The collection _Refiguring Chaucer in the Renaissance_ , ed. Theresa Krier
is relevant to this discussion. It reinforces the point that there were
many Chaucers in the Renaissance.My opinion for whaht it is worth, as I
stated in my review of the above vol. in JEGP, is that along with the
already-discussed Knight's Tale and Squire's Tale (warlike numbers),
Spenser saw the Chaucer of the shorter poems--the dream-visions, the
_Complaint of Mars_ , and "Mercilesse beautie" as his original in the
allegorical vein. And yes, Bert, clearly "the Pilgrime that the Ploughman
playde a whyle" was also his original in this sense.Wonder why he cites
different role models in different works, and Chaucer for such different
works as the FQ and the Sheps. Cal.At 02:41 PM 12/1/00 -0600, you wrote:
>Carol,
>
>Thanks for passing along Gordon Teskey's comments. The difficulty
>with the meter and bad editions were certainly part of the mix in
>Chaucer's perceived crudeness to sixteenth-century poets, but I think
>this was only part of the story. Chaucer's reputation was pretty
>evenly split; he could be trotted out as the paragon of
>golden-tongued eloquence who practically invented the English
>language or as an icon of backwardness and scurrility. A "canterbury
>tale," after all, was a synonym for a dirty story, and it was easy
>rhetorically to equate moral defects with metrical defects. No
>wonder Chaucer fit so well into a more general Elizabethan anxiety
>about cultural backwardness. One wanted to be as sophisticated as
>the Italians without being as decadent, and one wanted to be an icon
>of Englishness like Chaucer, but without the rough edges.
>
>Enter Spenser, the master integrator, who borrows massively from
>Ariosto but identifies himself with Chaucer and turns Chaucer's
>roughness, his "warlike numbers and heroic sound," into a virtuous
>source of spiritual Englishness that he himself has inherited. On
>the potential source of defilement for the "well of English," I have
>argued elsewhere that one candidate is Ariosto's "Tuscan pen," which
>Spenser seems to diss because it is not aimed at the moral
>enlightenment of the reader. Lest someone rush to defend Ariosto, I
>am engaging in a conjecture about Spenser's perception and not
>putting forth my own reading of him :-).
>
>
>At 10:43 AM -0500 12/1/00, Carol V. Kaske wrote:
>
>>>>First, Chaucer isn't crude. Renaissance authors thought he was because,
>>>>being ignorant of middle English, they couldn't scan him; and the Thynne
>>>>edition didn't help.
>--
>____________________________________________
>Craig A. Berry
>mailto:[log in to unmask]
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