Canterbury Tales and Other Poems | Page 6

governed by the desire to give at once the most interesting, and the most characteristic of the poet's several styles; and, save in the case of the Sonnets, the poems so selected are given entire. It is manifest that the endeavours to adapt this volume for popular use, have been?already noticed, would imperfectly succeed without the aid of notes and glossary, to explain allusions that have become?obsolete, or antiquated words which it was necessary to retain. An endeavour has been made to render each page selfexplanatory,?by placing on it all the glossarial and illustrative?notes required for its elucidation, or -- to avoid repetitions that would have occupied space -- the references to the spot where information may be found. The great advantage of such a plan to the reader, is the measure of its difficulty for the editor. It permits much more flexibility in the choice of glossarial?explanations or equivalents; it saves the distracting and timeconsuming reference to the end or the beginning of the book;?but, at the same time, it largely enhances the liability to error. The Editor is conscious that in the 12,000 or 13,000 notes, as well as in the innumerable minute points of spelling,?accentuation, and rhythm, he must now and again be found?tripping; he can only ask any reader who may detect all that he could himself point out as being amiss, to set off against?inevitable mistakes and misjudgements, the conscientious labour bestowed on the book, and the broad consideration of its fitness for the object contemplated.
From books the Editor has derived valuable help; as from Mr Cowden Clarke's revised modern text of The Canterbury Tales, published in Mr Nimmo's Library Edition of the English Poets; from Mr Wright's scholarly edition of the same work; from the indispensable Tyrwhitt; from Mr Bell's edition of Chaucer's Poem; from Professor Craik's "Spenser and his Poetry,"?published twenty-five years ago by Charles Knight; and from many others. In the abridgement of the Faerie Queen, the plan may at first sight seem to be modelled on the lines of Mr Craik's painstaking condensation; but the coincidences are either?inevitable or involuntary. Many of the notes, especially of those explaining classical references and those attached to the minor poems of Chaucer, have been prepared specially for this edition. The Editor leaves his task with the hope that his attempt to remove artificial obstacles to the popularity of England's earliest poets, will not altogether miscarry.
D. LAING PURVES.
LIFE OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
NOT in point of genius only, but even in point of time, Chaucer may claim the proud designation of "first" English poet. He wrote "The Court of Love" in 1345, and "The Romaunt of the?Rose," if not also "Troilus and Cressida," probably within the next decade: the dates usually assigned to the poems of?Laurence Minot extend from 1335 to 1355, while "The Vision?of Piers Plowman" mentions events that occurred in 1360 and 1362 -- before which date Chaucer had certainly written "The Assembly of Fowls" and his "Dream." But, though they were?his contemporaries, neither Minot nor Langland (if Langland was the author of the Vision) at all approached Chaucer in the finish, the force, or the universal interest of their works and the poems of earlier writer; as Layamon and the author of the?"Ormulum," are less English than Anglo-Saxon or AngloNorman.?Those poems reflected the perplexed struggle for?supremacy between the two grand elements of our language,?which marked the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; a struggle intimately associated with the political relations between the conquering Normans and the subjugated Anglo-Saxons.?Chaucer found two branches of the language; that spoken by?the people, Teutonic in its genius and its forms; that spoken by the learned and the noble, based on the French Yet each branch had begun to borrow of the other -- just as nobles and people had been taught to recognise that each needed the other in the wars and the social tasks of the time; and Chaucer, a scholar, a courtier, a man conversant with all orders of society, but?accustomed to speak, think, and write in the words of the?highest, by his comprehensive genius cast into the simmering mould a magical amalgamant which made the two half-hostile?elements unite and interpenetrate each other. Before Chaucer wrote, there were two tongues in England, keeping alive the feuds and resentments of cruel centuries; when he laid down his pen, there was practically but one speech -- there was, and ever since has been, but one people.
Geoffrey Chaucer, according to the most trustworthy traditionsfor authentic testimonies on the subject are wanting -- was born in 1328; and London is generally believed to have been his?birth-place. It is true that Leland, the biographer of England's first great poet who lived nearest to his time, not merely speaks of Chaucer as having been born many years later than the date now assigned, but mentions