25 October: Boreham on Geoffrey Chaucer

The Singer of the Sunrise
A gentle little creature was Geoffrey Chaucer, our first warbler, the anniversary of whose death is marked today. If he had come into the world 50 years earlier, he would have enjoyed twice as large a constituency; for, between the date of his birth and the appearance of his first poem, half the population of England was swept away by the plague. Soft of foot, soft of voice, we seem to see him moving about his quaint old English cottage in slippered silence or pottering about his garden in the hope of producing still lovelier yellow roses. In the entire pageant of English letters no name shines with a brighter lustre than does his. He was born in London at a time when London was scarcely more than a village. In so diminutive a capital it was not insuperably difficult for a youth of outstanding ability and engaging presence to win his way to court. Endowed both with unusual talent and a pleasing personality, Chaucer quickly caught the eye of some of the most influential courtiers of his day. After a period of comparatively menial and domestic servitude, he covered himself with distinction, first in military and then in diplomatic duties, and was entrusted with delicate and responsible missions to other European courts. It was in the course of these travels that his literary instincts were first awakened.

Drama Of Europe
In France he fell under the infatuation of the French romanticists, and, studying their methods, conceived the idea of doing something of the same kind in England. English life was, to be sure, small, simple, and quiet, lacking the sparkle and vivacity and gaiety that he saw in Paris. Yet Chaucer fancied that, properly handled, the very seclusion and tranquillity of English life might be made to lend a distinctive charm to any literature that could be created there. After France came Italy. It was Chaucer's good fortune to find himself in Italy when the new breath of the Renaissance was exercising its invigorating influence on the minds of the people. Petrarch himself was still living, and so was Boccaccio, while Dante and Giotto had only recently passed away. A photographic plate is not more fitted to receive the impression of the scenery to which it is exposed than was the sensitive spirit of Chaucer to receive the impressions presented for his contemplation by this rich and suggestive atmosphere. The drama of history was pouring itself into his ardent mind; he imbibed every hour the condensed essence of mediaeval romance. The ambition that had fired his fancy in France flared up with new passion and new intensity in Italy. Surely it should be possible for some inspired bard to do for England what others had done for the older nations! And if such work were possible, why should he himself not make the brave attempt? It is not too much to say that it was in the mental struggle ensuing upon the emergence of such questions that our English literature was born.

A Patriot In Poesy
The secret of Chaucer's success lay in the fact that he was content to transfer to his broad canvas only what, with his own eyes, he actually saw. An Englishman, he made up his mind to paint England. A smaller soul, having felt the resistless magic of France, and having responded to the glamour of Italy, would have brought to his English work the spirit of his European adventures. But Chaucer resisted the insidious temptation. Having spread out his paper and seized his quill, he forgot France and Italy altogether and brought to his English work the essential spirit of England. This constitutes itself Chaucer's supreme claim to immortality. He was transparently honest. His artistry never stooped to affectation or artificiality. His inn is the village tavern with which he was perfectly familiar; his pilgrims are good trusty yeomen whom he thoroughly knew and understood; and, though he may have borrowed from Boccaccio the idea of making them tell each other tales, the tales that he makes them tell are as English as the oaks, the roses, and the lawns around him.

Women Of England
Although nobody ever felt the fascination of Europe more than he did, he loved England and made it his loftiest aspiration to set her to music. It may be objected that Chaucer's England is an idealised England, a dream England, an England that never was and never could be. There is some ground for the criticism, but it is inevitable. Love is notoriously blind. When a lover describes his lady, everybody knows that, though he may be the soul of veracity, he is not telling the whole truth. He has no eyes for the faults and foibles that seem so conspicuous in the sight of others. So was it with Chaucer, and, on the whole, we like him all the better for it. Take, for example his delineation of Fourteenth Century Womanhood. It was not customary, 600 years ago, to speak of women in the daintiest and most delicate terms. The common phraseology was hideously coarse. And if we turn to other pages than those of Chaucer we may rashly conclude that the womanhood of the period deserved no better treatment than was meted out to it. But, as Mr. Arthur Burrell has pointed out, Chaucer always treats English women with something more than chivalry. "All good women," he says, "are, to Chaucer, reflections of the Virgin Mary. The Clerke's Tale alone lifts the woman of the Middle Ages above the elegances of Herrick, above the calm honours of Tennyson, and above the critical or whole-hearted admiration of Browning. Not even in Shakespeare do we find such an abandonment of worship as we do here. Women have not yet learned to study the women of Chaucer, their own poet, their defender and their glory." Such a state of things cannot, however, last for ever. Before long we shall notice a general revival of interest in Chaucer and his poetry, and when that day dawns the world will recognise how deeply England—and especially the womanhood of England is indebted to the earliest and, in some respects, the sweetest of our English singers.

F W Boreham

Image: Geoffrey Chaucer