10 GEOFFREY CHAUCER Chaucer was the first of the great English poets. He was born about 1340, in London, where his father was a prosperous wine merchant. We know little about the details of Chaucer's early life, but it seems clear that at the age of seventeen he was a page in the royal household, and that at nineteen he took part in a military expedition against France. He was captured and held a prisoner for some time before he was ransomed and returned to England. It is pretty clear that Chaucer was sent on many more or less secret errands by the government, and that he learned much about the life and literature of the nations of southern Europe. He held important government positions at home and was granted a pension. He died in 15 1400, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer was evidently a man who mingled easily with his fellows and who understood their weaknesses and foibles. He began his literary career by retelling some of the long and tedious tales which were popular over Europe 20 in his day. One of the most famous of these was called The Romance of the Rose. As he grew older he became more interested in the people he met in everyday life, and his great masterpiece was a collection of stories called The Canterbury Tales. 25 In The Canterbury Tales we have an account of a group of religious pilgrims who gathered at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, across the Thames from London, to go to Canterbury. There were “nine and twenty" of them, and others joining on the way brought the number up to thirty30 two. They represented many classes of people, from the "very perfect gentle knight" to the poor plowman, and each is so clearly put before us in the introduction, or "Prelude," that we feel thoroughly at home with them all. Harry Bailly, the landlord of the inn, proposed that 35 for entertainment on the way they should each tell stories, two going and two on the return trip. That would make in all one hundred twenty-eight stories. The landlord further proposed that he should go along as judge, that the one telling the best story should have a dinner at the 40 expense of the rest on the return to his inn, and that any one refusing to abide by his decisions should pay the whole expense of the dinner. They agree, and the knight is chosen by lot to tell the first story. He tells the tale of the two noble kinsmen, Palamon and Arcite. Others 45 follow, and the tales are bound together by a thread of narrative inserted between them. Only twenty-four of the stories were finished, but among these are some of the best in our literature. The nun's priest told the story of Chanticleer and the 50 Fox, the clerk told the story of Patient Griselda, the prioress told the story of Hugh of Lincoln, the pardoner told the story of the hunt for Death which you have just read. All the delight in life of Chaucer's day, the fun and the coarseness, the interest in heroic and pathetic incidents, 55 appear in The Canterbury Tales. To Chaucer life was a many-colored and striking procession. Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still. ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. THE BUGLE SONG ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON The splendor falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, STUDY. Read aloud until the music of the language is fully appreciated. What picture do the opening lines bring before the eye? Notice that the main appeal of the rest of the poem is to the ear. You have often listened to the echoes dying away in the distance; listen now to the bugle echoes. happens to them as you listen? Explain line 10. What 5 10 15 |