Q. 1. What is the state of English language in the age of Chaucer?

Ans. The period of transition is now over. The English language has shaken down
to a kind of averageto the standard of the East Midland speech, the language of
the capital city and of the universities. The other dialects, with the exception of the
Scottish branch, rapidly melt away from literature, till they become quite exiguous.
French and English have amalgamated to form the standard English tongue, which
attains to its first full expression in the works of Chaucer.
Q. 2. What are the social and religious conditions of English in the age of Chaucer?
Ans. Social unrest and the beginning of a new religious movement were two of the
chief active forces in England of the later fourteenth century. The third influence
which did much to change the current of intellectual interests and thus affected
literature very directly, came from the new learning. Thus for, scholarship had
been largely the concern of the Church, and mens thoughts and feelings about
themselves and the world had been governed almost entirely by theology.
Ecclesiastical ideas and the mediaeval habit of mind were still the controlling
elements in Chaucers period but their sway was not some extent broken by the
influx of a fresh and very different spirit.
Q. 3. How will you consider Langland as the representative of his age?
Ans. All the writers of this age reveal some aspect of contemporary life and of
prevailing feeling and thought. Langland gives expression to the anger which was
threatening the abuses of government and the vices of the clergy. He is essentially
a reformer, indignant at the degenerate Christianity of his century. Langland
opposes the practices of the time, the essential and reflected virtues, specially work
and charity. This spirit of satire is reflected in his poems, specially in his Piers the
Plowman and is accompanied and directed by an intense religious fervour.
Q. 4. Who are the other important English poets of the fourteenth century
excluding Chaucer?
Ans. Among the other great poets of this period, we can mention Wycliffe, John
Mandeville, Gower, and John Barbour. Firstly, John Wycliffe is the most powerful
English figure of the fourteenth century. He may be called the father of English
prose, because of his translation of the Bible. He is also a great reformer. Secondly,
John Mandeville wrote important book Travels which has a distinct style and
flavour and shows the culture and credulity of the time. Thirdly, John Gower is the
contemporary of Chaucer. He follows the great poets style without his humour
and his greatest book is ConfessioAmantis. Finally, John Barbour is a
contemporary of Chaucer and is the first of the Scottish poets to claim our
attention. His greatest work is Bruce which is a lengthy poem of 20 books, in
thirteen thousand lines.
Q. 5. In how many stages the Chaucerian poems are divided?
Ans. It is now customary to divide the Chaucerian poems into three stages: the
French, the Italian, and the English, of which the last is a development of the two.
Q. 6. What do you understand by the English period in the literary career of
Chaucer?
Ans. The English period is important in the literary development of Chaucers
career because there was the greatest individual accomplishment. The achievement
of this period is the The Canterbury Tales. For the general idea of the tales Chaucer
was indebted to Boccaccio, but in nearly every important feature the work is
essentially English. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer abandoned all artificial
settings and schemes, forsook imitative methods and gave primary attention to the
representation of the comedy of life in its highest as well as its grossest forms.
Q. 7. How will you comment upon The Canterbury Tales?
Ans.The Canterbury Tales is the outstanding example of a descriptive and
narrative poem of the period, where we find the form and coherence of poetical
literature. This book beautifully illustrates how English poetical style has
established itself and the main lines of development with regard to metre and
diction been laid down. The Canterbury Tales is marked by a mastery of
versification, mastery of phrase, narrative power and humour. Besides, it is the
representative poem of this period, which it mirrors beautifully. Every class of
people are represented except the very highest and very lowest. All the characters
are of actual type, studied from life.
Q. 8. What was the plan of The Canterbury Tales?
Ans. The original plan then was that each member of the company should tell two
tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back. This meant that in
all about 120 tales would be told by the thirty or so pilgrims. There are however
only twentyfour tales or fragments of tales now extant in the series. Moreover
Chaucer seems to have changed his intentions regarding the scope of his plan as he
went along. This is clear from the words of the Host on two or three occasions.
Thus, he remainds the Franklin that at least a tale or two is expected from him.
Q. 9. How will you justify that The Prologue is the picture of society of the
fourteenth century?
Ans. The men and women who make up Chaucers Pilgrim band represent almost
every class of society in the 14th century. Only the very highestroyaltyand the
very lowest fringes of society are left out. But all those who make up the essential
basis of the social organism are there. The Prologue has been described as a
veritable picture gallery, it would be more true to call it a grand procession, with
all the life and movement, the colour and sound that we associate with a
procession.
Q. 10. What are the important characters in The Prologue?
Ans. First of all conies the knight, fresh from the holy war. Then comes his son the
Squire, a dashing youngman, handsome and fashionable, and their attendant, the
Yeoman dressed in Lincoln Green. The Church is represented by dainty and
aristocratic Madam Eglentine and her fellow Nun. There is also the undisciplined
and grosser Monk, the jovial Friar, the Summoner and the Pardoner, who are
parasites of the Church. Last of all there is the poor and virtuous parson who, with
his earnestness and true goodness redeems the cause of religion. The Doctor, the
Man of Law, the Clerk of Oxenford and Chaucer himself represent the intellectual
professions. Commerce is represented by the Merchant and the Sailor. The woman
of the world has her spokesman in the outstanding figures of them allthe
immortal Wife of Bath.
Q. 11. Chaucer is our greatest story-teller in verse. How will you justify this
statement?
Ans. Chaucer is the greatest story-teller in verse. According to Lowell, He is one
of the worlds three or four story-tellers. He is second to no English poet in the art
of narration. Other writers have greater moments, but none such even excellence.
He can tell a realistic or a romantic tale with the same skill and success. The
Canterbury Tales were originally designed to beguile the time; and their power to
do so is unimpaired to this day. The invention of a story in a sense belongs to the
man who tells it best.
Q. 12. How will you compare Chaucers art of narration with that of Shakespeare?
Ans. Like Shakespeare, Chaucers stories are in no case original in theme. He has
taken his raw material from many different sources. The range of his reading and
his quick eye for anything and everything would enable him to search the various
sources for building structure of his tales. He keeps in view all sort of literature,
Latin, French and Italian, under contribution. But whatever he borrows he makes
entirely his own. Chaucer and Shakespeare, though of course in different degrees
of excellence and vivifying power, so frequently make dry bones live, transform
dull chronicles, legends and stupid tales into literary gems, sparkling with
animation and realism, and invested with the deepest human interest. The original
story is not merely translated, it is completely transformed.
Q. 13. What characteristics of novel do you find in Chaucer?
Ans. Chaucer clothed in artistic form the low intrigue, the fable, the adventure, and
the romance of chivarly, prefacing them with a group of contemporary portraits.
Delightful are as these tales of the Canterbury pilgrims, yet the poem in which
Chaucer moved most directly towards the novel is Troilus and Cressida. Its
heroine is the subtlest piece of psychological analysis in mediaeval fiction; and the
shrewd and practical Pandarus is a character whose presence of itself brings the
story down from the heights of romance to the plains of real life.
Q. 14. What do you know about Chaucers method of characterisation.
Ans. Chaucer was not only the prince of story tellers, but also one of the mighty
poets of human heart. He was par excellent in psychology, knowledge of men and
women, which he revealed with an insight into the heart and imaginative humour,
only equalled by Shakespeare. According to Chesterton, The story-tellers do not
merely exist to tell the stories; the stories exist to tell us something about the story-
tellers. The characters in the Prologue develop a vitality of their own and reveal
themselves fully and dynamically in the tales.
Q. 15. What are the dramatic gifts of Chaucer?
Ans. The genius of Chaucer is essentially dramatic. Certainly he has great delight
in character, and the power of exhibiting it in action and in dialogue. The vividness
of his imagination, which conjures up, so to say, the very personality of his
characters, and the contagious force of his pathos which is as spontaneous as his
humour, complete in him the born dramatist. Some of the Canterbury Talesthose
of the Wife of Bath, the Friar and the Pardoner, for example, can easily be reset
into lively little plays. The speeches may be recast in dramatic form with little
alteration, with the descriptive comments appearing as stage directions.
Q. 16. Do you agree that Chaucer is a realist?
Ans. Chaucer was one of the greatest masters of realistic art. Though in the
beginning he followed the conventions of the day and displayed interest in
fantasies and allegorical dreams, in the later days of his life when he embarked
upon the compositions of Canterbury Tales, he set before him a faithful transcript
of reality as the superme object of the poetic endeavour.
Q. 17. In what sense Chaucer can be considered a great humorist?
Ans. Chaucer may be regarded as the first great English humorist. No English
literary work before him reveals humour in the modern sense. His is an esentially
English humour. It is not the wit of the Frenchman. His humour is always
sympathetic. So, it is free from the satirical bitting. In his handling of the Wife of
Bath, he reminds us of Shakespeares treatment of Sir Toby in Twelfth Night and
of Falstaff in Henry IV. Langland is satirist and attacks the Church with keen and
telling thrusts. Chaucer, on the other hand, who also exposes the corruption of the
Church, does so with a good-humoured laugh. Moreover, he makes fun of the
individual than of the institution.
Q. 18. How will you summarise Chaucers contribution to English poetry?
Ans. We may summarize Chaucers achievement by saying that he is the earliest of
the great moderns. In comparison with the poets of his own time, and with those of
the succeeding century, the advance he makes is almost startling. For example,
Manning, Hampole, and the romancers are of another age and of another way of
thinking from ours; but, apart from the superficial archaisms of spelling, the
modern reader finds in Chaucer something closely akin. All the Chaucerian
features help to create this modern atmosphere; the shrewd and placidly humorous
observation, the wide humanity, the quick aptness of phrase, the dexterous touch,
the metre, and above all, the fresh and formative spiritthe genius turning dross
into gold. Chaucer is indeed a genius: he stands alone, and nearly two hundred
years none dare claim equality with him?
Q. 19. How will you justify that Chaucer is the Evening Star of the Medieval and
Morning Star of the Renaissance?
Ans. Chaucer is the last of the medievals and he is the first of the moderns. Dryden
describes him as the father of the English poetry. According to Matthew Arnold,
with him is born our real poetry. His poetry contains all the characteristics of the
Modern ear.
The impression we gain of Chaucer from The Canterbury Tales in particular is of a
man full of interest in life, at home in all companies, a good judge of human nature
but a tolerant one, a keen observer, a genial and humorous companion readier to
listen than to talk, one who loves a good laugh though he has a subtly ironical
smile as well as one who, while ready to be serious artist, his outstanding qualities
are his excellence in characterisation, description, and narrative, his humour, and
his skilful versification.
Q. 20. What was Chaucers contribution to English verification?
Ans. Chaucers most significant contribution to the development of English poetry
was through his achievement in respect of the technical structure of his verse. He
brought to a conclusion the metrical experiments of generations of poets, who had
struggled to evolve a new rhythm to take the place of the alliterative measure of
Anglo-Saxon poetry. He perceived, as by a sure instinct, the possibilities of the
foot-rhythm which as gradually emerging out of those experiments as the common
measure of English poetry, and employed it with a technical mastery which served
to bring out its complete naturalness in English verse.
Q. 21. How will you discuss the metrical skill of Chaucer?
Ans. In the matter of poetical technique English literature owes much to Chaucer.
He is not an innovator, for he employs the metres in common use. In his hands,
however, they take on new powers. The octosyllabic and heroic couplets, which
previously were slack and inartistic measures, now acquire a new strength,
suppleness and melody. Chaucer, who is no great lyrical poet, takes little interest in
the more complicated metres common in the lyric; but in some of his short poems
he shows a skill that is as good as the very best apparent in the contemporary
poems.
Q. 22. How will you criticise The Pardoners Tale?
Ans. The Pardoner discourses on the evils of gluttony and drunkenness, gambling
and swearing. This theme is illustrated by the story of three reyellers who in
plauge-time set out on a search for Death, who has killed one of their comrades.
An old man tells them they will find him under a certain tree. There they discover a
heap of gold. Each designs to get sole possession of the treasure but they only
succeed in killing one a another.
Q. 23. Discuss the descriptive and narrative form of the age of Chaucer?
Ans. In this form of poetry Canterbury Tales is the outstanding example, but in
many passages of Langland and Gower we have specimens of the same class. In
the best examples, such as those of Chaucer, there is powerful grip upon the central
interest, a shrewd observation and humour, and quite often a brilliant rapidity of
narration.
Q. 24. How will you discuss the scope of prose in the age of Chaucer?
Ans. The field for English prose is rapidly extending. The Travels of Mandeville
presents an interesting departure as a prose work written for amusement rather than
instruction. We have the translation of the Bible usually associated with Wyclif,
and a prose version of Higdens Polychronicon by John of Trevisa. But the most
significant development is to be found in the clarity and vigour of the homely
English used in civic records, and by letter-writers such as the pastones, Celts and
Stonors. Simple, straightforward, and free from the stylistic ornamentation of the
consciously literary prose, these everyday writings illustrate vividly the growing
command of the native idiom in may sections of the community.
Q. 25. How will you comment upon the style of prose in the age of Chaucer?
Ans. The state of prose is still immature, but the everyday writings of the age show
a vigour and clarity which are a great advance on the mingled French and English
writing of the beginning of the period; then English was still struggling to shake
off the dominance of French. Wyclifs prose is unpolished, though it can be
pointed and vigorous. Mandevilles prose style, though it is devoid of artifices,
attains to a certain distinction by reason of its straightforward methods, its short
and workman-like sentences, and a brevity rare in his day. In the case of Malory,
who comes some time after the others, we have, quite an individual style.
Q. 26. How will you estimate Morte d Arthur as a book of prose?
Ans.Morte d Arthur is, in truth, a compilation from many books. He has brought
together scattered romances and co-ordinated them without estiminating the traces
of disparity. The French Arthurian romances are drawn upon to create a long
performance of great length and detail. It is Englands first book in poetic prose,
and also the storehouse of those legends of the past, which have most haunted
English imagination. It is the work which kept the chivalrous spirit among the
literate, the poets and the gently, while the people were fed by the cheap books.