drive the Night away;
For methought it better play
Than play either at Chess or Tables.
And assuredly Chaucer found many passages in the old fablers not less entrancing than some of his own. Our poet indulged this vein of playful irony on persons as well as on things. A sly panegyric, sufficiently ambiguous for us to accept as a refined stroke, we find on the abstruse and interminable question of predestination; on which the Nonne’s priest declares—
| But I ne cannot boult it to the bren, As can the holy doctor Augustín, Or Bœcé, or the bishop Bradwardín. |
As this bishop, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was the first who treated theology on mathematical principles, and likewise wrote on the “Quadrature of the Circle,” we may presume “Bishop Bradwardin” rather perplexed the poet. Chaucer discovers his ironical manner when gravely stating the different theories of dreaming—
| ————What causeth Suevenes3 On the morrow or on evens? |
he playfully concludes, and modern philosophy could no better assist the inquiry—
| ————Whoso of these Miracles The causes know bet4 than I Define he, for I certainly Ne can them not, ne never thinke To busie my witte for to swinke To know why this is more than that is, Well worthé of this thing Clerkés, That treaten of this and of other werkés, For I, of none opinion Nil. |
It is with the same pleasantry he avoids all commonplace descriptions, by playfully suggesting his pretended unskilfulness for the detail, or his want of learning—
| Me list not of the chaf, ne of the stre, Maken so long a tale, as of the corn. “Man of Lawe’s Ta’e.” |
Yet humour and irony are not his only excellences, for those who study Chaucer know that this great poet has thoughts that dissolve in tenderness; no one has more skilfully touched the more hidden springs of the heart.
The Herculean labour of Chaucer was the creation of a new style. In this he was as fortunate as he was likewise unhappy. He mingled with the native rudeness of our English words of Provençal fancy, and some of French and of Latin growth. He banished the superannuated and the uncouth, and softened the churlish nature of our hard Anglo-Saxon; but the poet had nearly endangered the novel diction when his artificial pedantry assumed what he called “the ornate style” in “the Romaunt of the Rose,” and in his “Troilus and Cressida.” This “ornate style” introduced sesquipedalian Latinisms, words of immense dimensions, that could not hide their vacuity of thought. Chaucer seems deserted by his genius when “the ornate style” betrays his pangs and his anxiety. As the error of a fine genius becomes the error of many, because monstrous protuberances may be copied, while the softened lines of beauty remain inimitable, this “ornate style” corrupted inferior writers, who, losing all relish of the natural feeling and graceful simplicity of their master, filled their verse with noise and nonsense. This vicious style, a century afterwards, was resumed by Stephen Hawes. We have, however, a glorious evidence, amid this struggle both with a new and with a false style, of Chaucer’s native good taste; he finally wholly abandoned this artificial diction; and his later productions, no longer disfigured by such tortured phrases and such remote words, awaken our sympathy in the familiar language of life and passion.
Tyrwhit has ingeniously constructed a metrical system to arrange the versification to the ear of a modern reader; by this contrivance he would have removed all obstructions in the pronunciation and in the syllabic quantities. He maintained that the lines were regular decasyllabics. But who can read this poet for any length, even the “Canterbury Tales” in the elaborated text of Tyrwhit, without being reminded of its fallacy? Even the E final, on which our critic has laid such stress, though often sounded, assuredly is sometimes mute. Dan Chaucer makes at his pleasure words long or short, and dyssyllabic or trisyllabic; and this he has himself told us—
| But for the rime is light and lewde, Yet make it somewhat agreáble, Though some verse fail in a sylláble. |
Our critic was often puzzled by his own ingenuity, for in some inveterate cases he has thrown out in despair an observation, that “a reader who cannot perform such operations for himself (that is, helping out the metre) had better not trouble his head about the versification of our ancient authors.” The verse of Chaucer seems more carefully regulated in his later work, “the Tales;” but it is evident that Chaucer trusted his cadences to his ear, and his verse is therefore usually rhythmical, and accidentally metrical.
On a particular occasion the poet submitted to the restraint of equal syllables, as we discover in “The Court of Love,” elaborately metrical, and addressed to “his princely lady,” with the hope that she might not refuse it “for lack of ornate speech.” It is evident, therefore, that Chaucer had a distinct conception of the heroic or decasyllabic verse, but he did not consider that the mechanical construction of his verse was essential to the free spirit of his fancy. “I am no metrician,” he once exclaimed; he wrote
| Books, songs, ditees In RIME, or else in CADENCE. “The House of Fame.” |
This circumstance arose from the custom of the age, when poems were recited, and not read; readers there were none among the people, though auditors were never wanting; it was much the same among the higher orders. Poems were usually performed in plain chant, and a verse was musical by the modulation of the harp. There was no typographical metre placed under the eye of the reciter; the melody of the poet too often depended on the adroitness of the performer; and the only publishers of the popular poems of Chaucer were the harpers, who, in stately halls on festal days, entranced their audience with Chaucer’s Tale, or his “Ballade.” His poem of “Troilus and Cressida,” although almost as long as the Æneid, was intended to be sung to the harp as well as read, as the poet himself tells us, in addressing his poem—
And redde where so thou be, or elles sung.
In the most ancient manuscripts of Chaucer’s works the cæsura in every line is carefully noted, to preserve the rhythmical cadence with precision; without this precaution the harmony of such loose versification would be lost. In the later editions, when the race of roaming minstrels had departed, and our verse had become solely metrical, the printers omitted this guide to the ancient recitation. We perceive this want in the uncertain measures of Chaucer’s versification; and a dexterous modulation is still required to catch the recitative of Chaucer’s poems.
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