A Chaucerian ?courtly love aunter? by Henry Howard, earl of Surrey

Perhaps the most useful description of the style of The Book of the Duchess is that of Wolfgang Clemen (Clemen,. Throughout the poem, he observes, flights of rhetoric wrought to "the pitch of exaggeration" alternate, not always gracefully, with colloquial passages full of "sudden cries and pious ejaculations," vows, protestations, asides, and an elliptical syntax where relatives are "'swallowed' as it were, in the hasty and emotional pressure of the narrative." 1 Chaucer's versification is experimental in a complementary way: bold, pungent, and aiming always at "variety and urgency." Unlike the subtle fluency of Gower, whose dialogue preserves its animation without requiring us to supply so much as an exclamation point, reading aloud a Chaucerian passage like that which reveals the fact of the lady's death (BD 1298(BD -1310 can leave one breathless.

2016

Traditionally, classicism and romanticism are conceived as peculiar and mutually exclusive literary movements with distinct literary styles and stylistic characteristics. This paper aims to trace some prominent writing traits of the Romantic era like spontaneity, preoccupation with imagination and subjectivity and focus on highlighting emotions and feelings in poetry as evident in the works of poets writing before the Romantic era. A close examination and in-depth reading of selected works showed that romantic traits are not confined to the Romantic era only but also appear to be recurring in the writings of Chaucer, Spenser and other poets who were writing much before Wordsworth proposed the characteristics of romantic poetry in The Prelude. This study, therefore, traces romantic traits in the works that do not fall into romantic era

CERÆ: An Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 2023

This article argues that, in Chaucer's fourteenth-century dream vision, the Book of the Duchess, Chaucer's narrative framing of the elegiac lyric, in which a mysterious 'man in blak' divulges the death of his beloved, suggests that the best-and possibly the only-way to reflect on and record another person's experience of loss is, in fact, to meditate on another kind of loss: the ephemeral, original performance of lyric. The Chaucerian dreamer, by classifying the lyric as a 'song […] withoute song', performs a sort of mourning in language for the lyric's original performance, which he recalls and 'reherses' for us. In doing so, he reflects on the lyric's absences (particularly, song and color, and both of which are figured in material and also temporal terms) and prepares us for what will be missing from the lyric when it is turned into a textual record; these absences in turn reflect the absence around which the entire Book is built: the deceased lady White. In proffering what, to modern readers, may seem like a radical vision of sound and sight as having material properties (but which, I show, has a basis in medieval color theory, the medieval science of perspectiva [optics], and philosophical conceptions of vox), Chaucer pushes us to think carefully about the material conditions of textuality as closely allied with the physical experience and bodily expressions of grief-both visual and oral/aural. Urging us to contemplate loss in this material, corporeal way-as an experience of different forms of sound and sight, presence and absence, time and tense-he forges a sense of the conduciveness of lyric record in matters of private consolation and ritualized public commemoration, theorizing the elegiac lyric as a space able to be filled-quite literally-by anyone. Early in Chaucer's fourteenth-century dream vision, the Book of the Duchess, the Chaucerian narrator pauses in his narration to 'reherse' (rehearse) a short poem whose utterance he overhears in a wood. But before this rehearsal, the narrator provides a

2023

How did ideas about the poet’s art surface in early modern texts? By looking into the intersections between poetry, poetics and other discourses – logic, rhetoric, natural philosophy, medicine, mythography or religion – the essays in this volume unearth notions that remained largely unwritten in the official literary criticism of the period. Focusing on questions of poetry’s origins and style, and exploring individual responses to issues of authenticity, career design, difficulty, or inspiration, this collection revisits and renews the critical lexicons that connect poetic theory and practice in early modern English texts and their European contexts. Reading canonical poets and critics – Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Puttenham, Dryden – alongside less studied figures such as Henry Constable, Barnabe Barnes, Thomas Lodge, Aemilia Lanyer, Fulke Greville or George Chapman, this book extends the coordinates for a dialogue between literary practice and the Renaissance theories from which they stemmed and which they helped to outgrow.

The evolution of the role of the poet in late medieval literature has recently been depicted as one which moves towards a gradually new pervasive figure: that of the learned and genteel courtly poet. 1 From the fourteenth century onwards, the perception of the poetic task became associated with that of royal courtiers who, as efficient composers, turn to the poetic practice as a clear sign of personal proficiency and fitness for courtly governmental duties. It seems logical that most courtly poets at this time showed great willingness to depict themselves as devoted writers at work. On most occasions literary pieces would be shared by members of an audience who could equally boast some command of the poetic skills; therefore, the reaction to the constant challenge posed by audiences made up of courtly educated companions required these poets to exercise the art of composure and control over any anxieties that this might cause. Thus, authors resorted to all kinds of masks and rhetorical devices to show their ability to cope with the delicate personal situation writing might put them in. Composition turned into a demanding form of introspection but at the same time required these poets to sustain some theoretical coolness that could only be securely brought to the literary surface with the help of some distancing techniques. 2

Th e rhetorical performances by narrators throughout the Canterbury pilgrimage are highly diverse, and-curiously enough-some of the strongest aesthetic judgments regarding the formal aspects of storytelling are asserted when pilgrims are deliberately renouncing norms established by rhetorical traditions or formal structures. Th e Host, for instance, halts the Chaucer-pilgrim's Tale of Sir Th opas and uses scatological sensory metaphors to express how physically painful and unpleasing he fi nds the versifi cation: "Myne eres aken of thy drasty speche. .. Th y drasty rymyng is nat worth a toord!" (vii .923, 930). 1 Th e Man of Law claims he'll "speke in prose," but he then delivers his prologue and tale in rhyme-royal stanzas (ii .96). Th e Host asks the Clerk to avoid a "[h] eigh style" of performance, but he then ignores the request by using rhyme-royal anyway (iv .18). Th e Parson explicitly disclaims alliterative verse-"I kan not geeste 'rum, ram, ruf,' by lettre" (x .43)-in order to justify his own use of edifying prose. One of the most robust discussions of form by a pilgrim-narrator-with an overt acknowledgment of formal diversity across storytelling mediacomes just before the Monk's performance. "Tragedie," as he defi nes it, is "a certeyn storie. .. Of hym that stood in greet prosperitee, / And is yfallen out of heigh degree"; such narratives "ben versifi ed comunely, / Of six feet, which men clepen exametron ," with many alternatively "endited. .. [i]n prose. .. / And eek in meetre in many a sondry wyse" (vii .1973-1982). Although the Monk opens his performance with the observation that "tragedie " may assume many styles of prose and a multiplicity of verse forms, he too rejects one possible literary form (i.e. prose) in favor of a specifi c verse structure for his "stories" (an octave, or eight-line stanza, in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ababbcbc). Th is particular stanzaic form is used nowhere else in Th e Canterbury Tales (and nowhere else in Chaucer's oeuvre for narrative purposes), and the Monk's commitment to

RESEARCH SCHOLAR, 2016

According to A.C. Bradley, " there have been greater poets than Wordsworth but none more original. " The originality of Wordsworth makes the relation between his work and age peculiarly complex. However with the emphasis on the importance of imagination, predominance of feeling and emotion, spontaneity, nature and common man, the Lyrical Ballads simply eulogizes Wordsworth's subtle engineering and delicate art craft ship in his works. This paper makes an attempt to rediscover and re-frame the phrase of Romantic appeal of common creativity in today's language of literature. Romantic Movement in literature was a vehement reaction against the eighteenth century rationalism. It was a deliberate and sweeping revolt against the literary principles of the Age of Reason. Just as Dryden and Pope had rejected the romantic tradition of the Elizabethans as crude and irregular and had adopted classical or more correctly neo-classical principles of French literature in their writing so, now Wordsworth and Coleridge, in their turn, rejected the neo-classical principles in favor of the romantic. Now what is that distinguishes the classic from romantic? Simply put, classical writing is characterized by reason or commonsense, expressed in a restrained style, that is to say, which has order, proportion and finish. Reason dominated life and literature. Emotion and imagination were pushed to the background. Romantic writing, on the other hand, is characterized by imagination, expressed in a style more or less free of restraint-a style, that is to say, which may be simple or grand, picturesque or passionate, depending on the mood or temperament of the writer. In other words, classicism subordinates matter to form; romanticism subordinates form to matter. Classicism stands for regimentation, regulation and authority. The causes and character of the Romantic Movement have been subjects of endless debate and discussion. And to justify all the features of this movement, we have to delve deep into the great product of the age-Wordsworth`s Preface To Lyrical ballads-which gave a new orientation to literary ideals. It is a critical document of abiding significance.

Sederi Yearbook of the Spanish and Portuguese Society For English Renaissance Studies, 2004

Touchstone and Audrey's love relationship in Shakespeare's As You Like It is here to be considered a mechanism of evasion that the author uses as an alternative to the rigidity of the conventions of the time. In the play, courtly Rosalind subverts convention in order to prove her beloved Orlando's faith and to be able to finally marry him. Similarly, the idealized shepherdess Phebe fails to meet the requirements of convention as soon as she yields to Silvius' amorous proposals after finding out her beloved Ganymede's real female identity. Illiterate goatherd Audrey, however, does not have to take part in any love debate to subvert convention in order to marry the clown Touchstone, whom she openly loves. Touchstone and Audrey's unconventional love ending in marriage highlights the absurdity both of courtly conventions and the need to subvert them that starts to be present in the Renaissance texts since the 1590s. Thus, here the pastourelle is proved not to work as a necessary 'safety valve' for the convention to remain viable, but as an alternative to any kind of convention whatsoever, pastourelle itself included.

Artuklu insan ve toplum bilim dergisi, 2019

Geoffrey Chaucer, regarded to be the greatest author of the medieval times, marked his mastery and gift in not only his narrative composition but also lyric poetry. Songs and letters, as significant mediums of lyric art, have an important role in his work Troilus and Criseyde, which was composed in the 1380s. In this work, Chaucer exhibits his lyric prowess in a superb and functional way by using the songs and letters which signalize themselves in the forms of mainly love, bliss, sorrow or complaint. In examining the lyric units in this work, new historicism is also used as a literary approach that connects the ancient and medieval times. Also some comparison with the works of Boccaccio, Robert Henryson and Shakespeare is made in terms of their using lyric units. The aim of this paper is to analyse Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde in terms of his use of songs and letters, functioning in several senses such as means of self-expression of characterstheir bliss or afflictions, fundamental communication tools of characters, mediums that assure secrecy in terms of court literature and instruments representing both human love and eternal love.