The 100 Most Influential Writers of All Time (9 page)

After a number of moves and intense work on the definitive versions of his various writings, Petrarch found himself in Padua in 1367. He remained there until his death, dividing his time from 1370 between Padua and Arquà, in the neighbouring Euganean hills, where he had a little house. There he wrote the defense of his humanism,
De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia
. He was still in great demand as a diplomat. Despite suffering a stroke in 1370, he did not stop working; in addition to revisions, he composed more minor works and added new sections to his
Posteritati
, an autobiographical letter to posterity that was to have formed the conclusion to his
Seniles
; he also composed the final sections of the
Trionfi
. Petrarch died while working in his study at Arquà and was found the next morning, his head resting on a manuscript of Virgil.

(b.
c
. 1342/43, London?, Eng.—d. Oct. 25, 1400, London)

T
he Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer, the outstanding English poet before Shakespeare, ranks as one of the greatest poetic works in English. Chaucer also contributed importantly in the second half of the 14th century to the management of public affairs as courtier, diplomat, and civil servant. But it is his avocation—the writing of poetry—for which he is remembered.

Chaucer first appears in the records in 1357, as a member of the household of Elizabeth, countess of Ulster, wife of Lionel, third son of Edward III. By 1359 Chaucer was a member of Edward III's army in France and was captured during the unsuccessful siege of Reims, and by 1366 Chaucer had married. Chaucer's career was prospering at this time. His first important poem,
Book of the Duchess
, is among the records that provide evidence of his connection with people in high places. That poem of more than 1,300 lines, probably written in late 1369 or early 1370, is an elegy for Blanche, duchess of Lancaster, John of Gaunt's first wife, who died of plague in September 1369. Chaucer's close relationship with John, which continued through most of his life, may have commenced as early as Christmas 1357 when they, both about the same age, were present at the countess of Ulster's residence in Yorkshire.

For this first of his important poems, Chaucer used the dream-vision form, a genre made popular by the highly influential 13th-century French poem of courtly love, the
Roman de la rose
. Chaucer translated that poem, at least in part, probably as one of his first literary efforts, and he borrowed from it throughout his poetic career. The
Duchess
is also indebted to contemporary French poetry and to Ovid, Chaucer's favourite Roman poet. Nothing in these borrowings, however, will account for his originality in combining dream-vision with elegy and eulogy of Blanche with consolation for John.

During the 1370s, Chaucer was at various times on diplomatic missions in Flanders, France, and Italy. His career as a diplomat and civil servant was flourishing. So much responsibility and activity in public matters appears to have left Chaucer little time for writing during this decade. The great literary event for him was that, during his missions to Italy, he encountered the work of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, which was later to have profound influence upon his own writing. Chaucer's most important work of the 1370s was
Hous of Fame
, a poem of more than 2,000 lines, also in dream-vision form. In some ways it is a failure—it is unfinished, its theme is unclear, and the diversity of its parts seems to overshadow any unity of purpose—but it gives considerable evidence of Chaucer's advancing skill as a poet. In addition to its comic aspects, the poem seems to convey a serious note: like all earthly things, fame is transitory and capricious.

Political events of the 1380s, from the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 through the Merciless Parliament of 1388, combined with his wife's apparent death in 1387, must have kept Chaucer steadily anxious. Yet he produced a sizable body of writings during this decade, some of very high order.
The Parlement of Foules
, a playfully humorous poem of 699 lines, is a dream-vision for St. Valentine's Day, making use of the myth that each year on that day the birds gathered before the goddess Nature to choose their mates. Chaucer also translated the
Consolation of Philosophy
, written by
the Roman philosopher Boethius (early 6th century), one of the most influential of medieval books. Its discussion of free will, God's foreknowledge, destiny, fortune, and true and false happiness had a deep and lasting effect upon Chaucer's thought and art. In his next poem,
Troilus and Criseyde
, the influence of Boethius's book is pervasive. Chaucer took the basic plot for this 8,239-line poem from Boccaccio's
Filostrato
. Some critics consider
Troilus and Criseyde
Chaucer's finest work, greater even than the far more widely read
Canterbury Tales
. But the two works are so different that comparative evaluation seems fruitless. Against the background of the legendary Trojan War, the love story of Troilus, son of the Trojan king Priam, and Criseyde, widowed daughter of the deserter priest Calkas, is recounted. The poem moves in leisurely fashion, with introspection and psychological insight dominating many sections.

Also in the 1380s, Chaucer produced his fourth and final dream-vision poem,
The Legend of Good Women
. Perhaps the most important fact about the
Legend
is that it shows Chaucer structuring a long poem as a collection of stories within a framework. Seemingly the static nature of the framing device for the
Legend
and the repetitive aspect of the series of stories with a single theme led him to give up this attempt as a poor job.

Chaucer's great literary accomplishment of the 1390s was
The Canterbury Tales
. In it a group of about 30 pilgrims gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, across the Thames from London, and agree to engage in a storytelling contest as they travel on horseback to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury, Kent, and back. Harry Bailly, host of the Tabard, serves as master of ceremonies for the contest. The
pilgrims are introduced by vivid brief sketches in the General Prologue. Interspersed between the 24 tales told by the pilgrims are short dramatic scenes presenting lively exchanges, called links and usually involving the host and one or more of the pilgrims. Chaucer's death, in 1400, prevented him from completing the full plan for his book; the return journey from Canterbury is not included, and some of the pilgrims do not tell stories. Further, the surviving manuscripts leave room for doubt at some points as to Chaucer's intent for arranging the material. The work is nevertheless sufficiently complete to be considered a unified book rather than a collection of unfinished fragments.

Use of a pilgrimage as a framing device for the collection of stories enabled Chaucer to bring together people from many walks of life, and the storytelling contest allowed presentation of a highly varied collection of literary genres. Because of this structure, the sketches, the links, and the tales all fuse as complex presentations of the pilgrims, while at the same time the tales present remarkable examples of short stories in verse, plus two expositions in prose. Over the expanse of this intricate dramatic narrative, he presides as Chaucer the poet, Chaucer the civil servant, and Chaucer the pilgrim; somewhat slow-witted in his pose and always intrigued by human frailty but always questioning the complexity of the human condition and always seeing both the humour and the tragedy in that condition. At the end, in the Retractation with which
The Canterbury Tales
closes, Chaucer as poet and pilgrim states his conclusion that the concern for this world fades into insignificance before the prospect for the next. In view of the admonitions in The Parson's Tale, he asks forgiveness for his writings that concern “worldly vanities” and remembrance for his translation of the
Consolation
and his other works of morality and religious devotion. On that note he ends his finest work and his career as poet.

(b.
c
. 1524/25, Lisbon, Port.—d. June 10, 1580, Lisbon)

L
uís de Camões is Portugal's great national poet. He is the author of the epic poem
Os Lusíadas
(1572;
The Lusiads
), which describes Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India.

Camões was born in Lisbon when Portuguese expansion in the East was at its peak. He was a member of the impoverished old aristocracy but well-related to the grandees of Portugal and Spain. A tradition that Camões studied at the University of Coimbra or that he followed any regular studies, for that matter, remains unproved. He may have spent 17 years in India, but his time there has not been documented. He returned to Portugal in 1570, and his
Os Lusíadas
was published in Lisbon in early 1572. In July of that year he was granted a royal pension, probably in recompense for both his service in India and his having written
Os Lusíadas
.

The title of Camões's epic poem is taken from the word
Lusiads
, which means “Portuguese” and is in turn derived from the ancient Roman name for Portugal, Lusitania. The work extols the glorious deeds of the Portuguese and their victories over the enemies of Christianity, victories not only over their fellowman but also over the forces of nature as motivated by the inimical gods of classical mythology. The courage and enterprise of Portuguese explorers had inspired the idea of a national epic during the 15th century, but it was left to Camões in the 16th century to put it into execution.

It is impossible to say for certain when he decided to do so or when he actually began to write his epic. The 10 cantos of the poem are in ottava rima and amount to 1,102 stanzas in all. After an introduction, an invocation, and a dedication to King Sebastian, the action, on both the
historical and the mythological levels, begins. Da Gama's ships are already under way in the Indian Ocean, sailing up the coast of East Africa, and the Olympian gods gather to discuss the fate of the expedition (which is favoured by Venus and attacked by Bacchus). The voyagers spend several days in Melinde on the east coast of Africa, and at the king's request Vasco da Gama relates the entire history of Portugal from its origins to the inception of their great voyage (Cantos III, IV, and V). These cantos contain some of the most beautiful passages in the poem: the murder of Inês de Castro, who becomes a symbol of death for the sake of love; the battle of Aljubarrota; the vision of King Manuel I; the description of St. Elmo's fire and the waterspout; and the story of Adamastor, the giant of classical parentage who, at the Cape of Good Hope, tells da Gama he will lie in wait to destroy the fleets coming back from India.

When the passengers re-embark, the poet takes advantage of leisure hours on board to narrate the story of the Doze de Inglaterra (Canto VI, 43–69). In the meantime, Bacchus, ever ready to impede the progress of the Portuguese in the East, convokes a council of the sea gods and incites them to arrange the shipwreck of the Portuguese fleet. This is prevented by Venus (Canto VI, 85–91), and Vasco da Gama is able to reach Calicut (Kozhikode, now in Kerala state, southwestern India), the end of his voyage. There his brother, Paulo da Gama, receives the king's representative on board and explains the significance of the characters depicted on the banners that adorn the captain's ship (Cantos VII and VIII). On their homeward voyage the mariners chance upon the island that Venus has created for them, and the nymphs reward them for their labours. One of the nymphs sings of the future deeds of the Portuguese (Cantos IX and X), and the entertainment ends with a description of the universe given by
Thetis and Vasco da Gama, after which the sailors embark once more and the nymphs accompany them on their homeward journey.

In
Os Lusíadas
Camões achieved an exquisite harmony between classical learning and practical experience, delicate perception and superb artistic skill, expressing through them the gravity of thought and the finest human emotions. The epic was his eulogy of the “dangerous life” (
vida perigosa
) and was a stern warning to the Christian monarchs, who, idling their time away in petty struggles, were failing to unite against the encroaching conquests of Islam in southeastern Europe. Realistic descriptions in the poem of sensual encounters, battles, and storms and other natural phenomena transcend the thrust of classical allusions that permeate the work and make for the high-flown yet fluent style of the poem.
Os Lusíadas
reveals an astonishing command of language and variety of styles and provides a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary man and poet.

Camões also wrote dramatic and lyric poetry. In his dramatic works he tried to combine national and classical tendencies, while his sonnets, elegies, and many other poems, all published posthumously, show the poet's full powers. As a result, particularly of his epic and lyric poetry, Camões had a permanent and unparalleled impact on Portuguese and Brazilian literature alike.

(b. Feb. 28, 1533, Château de Montaigne, near Bordeaux, France—d. Sept. 23, 1592, Château de Montaigne)

I
n his
Essais
(
Essays
) the French writer Michel de Montaigne established a new literary form—the essay—that he used to create one of the most captivating and intimate self-portraits ever given.

As a young child Montaigne was tutored at home according to his father's ideas of pedagogy, which included the exclusive use of Latin, still the international language of educated people. As a result the boy did not learn French until he was six years old. He continued his education at the College of Guyenne and eventually at the University of Toulouse, where he studied law. He entered into the magistrature, eventually becoming a member of the Parliament of Bordeaux, one of the eight regional parliaments that constituted the French Parliament, the highest national court of justice. There, at the age of 24, he made the acquaintance of Étienne de la Boétie, a meeting that was one of the most significant events in Montaigne's life. An extraordinary friendship, based on a profound intellectual and emotional closeness and reciprocity, sprang up between Montaigne and the slightly older La Boétie, an already distinguished civil servant, humanist scholar, and writer. When La Boétie died, he left a void in Montaigne's life that no other being was ever able to fill. It is likely that Montaigne started on his writing career, six years after La Boétie's death, in order to fill the emptiness left by the loss of the irretrievable friend.