General Information about Enlighteners in the English literature

The French Period: (Upto 1370)

For Geoffrey Chaucer, French was a language as familiar as English. He came in close contact with the courtly love tradition of his contemporary French poets. The best-known work of Chaucer’s French period is Romaunt of the Rose, a translation from the French Roman de la Rose, a medieval dream allegory. The original work established a code of behaviour, set a value on chastity and ordered a subordinate role for women. Allegorical characters such as Love, Hate, Envy, Jealousy, Idleness, Sweet Looks abound the story of the rose growing in a mystic garden, representing a beautiful lady. While translating, Chaucer had put in some original English touches.
Chaucer’s first narrative poem, The Book of the Duchess (Originally called Dethe of Blanche the Duchesse), follows the convention of dream allegory. The poem, written in 1369, on the death of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, to celebrate her glory and console her bereaved husband John of Gaunt (Chaucer’s patron and Duke of Lancaster). The poem served the twin purposes of eulogy and elegy. Chaucer successfully infuses elements of psychological and dramatic liveliness into this visionary elegy which has a trancelike quality about it.
Chaucer wrote a few other poems during the French period. “Compleynte to Pite” is a graceful love poem. “ABC” is a prayer to the virgin, translated from the French of a Cistercian monk. Its verses begin with the successive letters of the alphabet. He also wrote a number of ballads and miscellaneous verses.

The Italian Period (1370-1385)

The chief work of the Italian period is Troilus and Criseyde, a poem of eight thousand lines. It brings together the story of Trojan war, the Italian poetic version of that story and Boethius’s philosophical work of the 6^th Century, The Consolation of Philosophy. It is considered to be the first real novel in English. Chaucer uses his source, Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato but changes the simple fast-moving Italian story of love and betrayal into a multidimensional work. He enriches the narrative, set in the backdrop of the Trojan war, through excellent art of characterization and incorporation of the ideals of his own society and country.
“The Hous of Fame” (1374-85) is one of Chaucer’s unfinished poems. It is divided into three parts. The influence of Dante’s Divina Commedia is seen in the second and third parts. In the poem, the author is carried away in a dream by a great Eagle from the brittle temple of Venus. In this poem, Chaucer becomes a participant in his own writing. He brings together aspects of love which were to inspire poets down the ages following Chaucer. He uses the new verse form of rhyme-royal stanza in the poem.
The third great poem of the Italian period, The Legende of Goode Wimmen, describes some of the famous classical women who sacrificed themselves for love. Chaucer returns to the love-vision for his framework and narrates the stories of women like Cleopatra, Medea, Lucrece, Ariande, Philomela and others. Although Chaucer might have had a grander plan to include many more legends, he left his work unfinished in the middle of the ninth legend. He was inspired by a feeling to counteract his earlier presentation of woman’s betrayal in Troilus and Criseyde, in a way to atone for his negative presentation of women.
The Parliament of Fowls, also written in the dream convention, has elements from both Dante and Boccaccio. The poem is a celebration of St Valentine’s Day, possibly prompted by the royal courtship of King Richard II and Anne of Bohemia in 1380. The poem is a humorous and at times philosophical exploration of the idea of love.