An Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer

3. Chaucer’s Sources and Influences

3 Chaucer’s Sources and Influences Literatures prior and contemporary to Chaucer—including the writings of classical Greece and Rome, of the Judeo-Christian Bible, and of the French and Italian traditions—resonate throughout his fictions, and deciphering his many allusions to previous masterpieces adds a challenging but pleasureful element to reading the Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and his other works. Readers unfamiliar with classical, biblical , and French and Italian literature should not feel overwhelmed by these sources so much as inspired by them: some allusions might pass unrecognized or unnoticed when first encountered, but Chaucer’s literature maintains its energy and vigor irrespective of one’s familiarity with these various traditions. Furthermore, many readers will likely be moved to experience some of these canonical works—such as Virgil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the book of Job, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose, and Boccaccio’s Teseida—for themselves. Classical Sources At the conclusion of Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer exhorts his narrative to rank itself respectfully in the annals of Western literature. It should, he advises, take its place among the masterworks of the classical era: But litel book, no makyng thow n’envie, But subgit be to alle poesye [rules of poetry]; And kis the steppes where as thow seest pace Virgile, Ovide, Omer, Lucan, and Stace. (5.1789–92) With this homage to great Greek and Roman authors, Chaucer counsels his book to make obeisance to the timeless texts that preceded it by sub- 142 An Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer missively kissing their path. He positions his epic romance as worthy of joining this pantheon, an act of authorial chutzpah that has nonetheless proved true over the centuries. The classical sources he names, Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lucan, and Statius, allow a wide-ranging overview into his play with the literatures of the distant past; beyond these figures, the Roman philosopher Boethius stands as a preeminent influence on Chaucer ’s moral philosophy, and numerous other classical authors likewise inspired various moments in his writings. Virgil, more fully Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BCE), is most famous for his Aeneid, an epic account of Aeneas’s journey to Italy from his fallen homeland of Troy that lays the groundwork for the subsequent founding of Rome. England links its legendary history to Troy’s, in that Aeneas’s great-grandson Brutus is credited as the founder of Britain; indeed , in fourteenth-century England some devotees of the Trojan legend advocated renaming London as “Little Troy” or “New Troy.”1 Chaucer’s respect for Virgil is evident in his Legend of Good Women, in which he praises his literary forebear for the guidance he provides: “Glorye and honour, Virgil Mantoan, / Be to thy name! and I shal, as I can, / Folwe thy lanterne, as thow gost byforn” (924–26). Chaucer retells Virgil’s Aeneid, in much abridged form, in book 1 of the House of Fame, and he begins his account of Aeneas’s legend by translating Virgil’s famous opening words “Arma virumque cano” [I sing of arms and a man] as “I wol now synge, yif I kan, / The armes and also the man” (143–44). Throughout his Virgilian writings, Chaucer pays particular attention to Aeneas’s courtship and jilting of Dido, the queen of Carthage, who commits suicide after her cavalier lover’s departure. Chaucer tells this story in his House of Fame (212–382) and as the third narrative of the Legend of Good Women (924–1367), in which the narrator confesses his “gret . . . routhe” (1345) to recount her story. In this retelling, her dying words to absent Aeneas reveal her strength and fidelity in comparison to his fickleness: “For thilke [that same] wynd that blew youre ship awey, / The same wynd hath blowe awey youre fey [faith (fulness)]” (1364–65). Additionally, she is mentioned in passing, with sympathy and a bit of tartness, in the Book of the Duchess: Another rage Had Dydo, the quene eke of Cartage, That slough [slew] hirself for [because] Eneas Was fals—which a fool she was! (731–34) Chaucer’s Sources and Influences 143 By contrast, Lavinia, King Latinus’s daughter and Aeneas’s eventual bride, warrants little of Chaucer’s attention, and he mentions her only in passing (BD 331, HF 458, and LGW 257, 1331). Chaucer’s interest in the Trojan legend is most apparent in Troilus and Criseyde...