Modernity in Chaucer 

Table of Contents

Chaucer is regarded as the earliest of the great modernism. In those dark days when the light of modernism was not visible on the horizon, Chaucer anticipated the modern taste and the modern mind and in his poetry, he introduced qualities of advanced age. Though Chaucer has not written a drama or a novel as we know it, his works contain the seed of modern drama and novels. If he had lived a few years, he would certainly have been our first dramatist and novelist, just as we know he is the first true national poet of England.

When we make a careful and critical analysis of Chaucer’s poetry, we arrive at a definite conclusion that sympathy, realism, intelligence, straightforwardness, humour, irony, satire and keen observation are salient features of Chaucer’s literary works. He enchants the reader with his lovely diction, his description and narrative power and the graceful movement of his verse. He is the founder. of pure pimple and musical style of writing verses, which was later on followed by Spencer, Shakespeare and Milton.

Firstly Chaucer is rightly regarded as the father of English poetry. He may also be described as the first modern writer in English. He made a considerable contribution to the development of English prosody and versification, as well as to the development of various poetic forms. He is a great delineator of character as well as manners and customs. The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is a valuable social document. Chaucer is also a great storyteller, as well as a prominent humorist. His role in the development of The English Language was also a significant one. He enabled the English language to replace Latin and French as the medium of ambitious literature.

Secondly, his poetry links with the poetry of his predecessors. Here and there we have in Chaucer’s poetry words and phrases from earlier poets, as well as rhyme-tags and other items in the stock-in-trade of medieval poets. Some 

Examples 

of this are words and phrases like ‘rose-red’, `silver bright’, ‘grey as glass’, ‘still as a stone’, ‘brown as a berry’, etc. However, the most characteristic part of Chaucer’s poetry is that here such borrowing is the minimum. Poetry before Chaucer, and to a certain extent even after Chaucer, was alliterative in nature. Chaucer’s poetry is accentual and not alliterative, though we now and then have alliterative phrases in his poetry which reflect the alliterative conception of poetry. However, in many cases, his alliterative phrases occur even in modern speech and writing, such as “fish and flesh”, “busy as bees”, “friend or foe”, “sigh and. sob”, and “weary or wet”. etc Chaucer also used many stock phrases, but they only help to accentuate the conversational quality of his poetry. Some ‘examples of this type are “No more of this”, “ride and go”, “Old and .young”, “more and less”, “weep and cry”, and “as old bokes seyn” (as old books say), “deep and wide”, etc.

Thirdly, Chaucer attempted the new realistic task of portraying men and women as they were and describing them so that the readers could recognize them as their own acquaintances. His characters have for this reason become a permanent treasure of English literature. Beowulf and Roland are ideal heroes, essentially figures of fancy, but the merry Host of the Tabard Inn, Madam Eglantine, the fat. Monk, the good Parson, the kindhearted Plowman, the studious Oxford Clerk, these strike us more like personal acquaintances than characters in a story. 

“Chaucer is the first English writer to bring the atmosphere of romantic interest in the men and women and the daily work of one’s Own world which is the aim of nearly all modern literature.”

Fourthly, With Chaucer, the English language and English literature grew bound to full maturity. No Other Middle English writer has his skill, his range, his complexity, his large human outlook. Unfortunately, the English language was still in the process of rapid change, and major shifts in pronunciation and accentuation were to occur in the following century and a half. This meant that Chaucer’s achievement in establishing English as a fully developed literary language could not be adequately exploited by his immediate successors. It was not long before readers were unable to scan him -properly. This fact helps to emphasize Chancer’s loneliness. His followers lack both his technical brilliance and his breadth of vision, leaving him the one undisputed master of medieval English literature. Not until Shakespeare is there an English writer with Chaucer’s combination of technique and insight and his ability to put each at the service of the other, and Shakespeare’s genius, which was the greater, ran in different channels. His Trend of Borrowing

Material
Chaucer takes the material for his poems

Wherever he can find it. He borrows profusely from Latin, French, and Italian literature. But whatever he borrows, he makes entirely his own. His originality consists in giving an old story some present human interest, making it express the life and ideals of his own age. In this respect The Knight’s Tale is noteworthy. Its names belong to an ancient civilization, but its characters are men and women of the English nobility as Chaucer knew them. This is perhaps his finest work as a narrative poet. It is heroic in subject, chivalrous in sentiment, and romantic in tone. Nominally, it is a tale of the heroic age of Greece, but everything in it is medievalist. It may be regarded as an idealised picture of the Middle Ages. Its account of the tournament, its presentation of the principles of knightly ethics, and its vivid portrayal of the chivalrous conception of love give it a distinctly medieval flavour. 

Conclusion

Chaucer is regarded as the first English short storyteller and the first English modern poet. Popular literature till Chaucer’s time had been occupied mainly with the gods and heroes of the modern era. Chaucer was 

The morning star of the song, who made

His music is heard below,

Don Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath

Preluded those melodious bursts that fill

The spacious times of great Elizabeth

With sounds that echo still.

He was the

Father of verse, who in immortal song

First taught the Muse to speak the English tongue.

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