several features to make it distinct from the romance: it is commonly plebeian in origin and theme, thus contrasting with the romance, which is aristocratic in these respects; it is short, and treats of one incident, whereas the romance form is cumulative, and can absorb any number of adventures; it is simple in style, and is as a rule composed in the familiar ballad-stanza. Some of the fine ballads belonging to this time are Chevy Chace, Gil Morrice, and Sir Patrick Spens. Very old ballads, as can be seen in the case of Chevy Chace, which exists in more than one version, have descended to modern times in a much more polished condition than they were in at first. In their earliest condition they were rude and almost illiterate productions, the compositions of the popular minstrels.
(c) The Rise of the Allegory. This is perhaps the suitable place to note the rise of allegory, which in the age of Chaucer began to affect all the branches of poetry. Even at its best the allegorical method is crude and artificial, but it is a concrete and effective literary device for expounding moral and religious lessons. It appeals with the greatest force to minds which are still unused to abstract thinking; and about the period now under discussion it exactly suited the lay and ecclesiastical mind. Hence we have a flood of poems dealing with Courts of Love, Houses of Fame, Dances of the Seven Deadly Sins, and other symbolical subjects. Especially in the earlier stages of his career, Chaucer himself did not escape the prevailing habit. We shall see that the craze for the allegory was to increase during the next century and later, till it reached its climax in The Faerie Queene.
(d) Descriptive and Narrative Poems. In this form of poetry The Canterbury Tales is the outstanding example, but in many passages of Langland and Gower we have specimens of the same class. We have already mentioned some of the weaknesses that are common to the narrative poetry of the day, and which were due partly to lack of practice and partly to reliance upon inferior models: the tantalizing rigmaroles of long speeches and irrelevant episodes, the habit of dragging into the story scientific and religious discussions, and an imperfect sense of proportion in the arrangement of the plot. In the best examples, such as those of Chaucer, there is powerful grip upon the central interest, a shrewd observation and humor, and quite often a brilliant rapidity of narration.
(e) The metrical romance is still a popular form, but the great vogue of the last century is on the wane. Among the lower classes it is being supplanted by the ballad; and the growing favor that is being shown to the fabliau—that is, the short French tale, realistic in subject and humorous-satirical in style—is leading to tales of the coarser Chaucer type.
2. Prose. In prose we have the first English travel-book in Mandeville’s Travels; one of the earliest translations of the Bible in Wyclif’s; and, among others, a prose chronicle in the work of John of Trevisa (1326–1412), who issued a prose version of Higden’s Polychronicon. As yet such works are in an undeveloped state, but already some considerable growth is apparent. Prose is increasing both in quantity and in quality, and the rate of increase is accelerating.