In a 2 November 2017 article in The New European (a news source decidedly on the “remain” side), Charles Connelly explains why Chaucer provides comfort to England’s twenty-first-century Europhiles.

In the last couple of years in particular I’ve found myself delving back into Chaucer more often than usual in search of solace and sanity because, strange as it may sound, reading the work of the first great writer in English is a tremendous comfort to a Europhile during these troubled Brexit times. Back at the tail end of the 14th century in England, Latin was the language of religion while French was the language of the court and the legal professions. English was seen largely as the vernacular of the lower orders, an oral form of communication not suited to usage among the corridors of power, trade and culture.

Chaucer is often described as the father of literature in English and is hence often held up as a patriotic trailblazer for the English nation, scratching away with his pen, ploughing a lonely parochial furrow against the cultural hegemony of the foreigners on the other side of the English Channel.

It’s a school of thought that took hold during the 19th century when a fresh English national narrative was required for a nation careering around the globe painting chunks of the map a bold imperial pink.

. . .

This is the same kind of shallow sense of self-regarding patriotism that helped to fire the Leave campaign and continues to dominate the bone-headed approach of the government to the Brexit negotiations today. Particularly since the referendum I’ve heard Chaucer cited as an example of British – by which they mean English – exceptionalism and separateness.

You can read the rest of Connelly article here. Although it is informed by the essayist’s recent reading of David Wallace’s Geoffrey Chaucer: A New Introduction, the article contains some errors that shouldn’t be pinned to Wallace’s book.