Outlines of English and American Literature. William J. Long
Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу Outlines of English and American Literature - William J. Long страница 16

Название: Outlines of English and American Literature

Автор: William J. Long

Издательство: Bookwire

Жанр: Документальная литература

Серия:

isbn: 4057664603760

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ fragments should be fitted together.

      [Illustration: PILGRIMS SETTING OUT FROM THE "TABARD"]

      [Sidenote: THE PROLOGUE]

      The Prologue is perhaps the best single fragment of the Canterbury Tales. In it Chaucer introduces us to the characters of his drama: to the grave Knight and the gay Squire, the one a model of Chivalry at its best, "a verray parfit gentil knight," the other a young man so full of life and love that "he slept namore than dooth a nightingale"; to the modest Prioress, also, with her pretty clothes, her exquisite manners, her boarding-school accomplishments:

      And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly,

       After the scole of Stratford attë Bowë,

       For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowë.

      In contrast to this dainty figure is the coarse Wife of Bath, as garrulous as the nurse in Romeo and Juliet. So one character stands to another as shade to light, as they appear in a typical novel of Dickens. The Church, the greatest factor in medieval life, is misrepresented by the hunting Monk and the begging Friar, and is well represented by the Parson, who practiced true religion before he preached it:

      But Christës lore and his apostles twelvë

       He taughte, and first he folwëd it himselvë.

      Trade is represented by the Merchant, scholarship by the poor Clerk of

       Oxenford, the professions by the Doctor and the Man-of-law, common folk by

       the Yeoman, Frankelyn (farmer), Miller and many others of low degree.

       Prominent among the latter was the Shipman:

      Hardy he was, and wys to undertakë;

       With many a tempest hadde his berd been shakë.

      From this character, whom Stevenson might have borrowed for his Treasure Island, we infer the barbarity that prevailed when commerce was new, when the English sailor was by turns smuggler or pirate, equally ready to sail or scuttle a ship, and to silence any tongue that might tell tales by making its wretched owner "walk the plank." Chaucer's description of the latter process is a masterpiece of piratical humor:

      If that he faught and hadde the hyer hond,

       By water he sente hem hoom to every lond.

      [Sidenote: VARIETY OF TALES]

      Some thirty pilgrims appear in the famous Prologue, and as each was to tell two stories on the way to Canterbury, and two more on the return, it is probable that Chaucer contemplated a work of more than a hundred tales. Only four-and-twenty were completed, but these are enough to cover the field of light literature in that day, from the romance of love to the humorous animal fable. Between these are wonder-stories of giants and fairies, satires on the monks, parodies on literature, and some examples of coarse horseplay for which Chaucer offers an apology, saying that he must let each pilgrim tell his tale in his own way.

      A round dozen of these tales may still be read with pleasure; but, as a suggestion of Chaucer's variety, we name only three: the Knight's romance of "Palamon and Arcite," the Nun's Priest's fable of "Chanticleer," and the Clerk's old ballad of "Patient Griselda." The last-named will be more interesting if we remember that the subject of woman's rights had been hurled at the heads of the pilgrims by the Wife of Bath, and that the Clerk told his story to illustrate his different ideal of womanhood.

      THE CHARM OF CHAUCER. The first of Chaucer's qualities is that he is an excellent story-teller; which means that he has a tale to tell, a good method of telling it, and a philosophy of life which gives us something to think about aside from the narrative. He had a profound insight of human nature, and in telling the simplest story was sure to slip in some nugget of wisdom or humor: "What wol nat be mote need be left," "For three may keep counsel if twain be away," "The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne," "Ful wys is he that can himselven knowe,"

      The firste vertue, sone, if thou wilt lere,

       Is to restreine and kepen wel thy tonge.

      There are literally hundreds of such "good things" which make Chaucer a constant delight to those who, by a very little practice, can understand him almost as easily as Shakespeare. Moreover he was a careful artist; he knew the principles of poetry and of story-telling, and before he wrote a song or a tale he considered both his subject and his audience, repeating to himself his own rule:

      Ther nis no werkman, whatsoever he be,

       That may bothe werkë wel and hastily:

       This wol be doon at leysur, parfitly.

      A second quality of Chaucer is his power of observation, a power so extraordinary that, unlike other poets, he did not need to invent scenes or characters but only to describe what he had seen and heard in this wonderful world. As he makes one of his characters say:

      For certeynly, he that me made

       To comen hider seydë me:

       I shouldë bothë hear et see

       In this place wonder thingës.

      In the Canterbury Tales alone he employs more than a score of characters, and hardly a romantic hero among them; rather does he delight in plain men and women, who reveal their quality not so much in their action as in their dress, manner, or tricks of speech. For Chaucer has the glance of an Indian, which passes over all obvious matters to light upon one significant detail; and that detail furnishes the name or the adjective of the object. Sometimes his descriptions of men or nature are microscopic in their accuracy, and again in a single line he awakens the reader's imagination—as when Pandarus (in Troilus), in order to make himself unobtrusive in a room where he is not wanted, picks up a manuscript and "makes a face," that is, he pretends to be absorbed in a story,

      and fand his countenance As for to loke upon an old romance.

      A dozen striking examples might be given, but we shall note only one. In the Book of the Duchess the poet is in a forest, when a chase sweeps by with whoop of huntsman and clamor of hounds. After the hunt, when the woods are all still, comes a little lost dog:

      Hit com and creep to me as lowë

       Right as hit haddë me y-knowë,

       Hild down his heed and jiyned his eres,

       And leyde al smouthë doun his heres.

       I wolde han caught hit, and anoon

       Hit fleddë and was fro me goon.

      [Sidenote: CHAUCER'S HUMOR]

      Next to his power of description, Chaucer's best quality is his humor, a humor which is hard to phrase, since it runs from the keenest wit to the broadest farce, yet is always kindly and human. A mendicant friar comes in out of the cold, glances about the snug kitchen for the best seat:

      And fro the bench he droof awey the cat.

      Sometimes his humor is delicate, as in touching up the foibles of the Doctor or the Man-of-law, or in the Priest's translation of Chanticleer's evil remark about women:

      In principio СКАЧАТЬ