Editing Geoffrey Chaucer (section)

==Influence==
===Linguistic===
[[File:Chaucer Hoccleve.png|thumb|upright=0.9|Portrait of Chaucer from a 1412 manuscript by [[Thomas Hoccleve]], who may have met Chaucer]]
Chaucer wrote in continental [[Accentual-syllabic verse|accentual-syllabic metre]], a style which had developed in English literature since around the 12th century as an alternative to the [[Alliterative verse|alliterative]] Anglo-Saxon [[Metre (poetry)|metre]].<ref>C. B. McCully and J. J. Anderson, ''English Historical Metrics'', Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 97.</ref> Chaucer is known for metrical innovation, inventing the [[rhyme royal]], and he was one of the first English poets to use the five-stress line, a decasyllabic cousin to the [[iambic pentametre]], in his work, with only a few anonymous short works using it before him.<ref>[[Marchette Chute]], ''Geoffrey Chaucer of England'' E. P. Dutton, 1946, p. 89.</ref> The arrangement of these five-stress lines into rhyming [[couplet]]s, first seen in his ''The Legend of Good Women'', was used in much of his later work and became one of the standard poetic forms in English. His early influence as a [[satirist]] is also important, with the common humorous device, the funny accent of a regional [[dialect]], appearing in ''[[The Reeve's Tale]]''.<ref name="Taylor">{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Joseph |title=Chaucer's Uncanny Regionalism: Rereading the North in The Reeve's Tale |journal=The Journal of English and Germanic Philology |date=October 2010 |volume=109 |issue=4 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |pages=468–489 |doi=10.5406/jenglgermphil.109.4.0468 |jstor=10.5406/jenglgermphil.109.4.0468 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jenglgermphil.109.4.0468}}</ref> Regarded by historians as the first use of dialect for comedy in English literature, [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] also claimed it as "dramatic realism".<ref name="Taylor"/>

The poetry of Chaucer, along with other writers of the era, is credited with helping to standardise the London Dialect of the [[Middle English]] language from a combination of the Kentish and Midlands dialects.<ref>Edwin Winfield Bowen, ''Questions at Issue in our English Speech'', NY: Broadway Publishing, 1909, p. 147.</ref> This is probably overstated; the influence of the court, [[Lord Chancellor|chancery]] and bureaucracy – of which Chaucer was a part – remains a more probable influence on the development of [[Standard English]].

[[Modern English]] is somewhat distanced from the language of Chaucer's poems owing to the effect of the [[Great Vowel Shift]] sometime after his death.<ref>{{citation |last=Wells |first=John C. |author-link=John C. Wells |title=Accents of English: Volume 1 |location=[[Cambridge]] |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=1982 |isbn=0-521-22919-7 |pages=184–8}}.</ref> This change in the [[pronunciation]] of English, still not fully understood, makes the reading of Chaucer difficult for the modern audience.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Devani |first1=Singh |title=Chaucer's Early Modern Readers: Reception in Print and Manuscript |date=2023 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=44–83 |chapter=Chapter 1 - Glossing, Correcting, and Emending |doi=10.1017/9781009231121.002 |isbn=978-1-009-23112-1 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/chaucers-early-modern-readers/glossing-correcting-and-emending/A29949485E40A781239EC8964B204F7B}}</ref>

The status of the final ''-e'' in Chaucer's verse is uncertain: it seems likely that during the period of Chaucer's writing, the final ''-e'' was dropping out of colloquial English and that its use was somewhat irregular. It may have been a vestige of the [[Old English]] dative singular suffix ''-e'' attached to most nouns. Chaucer's versification suggests that the final ''-e'' is sometimes to be vocalised and sometimes to be silent; however, this remains a point on which there is disagreement. Most scholars pronounce it as a [[schwa]] when it is vocalised.

Besides the irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary is recognisable to the modern reader. Chaucer is also recorded in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' as the first author to use many common English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in the language at the time, but Chaucer was the earliest extant manuscript source with his ear for common speech. ''Acceptable'', ''alkali'', ''altercation'', ''amble'', ''angrily'', ''annex'', ''annoyance'', ''approaching'', ''arbitration'', ''armless'', ''army'', ''arrogant'', ''arsenic'', ''arc'', ''artillery'' and ''aspect'' are just some of almost two thousand English words first attested in Chaucer.<ref name="Cannon">Cannon, Christopher (1998). ''The making of Chaucer's English: a study of words'', Cambridge University Press. p. 129. {{ISBN|0-521-59274-7}}.</ref>

===Literary===
[[File:William Blake - Geoffrey Chaucer - Manchester City Gallery - Tempera on canvas c 1800.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Chaucer by Romantic era poet and painter [[William Blake]], c. 1800]]
Widespread knowledge of Chaucer's works is attested by the many poets who imitated or responded to his writing. [[John Lydgate]] was one of the earliest poets to write continuations of Chaucer's unfinished ''Tales''. At the same time [[Robert Henryson]]'s ''[[The Testament of Cresseid]]'' completes the story of [[Cressida]] left unfinished in his ''Troilus and Criseyde''.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Testament of Cresseid |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/aug/30/testament-of-cresseid-edinburgh-review |access-date=15 February 2025 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> Many of the manuscripts of Chaucer's works contain material from these poets, and later appreciations by the [[Romantic era]] poets were shaped by their failure to distinguish the later "additions" from the original Chaucer.

Writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as [[John Dryden]], admired Chaucer for his stories but not for his rhythm and rhyme, as few critics could then read Middle English and the text had been butchered by printers, leaving a somewhat unadmirable mess.<ref>"From The Preface to ''Fables Ancient and Modern''". ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature''. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. Vol. C. New York, London: Norton, 2006. 2132–33. p. 2132.</ref> It was not until the late 19th century that the official Chaucerian canon, accepted today, was decided upon, largely as a result of [[Walter William Skeat]]'s work. Roughly seventy-five years after Chaucer's death, ''The Canterbury Tales'' was selected by [[William Caxton]] as one of the first books to be printed in England.<ref>{{cite news |title=William Caxton's illustrated second edition of The Canterbury Tales |url=https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/william-caxton-and-canterbury-tales |access-date=22 July 2021 |agency=British Library |archive-date=23 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210723003304/https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/william-caxton-and-canterbury-tales |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===English===
[[File:Brown-The Seeds and Fruits of English Poetry.jpg|thumb|Chaucer (depicted in the top middle standing next to the [[Edward, The Black Prince|Black Prince]]) surrounded by other poets including [[Shakespeare]], [[John Milton|Milton]], [[Lord Byron]] and [[Robert Burns|Burns]], in ''The Seeds and Fruits of English Poetry'' by [[Ford Madox Brown]], 1845]]
Chaucer is often considered the source of the English vernacular tradition, with the writer championing the English language over the then prevalent use of Latin or French in England in poetry and the law.<ref>{{cite news |title=Chaucer 5 - The Language of Chaucer |url=https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/chaucer-5-language-chaucer |access-date=14 February 2025 |publisher=University of Oxford podcasts}}</ref> His achievement for the language can be seen as part of a general historical trend towards the creation of a [[vernacular literature]], after the example of [[Dante]], in many parts of Europe. A parallel trend in Chaucer's lifetime was underway in Lowland Scotland through the work of his contemporary, [[John Barbour (poet)|John Barbour]].

Although Chaucer's language is much closer to Modern English than the text of ''[[Beowulf]]'', such that (unlike that of ''Beowulf'') a Modern English speaker with an extensive vocabulary of archaic words may understand it, it differs enough that most publications modernise his idiom.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Jordison|first1=Sam|date=11 September 2018|title=The Canterbury Tales: Chaucer's 'plein speke' is a raucous read |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/11/the-canterbury-tales-chaucers-plein-speke-is-a-raucous-read |access-date=25 April 2022 |work=The Guardian}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Katz|first1=Brigit|date=5 February 2020|title=A New App Guides Readers Through Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-app-guides-readers-through-canterbury-tales-180974134/ |access-date=25 April 2022 |work=Smithsonian Magazine}}</ref> The following is a sample from the prologue of ''[[The Summoner's Tale]]'' that compares Chaucer's text to a modern translation:

:{| cellspacing="4" style="white-space: nowrap;"
| || ''Original Text'' || ''Modern Translation''
|-
| || This frere bosteth that he knoweth helle,
| This friar boasts that he knows hell,
|-
| || And God it woot, that it is litel wonder;
| And God knows that it is little wonder;
|-
| || Freres and feendes been but lyte asonder.
| Friars and fiends are seldom far apart.
|-
| || For, pardee, ye han ofte tyme herd telle
| For, by God, you have ofttimes heard tell
|-
|  || How that a frere ravyshed was to helle
| How a friar was taken to hell
|-
| || In spirit ones by a visioun;
| In spirit, once by a vision;
|-
| || And as an angel ladde hym up and doun,
| And as an angel led him up and down,
|-
|  || To shewen hym the peynes that the were,
| To show him the pains that were there,
|-
| || In al the place saugh he nat a frere;
| In all the place he saw not a friar;
|-
| || Of oother folk he saugh ynowe in wo.
| Of other folk he saw enough in woe.
|-
|  || Unto this angel spak the frere tho:
| Unto this angel spoke the friar thus:
|-
| || Now, sire, quod he, han freres swich a grace     
| "Now sir", said he, "Have friars such a grace
|-
| || That noon of hem shal come to this place?
| That none of them come to this place?"
|-
| || Yis, quod this aungel, many a millioun!
| "Yes", said the angel, "many a million!"
|-
| || And unto sathanas he ladde hym doun.
| And unto Satan the angel led him down.
|-
| || –And now hath sathanas, –seith he, –a tayl
| "And now Satan has", he said, "a tail,
|-
|  || Brodder than of a carryk is the sayl.
| Broader than a galleon's sail.
|-
| || Hold up thy tayl, thou sathanas!–quod he;
| Hold up your tail, Satan!" said he.
|-
| || –shewe forth thyn ers, and lat the frere se
| "Show forth your arse, and let the friar see
|-
| || Where is the nest of freres in this place!–
| Where the nest of friars is in this place!"
|-
| || And er that half a furlong wey of space,
| And before half a furlong of space,
|-
| || Right so as bees out swarmen from an hyve,    
| Just as bees swarm out from a hive,
|-
| ||Out of the develes ers ther gonne dryve
| Out of the devil's arse there were driven
|-
| || Twenty thousand freres on a route,
| Twenty thousand friars on a rout,
|-
| || And thurghout helle swarmed al aboute,
| And throughout hell swarmed all about,
|-
| || And comen agayn as faste as they may gon,    
| And came again as fast as they could go,
|-
| || And in his ers they crepten everychon.
| And every one crept into his arse.
|-
|  ||He clapte his tayl agayn and lay ful stille.
| He shut his tail again and lay very still.<ref>Original e-text available online at the [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Cha2Can.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed&tag=public&part=17&division=div2 University of Virginia website]{{Dead link|date=March 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, trans. Wikipedia.</ref>
|}

===Valentine's Day and romance===
The first recorded association of [[Valentine's Day]] with romantic love is believed to be in Chaucer's ''[[Parlement of Foules]]'' (1382), a [[dream vision]] portraying a parliament for birds to choose their mates.<ref name="oruch">{{Cite journal|last=Oruch|first=Jack B.|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2847741|title=St. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February|journal=[[Speculum (journal)|Speculum]]|volume=56|issue=3|date=July 1981|pages=534–565|publisher=The University of Chicago Press|doi=10.2307/2847741 |jstor=2847741|s2cid=162849518 }} Oruch's survey of the literature finds no association between Valentine and romance prior to Chaucer. He concludes that Chaucer is likely to be "the original mythmaker in this instance". {{Cite web|url=http://colfa.utsa.edu/chaucer/ec23.html|title=Imagery, Iconography, and Mythography|website=colfa.utsa.edu|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160416132301/http://colfa.utsa.edu/chaucer/ec23.html|archive-date=16 April 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fruoco|first=Jonathan|date=2018|title=Chaucer et les origines de la Saint Valentin|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323175500|journal=Conference}}</ref> Honouring the first anniversary of the engagement of fifteen-year-old King Richard II of England to fifteen-year-old [[Anne of Bohemia]]:

<blockquote>For this was on seynt Volantynys day<br />Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make<br />Of euery kynde that men thinke may<br />And that so heuge a noyse gan they make<br />That erthe & eyr & tre & euery lake<br />So ful was that onethe was there space<br />For me to stonde, so ful was al the place.<ref name="ansgar2001">{{cite web |url= http://spotlight.ucla.edu/faculty/henry-kelly_valentine/ |title= Henry Ansgar Kelly, Valentine's Day |author= Meg Sullivan |date= February 1, 2001 |work= UCLA Spotlight |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170403001553/http://spotlight.ucla.edu/faculty/henry-kelly_valentine/ |archive-date= April 3, 2017 |df= mdy-all }}</ref></blockquote>