Short Poems Suggest Chaucer Sometimes Broke Conventions of Poetry, UA Professor Says

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - An English professor is taking a new look at Geoffrey Chaucer's often-neglected short poems, and suggests the writer intentionally broke some of the rules he is so well known for following.

English professor William Quinn will present his paper, "Chaucer as the Father of Free Verse," during the Modern Language Association convention being held from Dec. 27-30 in Philadelphia.

"Chaucer has traditionally been seen as the single poet who determined that, for the next four centuries, we'd be counting syllables," Quinn said. "My title suggests he broke the rules on purpose, and anticipated change."

The poet saw that there were problems with absolute regularity in such poetic forms as rhyming sequences and numbers of lines in a stanza, so he would try things, and if they didn't work, he would move away from them, according to Quinn.

For the conference he is studying Chaucer's short poems, also known as lyrics. The short poems are not usually taught in literature classes, although they enjoyed a period of popularity back in their day. They are usually omitted altogether from anthologies of Chaucer's work, and are tacked on at the end of the few that include them.

Quinn primarily looked at composite poems, in which Chaucer experimented with several different forms.

"In his short poems, he would have nine-line stanzas, then he'd have eight-line stanzas, and he'd leave out things that should've been there, like refrains," Quinn said. "You really get a strong sense of Chaucer experimenting with forms that are liberating rather than confining."

Most current research on Chaucer focuses on his ideas or themes, and includes political or gender readings, Quinn explained. By looking at the nuts and bolts of the poetry, and how Chaucer constructed his verse, he hopes to determine what the poet's design strategies were.

"Was it meant to be sung or recited? If it was to be recited, was it meant to be done so publicly or privately?" Quinn said.

One category of Chaucer's poems, for example, called complaints, has a particular verse form with a particular meaning.

"He might have intended them only for one woman to read, or might have read one to his friends about her," the researcher explained.

By looking at the words used in the poems, Quinn tries to determine whether Chaucer was addressing one person intimately, a group of people, or one person more formally. He asks himself how that affects the number of lines Chaucer put per stanza.

Quinn also has to consider the amount of time that has passed since Chaucer wrote the poems. Did Chaucer mix the forms in the composite poems, or did scribes later put different fragments together? Were the lines that break the rules mistakes or Chaucer's decision to break form?

"We have to ask, 'Is it a bad poem, or a good poem and we're just reading it badly?'" Quinn said.

The professor says he has come up with more questions than answers as he looks into what he calls a shaky body of evidence on Chaucer's lyrics.

"It's amazing how very little has been written about Chaucer's short poems," Quinn said. "He's second only to Shakespeare in the amount of stuff written about him, but it's mostly about his narratives."

Even so, Quinn hopes to present conference attendees with a new way of looking at Chaucer and his contributions.