Chaucer's Language Research Articles

The Language of Chaucer's Poetry: An Appraisal of the Verse, Style, and Structure

The Language of Chaucer's Poetry: An Appraisal of the Verse, Style, and Structure

Rhetorical Word-Play in Chaucer

In the opinion of the late Thomas R. Lounsbury, Chaucer was virtually “free from these verbal quibbles which characterize to so marked a degree the language of the Elizabethan dramatists.” “The single instance,” he went on to say, “in which he furnishes any noticeable example of this sort is the play upon the word ‘style’ in the Squire's tale; though there is possibly one of the same character in a line in ‘Troilus and Cressida,‘ where it is said that‘This Calkas knew by calkulynge,‘ i., 71that Troy was to be taken. Still, from conceits of all kinds and of all grades Chaucer's language, at every period of his literary career, was in general wholly free.“

Spoken Greek

It has been suggested that there is less difference between ancient Greek and modern Greek than between present-day English and Chaucer's language. The suggestion is somewhat questionable. Broadly speaking, apart from dialects and local variations, there are presently three languages in Greece, the Kathareuousa, the Demotiki, and the popular newspaper language, which is a blend of the two.The Kathareuousa is the official and formal language, used in Government publications and statements, business correspondence, non-fictional books and treatises, law courts, University lectures, and in formal conversation. And although its grammatical structure is analytic as opposed to the synthesis of ancient Greek (a change which constitutes the main difference between classical and modern Greek, as it does between other modern and ancient languages), in the Kathareuousa the most strenuous attempt has been made to maintain the accidence and vocabulary of the ancient language.Words are declined and verbs conjugated (without some of their more difficult and less used moods and tenses) as in Attic Greek, pronouns and prepositions and the cases governed by them are the same, and while, naturally, many terms which describe things known only to the modern world are not to be found in Liddell and Scott, they are generally legitimate and intelligible compounds of words which are to be found in Liddell and Scott. Ἀɛροπλἁνoν for aeroplane, ἀɛρòσTαtoν for balloon, are instances which come easily to mind.

Ye and You in the King James Version

In Morris's Historical Outlines of English Accidence, § 155, occurs this statement: “…in Old English Ye was always used as a nominative, and you as a dative or accusative. In the English Bible this distinction is very carefully observed, but in the dramatists of the Elizabethan period there is a very loose use of the two forms.” Similarly Lounsbury: “Ye in the language of Chaucer invariably denotes the nominative; you the objective; and this distinction will still be found observed in the Authorized Version of the Bible.” Emerson: “This is the use in Chaucer, and in the English Bible of 1611, the language of which, however, is based on the translations of earlier times.” Smith: “This distinction is preserved in the King James Version of the Bible: Ye in me, and I in you; but not in Shakespeare and later writers.”

Observations on the Language of Gower's Confessio Amantis. (A Supplement to Observations on the Language of Chaucer, Memoirs of the Academy, New Series, Vol. VIII. Art. XVII)

Observations on the Language of Gower's Confessio Amantis. (A Supplement to Observations on the Language of Chaucer, Memoirs of the Academy, New Series, Vol. VIII. Art. XVII)

Observations on the Language of Chaucer (Based on Wright's Edition of the Canterbury Tales, Harleian MS. No. 7334.)

Observations on the Language of Chaucer (Based on Wright's Edition of the Canterbury Tales, Harleian MS. No. 7334.)