Heritage History Month Day Twelve: Geoffrey Chaucer

Happy Geoffrey Chaucer Day!

We are at day twelve of Heritage History month and celebrate the contributions of the fourteenth century English literary genius, Chaucer. Chaucer is a cornerstone figurehead in the development of the literature and poetry of the Anglo world.

Chaucer, more than perhaps anyone, developed for the West an English vernacular tradition; that is, a body of literature that could be absorbed by the common man. In doing so, he helped to instill an English-based imagination into the souls of what would be millions of his countrymen over the centuries.

One of the things about building up a culture is the need to organically develop a common imagination about the character of a given people. There has to be some sort of shared cultural instinct that unifies and draws together a people around their social priorities, adorations, and objects of value. A people need common tales, myths, heroes, and villains that shape the way they uplift their country.

Chaucer played a key role in the provision of this need. He did this not only as the writer of important works such as The Canterbury Tales, but this work likely reflects the sentiment about his country he developed in political roles such as Controller of Customs and Justice of the Peace.

What makes Chaucer important is that it borrows themes from the greater European tradition (such as pilgrimage) and integrates them into the cultural setting of English values and practices. This is largely reflective of the general spirit of the old Western European way of things, to participate in the greater flow of European culture, and to create a narrower rendition of such themes for the sake of a specific nation. In fourteenth century England, those seeking to Anglicize the great literary contributions of history would look to Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and medieval Italy.

I’ve always been struck as well by this reflection on Chaucer by GK Chesterton:

“The chivalric romance does really represent the Christian conception of life, which is at once a Quest, a Test and an Adventure. And the decorative allegories, that seem so dead to us, were once alive like a dance with the balanced morality of the Middle Ages. [I]ts Christ was shared by God and Man; that its government was shared by God and Caesar: that its philosophers made a bridge between faith and reason, between freedom and fatalism; and that its moralists warned men alike against presumption and despair.

Only by understanding all that ten times complicated sort of complication, can we see how Geoffrey Chaucer could find life so simple. The meaning of Aquinas is that medievalism was always seeking a centre of gravity. The meaning of Chaucer is that, when found, it was always a centre of gaiety.”