. Mediæval and modern history . e first ingenius, among the great poets of the English-speaking is reverently called the Father of English poetry. Chaucer stands between two ages, the mediaeval and the mod-ern. He felt not only the influences of the age of feudalismwhich was passing away but also those of the new age of 194 GROWTH OF THE NATIONS L§206 learning and freedom which was dawning. It is because he washighly sensitive to these various influences and reflects his sur-roundings faithfully in his writings that these are so valuable asinterpreters of the period in which he lived.
. Mediæval and modern history . e first ingenius, among the great poets of the English-speaking is reverently called the Father of English poetry. Chaucer stands between two ages, the mediaeval and the mod-ern. He felt not only the influences of the age of feudalismwhich was passing away but also those of the new age of 194 GROWTH OF THE NATIONS L§206 learning and freedom which was dawning. It is because he washighly sensitive to these various influences and reflects his sur-roundings faithfully in his writings that these are so valuable asinterpreters of the period in which he lived. Chaucers greatest and most important work is his CanterburyTales. The poet represents himself as one of a company of story-telling pilgrims who have set out on a journey to the tomb ofThomas Becket at Canterbury (sect. i88). The persons, thirty-two in number, making up the party, represent almost everycalling and position in the middle class of English society. Theprologue, containing characterizations of the different members. Fig. 40. Plowing Scene, (From a manuscript of the fourteenth century) of the company, is the most valuable part of the as in a gallery we have shown us faithful portraits of ourancestors of the fourteenth century. 206. William Langland. The genial Chaucer shows us thepleasant, attractive side of English society and life; WilliamLangland, another writer of the same period, in a poem calledthe Vision of Piers the Ploivnian (1362), lights up for us the worldof the poor and the oppressed. This poem quivers with sympathy for the hungry, labor-wornpeasant, doomed to a life of weary routine and long wars with France had demoralized the nation; the BlackDeath had just reaped its awful harvest among the ill-clad, ill-fed,and ill-housed poor. Occasional outbursts of wrath against thefavored classes are the mutterings of the storm soon to burst uponthe social world in the fury of the Peasants Revolt, and later uponthe religious wo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubje, booksubjectmiddleages
