Critical Appreciation of Alfred Tennyson’s "The Lotos-Eaters"


A Forbidden Land of Spiritual Barrenness

There are some parallels between Alfred Tennyson’s The Lotos-Eaters and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. Lotosland offers not abundant life but spiritual death; it is no Garden of the Hesperides but a magnificently ironic variation upon a wasteland.  In both poems the past has become a bucket of ashes, a heap of broken images; fragmented and dimly remembered; it also is incapable of giving a sustenance which is not wanted anyway: ‘Let what is broken so remain.’..Lotosland has yellow down and sleeping poppies, thick twined vine and weeping long- leaved flowers, not Eliot’s dull roots, city streets and endless plains, but it is, as surely as Eliot’s ‘Waste Land’, a spiritual desert.

John Pettigrew has pointed out: ‘In both the poems enervation and desiccation of spirit is refracted through symbolic landscape: The waters of the ‘hateful sea’ of troubles and life are as resented as the spring rains; of The Waste Land stirring memory and desire.’

Hedonistic Philosophy of the Sailors

 The mariners’ yearning for a life of ease and inactivity an echo of the every man's own yearning for such a life; Again, their final decision to settle in the Lotosland like the gods ‘careless of mankind’ and their conclusion that ‘slumber is more sweet than toil’ are shown to represent the poet’s own attitude to life. We, however, do not believe that Tennyson, a faithful representative of the thoughts and morals of the Victorian age. Supported the hedonistic philosophy of the sailors or agreed with their policy of reclining with half-shut eyes and ‘to dream and dream’ forever. Arthur Carr has finely explained below why Tennyson’s sympathy could go far to the escapist contemplations of the mariners Exactly because it (i. e., the poem) is managed as an episode in the return of Ulysses to the responsibilities of Ithaca, Tennyson could follow very far the impulses to ‘slothful ease’ and vague erotic happiness. Yet in escaping so far, upon that island, the frustrations of conscience and the censures of the gods (who do not care), the poet risks the denial of transcendental reality, which was supported in Tennyson’s experience by subjective revelations that lay deeper than fantasies of dream and vision. Because the poem is an episode of the wider legendry Tennyson does not have to make amends, the argument for responsibility was implied in the outer reaches of the story.

Productive Ambiguity

Those who wish to be acquainted with Tennyson’s attitude to life should read his Ulysses where it is represented in a clear and unambiguous manner. But it is not impossible to find a few traces of it even in this poem. As Ebbatson reminds us, ‘the morality is cunningly embedded in the text. There is here a degree of productive ambiguity for the readerly mind to tease away at’. There are lines in the poem where the viewpoint of the poet is implied. For example, in stanza II we have the line: ‘Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?’ If taken in its face value there is sound logic in the sailors’ argument that since much lower things of nature enjoy rest, they, the highest and noblest of all creatures, have every right arid claim to it, and hard work on their part is therefore unnecessary and unwanted. But if taken in its deeper sense the above line may be interpreted in a different way—a way that agrees with the usual viewpoint of the poet. We may think that since men are ‘the first of things’ they must act in a way that will justify this claim. This can be done not by taking rest like all other things of nature as it will merely ruin away their energy and spirit but by action and achievement, by travel and exploration, by doing duties and responsibilities. In stanza VI, again, the sailors become aware of their responsibility towards their wives and homes and of their duty towards their homeland.

Moral of the Poem

Despite their eating of the lotos they are Conscious that ‘there-is confusion’ in their homeland. This awareness automatically kindles up their sense of responsibility and they have to invent excuse after excuse to lull their conscience. To be aware of one’s duty and responsibility and to discharge them without any pretext are two separate things. The poet was with the sailors so long they were conscious of their moral sense but obviously withdrew his support when they surrendered themselves to lethargy and inactivity pronouncing the words: ‘Let what I broken so remain.’ Finally, in stanza VIII Tennyson’s viewpoint as well as the moral of the poem is subtly implied when the mariners resolve at last
‘In the hollow Lotós-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind’

Let us initially clarify that the expression ‘careless of mankind’ is applicable as much to the gods as to the sailors themselves... Such being the case, this announcement clearly shows the sarlors’ selfishness and callousness, their hardheartedness and love for evil’ or peace ‘in ever climbing up the climbing wave’ and that surely now their ‘household hearths are cold’. Such being the case they wish to lend their ‘hearts and spirits wholly to the influence of the mild-minded melancholy’ and crave: ‘Give us long rest or death, dark death or dreamful ease’. To their melancholy selves even ‘dark death’ is preferable to active life since it can bring them at least eternal sleep or rest.

Human Life and the God

In stanza VIII of the poem Tennyson has introduced a picture of the gods who are ‘careless of mankind’. This picture largely follows that described in Lucretius’s famous book Nature of Things. The Roman poet said: ‘The course of the world can be explained without resorting to divine ‘interference. The gods are only a superior kind of creation who have nothing to do with human affairs; human weal and woe do not proceed from the will of the gods nor can they be modified by their will. In his depiction of the gods Tennyson more or less followed in the footsteps of Lucretius. The heartless gods ‘smile’ and ‘find’ 'music centred in a doleful song’ made up of human misery. One thing comes out clearly from such a picture of the Gods. If they are so selfish and remain so unconcerned, it makes human life and exertion doubly meaningless. It is to be noted again that the picture of the gods is pagan (and not Christian) and is in keeping with the sentiments of the Greeks.

Concluding Remarks

The sailors are terribly weary. Even the call of the homeland cannot prepare them to set sail for home. They cry: ‘All things have rest; why should we toll alone?’ They argue: ‘is there any peace / In ever climbing up the climbing wave?’ They finally crave. ‘Give us long rest or death, dark death or dreamful ease.’ Now the weariness of the sailors and their longing for rest has led certain critics to find a topical allusion in them. They are of the view that exhaustion of the sailors represents a reaction against the rampant commercialism of the Victorian era. Roger Ebbatson, echoing the same, remarks:
"The island is envisaged as a place outside the reach of European merchant capital, and the attitude into which the mariners fall is plainly antithetical to the Silesian doctrine of self-help which had fuelled the industrial revolution."

Critics like Sinfield have found in The Lotos-Eaters the poet’s preoccupation with an issue whether art has any place in a society dominated by the doctrine of utilitarianism. Roger Ebbatson explains the point finely in the following lines:
"If we follow Alan Sinfield’s suggestion, The Lotos-Eaters can also be read as a meditation upon the marginality of poetry itself within the utilitarian hegemony or materialistic dominance of the period."


References
1.Roger Ebbatson. (n.d.). Roger Ebbatson | Lancaster University. https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/english-literature-and-creative-writing/people/roger-ebbatson
2. Morton, J. (2017). TENNYSON STUDIES: CURRENT SCHOLARLY ACTIVITY. Tennyson Research Bulletin, 11(1), 21–24. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48596481
3. Ebbatson. (2002). Loughborough University. Tennyson. Penguin.
4.Sinfield, A. (1986) Alfred Tennyson, 9780631135821,  B. Blackwell,  https://books.google.co.in/books?id=MYKMtAEACAAJ
5. Morton, J. (2017). TENNYSON STUDIES: CURRENT SCHOLARLY ACTIVITY. Tennyson Research Bulletin, 11(1), 21–24. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48596481
6. Pettigrew, J. (1963). Tennyson’s “Ulysses”: A Reconciliation of Opposites. Victorian Poetry, 1(1), 27–45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40001229

How can you use Facebook in Studying English Literature and Grammar both as a TEFL( Teaching English as Foreign Language) & FLL (First Language Learner)?


 Introduction:

 In the age of Digital Revolution, the English literature students are not far away of aspiring goal of ‘getting and reaching’ and by the process enriching the ultimate goal of learning. The same process cannot be overlooked in other South Asian / developing countries too. The recent meeting between Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Damodar Modi entices one to write this article where it can be easily stressed my wishes of suggesting your learning English literature through Facebook.

Talking Facebook seriously:

Facebook

 I have seen students spending their valuable time on internet. They find nowhere to go but snuff and flirt with nonsense stuff online. But those early days of fantasy is gone now. They are now empowered by mobile. The great apps of Whatsapp, Facebook, and Google talk make them truly empowered by knowledge hub. They can access internet and get the news of their topics. Even through internet.org they access basic information within few finger tips.

The ways of Facebook: 

Making pages in Facebook on literacy studies is easy and fruitful way. The pages on central topic and the wide spectrum of discussion on the said topic can be initiated by making any page or participating in a page. The great Facebook pages on literature topics can be listed below:

1.      B B C learning English (Link: https://www.facebook.com/bbclearningenglish.multimedia/) More updated mainly on grammar usage by expert team where more interactive discussions are opened up. Must for TEFL students.
2.    British Council (Link: https://www.facebook.com/LearnEnglish.BritishCouncil/) A well recognized forum with discussions on various English skills often leads to their mother website.
3.    Epic Reads (Link: https://www.facebook.com/EpicReads) It is a brilliant page on interesting reading on trendy literature topics. Students must check this out.
4.    Writers’ Group (Link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/memberswritersgroup/) With most creative urge, this group focuses young writers caring about their endeavours.
5.     Grammar Girl (Link: https://www.facebook.com/GrammarGirl/) Mostly centered on grammatical usage and knowhow, it is interesting page for literary enthusiast.
6.    Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online (Link: https://www.facebook.com/merriamwebster ) as it claims, the page is about  Fun facts and observations on language, today’s lookup trends, and wordplay from the editors at Merriam-Webster.
7.     Poetry Foundation & Poetry Magazine (Link: https://www.facebook.com/poetryfoundation ) Introspections and observations on poetry. A must for literature students.
8.    Amazon Books (Link: https://www.facebook.com/Amazon.comBooks ) Primary focus on Amazon new publications, it is more than that. A first hand guide for new books.
9.    Barnes & Noble (Link: https://www.facebook.com/barnesandnoble ) Primary focus on Barnes & Noble new publications, it is more than that. A first hand guide for new books.
10.   Abe Books (Link: https://www.facebook.com/AbeBookscom-6607674487/ ) Primary focus on Abe Books new publications, it is more than that. A first hand guide for new books.
****AD's English Literature (Link: https://www.facebook.com/Ardhendude.AD/ ) My own page is far from excellence. Here is no such discussions started yet but you will find various links of my blog with added comments.

Ardhendu De

How to Embolden your Character by Reading Literary Texts from World Literature?

Reading literature at the tender age can shape one’s characteristics by million ways. In this age of cyber communication and hyper activity, the literature can be at steady pace to safeguard and mould young siblings by providing them the right text at right time. Taking this into account we can devise a plan of reading into three separate groups.

  1.   Reading at Student Life
  2. On Job Reading
  3.  Pleasure Reading at the Pastime

Is Victorian Poetry a Continuation of the Romantic Movement?


Introduction:

In spite of the great changes that occurred at the reign of Queen Victoria, Victorian poetry was, in a nutshell, a continuation of the Romantic Movement. But there were certain distinctive characteristics. 

Doubts and Disbelief in the Religious Authority of the Church:

A TO Z Literary Principles from History of English Literature: Note 102


A Set of 26 Objective Questions & Answers
UGC NET ENGLISH QUESTION BANK

1.      Two plays by Thomas Heywood:  A Woman Killed With Kindness (1603), The Royall King and the Loyall Subject.
2.    John Webster wrote The White Devil.  The chief figure of it is the notorious Victoria whose deeds and death occurred during Webster’s lifetime. Having urged her lover, Brachiano to murder her husband, Commillo and his own Duchess Isabella. Vittoria marries him and both eventually fall victims to the vengeance of Isabella’s brother.
3.    Two dramatists who jointly produced plays:  Beaumont and Fletcher. Their comedies—A  King and  No King,  The Knight of the  Burning Pestle. Their tragedies---  Philaster, The Maid’s Tragedy.

‘The Choice-I’ from "The House of Life" Celebrates Love and Relationship of D. G. Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal


A Projection of Life:

 The Choice-I is a poem taken from The House of Life which consists of 101 sonnets. These sonnets of Rossetti call to mind a projection of life ‘associated with love and death, with aspiration and with ideal art and beauty.’ They have been interpreted ‘as a record of his love for his dead wife and sorrow over her death, and as a record of his passion for W. Morris’s wife Jane.’ The emphasis placed on secrecy, delayed union, and reborn rapture would seem to support the view that the sonnets are, a record of his passion for Jane. However, both Rossetti and his brother William did not like their interpretation to be done from a biographical standpoint.

The House of Life Biographical or Fictitious:

Unpleasant Reasons: 

Acquaintance with these facts is necessary to understand whether the lovers referred to in The Choice-I are fictitious or they have some biographical basis. Rossetti did not approve of any Biographical interpretation obviously because of some unpleasant reasons. They are: 

(i) he allowed the engagement to drag on without speeding it up to marriage; 
(ii) he went away from he when he should have attended her; 
(iii)  he did not maintain the fidelity expected of a lover ; 
(iv) despite his sympathy to her he did not take any action whereby her mental suffering could be soothed. The consignment of his poems (including the early sonnets written in memory of their love) to her grave further shows that he was conscious of his guilt.

Biographical Interpretation:

That the woman pictured in the first sonnet (i. e. The Choice-I) is modeled on Elizabeth Siddal (whom Rossetti called ‘Lizzi’) we have ample scope to establish in spite of the fact that the poet vehemently opposed such kind of biographical interpretation (the cause of which is also not unknown to us).

Who is That Girl?

Before asserting any view it will be proper if we know something about Elizabeth Siddal, the woman whom Rossetti married later She was a ‘tall, beautiful shop-girl, with pale blue eyes and coppery golden hair’. Herself an ardent young painters she came in contact with Rossetti was on his way to become a well-known personality as an artist. Elizabeth was at that time barely seventeen.

Beloved of the First Sonnet: 

Dante & Siddal
We shall, however, mention reasons why the early sonnets should be interpreted with a biographical basis. That the beloved of the first sonnet of The House of Life is based on Elizabeth Siddal is clear from certain physical similarities. As a model Elizabeth cast a peculiar fascination over Rossetti the painter with her ‘coppery golden hair’. In The Choice-I the poet has without fail referred to her ‘sultry hair’. We know from the paintings drawn on her that her hair was highly attractive, possibly sexually attractive, to him. ‘The ‘golden’ colour of her hair has been mentioned in other ways. There is the ‘golden wine’, and the glowing of her fingers ‘like gold’. Rossetti was acquainted with her artistic and shining fingers and her pointed breasts (both referred in the present sonnet and can be verified from the paintings based on her) when she sat for him as a model, and he did not fail to mention these attractive physical features of hers in his sonnet. Finally, the poet has also mentioned of her capacity to sing.

Picture of the Lover:

We have also little difficulty to recognize the poet in the picture of the lover presented in the same sonnet. Like Rossetti the lover is a believer in hedonistic philosophy. ‘Eat and drink’, therefore, h a philosophy which the poet might naturally be expected to preach to Elizabeth. Their fondness, again, for wine is clearly stated in the poem. That the earth has no requirement of their help and that the troublesome hours would be forgotten with the help of wine and song are also in accordance with Rossetti’s thought and philosophy.

A Model Lover!

Their mutual friend Deverell, who himself was captivated by her beauty, arranged through her mother for the girl to have sittings for a picture Rossetti was then painting. The sitting developed into love. A historian has described their love thus ‘Quiet, even reserved in manner, dignified in bearing, and singularly sweet in disposition she attracted young Rossetti (he was 22 or 23 at that time), who had hitherto owned no mistress but his art. In 1851 they became engaged, and the importance of this attachment upon his work (the initial sonnets were very probably written at ‘that time which were of course revised and polished later on), both as a painter and poet cannot well be over-estimated.’

Early Loved Days:

The engagement hardly proved a blessing to Miss Siddal. Unthrifty in nature and unable to manage monetary affairs carefully, Rossetti was then in no position to marry her, and the engagement drifted on unsatisfactorily. ‘Unhappily she was frail in constitution and in 1853 a consumptive tendency showed itself.’ Her suffering despite the fact of her being an artist of merit stung Rossetti himself an artist, no lightly. This is what the lover wrote about her in 1854 : ‘It seems hard to me when I look at her sometimes, working, or too ill to work, and think how many without one tithe of her genius or greatness of spirit have granted to them abundant health and opportunity to labour through the little they can do or will do.’

Notwithstanding his deep-felt sympathy for her, Rossetti proved far from what we expect from a model lover. ‘Fragile in beauty and in health, she was loved by Rossetti after his fashion, though he was unfaithful to her.’ She suffered silently but could get no redress. This led her to depend more and more on alcoholic drinks and other narcotics.

Early Married Days:

Finally, Rossetti married her in 186o, nine years after their engagement, when his financial condition improved to a certain extent. But by that time she had almost turned into an invalid. After a brief recovery of health and cheerfulness she gave birth to a child in 1861. But the child was still-born and her shock was imaginable. Rossetti too was staying more and more away from home. At this instance she began to take laudanum (i. e. opium soaked in alcohol formerly regarded as a medicine that could lessen pain. finally she died in 1862 owing to an overdose of laudanum, probably taken deliberately.

Sorrowful Death:

Initially Rossetti was keenly affected by his young wife’s tragic death, and he decided to put his manuscript poems into his wife’s grave as a mark of penitence. This is clearly significant of his state of mind at that time. ‘The poems, he told his friends, had often been written when she was suffering and when he might have been attending to her; and he felt, what was certainly true, that his artistic preoccupation had taken him away from his home far more than was right or necessary. As a matter of fact, Rossetti was never framed for domesticity, and the union was fated to be a failure from the first. Men of his type make satisfying lovers but poor husbands. There was something peculiarly tying in this passionate act of self-abnegation, when he placed the work of his imagination between the cheek and the hair of his dead wife.’

Sorrow and Then:

To a man of Rossetti’s mood love came like a flood of joy and,. like the flood, it receded leaving some traces of sorrow behind. During the initial period he wrote sonnets commemorating the joys he received out of his love for the young beautiful woman whereas his later sonnets bore some signs of sorrow and unhappiness that sprang from her suffering and death. Both these types of sonnets were consigned to her graves.

The Remedial:

At the death of his wife sorrow entered into his soul and clouded his naturally happy disposition. But the vitality of the man was so great that its shadow soon faded to a mere speck.’ It was natural, therefore, for him to give permission to open his wife’s grave at the urgent request of his friends, and the poems were exhumed in 1869 as many of them were forgotten beyond recall. Regarding this act a critic has commented: ‘The temptation to yield to solicitations, in these circumstances, was great; but one would have respected the man more had he left alone the grave and its secrets.’

Ardhendu De

Is the Victorian Age Rightly Called the Golden Age of Literature?


The Victorian Age may be called the Golden Age of Literature if the size and variety is in count. No earlier age can compare or compete with it in respect of the variety, quality and output of its literature. Covering the span of 1832 to 1901, it has seen a wide, immense, variegate as well as self critical literary activities. The chief literary trends of the age are -

(1) Bag Full of Words: 
Despite the production of many poets the age is primarily an age of prose. Prosperity brought in leisure to a large section of the people who now wanted their minds to be filled with intellectual food, and the novel proved to be one of the pleasantest forms of Intellectual entertainment. In fact ‘never before, in any age or language, has the novel appeared in such numbers and in such perfection’.

(ii) Moral Purpose: 

Another trend of the age is its moral purpose reflected both in prose and poetry. Long remarks ‘The tendency of literature is strongly ethical; all the great poets, novelists, and essayists of the age are moral teachers.’

(iii) Truth Inside: 

The next literary trait is that it breaks away from romanticism and departs from such artistic creed as art for art’s sake. An age of realism, the Victorian Age sought to tell the whole truth— physical and moral diseases of men as well as of their hope and health.

(iv) Self Critical: 

Though the age is generally viewed to be practical and materialistic, nearly all the authors vigorously attacked materialism and championed a purely ideal conception of life. According to Long, the age was fundamentally an idealistic age, since love, truth, justice, brotherhood—all great ideals are emphasized as the chief ends of life, not only by its poets but also by its novelists and essayists.’

(v) Science Uppermost: 

In no other earlier age had science exercised such profound influence on the people as the Victorian Age did on them. Its influence is two-fold:

It emphasizes truth as the sole object of human endeavour; it has established the principle of law throughout the universe ; and it has given us an entirely new view of life, as summed up in the word ‘evolution’, that is the principle of growth or development from simple to complex forms.

The other influence is that it gives no encouragement to original works of imagination. As a result though the age produced an uncountable number of books, very few of them can be considered great creative works of literature.

 However, the time and its literary products is marked by many drawbacks which can easily dismantle the golden crown.

(a) Sexual Priggishness: 

Conservative attitudes towards the attitude to life and acceptance to love and sex life is reflected in major writers.

(b)Narrow Mindedness: 

Even though late Victorians are ready for rapid changes, the early Victorians are narrowly bowed.

(c) Lack of Liberalism: 

Liberty the concept was fast changing and the industrialization and colonization put the concept of nations in conundrum.

(d) Lack of Creativity: 

When there is a mass demand of text for newly learned working class of circulating library, the artists for the first time start writing for demand of mass not of soul!

Ardhendu De

Ref: Read the major events/ rulers/writers of these period: @ Short Questions From The Victorian Age (1830-90)

Historical &  Literary events 

1833 – Oxford Movement started
1848 – R B founded
1850 – In Memoriam by Tennyson
1859 – Idylls of The King by Tennyson
1855 – Men and Women by Browning
1842 – Dramatic lyrics by Browning
1847-48 – Vanity Fair - Thackeray
1859 – On The Origin of The species – Charles Darwin
1879 – A Doll’s house – Ibsen
1865,1888 – Essays in Criticism  -M. Arnold

Rulers

1831-1837  William IV
1837-1901  Queen Victoria

Authors

1795-1818 Thomas Carlyle
1809-1892 Alfred Tennyson
1812-1889 Robert Browning
1812-1870 Charles Dickens
1819-1880 George Eliot
1822-1888 Matthew Arnold
1828-1882 D. G. Rossetti
1840-1928 Thomas Hardy


Is Poetry of Shakespeare’s Sonnets Essentially the Poetry of a Dramatist?


Early sonnets are related to the early plays and later ones are akin to the dark comedies or tragedies: 

Despite the controversy about the date of composition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, they may be taken to have been composed during 1590’s whether we take Meres’ Palladis Tamia which dated the sonnets before 1598 or Jaggard’s Miscellany The Passionate Pilgrim, which published two sonnets in 1599. The nineties of the sixteenth century constituted Shakespeare’s lyrical period which produced besides the sonnets such pieces as Venus and Adonis, Lucrere, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice.


The Age of Chaucer and the Contemporary England


The fourteenth century is a period of great political, social, religious and literary activity. Politically it was a period of the Hundred Years’ War which strengthened the feeling of national consciousness and patriotism both in England and France, people began to realize that they were Englishmen of Frenchmen and the idea of a Holy Empire vaporized from their thoughts. The victory at the battle of Crecy (1346) and of Portiers (1356) made Englishmen fervent patriots. As these crucial battles were largely won by the English yeomen, middle class sprang up to ascendancy. They gradually grabbed power from the hand of the nobility. Power, like a slippery cell , slipped from the hand of the nobility.

The English Parliament, democratic to the very core, came into prominence. The position of the King was not better than a doll or a puppet. He was reduced to a doleful condition. He was like a bird whose wings were clipped off. He was not the ruler but he was ruled by his subjects. He did not dictate but he was dictated by the Parliament. No new taxes were levied and imposed without the consent of the Parliament, no new policy could be formulated without the acquiescence of the Parliament. The Parliament was all in all. Jusserand says, “From the end of the 14th century an English man could already say, as he does today”, “My business is not the business of the state, but the business of the state is my business.”

The Age of Chaucerwitnessed a rapid growth in trade and commerce. The English people shed off their insularity and became travelers returning with wider interests and a larger horizon England became commercially important. Small traders and handicraft grew into power and began to behave like alderman’ and well to-do Citizens. In the Prologue Chaucer says about the Members of a guild:
Wel seemed ech of hem a fav burgeys
To sjtten in a yeldehalle on a dyas
Everich, for the wisdom that he can,
Was shaply for to been an alderman.

Women were thought inferior to men. Women of lower strata of society were hard worked and doomed to a life of unrelieved drudgery. Most of them were illiterate. The ladies of higher society displayed an excess of delicacy and decorum. The court ladies showed’ false pity and sentimentality. Women of the upper strata enjoyed pelf and power only by marriage. The only alternative to marriage was nunnery. To the churchmen women were the source of all evil; to the courtly poets and romantic squires, they were adorable creatures. Chaucer’s Squire belongs to th second category
And born him wel as of so litel space
In hope t0 stonden in his lady grace.

 Child marriage was in vogue among the rich and wealthy persons. Richard II himself married the child daughter of the King of France. Dowry was in practice and girls were sometimes sold.

In the domain of religion, England broke her relations with the Papacy. As the seat of Papacy was removed from Rome to Avignon and the Pope supported the French ‘loyalty to the Pope came into conflict with hatred of France, and the new sentiment of national patriotism proved the stronger Other incidents also hastened the irritation of the English. The Papacy had become a stronghold of profligacy, vices and corruption. As the foreigners, French and Italian, deputed by the Pope to the richest clerical post in England spent their income abroad, the national pride was stimulated. When a French Pope, as the last court of appeal in matters of the canons of law, poked his nose in judgments of English courts, it fanned the flame of national hatred and animosity. This anti-papal agitation, though pure political in character, could not fail to shake also the religious authority of the church. In 1378 Europe saw two rival Popes, each casting slur upon the other, England supported Urban VI, the Pope of Rome; while France consented to Clement VII of Avignon.

The direct result of this schism was a crushing blow upon the sanctity of the Papal authority. It weakened the Papacy. Corruption in the church took the place of indiscipline. The greater prelates heaped up wealth; and lived in godless and worldly way, the rank and file of the clergy was ignorant and careless, the mendicant friars were notorious for their greed and profligacy. “In this spiritual desert it was natural that there should appear prophets, whether we call them fanatics or reformers: and to some e*tent at least they were supported by a general discontent.’

Wycliffe “the morning star of the Reformation” launched Lollard’s movement to eradicate evils from the church. Poets like Chaucer, Langland and Grower presented nuked deplorable condition of the Papacy and its members. “Chaucer’s Prologue shows a world on which avarice and deceit are all but universal”. Chaucer’s Monk is s worldly person who had deserted his ecclesiastical services. Chaucer’s Friar is “a wonton and merry fellow.”
He knew the taverns wet in eve,y town
And everich hostiler and tapestere.

As for the literary activities, the Age of Chaucer witnessed the rise of the English language. The English language was standardized and the East Middland dialect became the language of London and the Universities. The other dialects Southern, Northumbrian and Kentish- rapidly melted away from literature. It was the work of Chaucer who made the dialect of London the standard for future writers and the parent of current modern English. The Canterbury Tales is a landmark in the history of English as well as in the English Language.

The era witnessed the foundation of an English prose style. “Earlier specimens been experimental or purely imitative, now, in the works of Mandeville and Mallory, we have prose that is both original and individual. The English tongue is now ripe for a prose style”.

The age of anonymity, when authors did not give out their names, passed away and the authors of the age of Chaucer were in favour of revealing their identity. The greater numbers of books of this period can definitely be ascribed.

In spite of a throng of lesser writers, the Age saw five outstanding and prominent literaryy figures. Theme is the anonymous author of Sir Gowayne and the Pearl. There Langland, Gower, Wycliffe and above all Chaucer. Wycliffe, the translator of the Bible, was s versatile and vigorous prose writer. Prose writers, like Wycliffe, Mandeville add Mallory developed a prose style. In the department of poetry Chaucer, Langland and Gower, rendered incalculable and meritorious service. The main literary forms developed in poetry were the rise of allegory, the development of the ballad, descriptive and narrative poems and the metrical romances. New metres like Rhyme Royal, ottava rima and Heroic Couplet came in fashion.

The Age of Chaucer is a period of great activity in all walks of life. The age resembles not a stagnant pool but a flowing river. This Age with its vexed and troubled problems approximates the Modern Age. Kittredge calls the period “a singularly modern time” R.K. Root in his book The Poetry of Chaucer has beautifully summed up the chief traits of the Age in the following words:

“But in the world of fourteenth century England was sadly Out of joint, it was far from being stagnant. In its intellectual ferment the age had much the same- character as the age of great Elizabeth. There was the same glow of patriotism and national consciousness consequent upon a series of brilliant victories against a foreign foe: there was-the same spirit of revolt against a foreign church, and, though the forms of medievalism still survived, there was at work the same leaven of new ideas and of new conception of life, reinforced by a new interest in the works of classical antiquity, coming over seas from Italy: literature and art was breaking away from the conventional and under the influence of new models, was drinking against at the fountain head of nature. For such periods of restlessness and change have often given birth to great creative literature.” 

Highlights:The Age of Chaucer and the Contemporary England

Chaucer's Era:
  1. The 14th century, often referred to as the Age of Chaucer, was marked by significant social and cultural changes.
  2. Chaucer's writings, like "The Canterbury Tales," provided insights into the period's complexities.
Social Structure:
  1. Feudalism's decline saw the rise of a merchant class, leading to social mobility.
  2. Chaucer's works depicted the diversity of society, from nobility to commoners.
Religious Landscape:
  1. The Church's influence remained strong, but criticisms and reforms were emerging.
  2. Chaucer's satire targeted religious corruption and hypocrisy.
Language Evolution:
  1. Middle English evolved, and Chaucer played a role in standardizing the language.
  2. Vernacular literature gained prominence, making literature accessible to a broader audience.
Cultural Change:
  1. The era saw a shift towards humanism, valuing secular learning and individualism.
  2. Chaucer's writings captured the zeitgeist, reflecting a changing England grappling with social, religious, and linguistic transformations.
Ardhendu De

Ref: The poetry of Chaucer; a guide to its study and appreciation by Root, Robert K. (Robert Kilburn), 1877-1950

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