Characteristic Of Age of Chaucer

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Characteristic Of Age of Chaucer

Posted On : Aug-07-2011 | seen (770) times | Article Word Count : 569 |

Two great movements may be noticed in the complex age of England during the fourteenth century. The first is political, and culminates in the reign of Edward III. It shows the growth of the English national spirit following the victories of Edward and the Black Prince on French soil, during hundred years’ war. In the rush of this great national movement, separating England from the political ties of France and, to a less degree,

Growth of National spirit:
Two great movements may be noticed in the complex age of England during the fourteenth century. The first is political, and culminates in the reign of Edward III. It shows the growth of the English national spirit following the victories of Edward and the Black Prince on French soil, during hundred years’ war. In the rush of this great national movement, separating England from the political ties of France and, to a less degree, from ecclesiastical bondage to Rome, the mutual distrust and jealousy which had divided nobles and commons were momentarily swept aside by a wave of patriotic enthusiasm. The French language lost its official prestige, and English became the speech not only of the common people but of the courts and Parliament as well.
Growing Social Discontent:
The second movement is social; it falls largely within the reign of Edward’s successor, Richard II, and marks the growing discontent with the contrast between luxury and poverty, between the idle wealthy classes and the overtaxed peasants. Sometimes this movement is quiet and strong, as when Wyclif arouses the conscience of England; again it has the portentous rumble of an approaching tempest, as when John Ball harangues a multitude of discontented peasants on Black heath commons, using the famous text:
When Adam delved and Eve span
Who was then the gentleman?
and again it breaks out into violent rebellion of Watt Tyler. All these things show the same Saxon spirit that had won its freedom in a thousand years’ struggle against foreign enemies, and that now felt itself oppressed by a social and industrial tyranny in its own midst.
Trade and Colonization:
Aside from these two movements, the age was one of unusual stir and progress. Chivalry a medieval institution of mixed good and evil, was in its Indian summer.—a sentiment rather than a practical system. Trade, and its resultant wealth and luxury, were increasing enormously. Following trade, as the Viking had followed glory, the English began to be a conquering and colonizing people, like the Anglo-Saxons. The native shed something of his insularity and became a traveler, going first to view the places where trade had opened the way, and returning with wider interests and a larger horizon. Above all, the first dawn of the Renaissance is heralded in England, as in Spain and Italy, by the appearance of a national literature.
National Literature in the Hands of Langland and Chaucer:
The literary movement of the age clearly reflects the stirring life of the times. There is Langland, voicing the social discontent, preaching the equality of men and the dignity of labor; Wyclif, greatest of the English religious reformers, giving the Gospels to the people in their own tongue, and the freedom of the Gospel in unnumbered tracts and addresses; Gower, the scholar and literary man, criticizing this vigorous life and plainly afraid of its consequences; and Mandeville, the traveler, romancing about the wonders to be seen abroad. Above all there is Chaucer,--scholar, traveler, businessman, courtier, sharing in all the stirring life of his times, and reflecting it in literature as no other but Shakespeare has ever done. Outside of England the greatest literary influence of the age was that of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, whose works, then at the summit of their influence in Italy, profoundly affected the literature of all Europe.

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<h1>Characteristic Of Age of Chaucer </h1> Author: <a href='http://www.articleseen.com/profile_Gia.aspx'>Gia</a> Growth of National spirit: 
Two great movements may be noticed in the complex age of England during the fourteenth century. The first is political, and culminates in the reign of Edward III. It shows the growth of the English national spirit following the victories of Edward and the Black Prince on French soil, during hundred years’ war. In the rush of this great national movement, separating England from the political ties of France and, to a less degree, from ecclesiastical bondage to Rome, the mutual distrust and jealousy which had divided nobles and commons were momentarily swept aside by a wave of patriotic enthusiasm. The French language lost its official prestige, and English became the speech not only of the common people but of the courts and Parliament as well. 
Growing Social Discontent: 
The second movement is social; it falls largely within the reign of Edward’s successor, Richard II, and marks the growing discontent with the contrast between luxury and poverty, between the idle wealthy classes and the overtaxed peasants. Sometimes this movement is quiet and strong, as when Wyclif arouses the conscience of England; again it has the portentous rumble of an approaching tempest, as when John Ball harangues a multitude of discontented peasants on Black heath commons, using the famous text: 
When Adam delved and Eve span 
Who was then the gentleman? 
and again it breaks out into violent rebellion of Watt Tyler. All these things show the same Saxon spirit that had won its freedom in a thousand years’ struggle against foreign enemies, and that now felt itself oppressed by a social and industrial tyranny in its own midst. 
Trade and Colonization: 
Aside from these two movements, the age was one of unusual stir and progress. Chivalry a medieval institution of mixed good and evil, was in its Indian summer.—a sentiment rather than a practical system. Trade, and its resultant wealth and luxury, were increasing enormously. Following trade, as the Viking had followed glory, the English began to be a conquering and colonizing people, like the Anglo-Saxons. The native shed something of his insularity and became a traveler, going first to view the places where trade had opened the way, and returning with wider interests and a larger horizon. Above all, the first dawn of the Renaissance is heralded in England, as in Spain and Italy, by the appearance of a national literature. 
National Literature in the Hands of Langland and Chaucer: 
The literary movement of the age clearly reflects the stirring life of the times. There is Langland, voicing the social discontent, preaching the equality of men and the dignity of labor; Wyclif, greatest of the English religious reformers, giving the Gospels to the people in their own tongue, and the freedom of the Gospel in unnumbered tracts and addresses; Gower, the scholar and literary man, criticizing this vigorous life and plainly afraid of its consequences; and Mandeville, the traveler, romancing about the wonders to be seen abroad. Above all there is Chaucer,--scholar, traveler, businessman, courtier, sharing in all the stirring life of his times, and reflecting it in literature as no other but Shakespeare has ever done. Outside of England the greatest literary influence of the age was that of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, whose works, then at the summit of their influence in Italy, profoundly affected the literature of all Europe. 
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