Chaucer’s style and contribution
Recto of JM Manly in Cambridge History of English Literature, “The fourteenth century was a dark time in English history.” This statement is both historically and linguistically correct when applied to the medieval period. The English language was in its infancy and required the hands of a craftsman and the mind of a genius to reach maturity. This task was left to none other than Chaucer because other notable writers of the day, namely Wycliffe, William Langland, and Gower, wrote little in English. Even Shakespeare felt doubts about the future of English in the 16th century when much had already been achieved, but it was Chaucer who adopted a different style of writing in English. Literature and language were in the process of formation, which were established on firm foundations by Chaucer. This is why Dryden hails Chaucer as the ‘father of English literature’.
English is linguistically divided into three periods: Old English dating from the 5th to the 14th century, Middle English from the 14th to the 18th century, and Modern English from the 18th century to the present. Chaucer was born in what is called the Middle English Age. His style and contribution to the English language are remarkable. That is why the obverse of David Daiches, “with Chaucer’s English language matured.” The comment is true as earlier writers such as King Alfred used English as it was and made no significant changes.
The Prologue is Chaucer’s most celebrated and established work in which he uses a narrative style to get his point across. He uses various poetic devices to live his style. Chaucer followed the rhetorical principles established by Gaufred de Vinsauf in his “Nova Poetria”. These principles are description and narrative. His descriptive and narrative technique is nowhere more visible than in the Canterbury Tales. In the prologue, he mainly uses the descriptive style and in the Tales, he uses the narrative style. Most notably, it consumes his style as avoided by Robert P. Miller, “Chaucer subtly tailored language and perspectives to his individual storytellers and thus set a model for Shakespeare and the Elizabethan age.” playwrights “Why Robert Miller or David Daiches give credit to Chaucer can best be understood by examining the salient features of his style.
In the first place, Chaucer’s style is marked by lucidity of expression, cheerful originality, and simplicity free from ambiguities and direct philosophical maxims. In describing almost all of his characters, he uses colloquial language that is easy for a common man to understand. For example, says Chaucer, Knight was as meek as a maiden or the Prioress would not let a morsel fall from her lips. His similes and metaphors are conveniently used throughout the Prologue. Secondly, his style is neither bookish nor overdone. His style is rather cultivated and adapted to both intellectuals and laymen. This is why The Prologue has been popular with men of all levels of understanding. Third, the style is humorous and ironic. His style is not pointed like that of Juvenal or Swift, he does criticize society, in fact his Prologue is a criticism of life in the words of Matthew Arnold as literature should be, but he goes from character to character with a smile and uses the irony. as his weapon to attack the follies of society instead of satire. It is worth quoting his wry comments on Monk, What sholde he study and make himself wood and other comments by Chaucer Lat Austyn have their swynk in store for him. Chaucer ironically comments on Monk, I think his opinion was good. His slightly ironic flair places him with Horace. Fourth, Chaucer picks up his character description from the positive traits and jumps to the negative to initiate the reader. Squire, Priora and Wife of Bath are good characters in the first few lines, it’s only after a few comments that we come to understand their true nature. Fifth, his style is not flashy. He does not display his art through his style. We simply see the image of society and not the technique through which he was drawn. So Chaucer believes in Swift’s words that true art lies in the concealment of art.
His style is narrative, descriptive and reflective and has all the qualities of discourse. His sentences are short and simple in structure. His stylistic qualities and his poetic genius contributed to English what no other did before his time, as David Daiches asserts with Chaucer, English language and literature grew at a rapid pace to full maturity. No other Middle English writer has his skill, his range, his complexity, and his broad human outlook. His light humor and ironic pieces have rendered such services to the English, which can only be compared with those of the Emperor Augustus in Ancient Rome, who found Rome as a brick and left it as marble. A proper commentary by Lowell will nicely wrap up the issue of Chaucer finding English in dialect and leaving it as a language.