Visions Seven and Eight

show the attempts to put into practice the lessons gained from observing the saving actions of Christ. Evil-doers frustrate the attempts to perfect the church. The poem ends with Conscience setting out to find Piers, to lead the perfected way for salvation.

The literary form

The poem is closely connected with medieval literary traditions: written in the genre of a dream vision, allegorical images, didactic intent.

But the old form is filled with new content:

- a social critique of its age;

- the use of realistic detail;

- the presentation of a character in his/her typical features

- the author’s personality that permeates the poem.

One of the main achievements of PP is that it translates the language and ideas of the cloister into images and symbols that can be understood by every man. The language is simple and energetic.

A text. Prologus: In a somer sesun \|\| whom softe was the sonne, I schop me in-to a schroud\|\| a scheep as I were; In habite of a hermite\|\| unholy of werkes, Wende I wydene in this world\|\| wonders to here.	Modern translation: In a summer season, when soft was the son, I clothed myself in a cloak as I shepherd were, Habit like a hermit’s unholy in works, And went wide in the world wonders to hear.

Chaucer (1343-1400) was the son of a well-to-do wine merchant. He must have spent his boyhood in the down-to-earth atmosphere of London’s Vintry (the wine merchandising area) and mixed with other commoners of all sorts. Little is known of his education, but his works show that he could read Latin, French and Italian.

In his teens, he went to serve as a page in one of the great aristocratic households of England, and spent the rest of his life in direct association with the ruling nobility of the kingdom.

From the preserved historical records, we get glimpses of Jeffrey Chaucer serving

- as a soldier, who was taken prisoner in France during one of the campaigns of the Hundred Years’ War in 1359, but ransomed in the following year by Edward III;

- as a well-beloved servant of John of Gaunt (a son of King Edward, a very powerful figure of his time and Chaucer’s patron);

- the Controller of the Customs on Wool for the port of London (1374-86);

- Justice of the Peace and Knight of the Shire (Member of Parliament) for the county of Kent (1385-86).

Between 1367 and 1378 Chaucer made several journeys abroad (to France, Italy and Flanders) on diplomatic and commercial missions

Very little is known of his family life. He married at least once and is presumed to be father of two sons. His patron was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, whose own career was far from smooth, and Chaucer had to share his ups and downs.

So, Chaucer’s employments were diverse; he mingled with all sorts of people: courtiers, soldiers, merchants, city burgers, merchants, and foreigners, and he took genuine interest in all.

2. Chaucer was an assiduous versifier all his life.

Few of his poems can be precisely dated and some have not been preserved.

Among the earliest works was the translation of the Roman de la Rose. Translating it was excellent practice, calculated to bring discipline into the young poet’s versification and style. But in some sense, it also perverted his genius, leading him into the sphere of allegorical, where he remained for many years.

His early works also include:

1. The Book of the Dutchess, an elegy for John Gaunt’s first wife, who died in 1368. It is a dream allegory. The plan of the work is imaginative and daring. The poem on the whole is artificial, deliberately complex, but between the stones of this flamboyant architecture one can see the live, fresh and lovely flowers of his genius.

2. Parliament of Fowls – another recourse to allegory. The meeting of birds on St. Valentine day to choose mates.

3. The Legend of Good Women – an unfinished collection of tales about famous women: Cleopatra, Medea, Lucrece, Ariadna. The first use of heroic couplet in Engish poetry.

In the first period of his literary activity his specific poetic models were mostly French, but behind what he wrote we can discern a knowledge of writings in Latin (Ovid, Aeneid).

In 1372 Chaucer made a journey to Italy. It was in all likelihood a milestone in his literary development. It introduced him to the works of Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch. From them he learned to enrich his line, to find glowing images and impassioned themes.

The greatest influence was Boccaccio, whose cast of mind was congenial to Chaucer. Boccaccio was to provide the source of some of Chaucer’s finest poems – though his name is never mentioned in Chaucer’s works. His longest poem Troilus and Criseide (1385) is an adaptation of Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato (The Love-Stricken).

But still Chaucer felt hampered by imitation. He sought a subject that would truly be his own. And in 1387 he begins work on The Canterbury Tales, in which he is truly English.

The old tripartite division of Chaucer’s literary career, which assigns him a French period (to 1372), and an Italian period (1372-85), calls the last period of his life English.

Yet, it’s important to note, that Chaucer stands apart from the mainstream of English literature, and it’s difficult to relate his work to that of any of his fellow English writers, though, undoubtedly, he read a lot of English writings of all kinds.

Chaucer’s accomplished work left all contemporary English literature far behind. Moreover, it surpassed the contemporary poetry of France.

Sometimes you can hear that English literature proper begins with The Canterbury Tales.

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