XL—Troilus and Criseyde, a Study in Chaucer's Method of Narrative Construction

Abstract

It has been among the results of Dr. Lounsbury's noble work on Chaucer to make the mind of the poet for us, as never for any generation before us, discoverable in his poetry. Since that work appeared, each of Chaucer's poems, read now through the light of that illumination, seems to kindle into fresh meaning in its revealed association with the mind and purpose of the writer. And from the union of all the poems into one image, there seems to come a somewhat clear revelation of the poet's range of human vision and of his method of poetry. This revelation reaches, I think, its highest point of truth in that eighth chapter which forms the crown of Dr. Lounsbury's book, the chapter on Chaucer as Literary Artist. “About Chaucer's method of work,” he says, “there is nothing of that blind creative inspiration, which, acting without reflection, characterizes, or is supposed to characterize, the poets of the earliest periods. He has all the self-consciousness of the creative genius that has mastered his art” (Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, III, 324). “He knows precisely what he is aiming to accomplish.” Here is, I think, the true word spoken about Chaucer's mental character, about his poetical method, and, by inference, about his rank and special place among the classical poets. For the essence of classical poetry is self-knowledge and self-restraint, the artistic calculation of proportions, and the aesthetic calculation of effects. It is my purpose, therefore, to show in the Troilus and Criseyde, which I take to be Chaucer's most perfect poem, the evidence of Dr. Lounsbury's summary of Chaucer's poetical character, the evidence of deliberate and careful calculation, of cool, self-conscious, almost infallible skill.