Chaucer’s Native Heritage by Alexander Weiss

Abstract

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER ALEXANDER WEISS. Chaucer'sNativeHeritage. American University Stud­ ies, Series 4. English Language and Literature, vol. 11. New York, Berne, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1985. Pp. iv; 247. $29.25. Alexander Weiss has written what is, on several counts, an old-fashioned book. Chaucer's Native Heritage argues first of all for the existence of a definable national character, embodied in the writing of its people and epitomized in the work of individual geniuses like Geoffrey Chaucer. Moreover, the traits of genius emerge in naturalistic, lifelike poetry. What Weiss calls "poetry in the finest sense of the word" (p. 42) comes chiefly from illusionistic recreation: a text is "eminently believable" because "we seem to be overhearing this conversation as we would if we were actually present" (p. 155); "We see, we hear, we feel-we experience" (p. 39) when poetry succeeds. For Chaucer studies, this amounts to a revival of the dramatic theory, extended here beyond the CT to the early translations, the LGW, the Roman, and the Trot/us so that it virtually describes the greatness of the "great" poetry. Weiss's arguments stipulate a distinctive national style, transcendently present in this sceptered isle in disregard of time, circumstance, means of production, or horizons of expectation. This heritage, which marks all genuinely English medieval poetry, consists largely in linguistic survivals, such as diction, idiom, "clear and straight-forward grammatical construc­ tions" and an "eminently natural syntactic structure" (p. 194), all deriving from Old English accentual verse. This "conversational style" also takes in "melancholic tone, verbal and structural repetition, and visual con­ creteness" (p. 121), and, between Beowulfand Chaucer, finds its clearest expression in Middle English lyrics. The lyric's articulation of "conversa­ tional style"-in this analysis, equivalent to naturalistic representation­ involves a simple, expository manner that establishes a participatory inti­ macy with the audience. The designation of Englishness comprises not only inherent features of native texts, but contrasts with other national poetical stereotypes. Pro­ fessor Weiss provides a selective analysis of troubadour and Proven�al poetry, the exclusive purpose of which is to show what Old and Middle English poetry is not (p. 49 ff.). In its "too self-consciously sophisticated" style (p. 131), French poetry is internally complex, distant, overtly crafted, abstract-a beautiful object rather than an intense experience. This antith­ esis forces some unexpected conclusions: that Chaucer "has no concern for 258 REVIEWS 'craft' but only for 'sentence'" (p.90); that the "naturalness of his transla­ tion" establishes the Roman's essential "Englishness" (p. 204); or that "Chaucer's 'ABC,' far from preserving the spirit and manner of the original ...belongs, in spirit and manner as well as in tone and style, firmly in the tradition established by the early Middle English lyricists" (p. 168). The same spirit transforms Italian sources: "The difference in purpose, form and tone between Chaucer's version of this speech and Boccaccio's suggests Chaucer's close ties with the tradition of Old English poetry" (p. 105). The necessary circularity involved in fixing the priority of the genius of English or English geniuses constrains other arguments. If continental poetry is urbane and cool, English writing is expository and intense, "primarily concerned with teaching a moral and virtuous lesson" (p.104)- "the recognition of which can be beneficial to us and guide us to a better life" (p.89)."For Chaucer poetry must be, above all, truthful... an honest representation of life" (p. 88). This Polonius-like aphorism apparently points back to the experiential and lifelike in poetry (pp.49, 130, 140, and so on). The intuitive, positivist assumptions behind such commentary account perhaps for the disregard of historical considerations: the central argument about native heritage is, despite some asseverations to the contrary, in no way historical.But vast gaps in time, context, and the fundamental resources and structures of cultural meaning mark the discus­ sions of non-English poetry as well: how, for example, may a poem by the Count of Poitiers be profitably compared with an early Middle English lyric? what ground, if any, do they share in terms of language, poetic craft, political and social setting, literary allusion, erudition, notions oflove and...