This marriage of John of Gaunt has a special interest to us, as it is said to have inspired one of Chaucer's earliest poems, the Assembly of Foules; or, The Parliament of Birds. The origin of the connexion between Chaucer and John of Gaunt is not known, but it seems to have begun early in the poet's life.
Geoffrey Chaucer was the son of a London vintner, and seems most probably to have been born in 1340. The facts of his early life are involved in obscurity, and we do not know whether his education was due to the wealth and enlightened views of his father, or to his having been early taken under royal patronage. John of Gaunt was never a popular man in English history, but he seems to have had the capacity of attracting to him the great literary characters of his age, for we know that both Chaucer and Wiclif were intimately connected with him.
Poetry had at that time become very fashionable, and was cultivated, more especially in France, by men of the highest rank. Chaucer therefore, though of humble birth, might hope to raise himself by his genius to be the friend even of a royal prince. If the date assigned to the Assembly of Foules, 1358, be a true one, it must rank as one of his earliest poems. He was then only eighteen years of age, but there are no signs of an unripe intellect about the poem. It is full of the freshness and life which always remained such distinguishing characteristics of Chaucer.
The poet has fallen asleep over his book, and he dreams that he is led into a beautiful park, "walled with Green stone." With a few of his light, delicate touches he brings before us the whole scene, the "trees clad with leaves that air shal last," the garden "full of blossomed bow is;" it is the orderly, sweet, fresh landscape that the mediæval poet loved. At last he came to the spot where all the birds were gathered together before the noble goddesse Nature, that, since it was Saint Valentine's day, each might choose his mate. Perched on Nature's hand was a beautiful female eagle, by whom the poet is supposed to have signified the Lady Blanche of Lancaster. Three eagles dispute vehemently as to which of them shall be her mate, and Nature refers the question to the assembly of birds. Each kind of bird chooses a representative to speak for them, and in the speeches of the different birds there is ample scope for Chaucer's playful humour and irony. Characteristic of the spirit of chivalry is the great deference paid by the suitors to the lady herself. She is the "soveraine lady," whom the royal eagle beseeches to be his "through her mercy." No constraint is to be put on her choice, and Nature, as judge, decides that she shall have him on whom her heart is set. She bashfully asks for a year's respite in which to make her choice.
This charming little poem may almost be taken as a type of the excellencies of Chaucer. It shows us his love of nature, his vivacity, his humour. Like all that he has written, it reflects faithfully the spirit of his age, and breathes the very atmosphere of chivalry.
Chaucer was no doubt strongly influenced by the French Trouvères. Though first amongst the great English poets, he was an outcome of the poetic movement which had been going on for two centuries in the south of France and in Italy. He was the English representative of the great burst of mediæval poetry, but came late in its development, and originated no great movement in England. He had some few successors and imitators; but after his death there is no great name in English literature till the revival of letters under the Tudors.
It is not difficult to see how French influences were brought to bear upon Chaucer. In those days there was constant intercourse between France and England. Chaucer himself went to France, as we have seen, with the royal army, in 1359, and remained there a year, till he was ransomed by Edward III. He also later on in his life visited Italy, and was intimately acquainted with the writings of Bocaccio and Petrarch, from whom he borrowed largely. But it was from the French Trouvères that he received his great impulse; he belonged to their school, and adopted their form and imagery. One of his first works was a translation of the Romance of the Rose. Yet he was no imitator. He was inspired by the spirit of the Trouvères, but every thing he did is stamped with his own strong individuality, and has a decidedly English character. His greatest work, the Canterbury Tales, is most distinctively English.
He wrote another poem on the occasion of the death of the Duchess Blanche, in 1369, called the Book of the Duchess, in which he expresses the grief of the Duke of Lancaster. The setting of this poem is again quite in the character of the Trouvères. He employs his favourite machinery of a dream, which opens with the singing of birds on a May morning as
"They sat along
Upon my chamber roof without,
Upon the tiles over all about,
And songen everych in his wise
The mosté solemné servise
By note that ever man I trow
Had heard."
He gives us an interesting picture of a mediæval room by describing that in which he lay. It was painted all over with frescoes illustrating the Romance of the Rose, and the windows were filled with beautiful painted glass, on which was wrought the history of the siege of Troy. As he lies in bed he hears the sound of a horn, and jumps up that he may follow the hunt. Then, as he wanders through the wood, he comes upon a knight sitting mourning at the foot of an oak tree. This of course is John of Gaunt who with bitter tears deplores the death of his lady.