"'Ho,' quoth the knight, 'good sir, no more of this:
That ye have said is right enow, ywis,[13]
And muchel[14] more; for little heaviness
Is right enow to muchel folk, I guess.
I say for me it is a great disease,[15]
Where-as men have been in great wealth and ease,
To hearen of hir sudden fall, alas!
And the contráry is joy and great solas,[16]
As when a man hath been in poor estate,
And climbeth up and waxeth fortunate,
And there abideth in prosperity.
Such thing is gladsome, as it thinketh[17] me,
And of such thing were goodly for to tell.'"
Accordingly, from the composition of pieces of the one-sided and unsatisfactory character of those contained in the 'Legend of Good Women,' Chaucer turned to the preparation of his great work, the 'Canterbury Tales.' This gave him the fullest opportunity to display all his powers, and must have constituted the main literary occupation of his later life.
It will be noticed that two of the works mentioned in the prologue to the 'Legend of Good Women' are translations, and are so avowed. One is of the 'Roman de la Rose,' and the other of the philosophical treatise of Boëtius. In regard to the version of the former which has come down, it is sufficient to say that there was not long ago a disposition to deny the genuineness of all of it. This now contents itself with denying the genuineness of part of it. The question cannot be considered here: it is enough to say that in the opinion of the present writer, while the subject is attended with certain difficulties, the evidence is strongly in favor of Chaucer's composition of the whole. But setting aside any discussion of this point, there can scarcely be any doubt that Chaucer began his career as a translator. At the period he flourished he could hardly have done otherwise. It was an almost inevitable method of procedure on the part of a man who found neither writers nor writings in his own tongue worthy of imitation, and who could not fail to be struck not merely by the excellence of the Latin classic poets but also by the superior culture of the Continent. In the course of his literary development he would naturally pass from direct translation to adaptation. To the latter practice he assuredly resorted often. He took the work of the foreign author as a basis, discarded what he did not need or care for, and added as little or as much as suited his own convenience. In this way the 5704 lines of the 'Filostrato' of Boccaccio became 8246 in the 'Troilus and Cressida' of Chaucer; but even of the 5704 of the Italian poet, 2974 were not used by the English poet at all, and the 2730 that were used underwent considerable compression. In a similar way he composed the 'Knight's Tale,' probably the most perfect narrative poem in our tongue. It was based upon the 'Theseide' of Boccaccio. But the latter has 9896 lines, while the former comprises but 2250; and of these 2250 fully two-thirds are entirely independent of the Italian poem.
With such free treatment of his material, Chaucer's next step would be to direct composition, independent of any sources, save in that general way in which every author is under obligation to what has been previously produced. This finds its crowning achievement in the 'Canterbury Tales'; though several earlier pieces—such as the 'House of Fame,' the 'Parliament of Fowls,' and the prologue to the 'Legend of Good Women,'—attest that long before he had shown his ability to produce work essentially original. But though in his literary development Chaucer worked himself out of this exact reproduction of his models, through a partial working over of them till he finally attained complete independence, the habits of a translator clung to him to the very end. Even after he had fully justified his claim to being a great original poet, passages occur in his writings which are nothing but the reproduction of passages found in some foreign poem in Latin, or French, or Italian, the three languages with which he was conversant. His translation of them was due to the fact that they had struck his fancy; his insertion of them into his own work was to please others with what had previously pleased himself. Numerous passages of this kind have been pointed out; and doubtless there are others which remain to be pointed out.
There is another important thing to be marked in the history of Chaucer's artistic development. Not only was poetic material lacking in the tongue at the time of his appearance, but also poetic form. The measures in use, while not inadequate for literary expression, were incapable of embodying it in its highest flights. Consequently what Chaucer did not find, he had either to borrow or to invent. He did both. In the lines which have been quoted he speaks of the "ballades, roundels, and virelayes" which he had composed. These were all favorite poetical forms in that Continental country with whose literature Chaucer was mainly conversant. There can be little question that he tried all manner of verse which the ingenuity of the poets of Northern France had devised. As many of his shorter pieces have very certainly disappeared, his success in these various attempts cannot be asserted with positiveness. Still, what have survived show that he was a great literary artist as well as a great poet. His feats of rhyming, in particular in a tongue so little fitted for it as is ours, can be seen in his unfinished poem of 'Queen Anelida and False Arcite,' in the 'Complaint to Venus,' and in the envoy which follows the Clerk's Tale. In this last piece, though there are thirty-six lines, the rhymes are only three; and two of these belong to fifteen lines respectively.
But far more important than such attempts, which prove interest in versification rather than great poetic achievement, are the two measures which he introduced into our tongue. The first was the seven-line stanza. The rhyming lines in it are respectively the first and third; the second, fourth, and fifth; and the sixth and seventh. At a later period this was frequently called "rhyme royal," because the 'Kingis Quair' was written in it. For fully two centuries it was one of the most popular measures in English poetry. Since the sixteenth century, however, it has been but little employed. Far different has been the fate of the line of ten syllables, or rather of five accents. On account of its frequent use in the 'Canterbury Tales' it was called for a long period "riding rhyme"; but it now bears the title of "heroic verse." As employed by Chaucer it varies in slight particulars from the way it is now generally used. With him the couplet character was never made prominent. The sense was not apt to end at the second line, but constantly tended to run over into the line following. There was also frequently with him an unaccented eleventh syllable; and this, though not unknown to modern verse, is not common. Still, the difference between the early and the later form are mere differences of detail, and of comparatively unimportant detail. The introduction of this measure into English may be considered Chaucer's greatest achievement in the matter of versification. The heroic verse may have existed in the tongue before he himself used it. If so, it lurked unseen and uninfluential. He was the first to employ it on a grand scale, if not to employ it at all, and to develop its capabilities. Much the largest proportion of his greatest work is written in that measure. Yet in spite of his example, it found for two centuries comparatively few imitators. It was not till the end of the sixteenth century that the measure started on a new course of life, and entered upon the great part it has since played in English versification.
The most important of what are sometimes called the minor works of Chaucer are the 'Parliament of Fowls,' the 'House of Fame,' 'Troilus and Cressida,' and the 'Legend of Good Women.' These are all favorable examples of his genius. But however good they may be in particular portions and in particular respects, in general excellence they yield place unquestionably to the 'Canterbury Tales.' It seems to have been very clearly the intention of the poet to embody in this crowning achievement of his literary life everything in the shape of a story he had already composed or was purposing to compose. Two of the pieces, the love of Palamon and Arcite and the Life of St. Cecilia, as we know from the words of his already quoted, had appeared long before. The plan of the work itself was most happily conceived; and in spite of most painstaking efforts to find an original for it or suggestion of it somewhere else, there seems no sufficient reason for doubting that the poet himself was equal to the task of having devised it. No one certainly can question the felicity with which the framework for embodying the tales was constructed. All ranks and classes of society are brought together in the company of pilgrims who assemble at the Tabard Inn at Southwark to ride to the shrine of the saint at Canterbury. The military class is represented by the Knight, belonging to the highest order of the nobility, his son the Squire, and his retainer the Yeoman; the church by the Abbot, the Friar, the Parson, the Prioress with her attendant Nun, and the three accompanying Priests, and less distinctly by the Scholar, the Clerk of Oxford, and by the Pardoner and the Summoner. For the other professions are the Doctor of Physic and the Serjeant of Law; for the middle-class landholders the Franklin; and for the various crafts and occupations the Haberdasher, the Carpenter, the Weaver, the Dyer, the Upholsterer, the Cook, the Ploughman, the Sailor, the Reeve, the Manciple, and (joining the party in the course of the pilgrimage) the assistant of the alchemist, who is called the Canon's Yeoman. Into the mouths of these various personages were to be put tales befitting their character and condition. Consequently there was ample space for stories of chivalry, of religion, of love, of magic, and in truth of every aspect of social life in all its highest and lowest manifestations. Between the tales themselves were connecting links, in which the poet had the opportunity to give an account of the incidents that took place on the pilgrimage, the critical opinions expressed by the hearers of what had been told, and the disputes and quarrels that went on between the various members of the party. So far as this portion of his plan was finished, these connecting links furnish some of the most striking passages in the work. In one of them—the prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale—the genius of the poet reaches along certain lines its highest development; while the general prologue describing the various personages of the party, though not containing the highest poetry of the work as poetry, is the most acute, discriminating, and brilliant picture of men and manners that can be found in our literature.
CHAUCER.