Chaucer might well be characterized as an intellectual man of the world. Interested, but not absorbed, in things purely of the reason and the soul, he drew his inspiration chiefly from literature and human life. With science and pseudo-science he was rather well ac quainted, especially with alchemy and as trology, although naturally skeptical, he seems to have believed in neither. In philosophy and theOlogy he shows no great interest, except us the question as to the relation between chance, free-will and foreordination. There are indi cations that he sympathized with some of Wyclif's teachings; but they no more show that he was a thorough Lollard than his occasional flippancy shows that he held "agnostic" views. There are signs that before his death he became even narrowly devout, and throughout he was probably faithful enough to the Church. It was for poetry that he cared rather than for specula tion, and in it he was well and widely read. English poetry was too unoriginal and meant for too rude an audience to appeal to him; he probably read it little, and never mentions it except for ridicule. He, like other educated people, almost confined his reading to Latin and French, with the weighty addition, in his case, of Italian. Ignorant of Greek, like all his con temporaries, derived most of his knowledge of the ancient world from Boethius, Virgil, Ovid, Statius and a dozen or so of other Roman writers. Among later Latin writers, he was somewhat familiar with Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine and other Fathers, and with many ecclesiastical, didactic, satirical and historical writers of the Middle Ages, most of whom habitually wrote in Latin. Among these works are several by Boccaccio, with whose Italian poems we have noted already Chaucer's inti macy, as with Dante's (Diving Commedia;' with Petrarch he was less familiar, though he .ltnew his sonnets.., With French literature he was intimate, especially the allegorical and the lyric; the romances he knew, but their thin extravagance did not greatly appeal to him. In his best days, what he derived from literature was chiefly an ideal of style, his plots and oc-f. casional ornament. What makes' his poetry" vital and individual, characterization, vivid episode and situation, descriptive touches of people and things, vivacious and penetrating side-thrusts or obiter dicta, humorous and satirical lights and flashes, he derived from his intense interest in life, and his vast endow ments of humor and observation. His most characteristic humor consists in odd juxta positions of ideas and in the minuteness of his naturalness, The pleasurable effect of all is doubled by his spirit of bonhomie, tolerance and charity. The licentious character of some of his tales is due in part to the frank ness of the time, in part to his dramatic in-' stinct for the sort of tale which certain ters would be likely to tell, in part to his hearty appreciation of humor wherever found. He was not naturally romantic, but naturalistic, and investigation shows more and more that the faithful and brilliant reflection of contemporary conditions in his works, especially the 'Pro of the 'Canterbury Tales,' is quite equal to his nice observation of characteristic acts and habits. The thoroughly romantic and idealistic character of most of the literature and art of the Middle Ages throws Chaucer's individuality into high relief, and gives the modern a peculiar sense of kinship with him.
Chaucer's style carries on the tradition in herited by the later Middle Ages of a poetry orally sung or recited, yet modified by the more dignified manner which he learnt from the Italians. Hence his combination of informality with amenity, which gives him a magically gracious ease. It is this, with his perfect free dom from artifice, with his complete frankness, his instinct for a situation, his readiness to vary his mood, and his knowledge of what to select and (usually) what to omit, that makes him a consummate narrative-poet. Of all English versifiers he is one of the most melodious, pro vided a reader understands the chief differences between Middle and Modern English, that the vowels have their Continental sounds,, that in general all letters are pronounced (including especially the final e) and that many French words are still accented on the last syllable. His chief verse-forms, in order of date and increasing excellence, are the 8-syllable couplet, the 7-line stanza and the 10-syllable couplet; the two latter he was the first to use in English, having adopted and perfected them from the French.
Chaucer' is frequently, called Father of English Poetry,' and the title is perhaps better deserved than such epithets usually are. While
he stands at the end of a long evolution in a more real sense than at the beginning of another, the former line was not a native one. His was the dominant literary influence in Eng land and Scotland during the barren century and more after his death, and he, his contem rary and friend John Gower, and his disciple po John Lydgate, were repeatedly named as the three glories of English letters. At the end of the 15th century, the 'Canterbury Tales' were twice printed by Caxton and twice by others; in 1532, William Thynne brought out the first fairly complete edition of Chanter's works. In the 16th century, 'as 'well because, owing to rapid changes in' the his vocabulary seemed archaic and his verse unmelodious, as because the direct influence of Italian and an cient literature came in, his influence decayed. Nevertheless, especially in regard to style, it was strong upon Spenser, who calls him, in celebrated phrase, "Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled On fames eternal beadroll worthle to be tyled." In the 17th and early 18th century there was a tendency not to take him very seriously, but he delighted and sometimes influenced Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden and Pope. Late in the 18th century, with the development of an interest in the past, in part romantic and in part historical, reviving appreciation of Chaucer was indicated and stimulated by the treatment of him in War-. ton's 'History of English Poetry> (1774) and by the admirable edition of tile 'Canterbury Tales > by Thomas Ty rwhi tt (1775-78; several times reprinted). His influence is more or less traceable on Wordsworth, Scott, Keats, Long fellow, Morris and Tennyson, to mention no others. - Within the last 40 years knowledge of Chaucer has been added to and interest in him enlivened by the work of very numerous editors, investigators and critics, not only in England. America and Germany, but even France and Italy; Child, Furnivall, Skeat and Ten Brink. See CANTERBURY TALES ; TROILUS AND CROSEYDE.
Bibliography. The ensuing bibliography, in which might also be mentioned numberless articles in many special periodicals, is arranged in the order of the following subjects: Edi tions, handbooks, biography, chronology, sources, critidsm, philology, bibliography. W. W. Skeat, 'Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer> (6 vols., Oxford 1894; spurious works, Vol. VII, 1897) ; A. W. Pollard and others, 'Globe
(London 1904) Skeat, 'Student's Chaucer' (New York 1895) ; 'Poetical Works) (3 vols, Grant Richards, London 1903) ; Mac Kaye,
Poetical Works of Chaucer, first put into Modern English) (New York 1912) ; A. W. Pollard, 'Canterbury Tales> (2 vols., London 1894) ; Percy MacKaye, 'The Canterbury Tales: A Modern Rendering into Prose' (Duffield, New York 1904) J. Koch, 'Detailed Comparison of the Eight Manuscripts of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales> (Heidelberg 1913) ; Skeat, 'The Prologue,
(Oxford), also F. J. Mather (Boston 1899) ; Skeat, 'Man of Law's Tale, etc.,' 'Prioress' Tale, etc.' (2 vols., Oxford) ; vanous reprints of manuscripts of Chaucer's several works by Chaucer Society, London; R. K. Root, 'The Poetry of Chaucer' (Boston 1906); Pollard, 'Chaucer Primer' (London 1903) ; W. Tuckwell, 'Chaucer,' a popular primer (London 1904); B. Ten Brink, 'History of English Literature' (Vol. II, Lon don 18%) ; 'Life Records of
(Chaucer Society, London 1875-1900) ; A. W. Ward, 'Life of
(in 'English Men of Letters Series,) London 1875); J. W. Hales, 'Chaucer> (in 'Dictionary of National
X, 154 67) ; Ten Brink, 'Chaucer Studien> (Munster 1870) ; J. Koch, 'Chronology of Chaucer's
(Chaucer Society. London 1890) ; J. S. P. Tatlock, 'Development and Chronology of Chaucer's Works> (Chaucer Society 1907) ; J. L. Lowes, 'The Prologue to the Legend of Good Women,) in
Modern Lan guage Association' (XIX, 593-683; XX, 749 864) ; (Originals and Analogues of Some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales' (ed. by Furnivall, Brock and Clouston, Chaucer Society) ; T. R. Lounsbury,