Even
such lovers as Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, the delicacy and complexity
of whose relationship is a matter of finest adjustment, are governed
instinctively by the social demands that put marriage between a prince
and the widowed daughter of the traitor Calchas quite out of court.
Chaucer did not need to explain this; in Malory's day, when Edward IV
married Elizabeth Woodville, Warwick the Kingmaker deserted him. For
Malory, the story of Lancelot and Guinevere is one of divided loyalties;
it is the social results of the love even more than the love itself
which concern him, while the passionate story of Tristram and Isold
fails to awaken his deeper interest, and remains episodic. Here the
tragic end is missing, and the lovers are left happily together at Joyous
Garde, Lancelot's castle, whither they have fled: their end is briefly
mentioned by Lancelot, as the time of his own fall draws near. This
may be quite deliberate; the end of a well-known story could be suppressed
to make a particular interpretation clearer, as Chaucer himself suppressed
the death of Criseyde. Tristram and Isold are not faced by the same
dilemma as Lancelot and Guinevere, since Mark cannot claim loyalty,
being himself so treacherous; and the magic potion which they have drunk
takes from their love the guilt and the glory of a voluntary choice.
Theirs is a blind trancelike passion; Lancelot and Guinevere, though
the queen's stormy rages and jealous outbursts may complicate the story
and drive Lancelot like Tristram into madness, prove for each other
a kind of fidelity that belongs not to the world of fancy but to the
world of men. In the great hymn in praise of fidelity in love, which
opens Section IV of Lancelot and Guinevere, "The Knight of the
Cart," Malory indulges in a rare lyric outburst. True love is likened
unto summer; and in words which owe nothing to his "French book,"
though something perhaps to the joyous French songs that celebrate the
coming of spring, he unites the love of man and woman with the great
rhythms of the world and the seasons The pathos of Malory's "dying
fall," the cadence dropping to a minor chord, is his tribute SIR
THOMAS MALORY to those inward feelings which in his masculine world
receive so little direct expression. As always, the supreme virtue is
truth. The most famous and most magnificent passage in all Malory's
work is the lament that closes it, the lament of Sir Ector de Maris
over his brother, Sir Lancelot. Here the word "truest," sounds
twice, like a tolling bell. It is the final picture of the perfect knight,
the summary of all the paradoxical virtues of gentleness and sternness,
all the defeated hopes that the knight prisoner had strengthened himself
with in his prison IF, then, the inner core of feeling which lies at
the center of Malory's world is the masculine bond of fidelity, the
old loyalty of the band of fighting men, we should expect him to encounter
some difficulty in dealing with the French romances upon which his work
is for the most part based, since in these the love of knight and lady
was often the leading motif. The elaborate and fanciful code of manners
which in theory governed the behavior of courtly lovers, involving the
absolute subjection of the knight to the lady, with all the artifice
of courtly etiquette, and all the exotic ritual of a mock religion,
was never really acclimatized in England. The lovely dream of the garden
of the rose, which Guillaume de Lorris wrote and Chaucer translated,
had indeed inspired some of Chaucer's love poetry; and early in the
fifteenth century also had inspired that of a nobler prisoner than Malory,
James I of Scotland, who, looking out of his prison tower, beheld a
fair lady walking in a springtime garden. But the courtly manners of
royalty required a setting that most readers and writers of romance
did not know; they remade the stories, so that the kings, queens, and
knights became enlarged versions of themselves, with manners to correspond.
Probably the most courtly poem in English about Arthur's knights is
the fourteenth century “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”.
“Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight” is a late 14th-century Middle English
chivalric romance. It is one of the best known Arthurian stories, and
is of a type known as the "beheading game". The Green Knight
is interpreted by some as a representation of the Green Man of folklore
and by others as an allusion to Christ. Written in stanzas of alliterative
verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel, it draws on Welsh,
Irish and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition.
It is an important poem in the romance genre, which typically involves
a hero who goes on a quest which tests his prowess, and it remains popular
to this day in modern English renderings from J. R. R. Tolkien, Simon
Armitage and others, as well as through film and stage adaptations.
It
describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts
a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who challenges
any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow
in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him with his blow, at
which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head and reminds Gawain
of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain Gawain demonstrates
chivalry and loyalty until his honor is called into question by a test
involving Lady Bertilak, the lady of the Green Knight's castle.
The
poem survives in a single manuscript, the Cotton Nero A.x., which also
includes three religious narrative poems: Pearl, Purity and Patience.
All are thought to have been written by the same unknown author, possibly
Cameron of Sutherland, dubbed the "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain
Poet", since all four are written in a North West Midland dialect
of Middle English.
Most
of these English Arthurian romances deal with the adventures of some
single knight. Sir Gawain, Sir Percival, Sir Launcefal and the rest
are each shown as the center of a series of adventures. Some of the
material belongs to the perennial world of the fairy tale; thus, tales
of the fairy bride who rewards the knight with riches, with magic means
to overcome his enemies, and sometimes with a fairy kingdom, are obviously
popular subjects for a masculine daydream. Other tales tell of ordeals,
the overcoming of magic obstacles, or war with giants, Sara-SIR THOMAS
MALORY cens, devils. These are the two basic forms for the romantic
adventures of a knightly hero. In Malory, however, we meet a whole world
of knights. Sir Lancelot is its undisputed champion, but Percival, Tristram,
Galahad, Gawain, Gareth, and many others take for a while the center
of the stage. Malory's great work, as it would appear from the Winchester
MS, which came to light in 1934 in the library of Winchester College,
is a collection or anthology of tales about the Round Table. It is not
a single narrative, but a group of narratives, like the Decameron or
the Canterbury Tales; based, however, on a different principle of selection,
that of a common subject: all the tales are about Arthur's knights.
To see the work in this way enables the reader to measure Malory's progress
and his growing power in shaping his material.2 Caxton, when he printed
the work as if it were a single continuous narrative instead of an anthology,
destroyed the perspective and blurred the outlines of Malory's work.
By the recovery of their plan, the stories have acquired new shape and
cohesion. First to be written was The Tale of the Noble King Arthur
that was Emperor himself through Dignity of his Hands. This is a story
of military triumph in which Arthur sets out to conquer Rome; which
he does, and is crowned Emperor there, thus anticipating the glories
of Charlemagne among epic heroes, and reflecting for Malory the triumphant
conquests of Henry V. Professor Vinaver has shown how Malory modifies
the course of Arthur's French campaign to correspond with the course
of Henry's. This part of Malory's work is based on an English heroic
poem, Le Morte Arthur; but here, as in the story of Tristram, Malory
has cut out the tragic ending, and uses only the first part of the poem,
which deals with Arthur's triumph. At the very end of his work he was
to return to another English poem to help him in depicting The Most
Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur Saunz Guerdon. But in the interval
he relied on various "French books," prose romances of great
length, which he shaped and reorganized with increasing skill. Only
for one or two stories, particularly The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkeney
that was called Bewmaynes, are the sources of his work unknown. To trace
the history of the stories of King Arthur is a lifetime's task; and
the majority of scholars who give themselves to the study of Malory
or of his originals are concerned mainly with constructing genealogical
trees for the stories and disputing various theories of descent. This,
though a fascinating game, is sometimes a way of evading the duty—
at once more simple and more difficult—of seeing them as literature.
But the idea of the Round Table is so central to Malory's work, and
in itself so especially English a development of the story, that a brief
sketch of it may be attempted.
- William Langland "The Vision
of Piers the Plowman". Pilgrimage as the cultural-historical phenomenon.
William
Langland was a peasant by his descent, got some church education, was rather
poor but very independent. They believe that he used to say about himself
that he was "too high to bend low".
Langland is mostly known as the author of the allegorical
didactic poem "The Vision of Piers the Plowman" ("Видение
о Петре Пахаре") which is written by means of alliteration.
In this poem the writer mostly attacks the abuses of the Roman Catholic
Church in England. In the poem there are many abstract personages, but
there is also one character whom the very life in the country gave birth
to - this is Piers the Plowman, who has the features of a typical English
peasant of the 14th century. And in
the long run this name became a kind of symbol of a true hardworking
person.
The poem consists of two parts and a prologue. There
are 11 visions in the poem all in all.
In the 1st part the writer
tells of the people's quest for "Holy Truth", in the 2nd part different
abstract personages tell of their lives.
In the prologue the author tells of his dream: on
a May day he fell asleep on a high hill and saw a dream. He saw "a
field full of folk". There were different kinds of people on the
field: some of them were poor, others were rich, some of them were working,
others - wandering, etc. On one side of the field there was a beautiful
tower - the home of T r u t h. On the other side of the field there
is a grim prison - the home of E v i 1. The very field is the symbol
of the whole mankind. So we may say that this is an allegory of life
in general. But at the same time the people on the field are like the
English people of that epoch: they show the features of English people
who represent different layers of society - peasants, ploughmen, monks,
knights, vagabonds, pardoners, churchmen, etc. And the author manages
to find a very precise description to each of the person.
In the 1st vision the story
tells of a beautiful woman - "Holy Church" - she
speaks with the poet and says to him that the most valuable thing in
the world is Truth. The Truth's friends are Love and Conscience. Her
enemies in the poem are Lie, Hypocrisy, Bribe and Treachery.
Bribe appears in the 2nd vision. She is
very, very beautiful and can seduce anyone she wants. Then follows the
description of the wedding between Bribe and Deceit. Various statesmen
gather to this feast. Bribe and Deceit are given a special document,
according to which they have the right to lie, to boast, to curse and
do many other bad things (the writer skillfully imitates the business
language of that time). But the marriage was not concluded as Theology
is against this. Then the King proposes the knight Conscience to marry
Вribe but the knight would disagree. In the next scenes many other
allegorical personages appear: Peace, Wisdom, Reason, Lie, etc.
Langland's poetic mastery is especially bright in
the scene when the seven deadly sins appear before us: Pride, Anger, Gluttony, Envy,
Covetousness, Lust, Sloth.
The episode which unites the whole poem is the theme
of the quest for Holy Truth. The people on the field are called to seek
Truth by Reason. But they do not know the way to Truth. And the only
person who knows the way is Piers the Plowman as Conscience and Common
Sense told him about it. The allegorical message of the poem is quite
simple but profound - only those who work hard, know the true way in
life.
- Geoffrey Chaucer.
Life and works.
Geoffrey Chaucer lived in an eventful age. He was
born, they believe, in 1340 or thereabouts, when the Hundred Year's
War with France had already begun. Three times in his life the plague
known as the Black Death smote the country. When he was in his twenties
the English language was established, for the first time, as the language
of the law-courts. When Geoffrey Chaucer was in his late thirties the
young and unfortunate Richard II ascended the throne, to be deposed
and murdered a year before Geoffrey Chaucer's death by В о 1 i n g
b г о к e, the rebel who became Henry IV. In 1381 there came the
Peasants' Revolt, and with it a recognition that the labourers &
diggers had human rights quite as much as the middle class and the nobility.
Geoffrey Chaucer died in 1400, about 40 years before a really important
event in English literary history - the invention of printing.
Geoffrey Chaucer belonged to that growing class from
which, in the centuries to follow, so many great writers sprang. He
was not a peasant, not a priest, not an aristocrat, but the son of a
man engaged in trade: his father was a wine merchant. But young Geoffrey
Chaucer was to learn a lot about the aristocracy through becoming a
page to the Countess of Ulster. His promotion and foreign service as
a young soldier (he was taken prisoner in France in 1359 and was ransomed
by the King of England himself), his marriage into an aristocratic family
of the great John of Gaunt, his diplomatic service in Europe since 1370
and his services at the King's court gave Geoffrey Chaucer plenty of
opportunity to observe polite manners, to study the sciences and the
arts, the literatures of France and Italy. In Italy at that time he
could have met Petrarche and Boccaccio. At least he got
acquainted with their works. So, all this made Geoffrey Chaucer one
of the best-equipped of the English poets of that time. And his own
first literary works were the translations from French and Italian.
Among Geoffrey Chaucer's first original works was
"The Parliament of Fouls" (about 1377 - 1382). This poem combines
two medieval genres of vision and bestiary . At the beginning of the
poem the author tells how he once fell asleep and saw a dream: he found
himself in a garden on a high hill. It was the 14th of February (St.
Valentine's Day). There he saw a beautiful woman dressed in white. This
was the figure of Nature . In her hand she had a female eagle.
And two male eagles were courting the female one. But Nature did not
know which of them she should give the female eagle. So she decided
to call up an assembly of birds to solve the problem. Among the
birds there was a Hawk, a Dоve , a Goose, a Turkey, a Duck, etc. Nature
asked the birds for their opinions. The Hawk said that the eagles should
hold a tournament and the winner should get the female eagle as he would
be the worthiest among the two. The Goose added that even if one of
the eagles did not get the female eagle he should not be too much upset
because there are always so many other female eagles in the world. The
Dove interrupted him saying that one should be devoted to his love till
the end of his days, even if he was not rewarded. The Turkey argued:
what is the use of love then if it is no use at all? The argument went
on and on. In the end Nature decided to postpone the final solution
till the next St. Valentine's Day.
So on the one hand the poem is a vision because it
tells the reader of a dream, on the other hand it is a bestiary because
the main personages here are animals (the birds in this case). Besides,
the birds with their different views allegorically showed the classes
and layers of the real society of that time: the Hawk and the Dove -
the aristocracy, the Turkey, the Duck, the Goose - the newly emerged
class of bourgeoisie. Geoffrey Chaucer even used the very word "bourgeois"
while describing one of the birds.
Yet Geoffrey Chaucer's greatest work is "The
Canterbury Tales" (about 1387). He was probably influenced by Boccaccio's
"Decameron" in this book because Geoffrey Chaucer's poem (like
that of Boccaccio's) is also a collection of stories told by various
people. But while Boccaccio's story-tellers were all nobles, Geoffrey
Chaucer's personages represented different levels and layers of society.
So "The Canterbury Tales" - a long work,
but still unfinished at Geoffrey Chaucer's death- is partly a new idea,
partly an old one. Collection of short stories had been popular for
a long time on the Continent. So Geoffrey Chaucer's masterpiece is no
more than a collection of stories, and very few of them are original.
That is one way of looking at "The Canterbury Tales". But
what had never been done before was to take a collection of human beings
- of all temperaments and social positions - and mingle them together,
make them tell stories, and make these stories illustrate their own
characters. Geoffrey Chaucer's work sparkles with drama of life: temperament
clash, each person has his own way of speaking of his own philosophy,
and the result is not only the picture of the Late Middle Ages - in
all its colours of variety - but of the world itself.
The poem opens with a Prologue in which the author
tells us that on a fine April Day he stopped at the Tabard Inn where
he met 28 pilgrims who were going to Canterbury to pray at the Tomb
of a Catholic saint. Chaucer decided to join them, and so did the innkeeper
Harry Bailey. So all in all there were 30 pilgrims, going to Canterbury.
Pilgrimages were as much a part of Christian life
in Geoffrey Chaucer's time as they are today in Muslim and Hindu life.
When spring came, when the snow and frost and, later, the floods had
left the roads of England and made them safe for traffic again, then
people from all classes of society would make trips to holy places.
One of the holy towns of England was Canterbury, where the Archbishop
of Canterbury lived & where Thomas Becket, the "blissful holy
martyr" murdered in the reign of King Henry II, had his resting-place.
It was convenient & safer for such pilgrims to travel in companies,
having usually met each other at some such starting-point as the Tabard
Inn at Southwark, London.
So, the 30 pilgrims start their travel. And Harry
Bailey proposes (in order to make the journey more interesting) to tell
stories on their way (he suggests that everyone should tell 2 stories
on their way to Canterbury and 2 stories on their way back). So, there
should be 120 stories in "The Canterbury Tales", but Geoffrey
Chaucer managed to finish only 24 of them before he died.
To the best story-teller Harry Bailey offers a free
supper at the Tabard Inn on their way home. We never find out who it
is who wins the landlord's prize; we can only be sure that it is not
Geoffrey Chaucer himself. He, a shy pilgrim, tells a verse story so
terribly dull that Harry Bailey stops him in the middle of it. Then
Chaucer - the great poet - tells a prose story hardly less dull. (This,
we may guess, is the first example of that peculiar English humour which
takes delight in self-derision. It is a kind of humour which you find
at its best in the British Army, with its songs about "We cannot
fight, we cannot shoot" and its cry of "Thank heaven we've
got a navy". The Englishman does not really take himself very seriously.)
The other tales are delightful and varied - the rich humour of the Carpenter's
Tale and the Miller's Tale, the pathetic tale of the Priоress , the
romantic tale of the Knight, and all the rest of them.
The Prologue to the tales is a marvelous portrait
gallery of typical people of the age - the corrupt Mоnk , the dainty
Priоress , the gay young Squire , the greedy Pardoner - people whose
offices for the most part do not exist any longer, for the society that
produced them no longer exists. We do not have Summoners and Maunciples
and Pardoners nowadays, though we do have Physicians and Parsons and
Cooks and Students. But beneath the costumes and the strange occupations,
we have timeless human beings. There are no ghosts in Geoffrey Chaucer.
"The Canterbury Tales" palpitates with blood; it is as warm
as living flesh. So on the one hand we can investigate the mode of life
of that time (as each of the storytellers tells his or her story according
to the morals of the social class he or she belongs to), on the other
hand the personages are so bright & universal that even nowadays
we can come across such a poor but cheerful student, such prudent townspeople,
etc.
As the characters of "The Canterbury Tales"
are very different, the stories they tell are also different: some of
them romantic, the other can be quite frivolous (like the one about
townspeople and Oxford students - "Town & Gown"), etc.
One of the most enjoyable story-tellers is the Wife о f Вath . By
the time she tells her story we know her as a woman of very strong opinions
who believes firmly in marriage (she has had 5 husbands, one after the
other) and equally firmly she believes in the need to manage husbands
strictly. In her story one of King Arthur's knights must give within
a year the correct answer to the question "What do women love most?"
in order to save his life. An ugly old witch knows the answer ("To
rule!") but she agrees to tell him if he marries her. At last the
knight agrees, and at the marriage she becomes young again and beautiful.
Taken as a whole "The Canterbury Tales"
is an encyclopedia of English life and literature of the 14th century, because
on the one hand it depicted the mode of life and thinking of people
from different walks of life and on the other hand Geoffrey Chaucer
recorded all the existing forms and genres of that time (because the
story-tellers were likely to choose that form or genre for their narration
which would most correspond to their social position: a knight would
choose a romance, a priest - a vision, common people - fabliaux or bestiaries,
etc.).