Chaucer and His Times

by Grace E. Hadow

She seyde, “Allas! for now is clene a-go
My name of trouthe in love for ever-mo
······
Allas, of me unto the worldes ende
Shal neither been y-written nor y-songe
No good word, for thise bokes wol me shende,[87]
O, rolled shal I ben on many a tonge,”[88]

and equally characteristic her hasty excuse,

“Al be I not the firste that dide amis,”

and the sublime self-confidence with which in the act of jilting one lover she announces her unalterable fidelity to the next:—

“And sin I see there is no bettre way,
And that to late is now for me to rewe,
To Diomede algate I wol be trewe.”

The whole character is drawn with extraordinary delicacy and insight, and with a tenderness which marks Chaucer’s large-hearted tolerance. It is comparatively easy for an author to hold up a character to execration, but only the very greatest can show us the weaknesses of human nature without for one moment becoming cynical or contemptuous.

In the Canterbury Tales Chaucer’s method of character delineation is more concise. In Troilus and Criseyde he has five books, containing over 8000 lines, at his disposal, and the raptures and anguish of the lovers are described at considerable length. In the Canterbury Tales he has a far more complex task before him; he has to present the pilgrims themselves, in the various prologues and end-links; to make each tale a dramatic revelation of the character of the teller; and to exhibit the characters of the personages who play a part in the various stories. The 560 lines of the Prologue in themselves contain a far greater number and variety of characters than are to be found in the whole of Troilus and Criseyde, and if there is less subtlety of treatment the later prologues and end-links soon atone for this. Nothing, for instance, would have been easier than to draw a conventional picture of the self-indulgent, pleasure-loving monk, and at first sight we might think that Chaucer had done little more, though even in the Prologue we are conscious of a sharp distinction between the Monk, who with all his faults is a gentleman, and such vulgar impostors as the Pardoner and the Somnour. But further acquaintance soon rectifies this conception. Self-indulgent and pleasure-loving the Monk undoubtedly is, but he is no hypocrite or evil-liver. The Host makes one of his few mistakes in tact by treating him with breezy familiarity, “Ryd forth,” he cries:—

Ryd forth, myn owne lord, brek nat our game,
But, by my trouthe, I knowe nat your name,
Wher shal I calle you my lord dan John,
Or dan Thomas, or elles dan Albon?
Of what hous be ye, by your fader kin?
I vow to god, thou hast a ful fair skin,
It is a gentil pasture ther thou goost;
Thou art nat lyk a penaunt[89] or a goost.

The Monk knows better than to rebuke the somewhat coarse pleasantries that follow; but with quiet dignity he ignores the familiarity and offers to relate either the life of St. Edward or else a series of tragedies:—

Of whiche I have an hundred in my celle.