ford madox brown - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

popular Victorian persona. 78 Although Chaucer was favoured for his role in
establishing the roots of English poetry, as Velma Bourgeois Richmond argues in
'Ford Madox Brown's Protestant Medievalism' he was also a figure who embodied
Protestant England. 79 Richmond postulates that Brown's viewers would have
regarded Chaucer and Wycliffe as 'men whose development of the English language
was crucial to breaking the hold of the Catholic church by the clergy and to the
formation of a national identity.' 80 In the mid-nineteenth century Chaucer was seen as
'a vigorous and bitter satirist of the Catholic church, a close friend and follower of
Wycliffe, a religious informer.' 81 In his very first conception of Chaucer (entitled
'seeds [sic] of the English language') Brown had wanted to depict the social and
political links between the two men by placing Wycliffe in one of the wings. 82
However, he changed his mind and altered the title adding well-known poets to the
wings instead. Unable to highlight the links between Chaucer and Wycliffe in The
Seeds and Fruits of English Poetry he was able to work both figures into his next
composition and included their patron John of Gaunt.
Having tackled the father of English poetry Brown turned his attention to the father of
English prose, John Wycliffe. 83 His second, much smaller, painting depicting a scene
from medieval history was Wycliff reading his Translation of the Bible to John of
Gaunt, in the Presence of Chaucer and Gower (The First Translation of the Bible into
English) [hereafter referred to as Wycliffe] (Figs. 3 and 79). As with Chaucer he
78
W. Calder Marshall's entry was no. 100 in the 1844 sculpture competition. No. 87 was a 'Portrait
Statue of Geoffrey Chaucer' by Thomas Plumely (Op. cit. at note 32, p. 133).
79
Op. cit. at note 8, pp. 363-396.
80
Ibid., p. 366
81
Francis Bonner, 'Chaucer's Reputation during the Romantic Period,' Furman Studies, 34 (Winter
1951), p. 21 (cited Richmond, 'Ford Madox Brown's Protestant Medievalism: Chaucer and Wycliffe,'
2005, p. 368).
82
Op. cit. at note 66, p. 2.
83
Brown's early idea to include Wycliffe on one wing of the triptych the 'seeds of the English language'
highlights that he saw him as father of English prose (ibid., p. 2).
102