Chaucer's Originality In The Canterbury Tales

As the forefather of the English poetry, Chaucer has been widely read and criticized over history, and his greatness lies in a variety of fields. First of all, Chaucer's choice of using English to begin his literary career with is a watershed event in the English linguistic and literary traditions. At a time when the Great Britain was speaking three languages, Latin, French and English, among which English was considered"barbarous language"used by lower class, his choice helped bring prestige to the language and thereby contributes to the creating of a tradition.As an experimenter of the English language, Chaucer has made ceaseless efforts in establishing the English ways of expression, and his works demonstrates the fluency and stylistic variety of which the language was capable. In The Canterbury Tales, his representative works, Chaucer contributes important stylistic innovations to the development of the English literature.Chaucer is also an innovator of the English poetic forms and styles, who excels at weeding through the old to bring forth the new. The artful and complex continental influences provided him with models upon which he modifies and rewrites. Thus, the French courtly love stories are treated by Chaucer in a lighter, often ironic way, that undercuts the prevailing sentiment in his sources, whereas the frame stories in The Canterbury Tales that he takes over from Boccaccio's Decameron are vividly lifelike, which reflects the real-life pictures of the fourteen century English society.Chaucer broadens the capacity and the literary depth of the English literature. The Canterbury Tales shows that a literature in English is capable of the complexities and sophistication of some of his continental models. Therefore, through his works, he tells the world that the English literature is by no means inferior to the literature of any other nations. The rigid native English alliterative verse had few variations, and yet his creative rewriting and adaptation greatly enriches the English literature through his integrating into it a range of classical allusion, references to philosophical and theological topics. In this way, Chaucer pioneers English literature capable of sophistication and intellectual complexity equal to that of his continental models, and greatly facilitates the establishment of a unique style of the English literary language. Chaucer makes great contributions in the development of the English metrical patterns. By transplanting the French octosyllabic and the Italian decasyllabic forms, Chaucer created the English iambic pentameters in a ten-syllable-line, and used it as a staple form for the English poetry composition. In addition, he employed these decasyllabic lines in rhyming couplets, later called"Heroic Couplets". This highly flexible pattern is of great suitability to the narrative momentum as well as to the conversational tone.Chaucer is the first English poet who employs the comic realism in depicting his characters in his works. In The Canterbury Tales, twenty-nine pilgrims form a wide cross-section of the fourteen century English society. They are manipulated by Chaucer as both the representatives of their respective professions and the individuals with their own special identities. These pilgrims are in fact telling their own stories, which serve as their own unique self-introduction with their unique characteristics and intentions. This stylistic coherence is one of Chaucer's great innovations.For pure academic considerations, the present dissertation is intended to systematically elucidate on and to prove with evidence Chaucer's originality in his masterpiece The Canterbury Tales.In Introduction, the author raises the thesis statement that Chaucer's greatness lies in his originality, followed by a survey of the Chaucerian criticism, on the basis of which the scope of the topic is raised and further clarified. Chapter I to Chapter IV constitutes the main body of the dissertation, dealing respectively with borrowing and originality, Chaucer's narrative strategy of The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's characterization in The Canterbury Tales and Chaucer's experimentation on the English poetic language, all focusing on Chaucer's Originality in the above four spheres. Conclusion is the summary of the dissertation, in which the author points out that Chaucer's innovation on the expressiveness of the English language throughout his life, his unconventionality shown in the treatment of the borrowed elements, his uniqueness of his prosody that he established as the basic patterns of the English poetic expression, and his ability to"weed through the old to bring forth the new"constitute his greatness as an original poet. The Canterbury Tales, his final masterpiece which epitomizes all the achievements as a result of his lifetime efforts, occupies an important position in the history of the English literature. Its unique originality, diversified expressiveness of the language and the vivid description of characters have offered a shining example for the poet and writer in the later days to follow and admire. The poem is also a masterpiece in the treasure house of the world literature.