The biographical tradition of Chaucer studies dates back to the sixteenth‐century editions of his works, many of which included biographical speculation and narrative along with genealogical and heraldic tables affirming Chaucer’s place in the history of medieval English culture. John Urry also included a biography in his edition of 1721, but the first biography to appear independently of an edition of Chaucer’s poetry was that of William Godwin in 1804. In the twentieth century, John Gardner, Donald Howard and Derek Pearsall all wrote scholarly biographies, and in the early twenty‐first century, Richard West and Peter Ackroyd’s biographies reached a more popular audience. There has also been a recent flurry of biographical activity. In 2014, Paul Strohm published a focused account of one important year in Chaucer’s life: Chaucer’s Tale: 1386 and the Road to Canterbury (2014); and just before this book went to press, Marion Turner’s Chaucer: A European Life appeared to great acclaim. Another study, from Ardis Butterfield, provisionally titled Chaucer: A London Life, is forthcoming. In this book we draw on this biographical tradition, but we also go back to many of the primary source materials, as well as attempting to keep track of some of the recent developments in a range of discursive fields.
Contemporary Chaucerian studies continues to scrutinize the past reception of the medieval poet, and is particularly interested in the way the scribes of his manuscripts and the editors of the early printed texts mediate his works for us in influential ways. Equally, modern criticism is keen to re‐examine the political, social, linguistic and literary contexts in which Chaucer lived and worked; as well as bringing insights and critiques from other fields such as gender studies, queer studies, environmental studies, animal studies and cognitive literary studies. In this book we also engage with some of the striking or influential representations of Chaucer and his characters in the fictions of medievalism, as this has become one of the most popular sites in which people encounter Chaucer today.
Many lovers and teachers of Chaucer are currently grappling with sterner voices and critiques that challenge his central and foundational position in the canons and syllabi of literary criticism. These voices are sometimes raised in defense of less familiar, marginalized writers; but are also sometimes raised in more direct critique of Chaucer’s poetry and the ideas and ideologies it appears to promote. Increasingly, Chaucer has come to stand for a celebration of “canonical” literature that for many is outdated. These traditions are no longer universally admired or taught; and some commentators feel that writers such as Chaucer dominate the field at the expense of other voices and other perspectives. Ideological and political critiques of his texts abound as critics and lovers of Chaucer struggle with the apparent anti‐Semitism of the Prioress’s Tale (see Myth 15), for example, or read about Cecily Champaigne’s abandonment of “raptus” charges against him in the context of the apparent “revenge rape” of the Miller’s wife and daughter in the Reeve’s Tale (see Myth 11).
We acknowledge that, in the contemporary moment, Chaucer is not always a beloved poet, not even among medievalists. But it is fascinating to see how quickly this “lack of universal love” has given rise to what might be the thirty‐first great myth: “Chaucer is no longer relevant.” For some, it is easy to dismiss him as a relic, an antiquated vestige of a bygone era whose mores are as outdated as his language. Nevertheless, we would like to affirm, despite these challenges to Chaucer’s centrality and privileged position as a representative voice, that we have taken great pleasure in this opportunity for re‐reading and re‐visiting his works: for us, they continue to produce a potent cocktail of pleasure, danger and difficulty that provokes powerful questions about literature, its uses and its pleasures. The history of myths about Chaucer is in many ways the history of our long‐standing collective love affair with this most engaging and seductive medieval poet. It is a continuous, unbroken history and its importance is signaled both by the multitude of manuscripts and printed editions containing the poet’s works as well as by six hundred years of popular interest. We hope you enjoy working through these long traditions with us.
Notes
1 1 See, for example, the reflective analysis on the myth of the chastity belt by Albrecht Classen , The Medieval Chastity Belt: A Myth‐Making Process (New York: Palgrave, 2007); and the many angry responses by medievalists to Stephen Greenblatt’s critique of medieval culture in The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011); for example, Jim Hinch, “Why Stephen Greenblatt Is Wrong—And Why It Matters,” Los Angeles Review of Books, 1 December 2012, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/why‐stephen‐greenblatt‐is‐wrong‐and‐why‐it‐matters/#!, accessed 22 December 2018.
2 2 Thomas A. Prendergast and Stephanie Trigg , Affective Medievalism: Love, Abjection and Discontent (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018).
Myth 1
CHAUCER IS THE FATHER OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Chaucer is regularly named as the father of English poetry, the father of English literature, the father of English literary history,1 the father of the English language, even the father of England itself.2 This first “myth,” with all these associations, is probably the most foundational one for this book, as it sits behind many of the conceptions and emotional investments readers have in the familiar figure of Geoffrey Chaucer. It is also the myth that exemplifies the ways in which this concept in literary history is both instructive and yet also potentially confusing. The idea of fatherhood over a literary tradition is a powerful metaphor that is intimately tied up with ideas of nationalism, masculinity and poetic influence, but we can fruitfully unpack its significance and its history. We may also observe that this kind of praise can be a mixed blessing in the changing fashions of literary study.
It was Chaucer’s immediate successor Thomas Hoccleve who first wrote about Chaucer as a father figure. In several stanzas of his Regiment of Princes, written in 1412, just twelve years after Chaucer’s death, Hoccleve laments the death of his “maister deere and fadir reverent.”3 He praises Chaucer as “universel fadir in science” (“science” is best glossed as knowledge, or wisdom),4 and twice calls him his “worthy maistir,”5 suggesting a close link between fatherhood and authority. Hoccleve also describes Chaucer as “The firste fyndere of our faire langage.”6 This is a tricky phrase to analyze, as “fyndere” in Middle English can mean “poet” as much as “discoverer” and “first” can mean “pre‐eminent” as well as “first.” But the praise is unequivocal: Hoccleve compares Chaucer to Aristotle in philosophy, to Cicero in rhetoric and to Virgil in poetry.
Other writers who did not know Chaucer