Page images
PDF
EPUB

Scogan to the Lords, and four ballads by Lydgate, viz., Wicked Tongue, Doubleness, Beware, and In Commendation of our Lady.

Tyrwhitt accepted some works since rejected:-the Romaunt of the Rose, the Court of Love, the Complaint of the Black Knight, the Isle of Ladies, the Flower and the Leaf (with some hesitation), the Cuckoo and the Nightingale (though rejecting the envoy to Alison), and the Testament of Love. In acceptance and in rejection Tyrwhitt was apparently guided by his own taste and judgment as to the literary quality of the various works. His opinions are expressed in his "Account of the Works of Chaucer . . . . and of some other Pieces which have been improperly intermixed with his in the editions", prefixed to the Glossary which he drew up for the Works of Chaucer and appended to his edition of the Canterbury Tales.

Singer, in his ed. for the Chiswick Press, 1822, followed pretty closely the opinion of Tyrwhitt, deviating from it only in his retention of the Praise of Women and the Envoy to Alison; he also added the Prophecy, from MS.

In the editions by Bell (1854-56) and by Morris (1866) there were included as Chaucer's:-Merciless Beaute, Orison to the Virgin, and two additional stanzas to Proverbs (Bell); Prosperity, Former Age, and Leaulte vault Richesse (Morris).

Bradshaw (see Temp. Pref. 107-8) then rejected from the canon :-the Court of Love, Cuckoo and Nightingale, Flower and Leaf, Isle of Ladies, Romaunt of the Rose, Complaint of the Black Knight, Mother of Nurture, Praise of Women, Leaulte vault Richesse, Proverbs, Merciless Beaute, Virelay, Prophecy. These were ruled out by Bradshaw mainly because of their false rimes. He appealed to what is known as the "y-ye test", that is, to the fact that Chaucer in his admittedly genuine works did not rime together words which etymologically end in -y and words which end in -ye, e. g., trewely with folye. See Skeat I: 5, Canon 45; Trial Forew. p. 6, and note on p. 108; Lounsbury, Studies I : 372-4, 388-93. This test was also used by ten Brink, see Trial Forew. p. 108 and his Studien p. 22; ten Brink agreed with Bradshaw in several of these rejections. Both after the appearance of ten Brink's work and after the revision of the Bell Chaucer by Skeat in 1878, objections were made to the removal of some poems from the canon, see under Court of Love, Flower and Leaf, Section V here.

See Skeat in

The "y-ye test" has been especially emphasized by the disputants over the authenticity of the Romaunt. Saintsbury, in his Hist. of Criticism I : 450, and again in his Hist. of Eng. Prosody I: 145 note 3, will none of the test. Canon p. 46, in Acad. 1892 I: 206, 230. On the occurrence of "false rime" see under Rime of Sir Thopas, Section III G here; and see Lounsbury, Studies I: 388-89, criticised by Skeat VI: lvii and Acad. as above.

Bradshaw, Hertzberg, and ten Brink, also doubted the authenticity of the Testament of Love, see under that heading.

The Romaunt of the Rose has been the subject of special discussion, see under that heading. The Proverbs are still retained in recent eds. of Chaucer, as is Merciless Beaute, although doubts have been expressed, see under those headings, Section V here.

Skeat has added, in his ed. of the Minor Poems and in his Oxford Chaucer:-Ballade of Complaint, Complaint to my Mortal Foe, Complaint d' Amours, Complaint to my Lode-Sterre, To Rosemounde, Womanly Noblesse; see under each of these headings in Section V here. In his Chaucer Canon, pp. 63, 147, Skeat retracts his opinion as to the Chaucerian authorship of the Ballad of Complaint, and speaks dubiously of the Complaint d'Amours. It does not apparently occur to Skeat that his procedure in including poems because they conform to Chaucerian language and are of some interest in themselves is precisely parallel to the conduct of earlier editors which he so earnestly censures.

The present canon of Chaucer may be thus drawn up: The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Cressida, the translation of Boethius, the Astrolabe, the Legend of Good Women, the House of Fame, the Book of the Duchesse, the Complaint unto Pity (with some doubt as to the authenticity of the Ballad of Pity which follows it in Shirley's copy), the ABC, Mars, Venus, Anelida, the Parlement of Foules, the Words to Adam, Former Age, Fortune, Truth, Gentilesse, Lack of Stedfastnesse, Scogan, Bukton, Purse. The evidence for Womanly Noblesse and Rosemounde is stronger than for any other of the poems printed by Skeat with the works of Chaucer. For the four lines of Proverbs regularly included by editors in the Canon the evidence is dubious; the excellent Fairfax MS, from which alone we derive our copy of Bukton, marks the lines as Chaucer's; but the copy in Shirley's hand has no ascription to Chaucer. Bradshaw doubted the genuineness of the bit.

It might be remarked that if Shirley's marking e. g. of the Ballad of Pity or the ABC is to be accepted as proof positive of the genuineness of verse, the two bits, or one of the two bits so headed in his MS Adds. 16165 should be included in the canon. See Mod. Lang. Notes 19:35-38 and the refs. to Furnivall's prints there given. On Shirley see Section VII B here, and Anglia 30 : 320-348.

6) Lost Works, etc.

Book of the Lion. Mentioned by Chaucer in the Retractation, see end of Section III G here; also by Lydgate. Perhaps a translation of Machault's Dit du Lion, see Tyrwhitt's note on the Retractation.

Book of the Twenty-five Ladies. Alluded to in the Retractation;

probably the Legend of Good Women, q. v. in Section IV here. Skeat prints "nynetene"; see his note, V: 475.

Brooch of Thebes. Mentioned by Lydgate, see above. The Mars, lines 245-262, may be meant, as Tyrwhitt remarked in his Account of the Works of Chaucer. Note the heading to the Mars, Section IV here.

Ceyx and Alcyone. Mentioned by Chaucer in the Man of Law's headlink; usually taken to mean the introductory part of the Book of the Duchess.

Dant in English, see under House of Fame, Section IV here.

Life of Saint Cecyle, the Second Nun's Tale. Mentioned by Chaucer in the prologue to the Legend of Good Women.

Origenes upon the Maudelayne. Mentioned by Chaucer in the prologue to the Legend of Good Women, and by Lydgatè. The Lamentation of Mary Magdalen, see Section V here, was printed as Chaucer's for generations, under the impression that it was the work referred to.

Palamon and Arcite. Referred to by Chaucer in the prologue to the Legend of Good Women; understood to mean the Knight's Tale, perhaps in an earlier form, see Section III G here.

The Saintes Legend of Cupid, in the Man of Law's headlink, evidently means the Legend of Good Women.

Wrecched Engendring of Mankind, alluded to by Chaucer in one version of the prologue to the Legend,-see Lounsbury and Lowes as cited under ML Tale here, Section III G.

B. Chronology of the Accepted Works

The available evidence upon which a chronology of Chaucer's works may be based is of several kinds:

(1) Mention within the poem of the historical occasion upon which it was composed, or of some contemporary event; allusions to persons or places which afford clue to the date. Thus, the Book of the Duchesse is dated with almost complete certainty immediately after the death of the Duchess of Lancaster in 1369; see Skeat I:63 and the interpretation of lines 1318-19 of the poem in Acad. 1894 I: 191. The Nun's Priest's Tale must postdate 1381, because of the allusion in line 575 to the uprising of that year. The envoy to Bukton is dated after 1396 because of its allusion to imprisonment in Friesland, see Skeat I: 558.

Add here allusion by contemporary writers, in works of known date, to works by Chaucer, and vice versa. See Kittredge in Mod. Phil. I: 1 ff., Lowes in Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn. 19:593 ff.

(2) Allusion in one work to others, affording evidence of the earlier composition of poems so mentioned. Cp. the lists in the prologue to the Legend and in the Man of Law's headlink. Positive evidence, but not negative, is afforded by this test; thus, the prologue to the Legend must postdate the works which it names, but the non-appearance in its list of the Mars or the Anelida does not prove that those poems were still unwritten. The order of mention in such lists is sometimes adduced as evidence of order of composition, though not a safe basis for inference.

(3) Allusion to youth or age by the poet. Thus, in the Man of Law's headlink Chaucer says of himself "In youth he made of Seys and Alcion"; and if this refers to the first part of the Book of the Duchesse, it is an additional proof of the early date of that poem. The complaint of age by Chaucer must be taken with caution; cp. House of Fame II : 995. For compare Caxton's complaint in the epilogue to his Recuyell (printed in Flügel's Neuengl. Lesebuch p. 3), written when he was about fifty years old, with a new career of active usefulness opening before him, in which he was to labor for twenty years. And see Nation 1892 I: 246, Skeat I : xvi, Lowes in Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn. 20: 783.

(4) Tone appropriate to events in the poet's life. An uncertain and easily misjudged form of evidence. Cp. Flügel's censure of Skeat and others, Anglia 21 : 255, for connecting parts of the poet's work with the loss of his wife. And note the very large dependence of Koch's Chronology of Chaucer's Writings upon this sort of evidence.

(5) Evidence of maturity or immaturity in verse and style, in mode of translation, use of simple or complicated verse-forms, etc. (6) Change in poetic models, e. g., from French to Italian.

These two sorts of evidence are the most extensive available to

us, and have been the most discussed. They have however this danger, the tacit assumption that a scale of Chaucer's work can be constructed in a sort of geometrical progression, without regard to the possibility that he, like other English poets, may have had his moments of sudden expansion in youth or of dullness or compulsion in maturity; or that, as in the prologue to the Legend, he may have returned to French models long after those of Italy had become familiar to him. Also, Skeat has argued (III: 382-84) that stanzaic poems must be earlier than work in the heroic couplet, a position not provable in detail. See Pollard's Primer, pp. 53-54.

The division of Chaucer's works into periods, according to the models principally employed and in less degree according to the verse-form used, was first worked out in detail by ten Brink, in his Chaucer-Studien, 1870. Flügel remarks (Dial 18: 117) that a French period was first noted by Pauli, in his Bilder aus Altengland, see ibid. chapter VII, but the allusion is very slight. Furnivall, Trial Forew. p. 6, said that ten Brink's division "let in a flood of light upon the subject", and all subsequent investigators have worked from ten Brink's basis, though differing from him in some details.

Ten Brink dated the influence of Dante and Boccaccio upon Chaucer after Chaucer's first journey to Italy in 1372, and consequently put all works showing these influences after 1372. But Lounsbury, in the introd, to his ed. of the Parlement of Foules, and Morley, Eng. Writers V: 156, 187, suggested that Chaucer was sent on the Italian missions because of his previous knowledge of Italian, thus opening the way for an earlier dating of the "Italian period"; while Mather, Nation 1896 II : 269, and Pollard, Globe Chaucer p. xxii, consider that the Italian period of Chaucer's work cannot be dated as beginning earlier than the poet's second journey to Italy in 1378-79.

Ten Brink marks three "periods" in Chaucer's work. (1) The work before his going to Italy, done mainly under the influence of French models. (2) The work translated from or alluding to Italian authors. (3) The works of his greatest period, from 1385 to 1400.

To this Furnivall would add a period of decline, "from, say, 1390 to 1400." See Trial Forew. p. 6 footnote. In this period Furnivall puts, e. g., Venus, Bukton, Scogan, Gentilesse, Stedfastnesse, Fortune, Purse, the finishing of the Parson's Tale; he also remarks that "the dull Canterbury Tales" are either quite early, or later than 1386. See his letters Athen. 1871 II : 16-17 and 494-5; a summarized table is on p. 495, cp. Trial Forew. pp. 15 ff.

Koch, in his book on the Chronology of Chaucer's Writings, Ch. Soc. 1890, has done little or no independent work; his remarks

« PreviousContinue »