Truth (Chaucer poem) Literary Elements

The poem is written in the second person. The speaker is Chaucer, who adopts the role of an advisor.

The poem is written in seven-line stanzas, in the rhyme scheme ababbcc. There is no fixed meter.

Chaucer employs simile in line 9, comparing the earth to a wobbling ball.
Chaucer employs metaphor in line 11, describing the attempt to improve other people as kicking an awl.
Chaucer employs metaphor in line 12, describing the attempt to improve other people as throwing plates against a wall.
In line 18, Chaucer uses metaphor to compare mankind's status as a temporary visitor to earth to the status of a pilgrim away from home, or a beast in its stall away from its natural habitat.
In line 20, Chaucer uses a conventional Christian metaphor of the good life as a road to heaven, "the high way."

For this literary element, we refer to the Middle English poem. The translation loses some of the sonic features of the original poem.

Line 2, alliteration of /th/, "thin owen thing, thei it be smal" [thine own thing, though it be small]
Line 3, alliteration of /h/, "hord hath hate" [hoarding brings hate]
Line 11, assonance of /a/, "ayeyns an al" [against an awl]
Line 13, alliteration of /d/, "daunte thiself, that dauntest otheres dede" [control thyself, who seeks to control others]
Line 16, alliteration of /w/, "wrestyling for the worlde" [wrestling for the world]
Line 17, alliteration of /h/, "here is non home, here..." [here is not home, here...]
Line 21, alliteration of /d/, "delyvere, it is no drede" [deliver, it is no dread]

In the first stanza, each of the things Philip seeks—wealth, social influence, praise—actually end up hurting him. This is an example of situational irony.

Advice poetry

The court, the secular world

At the beginning of the poem, the tone is measured and logical. By the third stanza, it has become urgent and entreating.

The protagonist is Sir Philip. The antagonist is the court and the secular world who threaten to drag him into immorality.

The major conflict is between the lures of the secular life—the desire for wealth, fame, and power; the urge to attempt to make the world a better place—and the moral necessity of focusing on self-improvement and setting one's sight towards heaven.

The climax occurs in lines 17-19, "Here's not your home, here is but wilderness./Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beast, out of your stall!/ Know your country: look up, thank God for all." The series of exclamations shows that the speaker's speech has reached its maximum intensity. His exclamations draw out the final implications of his advice in the first two stanzas. Sir Philip must reject the lures of the world because the world is not his true home, and he should not live by its rules.

N/A

N/A

N/A

In the final line of each stanza, truth, one of God's attributes, stands in for God himself. This is an example of synecdoche.

The speaker personifies truth as an agent who can deliver Sir Philip from his troubles.

The speaker's description of attempts to change the world as completely futile, and the world itself as but a wilderness, might seem hyperbolic to us, but they are in line with medieval religious norms, and Chaucer likely did not mean them to come across as exaggerations.

N/A