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English professor William Quinn 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 famous for following.
"Chaucer has traditionally been seen as the single poet who determined that, for the next four centuries, we'd be counting syllables," Quinn said. "I suggest he broke the rules on purpose, and anticipated change."
The poet saw problems with absolute regularity in such poetic forms as rhyming sequences and numbers of lines in a stanza, so he experimented, and if it didn't work, he would try something else, Quinn said.
Quinn studied Chaucer's short poems, also known as lyrics. He examined composite poems, in which Chaucer experimented with 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.
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.
He has unearthed more questions than answers as he examines 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."