Chaucers Contribution to English Language and Literature Introduction Contribution to English Language Contribution to English LiteratureContribution to VersificationThe Content of PoetryContribution to Eng. Drama & Novel

IntroductionLiterature: subject to the law of evolutionary development.Chaucers contribution to the evolution of English poetry or literature.He is acclaimed as the first realist, the first humorist, the first narrative artist, the first great character-painter, and the first great metrical artist in English literature.

Contribution to English LanguageLowell says, He found English a dialect and left it a language.No national language.The four prominent regional languages: The Southern, the Midland, The Northern or Northumbrian, and The Kentish.The Midland or The East Midland dialect, spoken in London and its surrounding area was the simplest in grammar and syntax.

John Gower (1330-84) used the Midland for his poem Confession Amantis .John Wycliffe (1320-84) for his translation on the Bible (1380).William Langland (1330-86) in his Piers the Plowman (1362) used a mixture of the Southern and Midland dialects.Chaucer employed in his work the Midland or The East Midland dialect, and raised it to the level of the National Language of England.He is credited with the first national poet of England.

Besides the four prominent dialects, there were also Latin and French which were more fashionable than the poor vernacular English.Latin was considered the universal language: used by the Church and the learned.French was the language of the court.Perplexed by the variety of languages, John Gower, Chaucers friend, wrote his Mirour del Omme in French, Vox Clamants (1382) in Latin and Confession Amants (1390) in English.English was a despised language.

Contribution to English LiteratureHis striking contribution to versification.He sounded the death-knell of the Old Saxon alliterative measure & firmly established the modern one.The old alliterative measure was employed by Langland for his Piers the Plowman.The important features of the old measure which Chaucer disowned:

There is no regularity in the number of syllables in each line. One line may have as few as six syllables and another as many as fourteen.The use of alliteration as the chief ornamental device and as the lone structural principle. All the alliterative syllables are stressed.The absence of end-rimes; andFrequent repetition to express vehemence and intensity of emotion.For that old-fashioned meaaure, he substituted the regular line with the new measure:All lines have the same number of syllables,End-rime,Absence of alliteration and frequent repetition.

No important poet after him thought of reverting to the old measure.Chaucer may be designated the father of modern versification.In Canterbury Tales he mostly uses lines of ten syllables each and the lines run into couplet; that is, each couplet of lines has its end-syllables rhyming with each other. His eyes twinkled in his heed arightAs doon the sterres in the frosty night.In Troilus and Cryseyde he uses the seven-line stanza of dedasyllabic lines having the rhyme-scheme: a b a b b c c. He borrowed the measure from French and it is called The Rhyme-royal or Chaucerian Stanza.

The Content of His PoetryThe content of poetry is also highly indebted to him.He gave poetry a new dress, a new body and a new soul.His major contribution: his advocacy and adherece to realism.In The Canterbury Tales, he deals with real men, manners, and life. Before, he wrote allegorical and dream poetry and its content was as remote from life as a dream is from reality.

He brought a healthy realism to poetry (closer to nature or reality).He became a painter of life in words.The Canterbury Tales is the product of this realization (a mirror to the life: its manners and morals).The portraits of the pilgrims in The Prologue are universal .

Contribution to English Drama and NovelChaucers poetry: a modern outlook on life.He brought the art of characterization.He is a pioneer in the shift from mere narrative to characterization.His dramatic method is also worth noting.His mode of characterization is static or descriptive, but in the tales, its dynamic or dramatic.

The characters reveals themselves through what they say and what they do.He was a forerunner of English Drama.Chaucers realistic descriptive method makes him a precursor of the English novel.His tales are replete with intense human interest and his narration is lively and direct.Vivid characterization is the primary job of a novelist. A novel, according to Meredith, should be a summary of actual life. Its Chaucers originality in The Canterbury Tales.