The Tale of Gamelyn. This poem is included among the MSS. of the Canterbury Tales. Professor Ten Brink suggests that Chaucer may have intended to work it up into the Yeoman’s tale.
The Letter of Cupid. Occleve.
CHAPTER III
CHAUCER’S TREATMENT OF HIS SOURCES
The sin of plagiary is a development of modern civilisation. To medieval authors, as to Elizabethan, the interest of a story lay in the telling, and while plot was of first-rate importance the same plot could quite well be used indifferently by any number of writers. Indeed, they did not hesitate to go even further and to form a patchwork of scraps taken from different authors, so that the plot may be drawn from one poet, fragments of the dialogue from another, and descriptive or reflective passages from a third, and yet the whole may be justly reckoned the work of the compiler. In the Parlement of Foules, for instance, Chaucer takes the idea of the whole from a current fabliau, the first eighty-four lines from Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, three distinct passages from Dante, the description of the garden from Boccaccio, and lines 95-105 from Claudian, and yet the originality of the whole is incontestable. It is a noteworthy fact that he tries his hand at almost every form of poetry popular in his day, he writes romances, lives of the saints, homilies, allegorical poems, topical satire, love songs, and fabliaux, and in every case he borrows wherever he sees anything likely to suit his purpose, he alters and adds and omits as he sees fit; yet it is only necessary to compare a story (that of Constance, for instance) as told by him, with the same as told by any other poet of the day, to see why it is impossible for a genius to be a plagiarist.
Chaucer’s treatment of romance is particularly characteristic. As has been said, the medieval romance is the most intrinsically interesting literary development of the period from the Conquest to Chaucer. Very roughly speaking, romances may be said—apart from allegorical works such as the Romance of the Rose—to fall into two classes, those, such as Guy of Warwick, or Sir Ferumbras, in which adventure and action form the chief interest, and those, such as Aucassin and Nicolette, or Florice and Blanchefleur, in which the stress is laid on emotion. In both cases the action is usually set in motion by the hero’s desire to ingratiate himself with his lady, but in the one he rides off in quest of renown that may make him worthy to aspire to her hand, and probably does not see her again for years; in the other, though he may perform doughty deeds for her sake, he may even go so far as to refuse battle unless he may have his sweet love, and much space is devoted to the description of his sighs and tears. In both, the emotion is perfectly simple and straightforward. The knight wishes for the lady’s hand and fights or sulks, as the case may be, until he gets it, but in the former type there is scope for indefinite digressions and interminable adventures, while the latter, at all events in England, is apt to be shorter. Occasionally some opening is given for a more complex treatment of character, but as a rule the opportunity is ignored. Guy, when he returns to Felice after many years of adventure, lives with her only forty days. Then he becomes pensive and downcast, for it occurs to him
How he had done many a man wo,
And slain many a man with his hand,
Burnt and destroyed many a land,
And all was for woman’s love,
And not for God’s sake above,
and he leaves her for ever, that he may give himself to penance and fight for the glory of God. Here is a fine opportunity for tragic emotion, but although we are told that Felice thinks of killing herself, the whole episode is so perfunctorily related and the purpose of it is so evidently to provide occasion for fresh adventures that it is impossible to feel the slightest sympathy with either husband or wife. In Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight the remorse of Gawayne after he has failed to keep his word is finely suggested, but the whole poem is far in advance of most romances of the period, and even here the magic setting rather detracts from the human interest. It is impossible to feel that it is a fair fight when one of the combatants can be beheaded without inconvenience to himself. The magic castles and enchanted swords, the dragons and sorcerers of medieval romance have a fascination of their own, but it is the fascination of sheer story-telling, not of character study. The love romances might naturally be expected to show evidence of a more analytical mind, but the feelings they describe are too obviously conventional to be very convincing, and though there is an undeniable charm in works of this sort, there is an equally undeniable sameness. Their strength lies, not in dramatic force of emotion, but in daintiness of description. Nicolette escaping from her turret chamber, with her skirts kilted behind and before for fear of the dew, Florice borne to Blanchefleur’s chamber in a basket of flowers, are pictures which can never lose their freshness, but we grow weary of the perpetual swoons and tears of every lover, and the small variety of characters introduced, the fact that practically all belong to the same class and are distinguishable only as villains or heroes, base enchantresses or noble ladies, intensifies the monotony. To this must be added the dreary jingle of the verse, which almost invariably consists of short, rhyming couplets, the lines constantly having to be eked out by expletives and meaningless monosyllables.