The first story, however, had been told by the Knight. He was asked for the first one, as was fitting, because of his dignified position in the society of that day. His story, as we should expect, is one of knighthood and the rescue of fair women in distress. Then the drunken Miller insists that it is his turn, and he proceeds to relate a coarse story of a foolish carpenter and his wife and various other distinctly town types. It is a strong story, but it offends the Reeve, who, next, in his story draws a portrait of a big, bullying miller. Chaucer, when his turn arrives, begins with a rhyming ballad of Sir Thopas, a parody of the popular "gestes" of the time. Its cheap jingles become unbearable, and he is commanded by mine Host to "tell in prose somewhat at the least in which there be some mirth or some doctrine." Chaucer chooses then to tell the Tale of Melibeus." To us to-day this tale is more dull than the "Sir Thopas." Perhaps Chaucer wanted to illustrate the fact that moralizing prose stories are sometimes deadly dull, for "Sir Thopas" is both moralistic in purpose and highly wearisome in story detail.

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The Tales taken together represent the wide scope of the life of the Middle Ages and its reflection in poetry; they comprise "the legend of the saint, the romance of the knight, the wonderful fables of the traveller, the coarse tale of common life, the love story, the allegory, the animal-fable, and the satirical lay." The tales are merely tales, not plot-stories, not dramatically relating a crisis in life. Most of the tales are old, but they are told "with a new and English beauty." The most English of them are those told by the Miller, the Reeve, the Cook, the Wife of Bath, the Merchant, the Friar, the Nun's Priest, and the Pardoner. These were written before 1390. The work of the last ten years of Chaucer's life, between 1390 and 1400, shows a decline in power.

The "Father" of English poetry. The attitude of men of letters towards Chaucer has been one of almost worship. Edmund Clarence Stedman called him "the fount of English pure," and "the sire of minstrelsy." Longfellow wrote of him as "the poet of the dawn." Drayton described him as

First of those that ever brake

Into the Muses' treasure, and first spake

In weighty numbers.

And Tennyson praised him as

The morning star of song, who made

His music heard below.

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill

The spacious times of great Elizabeth

With sounds that echo still.

3. The Fifteenth Century

Lydgate and others. Between Chaucer and the middle of the reign of Henry VII there is little writing worthy of extended attention.

John Lydgate in 1424-25 made a very free translation from Boccaccio and called it the Falls of Princes. It is a vivid book in its plan, making the "mournful dead" among great men and women from Adam to King John of France, who was captured by the Black Prince at the battle of Poitiers, appear before the pensive Boccaccio and tell of their defeated lives. This poem is an important one, chiefly because it influenced eight or more poets of Elizabethan days to supplement it in their Mirror for Magistrates. Many ballads were popular in the fifteenth century, among them The Nut Brown Maid and some of the Robin Hood ballads. Scotland had some poets, among them John Barbour, whose lengthy The Bruce had been published in

1375-77, and might, we should think, have stimulated a kingly poet living at that time to more patriotic song-writing. The Bruce did to a large degree become the fountain head of Scottish national spirit; though Scotland's royal poet of the fifteenth century, James I, could do little more than imitate in a love song the seven-lined stanzas of Chaucer. But his love song, called The King's Quair (Book), is the best before Spenser.

Morte d'Arthur. - In 1450, or thereabouts, came an invention of greatest importance, the invention of the printing press, in the city of Mayence, on the continent. Through William Caxton, who had for a time lived in Belgium, the printing press was set up in England. Aside from two or three editions of the Canterbury Tales, the most famous book which we know to have come from his press was the Morte d' Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory. This book was the work of a man most talented in the power of selecting materials from multitudinous French and English stories concerning the mythical British King Arthur and his court. Yet the book, after all, is but a labyrinthine bundle of legends; and perhaps since Mark Twain's arraignment of it in A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court we are able better than before to see that Malory was more barren in vocabulary, more lacking in humor, and weaker in the power to portray character than has often been said. He should have studied Chaucer more and badly written legends less. Still, by gathering all this material into one book he made it easier for Tennyson and others in later times to achieve some of their successes in story-telling.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Name the principal tribes of people which formed the inhabitants of England before the Norman Conquest.

2. Into what parts may Anglo-Saxon literature be divided?

3. Give the chief points of interest in the story of Beowulf.

4. How many Christian epics of importance were written during the Anglo-Saxon period? Name them, and tell what at least one of them was about.

5. Name the chief Anglo-Saxon scholars. Which of them is of greatest interest to you?

6. Who were the Normans, and what share did they have in the making of English literature?

7. Why was Layamon an important writer?

8. What do you know of the story of Gawain and the Green Knight? 9. Name two of the works of William Langland.

10. For what was Wycliffe noted?

When did he live?

11. Name one of the works of John Gower. 12. (a) In what century did Chaucer live? (b) What was his chief work? (c) What did that work aim to do?

13. Name seven of the principal characters in Chaucer's chief work. 14. What effect did Chaucer have upon the language of the English? 15. What do you know of the work of John Lydgate? Of Sir Thomas Malory?

16. What type of literature was most prominent during the Anglo-Saxon and Middle-English period?

READING LIST FOR THE ANGLO-SAXON AND MIDDLE-ENGLISH

HELPFUL BOOKS ON THE PERIOD

The History of Early English Literature, Stopford A. Brooke. (The Macmillan Company.)

The Age of Alfred, H. J. Snell. (George Bell & Sons.)

English Literature Mediaval, W. B. Ker. (Henry Holt & Co.)

An Introduction to English Medieval Literature, C. S. Baldwin. (Longmans, Green & Co.)

In the Days of Chaucer, Tudor Jenks. (A. S. Barnes & Co.)

An Illustrated History of English Literature, Vol. I, Garnett & Gosse. (Grosset & Dunlap.)

The Beginnings of English Literature, C. M. Lewis. (Ginn & Co.)

English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer, W. H. Schofield.

(The Macmillan Company.)

Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, A. W. Pollard. In the series of volumes entitled "An English Garner." (Archibald Constable & Co., Ltd.) See also Bibliography on The Epic, in Chapter IX, page 358.