CHAUCER REVIVAL.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 793, 16 April 1910, Page 9

CHAUCER REVIVAL.

Mr. Daniel Jones, Lecturer in Phonetics at University College, is undertaking a bold task. He wishes (reports a London paper) to carry us back through the centuries to the time when the work. of Chauccr was first given to the world, and lie is going to.show us Shakespeare as lie was spoken when the subjects of good Queen Boss ferried across the Thames to the ancient Globe Theatre, and the English langauge was music.' to the ear. For, according to Mr. Jones, Chaucer's classic lines have been robbed of much of their beauty and many of Shakespeare's witticisms have lost their point by reason of developments in modern English pronunciation. In a chat with a newspaper representative, Mr. Jones remarked that he and the Poetry llceital Society intended to arrange, a Chauccr performance, in costume at a' West End theatre, which, if successful, would : probably, be followed by:others. ."I'havo in my mind," he said, "certain abridgments from the 'Canterbury Tales' and the Prologue amounting to about eight hundred lines. It would have been impossible; the present the Tales and tho Prologue in their entirety, as they would be too long, and somo are not suitable for public performance. Eight, hundred lines; jnay not seem many, but over two.hours will be occupied in their performance. So vastly' differentv are the lines in the original pronunciation to the manner in .wliicli they are recited to-day that .they will have to bo rendered exceedingly slowly in order to enable tho audience to understand them. The original pronunciation makes a • difference in the rhyme, in the metre, and in the general effect. The pronunciation of Chaucef's time, and later of Shakespeare's, was characterised by. tho very frequent use of long vowels. "We will take a case in point—the word '.time.' . Tho following little table shows how • the pronunciation has changed:— |

: Chaucer........ ...:'..'.. . TeemL , Shakespeare . Tame. ' Present day (ordinary) Time. ■ Present day (cockney) Toime. "Some of Shakespeare's witticisms do not have any effect now simply because they are pronounced differently from the..author's intention." * i BITS FOR BOOK LOVERS. ' "The time is fast approaching when the. twentieth .century will have to produce its "own": great writers," says the "Dial.", "The ranks-of .the surviving nineteenth-century veterans are rapidly thinning, arid of" their intellectual leaders few remain." '■.•.',■. '. •] ' ,; ;■■'; ■'' :. '.'•' * Mr. 'H. G.'Wells's new novel, "The New Machiavelli," will appear 1 serially in the "English Review," commencing in May. This review is now edited-by Mr. Austin Harrison.

"The German universities stand for scholarship; the English universities stand for culture; ■ the American -universities stand for service," said Professor Laird in the "Pennsylvania," the daily.paper of the University of Pennsylvania; '■' •

:A letter, written by Charlotte Bronte, covering eight and a half closelycovered pages, and. dated July 31,1848, ,was sold at Sotheby's recently for £50. In this she deplores having disclosed the identity of herself and sisters to her correspondent, '•'■wo are three sisters" slipping from her tongue" before she was,aware. She goes on to pay a flattering tribute to John Ruskin's "Modern Painters," and finally mentions her dread of London society. "The. only glimpses of Society I have ever had were obtained in my vocation of governess, and some of the most miserable moments • I can recall were passed in drawing-rooms full of strange faces." ■ Mr. Williams, to whom the letter ,was addressed, was Smith' and Elder's reader, and the first to discover the strength of "Jano Eyre."

Mr. G. K. Chesterton's new book, "The Ball and the Cross, ,, reviewed last week in this paper, is adversely criticised in many of the reviews. The "Observer , . , says that "Mr.; Chesterton has two great gifts—of exuberant fancy and of theological argument. They do not easily combine to make a good novel."

Mr. James Douglas, in the "Star,"' says "it is the most obstreperous, stupendous, boisterous, exuberant', grotesque, fantastical, flamboyant, iridescent, allegorical, metaphysical,; ironical, whimsical, nonsensical hotch-potch of symbolism you are likely to come across in a j'ear of Sundays." ' The "Manchester Guardian" says:— "For _ all the lavishness with which the peculiar Chestertonian brand of dialectic is poured into its pages, this novel remains an intolerably incoherent book. All tho faults of that monstrous practi-' cal joke at his readers' expense 'The Man who was Thursday' repeat themselves in 'The Ball and tho Cross.' May ■we beg of him to turn his fine talents to romance for its own sake? More of .this will nover do."

Mi , . Francis Espinasse, ono of the , famous literary circle of Chelsea, and now in his eighty-seventh year, living in the quiet of tho Charterhouse, • has been interviewed by the "Chronicle." "It was when I was at school at Melrose," said Mr. Espinasso, "that I saw Scott. Ho was driving in a carriage— a silver-haired only gentleman—with a little boy riding a pony at his side. The little.boy was Hugh Littlejohn, for whom ' Tales of a' Grandfather' woro written. I remember now I envied him I , ' " ■ .

He also paid a visit to Wordsworth at Rydal Mount. " Wordsworth himself showed me round the house and the garden. He was nearly seventy, but a fine figure of a man—tall, upright, and stalwart still' Ho had a Imgo noso, and his face wa3 not nearly so refined as I should have thought. Altogether ho gave one the impression of a farmer Tathe-r than of a pool."

It wns through his connection with the British Musciim Library that Mr. Espinasse was able to be of ospoeial help to Cnrlylo over the Cromwell letters. Ho say's: "You could novor get away froin Carlyle's. greatness and overwhelming energy of mind. His very self-contradictions wero a consequence of his energy. Ho wns always fulminating—either in talk-.or writing—and a change of mood was so emphatic as to soom. something far more."

"There is, I find, a decided interest in ■ tho now volume of Motley correspondence which Mr.-John Lano is publishing in the spring," says Mr. Milno in tho "New York Times." "This is partly attributable to tho English interest in Motley as a great ; historian, and partly to tho fact that he is an outstanding figure in tho roll of. literary men who have Irecn American' Ministers and Ambassadors to England. His association with England lias, too, been kept greon by the circumstance that Sir William Harcourt, that typical English statesman, married his daughter, Elizabeth." ,

"For concentrated splendour, surely nothing ever' surpassed — if it ever equalled — that renowned masterpiece addressed by Queen Elizabeth to tho Bishop of Ely:— ''' Proud Prolate,—You know what you were before I made you what you are now. If you do not immediately comply with my request, I will unfrock 'OJVby G—l , . ■ _ 'Elizabeth. ,

"Does, a letter exist more succinc and more sounding, more impulsive anc at the same time more, majestic, than that which is contained in these tliree lines?" asks the "Times" in reviewing 'Women as Letter Writers" (Hutchinsou, 55.). Then it adds, "It is an oration, a symphony, a procession!—is, indeed, the finest, as it is the shortest, thing in the collection."

Mr. Eden Phillpotts' story " The Haven" is thus described by-tho "Independent" : "The people of the story tako on tho bleak sincerity of the nature about them. Living day by day within the sound of the waves seems to nave filled them with a scriptural austerity and the fear of God. In Devonshire men and women say and heard always the. untanpered greatness of bod washing.. against their very dobrsills. It became to them a ''haven , rrom the'snares of the land, a place where restless spirits could be purged and broken to the laws of life."