Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s–1400) is the considered “the father of English poetry.” The son of a wine merchant, he served as a page, courtier, diplomat, and civil servant. In 1360, he was captured during the Reims campaign of the Hundred Years War but soon released when Edward III paid his ransom. His contemporary, the poet Thomas Hoccleve, hailed his as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage." Similarly, the poet monk, John Lydgate, who completed some of the unfinished Canterbury Tales, called him the “lodesterre…off our language.” He was the first writer to be interred at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey. He translated Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and the Romance of the Rose, and wrote a treatise on astronomy. However, his towering achievement was as a poet and the author of the Parlement of Foules, The Legend of Good Women, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Canterbury Tales.

In this interview, Megan E. Murton discusses Chaucer and his works.

Megan E. Murton has been an Assistant Professor of English at The Catholic University of America since 2015. She is a medievalist and specializes in the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, with a particular interest in his religious writings and his response to Classical literature and philosophy. She is the author of Chaucer's Prayers: Writing Christian and Pagan Devotion and is currently working on a book that re-evaluates the profound influence of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy on Chaucer.

1. Troilus and Criseyde
   by St. Gregory Nazianzus
2. The Canterbury Tales
   by Geoffrey Chaucer
3. Oxford Guides to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
   by Helen Cooper
4. Feminizing Chaucer
   by Jill Mann
5. Consolation of Philosophy
   by Boethius

Which events in Chaucer’s life are important to understanding his writings?
The most important events are really his reading of certain books. Others take a more strongly biographical approach to Chaucer, but what I love so much about his writings is the richness of his imaginative life and his complex response to the literary heritage that he was exposed to.

I would say that the most decisive book for Chaucer was Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. More than any other single book that he read, it helps us unlock a lot of his interests and preoccupations. He seems to first read it sometime in the 1370s. This was an important moment for him creatively and intellectually.

Also important was his reading of Dante, probably in the 1370s, when he was in Italy on the king's business. At the time, he was one of the very few English-speakers who had read Dante. As the son of a London wine-merchant, he had probably gained some proficiency in Italian during his childhood. Dante had an enormous creative impact on him as well.

There were other books that were important to him. He read French poetry continuously, and all these influences trickle into his works. These encounters with other writers, especially with other poets, are the most important events from his life when it comes to appreciating his poetry.

"He takes an existing story in a radically new direction while at the same time following the source pretty closely."

You mentioned the importance of his reading of Dante. He was influenced by the rise of literature in the vernacular, and especially by the Italian models, such as Boccaccio. Wherein lies his originality, when compared to them?
Great question. I always get into this with my students when teaching Chaucer because they are used to the post-Romantic idea of originality, where the author is supposed to dream everything up. That is not the medieval notion of originality. Back then, whatever a single person might come up with in their head would have been regarded as idiosyncratic and uninteresting. What people were looking for in poets was a creative response to what was already out there: an intervention that engaged a tradition profoundly, thoughtfully, put a new spin on it or took a new angle on something familiar.

Take Chaucer’s relationship with Boccaccio, for instance. Boccaccio wrote Il Filostrato, a love story that forms the basis for Troilus and Criseyde. Chaucer took that work, fully absorbed it, and in his Troilus and Criseyde replicated many specific plot events and even some lines of dialogue. It is a very close rendition of the Boccaccio. At the same time, it is a complete transformation of it. Chaucer makes seemingly small changes that have profound knock-on effects.

For instance, in Boccaccio's version, Troilus (or Troiolo in Italian) has loved other women before and this is just his latest fling. In the English version, Troilus has never loved anyone. This is his first love and he brings an innocence and freshness to the relationship. This is a small change in one sense, but it also changes everything.

That is one example of how Chaucer can be original. He takes an existing story in a radically new direction while at the same time following the source pretty closely. In Troius and Criseyde specifically,  his originality lies in taking Il Filostrato and making it both more courtly—more invested in the courtly love tradition and its ideals—and a lot more philosophical.

He infuses a lot of Boethius into his rendition of the poem. He makes Troilus something of a philosopher-lover, as opposed to the straightforward and even slightly cynical approach to love that the character has in in Boccaccio. He weaves together multiple sources and puts a new spin on an existing story. That is what Chaucer's originality looks like.

I have mentioned just one example, but the same pattern occurs over and over again in his works. Chaucer does not change the basics of the plot, but makes other changes around it that give the story a completely different significance.

That's what we call a remake today in cinema.
Exactly, it is like a remake.

"What Chaucer does even more effectively than the other English poets of his day is to draw into the English language the spheres that were typically covered by French and Latin."

We have compared Chaucer to European poets who were beginning to write in the vernacular. How does he differ from other English poets of the period, such as William Langland or the Pearl Poet?
The fact that Chaucer writes in English is an important part of what he is doing.

I always start by telling students that England was a trilingual culture at the time. There was English, the lowbrow language. It was the one people would use to order their ale in the pub. There was French, the highbrow courtly language. It was the language of sophisticated culture. Chaucer moved in those circles, even though he was not an aristocrat. Third, there was Latin, the language of the Church and the university. It was the language of erudition, intellectual ambition, complex philosophical and theological concepts. All three of these languages are in play in Chaucer.

However, what Chaucer does even more effectively than the other English poets of his day is to draw into the English language the spheres that were typically covered by French and Latin.

He creates a courtly register in English and shows that this common, lowbrow language can do the same sorts of things as courtly French literature. It can talk about refined sentiments and feelings. It can delve deep into the psychology of love. Chaucer showed that it could do all this in Troilus and Criseyde.

He also showed that it can take over the discursive domain of Latin. It can deal with complicated ideas. In his day, people did not look to English to do that kind of thinking.

He goes beyond his contemporaries and conquers the territory of the other two languages for English.

That is not to diminish Langland’s achievements. He was not very interested in the courtly sphere, but he was definitely interested in the Church and in reimagining what it can be and do. He is more of a blend of English and Latin.

The author of Gawain, the Pearl Poet, is the one from the period who gives Chaucer a run for his money in combining all three languages. However, he is less exciting than Chaucer because he is less in touch with the continental tradition. He did not leave England and led a more isolated kind of life. He was never able to pull on the main currents of poetic creativity in Europe as Chaucer did.

So, I do believe that Chaucer stands out. This is an old-fashioned position. Nowadays, it is not the thing to claim that Chaucer is unique and special. It is possible to push that claim too far and make it sound as if he single-handedly invented English literature. That is definitely not what I am saying. However, there is something special about how he enfolds many different areas of expression, thought, and poetic creativity into the English language, which people at a time did not consider up to the task.

"Shakespeare and Chaucer are also similar in their attention to the psychology of their characters. "

Some of Chaucer’s near contemporaries share this assessment of him. The poet Thomas  Hoccleve called his as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage"; John Lydgate, called him the “lodesterre…off our language.”
However, from what I recall from studying Chaucer at school, he is comparable to Shakespeare for his capacity to write vivid characters and explore psychology. He is up there with the greatest authors for his deep probing of human psychology and rich range of characters, whose moral ambiguity he insinuates. Like Shakespeare, he is a great dramatist.
I love the comparison with Shakespeare. That is exactly right.

Shakespeare gets a lot of credit for enlarging the English language and its expressive, intellectual range. However, Chaucer probably deserves more credit, if only for the number of words that he imported into it.

Shakespeare and Chaucer are also similar in their attention to the psychology of their characters. However, they write in different modes. Chaucer never writes drama, whereas Shakespeare, apart from a few examples from his early career, almost never writes narrative. Though they do not write in the same genres, they achieve similar levels of complexity in their portrayal of human interaction and motivation.

What led you to specialise in Chaucer?
As is so often the case, it was a class I took.

During my freshman year in college, I took a medieval literature class to fulfil my general education requirements and just loved it.

We did not read a word of Chaucer, but that class introduced me to the courtly tradition in French and I ended up becoming a French major and taking more medieval courses in the French department.

In my junior year, I thought I should branch out and try Chaucer. There was a graduate level class in Chaucer that I was allowed to take. It carried me away.

My background in French was helpful because Chaucer in steeped in French traditions. As a result, a lot of things in his writings were easy for me to understand and take on board. It was exciting to bring all the things that interested me about medieval literature and see them play out in my own language. It was also especially exciting to see my own language kind of growing and changing in Chaucer's hands.

In addition to being a French major, I was a linguistics major. My interest in language is part of what drew me to Chaucer in the first place.

From that class onwards, Chaucer was where I wanted to be. So, I switched to English for my graduate training.

Now, I get to teach Chaucer almost every semester, which is wonderful.

"Whenever we encounter a prayer in one of Chaucer's poems, we should approach it as a script for us to perform rather than just some words on the page for us to read."

You have explored Chaucer’s credentials as a Christian writer in Chaucer’s Prayers: Writing Christian and Pagan Devotion. What is the main argument of your book?
The main argument is that whenever we encounter a prayer in one of Chaucer's poems, we should approach it as a script for us to perform rather than just some words on the page for us to read.

In Chaucer's culture, prayer was very much a scripted and written activity. The idea of praying extemporaneously and self-expressively was unknown in his world.

It follows, therefore, that the written prayers in his works are not just text in the ordinary sense of the term. They are something you are supposed to perform, in a way that does not imply being fake. You are supposed to inhabit it and make it your own as you recite it.

Moreover, poetry was always read aloud in Chaucer's world. It was still idiosyncratic to read silently in one’s head, without making any noise. People were used to vocalizing when they read. Once we combine the cultural practice of scripted prayer with that of reading out loud, we can easily see that whoever read a poem out loud, whether alone or in a group, and came upon a prayer, would make that a powerful and distinctive moment in the reading. The reader would perform and inhabit that prayer.

We need to think seriously about what that looks like across Chaucer's corpus.

There are some places where the prayers are Christian. Given the Christian identity of Chaucer's immediate audience, those prayers were readily available for them to inhabit and use for their own personal devotion. It is very likely that this is what they did when reading Chaucer. This is not something modern readers have really considered.

Then there are many prayers, in works such as Troilus and Criseyde, that have a pagan setting and are directed to pagan deities. It is very interesting to consider the imaginative demands that those must have placed on the audience. I am not suggesting that Chaucer wanted people to pray to Mars or to Venus. Rather, he was asking people to imagine their way into pagan religious practice and to see what it felt like to pray in that way. His pagan prayers do set up a certain relationship to the pagan deity that is different in interesting ways from the kind of relationship we see in his Christian prayers. He is interested in exploring the differences in these religions and inviting his readers to imagine their way into it.

The prayers do different things, depending on whether they are Christian or pagan. The common thread is that, within a poem, a prayer is a space that you step into. It is not just a set of words like any other. I am interested in what Chaucer does with that invitation.

"Troilus worships a God called love; Christians also call God love."

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