Chaucer and His Times

by Grace E. Hadow

CHAPTER VIII

CHAUCER’S INFLUENCE

Few poets have received more immediate and widespread recognition than Chaucer. Fifteenth-century poetry almost wholly dominated by his influence, and one united chorus of praise and admiration rises from the lips of his successors. Shirley, who edited the Knightes Tale (amongst other works of Chaucer’s) in the first half of the fifteenth century, speaks of him as “the laureal and most famous poete that euer was to-fore him as in th’ embelisshing of oure rude modern englisshe tonge....” Lydgate and Occleve, the most noted poets of the period, invariably refer to him as their master. As has already been mentioned, a large number of poems were written in close imitation of his style, and echoes of his verse are to be heard on every side.

It is usual to divide his followers into two groups: English Chaucerians and Scottish Chaucerians.

The English Chaucerians, with all their admiration for their master, show but scant understanding of his real greatness. Having little ear for rhythm themselves, they only mangle his verse when they try to imitate it; and while they fully recognise the debt which English versification owes him, it is but rarely that their own lines show any hint of his sweetness and melody. Lydgate is by far the greatest of them, and of him Professor Saintsbury justly remarks: “It is enough to say that, even in rime royal, his lines wander from seven to fourteen syllables, without the possibility of allowing monosyllabic or trisyllabic feet in any fashion that shall restore the rhythm; and that his couplets, as in the Story of Thebes itself, seem often to be unaware whether they are themselves octosyllabic or decasyllabic—four-footed, or five-footed.” Instead of the suppleness and endless variety of Chaucer’s verse, we have a treatment of metre which at its best is apt to be dull and stiff, and at its worst is intolerably slipshod. Only by some rare chance does a momentary gleam of beauty flicker across these pages, and a flash of poetic feeling raise the trite and conventional language to such a level as:—

O thoughtful herte, plonged in dystresse,
With slomber of slouthe this longe winter’s night—
Out of the slepe of mortal hevinesse
Awake anon! and loke upon the light
Of thilke starr.
(Lydgate, Life of Our Lady.)

Nor is the matter much more inspiring than the form that clothes it. The English Chaucerians are worthy men, who spend their time in bewailing the errors of their youth and offering good advice to whoso will accept it. Of Chaucer’s humour and realism they have no conception, nor do they realise the force of his digressions. The allegorical form of his earlier poems appeals to them, and, disregarding the movement and life of the Canterbury Tales, they ramble along the paths marked out in the Hous of Fame without attending to their master’s excellent advice to flee prolixity. Lydgate, it is true, does show some narrative power. His Troy Book is obviously inspired by Troilus and Creseyde, and his Story of Thebes by the Knightes Tale, but he has neither the conciseness of Gower nor the dramatic insight of Chaucer. Among the 114 works attributed to him, it is only natural that some variety should be shown, and occasionally, as in the London Lickpenny, a skit on contemporary life in the City, he shows some trace of humour. The Temple of Glas is a close imitation of the Hous of Fame, but it lacks the shrewd sense, the original comments on life, the subtle humour of its model. Lydgate is most poetical when his religious feeling is touched, as in his Life of Our Lady; and most human when he becomes frankly autobiographical. The stiffness of the Temple of Glas is redeemed by such passages as that in which the author (who entered a monastery at fifteen) describes the lamentations of those

That were constrayned in hir tender youthe
And in childhode, as it is ofte couthe[208]
Yentered were into religion[209]
Or they hade yeares of discresioun;
That al her life cannot but complein
In wide copes perfeccion to feine.

Occleve, who has even less poetic genius than Lydgate, is remembered chiefly because the manuscript of his Gouvernail of Princes (a poem of good advice, addressed to Prince Hal) contains the only authentic portrait of Chaucer—a sketch drawn in the margin by the author himself. The lines which accompany the portrait, sufficiently illustrate the estimation in which Chaucer was held. Their modesty and simple affection disarm criticism.

Symple is my goste, and scars my letterure[210]
Unto youre excellence for to write
My inward love, and yit in aventure
Wol I me put, thogh I can but lyte;
My dere maister—God his soule quyte,—[211]
And fader, Chaucer, fayne wold have me taught,
But I was dulle, and lerned lyte or naught.
Allas! my worthy maister honorable,
This londes verray tresour and richesse,
Dethe by thy dethe hath harm irreperable
Unto us done: hir vengeable duresse[212]
Dispoiled hath this londe of the swetnesse
Of rethoryk, for unto Tullius
Was never man so lyk amenges us.
······
She myght have taryed hir vengeaunce a whyle,
Tyl sum man hadde egal to thee be;
Nay, let be that; she wel knew that this yle[213]
May never man forth bringe like to thee,
And her office needes do must she;
God bad her soo, I truste as for the beste,
O maystir, maystir, God thy soule reste!