CHAUCER AMONG THE VICTORIANS.
Item
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Title
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CHAUCER AMONG THE VICTORIANS.
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Identifier
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AAI8222942
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identifier
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8222942
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Creator
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DOWNER, MABEL WILHELMINA.
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Contributor
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Wendell Johnson
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Date
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1982
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Medieval
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Abstract
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Victorian writers frequently look back to the late Middle Ages for an ideal society. The parallels and contrasts of that age to their own made it particularly attractive to them, especially when they perceived them as a means of bringing to the attention of the leaders and the masses what had been done successfully in a situation similar to theirs in an earlier age; thus Carlyle's Past and Present. In seizing on this opportunity, writers were aware that Chaucer, the first English poet, had similarly exposed the ills of medieval society. In this respect he takes on historical importance. But he also had literary significance for them. They view his work and reflect on the very idea of him as the first major English writer in various ways. Each tends to define his own literary values and limitations, sometimes finding what he needs in the Chaucerian text and in the conception of Chaucer, like Morris and Tennyson; sometimes voicing disapproval, like Arnold and Swinburne.;The limitations in each view stem from different causes. First, the difficulty that earlier readers had in grasping Chaucer's language and metre might have stood in the way of comprehension for even a sophisticated mid-Victorian reader or writer. Then, too, the question of moral judgement might have caused some disapproval of his matter and some forms of expression: the earlier Ruskin and even Arnold appear to be concerned over those elements of bawdy, of sexual amorality with which some later eighteenth and nineteenth-century editors dealt by suppressing some tales and bowdlerizing. They fail to submit to Chaucer's true representation of life. It is precisely for this reason that he was accused of coarseness, licentiousness, and voluptuousness.;But others praise his innovation in language and literature, his metrical ability as equivalent to the Greeks', his skill in characterization as rivalling Shakespeare's, his humor and his representation of real life as the high points of his craft.;This study seeks to present the perception of Chaucer by various major writers, and the work of late Victorians in revolutionizing the reputation and study of the great craftsman.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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English
