Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) was an English author, poet, philosopher Most academic subjects have a philosophy, for example the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of logic, the philosophy of law, and the philosophy of history. In addition, a range of academic subjects have emerged to deal with areas which would have historically been the subject of philosophy. These include, bureaucrat Bureaucracy is the collective organizational structure, procedures, protocols and set of regulations in place to manage activity, usually in large organizations and government. As opposed to adhocracy, it is represented by standardized procedure that dictates the execution of most or all processes within the body, formal division of powers,, courtier A royal or noble court, as an instrument of government broader than a court of justice, comprises an extended household centred on a patron whose rule may govern law or be governed by it and diplomat Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states. It usually refers to international diplomacy, the conduct of international relations through the intercession of professional diplomats with regard to issues of peace-making, trade, war, economics and culture. International treaties are. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative A frame story is a narrative technique whereby an introductory main story is composed, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage for a fictive narrative or organizing a set of shorter stories, each of which is a story within a story. The frame story leads readers from the first story into the smaller one within it The Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century . The tales are contained inside a frame tale and told by a collection of pilgrims on a pilgrimage from London Borough of Southwark to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The Canterbury Tales are written in Middle English. Sometimes called the father of English literature, Chaucer is credited by some scholars as the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular Vernacular refers to the native language of a country or a locality. In general linguistics, it is used to describe local languages as opposed to linguas franca, official standards or global languages. It is sometimes applied to nonstandard dialects of a global language. For instance, in Western Europe up until the 17th century, most scholarly English language Middle English is the name given by historical linguists to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of 1066 and about 1470, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing press into England by William Caxton in the 1470, rather than French or Latin Latin is an Italic language historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Italian, French, Catalan, Romanian, Spanish, and Portuguese are descended from Latin, while many others, especially European languages, including.

Contents

Life

Chaucer as a pilgrim from the Ellesmere Manuscript

Chaucer was born circa 1343 in London, though the exact date and location of his birth are not known. His father and grandfather were both London vintners Winemaking, or vinification, is the production of wine, starting with selection of the grapes or other produce and ending with bottling the finished wine. Although most wine is made from grapes, it may also be made from other fruit or non-toxic plant material. Mead is a wine that is made with honey being the primary ingredient after water and before that, for several generations, the family members were merchants in Ipswich Ipswich (pronounced /ˈɪpswɪtʃ/ ) is a non-metropolitan district and the county town of Suffolk, England on the estuary of the River Orwell. Nearby towns are Felixstowe in Suffolk, Harwich in Essex and Colchester also in Essex. The town of the same name overspills the borough boundaries significantly, with only 85% of the town's population. His name is derived from the French chausseur, meaning shoemaker.[1] In 1324 John Chaucer, Geoffrey's father, was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the twelve-year-old boy to her daughter in an attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and the £250 fine levied suggests that the family was financially secure, upper middle-class Bourgeoisie is a classification used in analyzing human societies to describe a social class of people. Historically, the bourgeoisie comes from the middle or merchant classes of the Middle Ages, whose status or power came from employment, education, and wealth, as distinguished from those whose power came from being born into an aristocratic, if not in the elite.[2] John married Agnes Copton, who, in 1349, inherited properties including 24 shops in London from her uncle, Hamo de Copton, who is described as the "moneyer" at the Tower of London.

There are few details of Chaucer's early life and education but compared with near contemporary poets, William Langland William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman and the Pearl Poet The "Pearl Poet", or the "Gawain Poet", is the name given to the author of Pearl, an alliterative poem written in 14th-century Middle English. Its author appears also to have written the poems Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Cleanness; some scholars have suggested he or she may also have composed Saint Erkenwald, his life is well documented, with nearly five hundred written items testifying to his career. The first time he is mentioned is in 1357, in the household accounts of Elizabeth de Burgh Elizabeth was the only child of William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster and Maud of Lancaster. She was the last of the senior legitimate line of the descendants of William de Burgh. Her paternal grandparents were John de Burgh and Elizabeth de Clare (16 September 1295- 1360). Her maternal grandparents were Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster (1281- 25, the Countess of Ulster The title of Earl of Ulster has been created several times in the Peerages of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Currently, the title is a subsidiary title of the Duke of Gloucester, and is used as a courtesy title by the Duke's son, Alexander Windsor, Earl of Ulster, when he became the noblewoman's page through his father's connections.[3] He also worked as a courtier, a diplomat, and a civil servant, as well as working for the king, collecting and inventorying scrap metal.

In 1359, in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War The Hundred Years' War was a prolonged conflict lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne, which was vacant with the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings. The two primary contenders were the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou. The House of Valois claimed, Edward III Edward III was one of the most successful English monarchs of the Middle Ages. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into the most efficient military power in Europe. His reign saw vital developments in legislature and government—in particular the invaded France and Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence was the third son, but the second son to survive infancy, of Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault. He was so called because he was born at Antwerp, Elizabeth's husband, as part of the English army. In 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims The city of Reims lies in the Champagne-Ardenne region in northeastern France 129 km (80 miles) east-northeast of Paris, becoming a prisoner of war. Edward contributed £16 as part of a ransom, [4] and Chaucer was released.

After this, Chaucer's life is uncertain, but he seems to have traveled in France, Spain, and Flanders Flanders (Dutch: Vlaanderen , French: Flandre) is a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Over the course of history, the geographical territory that was called "Flanders" has varied, possibly as a messenger and perhaps even going on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Located in the north west of Spain in the Province of A Coruña, it was the "European City of Culture" for the year 2000. The city's Cathedral is the destination today, as it has been throughout history, of the important 9th. Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa (de) Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen, Philippa of Hainault Philippa of Hainault was the Queen consort of Edward III of England, and a sister of Katherine Swynford, who later (ca. 1396) became the third wife of Chaucer's friend and patron, John of Gaunt. It is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son, Thomas Chaucer Thomas Chaucer , was the Speaker of the English House of Commons and son of Geoffrey Chaucer and Philippa Roet, had an illustrious career, as chief butler The Chief Butler of England is an office of Grand Sergeanty associated with the feudal Manor of Kenninghall in Norfolk. The office requires service to be provided to the Monarch at the Coronation, in this case the service of Pincera Regis, or Chief Butler at the Coronation banquet to four kings, envoy to France, and Speaker of the House of Commons In the United Kingdom, the Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, and is seen historically as the First Commoner of the Land. The current Speaker is the Right Honourable Michael Martin MP, who took office in 2000 and was re-elected in 2005 following the general election of that year. On 19 May 2009 Martin. Thomas' daughter, Alice, married the Duke of Suffolk William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, 1st Marquess of Suffolk, 4th Earl of Suffolk , nicknamed Jack Napes, was an important English soldier and commander in the Hundred Years' War, and later Lord Chamberlain of England. He also appears prominently in William Shakespeare's Henry VI, part 1 and Henry VI, part 2. His murder is the subject of the. Thomas' great-grandson (Geoffrey's great-great-grandson), John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was the heir to the throne designated by Richard III Richard III was King of England from 1483 until his death. He was the last king from the House of York, and his defeat at the Battle of Bosworth marked the culmination of the Wars of the Roses and the end of the Plantagenet dynasty. After the death of his brother King Edward IV, Richard briefly took responsibility for the safety of Edward's son before he was deposed. Geoffrey's other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey.[5][6] Agnes, an attendant at Henry IV Henry IV was King of England and Lord of Ireland (1399–1413). Like other kings of England, he also claimed the title of King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence the other name by which he was known, Henry (of) Bolingbroke (pronounced /ˈbɒlɪŋˌbrʊk/). His father, John of Gaunt, was the third son of Edward III,'s coronation; and another son, Lewis Chaucer.

Chaucer may have studied law in the Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple is one of the four Inns of Court around the Royal Courts of Justice in London which may call members to the Bar and so entitle them to practise as barristers (an Inn of Court The Inns of Court in London are the professional associations to one of which every barrister in England and Wales must belong. They have supervisory and disciplinary functions over their members. The Inns also provide libraries, dining facilities and professional accommodation. Each also has a church or chapel attached to it and is a self-) at about this time, although definite proof is lacking. He became a member of the royal court The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in his or her role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with official national terms for the family. Members of the of Edward III as a varlet de chambre, yeoman Yeoman is a noun used to indicate a variety of positions or social classes and is also used as a complimentary adjective in reference to a diligent, dependable worker or the work of such a person. In the 16th century, a yeoman was also a farmer of middling social status who owned his own land and often farmed himself; an equivalent in Germany is, or esquire Esquire is a term of British origin, originally used to denote social status. Ultimately deriving from the medieval squires who assisted knights, the term came to be used automatically by men of gentle birth. The social rank of Esquire is that above gentleman. More specifically, though, a distinction was made between men of the upper and lower on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail any number of jobs. His wife also received a pension for court employment. He traveled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti Galeazzo II Visconti was a member of the Visconti dynasty and a ruler of Milan, Italy, in Milan Milan (Italian: Milano; Western Lombard: Milan is the second largest city in Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. It is the capital in the Province of Milan, as well as the regional capital of Lombardy. The city has a population of about 1.3 million, while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.08 million. The Milan. Two other literary stars of the era were in attendance: Jean Froissart Jean Froissart was one of the most important of the chroniclers of medieval France. For centuries, Froissart's Chronicles have been recognized as the chief expression of the chivalric revival of the 14th century Kingdom of England and France. His history is also one of the most important sources for the first half of the Hundred Years' War and Petrarch Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often popularly called the "Father of Humanism". Based on Petrarch's works, and to a lesser extent those of Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio, Pietro Bembo in the 16th century created the model. Around this time, Chaucer is believed to have written The Book of the Duchess in honour of Blanche of Lancaster, the late wife of John of Gaunt, who died in 1369.

Chaucer traveled to Picardy Picardy is a historical province of France, in the north of France. The historical capital and largest city is Amiens the next year as part of a military expedition, and visited Genoa Genoa is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria. The city has a population of about 610,000 and the urban area has a population of about 900,000. It is also called la Superba ("the Superb one") due to its glorious past. Part of the old city of Genoa was and Florence Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany and has a population of 367,569 (1,500,000 metropolitan area) in 1373. It is speculated that, on this Italian trip, he came into contact with medieval The Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christianity in the Reformation, the rise of humanism in the Italian Italian poetry Categories: Poetry by nation or language | Italian literature | Italian poetry , the forms and stories of which he would use later. One other trip he took in 1377 seems shrouded in mystery, with records of the time conflicting in details. Later documents suggest it was a mission, along with Jean Froissart, to arrange a marriage between the future King Richard II Richard II was the eighth King of England of the House of Plantagenet. He ruled from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard was a son of Edward, the Black Prince and was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III. At the age of four, Richard became second in line to the throne when his older brother Edward of Angoulême died, and and a French princess, thereby ending the Hundred Years War The Hundred Years' War was a prolonged conflict lasting from 1337 to 1453 between two royal houses for the French throne, which was vacant with the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings. The two primary contenders were the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou. The House of Valois claimed. If this was the purpose of their trip, they seem to have been unsuccessful, as no wedding occurred.

In 1378, Richard II sent Chaucer as an envoy/secret dispatch to the Visconti and to Sir John Hawkwood Sir John Hawkwood was an English mercenary or condottiero in 14th century Italy. The French chronicler Jean Froissart knew him as Haccoude and Italians as Giovanni Acuto. Hawkwood served first the Pope and then various factions in Italy for over 30 years, English condottiere Condottieri were the mercenary soldier leaders of the professional, military Free companies contracted by the Italian city-states and the Papacy, from the late Middle Ages until the mid-16th century. In contemporary Italian, condottiero means "contractor", and is synonymous with the modern English title Mercenary Captain, which, (mercenary leader) in Milan Milan (Italian: Milano; Western Lombard: Milan is the second largest city in Italy, located in the plains of Lombardy. It is the capital in the Province of Milan, as well as the regional capital of Lombardy. The city has a population of about 1.3 million, while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.08 million. The Milan. It is on the person of Hawkwood that Chaucer based the character of the Knight in the Canterbury Tales, whose description matches that of a fourteenth-century condottiere.

A 19th century depiction of Chaucer.

A possible indication that his career as a writer was appreciated came when Edward III Edward III was one of the most successful English monarchs of the Middle Ages. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into the most efficient military power in Europe. His reign saw vital developments in legislature and government—in particular the granted Chaucer "a gallon of wine daily for the rest of his life" for some unspecified task. This was an unusual grant, but given on a day of celebration, St. George's Day, 1374, when artistic endeavours were traditionally rewarded, it is assumed to have been another early poetic work. It is not known which, if any, of Chaucer's extant works prompted the reward, but the suggestion of poet to a king places him as a precursor to later poets laureate A Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events. The plural form is poets laureate. Chaucer continued to collect the liquid stipend until Richard II came to power, after which it was converted to a monetary grant on 18 April, 1378.

Chaucer obtained the very substantial job of Comptroller of the Customs for the port of London, which he began on 8 June, 1374.[7] He must have been suited for the role as he continued in it for twelve years, a long time in such a post at that time. His life goes undocumented for much of the next ten years, but it is believed that he wrote (or began) most of his famous works during this period. He was mentioned in law papers of 4 May, 1380, involved in the raptus of Cecilia Chaumpaigne. What raptus means, rape or possibly kidnapping, is unclear, but the incident seems to have been resolved quickly and did not leave a stain on Chaucer's reputation. It is not known if Chaucer was in the city of London at the time of the Peasants' Revolt, but if he was, he would have seen its leaders pass almost directly under his apartment window at Aldgate.[8]

While still working as comptroller, Chaucer appears to have moved to Kent, being appointed as one of the commissioners of peace for Kent, at a time when French invasion was a possibility. He is thought to have started work on The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. He also became a Member of Parliament for Kent in 1386. There is no further reference after this date to Philippa, Chaucer's wife, and she is presumed to have died in 1387. He survived the political upheavals caused by the Lords Appellants, despite the fact that Chaucer knew well some of the men executed over the affair.

On 12 July, 1389, Chaucer was appointed the clerk of the king's works, a sort of foreman organizing most of the king's building projects.[9] No major works were begun during his tenure, but he did conduct repairs on Westminster Palace, St. George's Chapel, Windsor, continue building the wharf at the Tower of London, and build the stands for a tournament held in 1390. It may have been a difficult job, but it paid well: two shillings a day, more than three times his salary as a comptroller. In September 1390, records say that he was robbed, and possibly injured, while conducting the business, and it was shortly after, on 17 June, 1391, that he stopped working in this capacity. Almost immediately, on 22 June, he began as deputy forester in the royal forest of North Petherton, Somerset. This was no sinecure, with maintenance an important part of the job, although there were many opportunities to derive profit. He was granted an annual pension of twenty pounds by Richard II in 1394.[10] It is believed that Chaucer stopped work on the Canterbury Tales sometime towards the end of this decade.

Not long after the overthrow of his patron, Richard II, in 1399, Chaucer's name fades from the historical record. The last few records of his life show his pension renewed by the new king, and his taking of a lease on a residence within the close of Westminster Abbey on December 24, 1399.[11] Although Henry IV renewed the grants assigned to Chaucer by Richard, Chaucer's own The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse hints that the grants might not have been paid. The last mention of Chaucer is on 5 June, 1400, when some monies owed to him were paid.

He is believed to have died of unknown causes on 25 October, 1400, but there is no firm evidence for this date, as it comes from the engraving on his tomb, erected more than one hundred years after his death. There is some speculation—most recently in Terry Jones' book Who Murdered Chaucer? : A Medieval Mystery—that he was murdered by enemies of Richard II or even on the orders of his successor Henry IV, but the case is entirely circumstantial. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, as was his right owing to his status as a tenant of the Abbey's close. In 1556, his remains were transferred to a more ornate tomb, making Chaucer the first writer interred in the area now known as Poets' Corner.

Works

Chaucer's first major work, The Book of the Duchess, was an elegy for Blanche of Lancaster (who died in 1369). It is possible that this work was commissioned by her husband John of Gaunt, as he granted Chaucer a £10 annuity on 13 June 1374. This would seem to place the writing of The Book of the Duchess between the years 1369 and 1374. Two other early works by Chaucer were Anelida and Arcite and The House of Fame. Chaucer wrote many of his major works in a prolific period when he held the job of customs comptroller for London (1374 to 1386). His Parlement of Foules, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde all date from this time. Also it is believed that he started work on The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. Chaucer is best known as the writer of The Canterbury Tales, which is a collection of stories told by fictional pilgrims on the road to the cathedral at Canterbury; these tales would help to shape English literature.

The Canterbury Tales contrasts with other literature of the period in the naturalism of its narrative, the variety of stories the pilgrims tell and the varied characters who are engaged in the pilgrimage. Many of the stories narrated by the pilgrims seem to fit their individual characters and social standing, although some of the stories seem ill-fitting to their narrators, perhaps as a result of the incomplete state of the work. Chaucer drew on real life for his cast of pilgrims: the innkeeper shares the name of a contemporary keeper of an inn in Southwark, and real-life identities for the Wife of Bath, the Merchant, the Man of Law and the Student have been suggested. The many jobs that Chaucer held in medieval society—page, soldier, messenger, valet, bureaucrat, foreman and administrator—probably exposed him to many of the types of people he depicted in the Tales. He was able to shape their speech and satirize their manners in what was to become popular literature among people of the same types.

Chaucer's works are sometimes grouped into, first a French period, then an Italian period and finally an English period, with Chaucer being influenced by those countries' literatures in turn. Certainly Troilus and Criseyde is a middle period work with its reliance on the forms of Italian poetry, little known in England at the time, but to which Chaucer was probably exposed during his frequent trips abroad on court business. In addition, its use of a classical subject and its elaborate, courtly language sets it apart as one of his most complete and well-formed works. In Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer draws heavily on his source, Boccaccio, and on the late Latin philosopher Boethius. However, it is The Canterbury Tales, wherein he focuses on English subjects, with bawdy jokes and respected figures often being undercut with humour, that has cemented his reputation.

Chaucer also translated such important works as Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (extended by Jean de Meun). However, while many scholars maintain that Chaucer did indeed translate part of the text of The Romance of the Rose as Roman de la Rose, others claim that this has been effectively disproved. Many of his other works were very loose translations of, or simply based on, works from continental Europe. It is in this role that Chaucer receives some of his earliest critical praise. Eustache Deschamps wrote a ballade on the great translator and called himself a "nettle in Chaucer's garden of poetry". In 1385 Thomas Usk made glowing mention of Chaucer, and John Gower, Chaucer's main poetic rival of the time, also lauded him. This reference was later edited out of Gower's Confessio Amantis and it has been suggested by some that this was because of ill feeling between them, but it is likely due simply to stylistic concerns.

One other significant work of Chaucer's is his Treatise on the Astrolabe, possibly for his own son, that describes the form and use of that instrument in detail. Although much of the text may have come from other sources, the treatise indicates that Chaucer was versed in science in addition to his literary talents. Another scientific work discovered in 1952, Equatorie of the Planetis, has similar language and handwriting compared to some considered to be Chaucer's and it continues many of the ideas from the Astrolabe. Furthermore, it is a famous example of early European encryption [12] . The attribution of this work to Chaucer is still uncertain.

Influence

Linguistic

Portrait of Chaucer from a manuscript by Thomas Hoccleve, who personally knew Chaucer, so it is probably an accurate depiction

Chaucer wrote in continental accentual-syllabic metre, a style which had developed since around the twelfth century as an alternative to the alliterative Anglo-Saxon metre.[13] Chaucer is known for metrical innovation, inventing the rhyme royal, and he was one of the first English poets to use the five-stress line, a decasyllabic cousin to the iambic pentameter, in his work, with only a few anonymous short works using it before him.[14] The arrangement of these five-stress lines into rhyming couplets, first seen in his Legend of Good Women, was used in much of his later work and became one of the standard poetic forms in English. His early influence as a satirist is also important, with the common humorous device, the funny accent of a regional dialect, apparently making its first appearance in The Reeve's Tale.

The poetry of Chaucer, along with other writers of the era, is credited with helping to standardize the London Dialect of the Middle English language from a combination of the Kentish and Midlands dialects.[15] This is probably overstated; the influence of the court, chancery and bureaucracy—of which Chaucer was a part—remains a more probable influence on the development of Standard English. Modern English is somewhat distanced from the language of Chaucer's poems owing to the effect of the Great Vowel Shift some time after his death. This change in the pronunciation of English, still not fully understood, makes the reading of Chaucer difficult for the modern audience, though it is thought by some[who?] that the modern Scottish accent is closely related to the sound of Middle English. The status of the final -e in Chaucer's verse is uncertain: it seems likely that during the period of Chaucer's writing the final -e was dropping out of colloquial English and that its use was somewhat irregular. Chaucer's versification suggests that the final -e is sometimes to be vocalised, and sometimes to be silent; however, this remains a point on which there is disagreement. When it is vocalised, most scholars pronounce it as a schwa. Apart from the irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary is recognisable to the modern reader. Chaucer is also recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first author to use many common English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in the language at the time but Chaucer, with his ear for common speech, is the earliest manuscript source. Acceptable, alkali, altercation, amble, angrily, annex, annoyance, approaching, arbitration, armless, army, arrogant, arsenic, arc, artillery and aspect are just some of those from the first letter of the alphabet.

Literary

Widespread knowledge of Chaucer's works is attested by the many poets who imitated or responded to his writing. John Lydgate was one of the earliest poets to write continuations of Chaucer's unfinished Tales while Robert Henryson's Testament of Cresseid completes the story of Cressida left unfinished in his Troilus and Criseyde. Many of the manuscripts of Chaucer's works contain material from these poets and later appreciations by the romantic era poets were shaped by their failure to distinguish the later "additions" from original Chaucer. Seventeenth and eighteenth century writers, such as John Dryden, admired Chaucer for his stories, but not for his rhythm and rhyme, as few critics could then read Middle English and the text had been butchered by printers, leaving a somewhat unadmirable mess.[16] It was not until the late 19th century that the official Chaucerian canon, accepted today, was decided upon, largely as a result of Walter William Skeat's work. One hundred and fifty years after his death, The Canterbury Tales was selected by William Caxton to be one of the first books to be printed in England.

Chaucer's English

Chaucer is sometimes considered the source of the English vernacular tradition and the "father" of modern English literature. His achievement for the language can be seen as part of a general historical trend towards the creation of a vernacular literature after the example of Dante in many parts of Europe. A parallel trend in Chaucer's own lifetime was underway in Scotland through the work of his slightly earlier contemporary, John Barbour, and was likely to have been even more general, as is evidenced by the example of the Pearl Poet in the north of England.

Although Chaucer's language is much closer to modern English than the text of Beowulf, it differs enough that most publications modernise (and sometimes bowdlerise) his idiom. Following is a sample from the prologue of the "Summoner's Tale" that compares Chaucer's text to a modern translation:

Line Original Translation
This frere bosteth that he knoweth helle, This friar boasts that he knows hell,
And God it woot, that it is litel wonder; And God knows that it is little wonder;
Freres and feendes been but lyte asonder. Friars and fiends are seldom far apart.
For, pardee, ye han ofte tyme herd telle For, by God, you have ofttimes heard tell
How that a frere ravyshed was to helle How a friar was taken to hell
In spirit ones by a visioun; In spirit, once by a vision;
And as an angel ladde hym up and doun, And as an angel led him up and down,
To shewen hym the peynes that the were, To show him the pains that were there,
In al the place saugh he nat a frere; In the whole place he saw not one friar;
Of oother folk he saugh ynowe in wo. He saw enough of other folk in woe.
Unto this angel spak the frere tho: To the angel spoke the friar thus:
Now, sire, quod he, han freres swich a grace "Now sir", said he, "Do friars have such a grace
That noon of hem shal come to this place? That none of them come to this place?"
Yis, quod this aungel, many a millioun! "Yes", said the angel, "many a million!"
And unto sathanas he ladde hym doun. And the angel led him down to Satan.
--And now hath sathanas,--seith he,--a tayl He said, "And Satan has a tail,
Brodder than of a carryk is the sayl. Broader than a large ship's sail.
Hold up thy tayl, thou sathanas!--quod he; Hold up your tail, Satan!" said he.
--shewe forth thyn ers, and lat the frere se "Show forth your arse, and let the friar see
Where is the nest of freres in this place!-- Where the nest of friars is in this place!"
And er that half a furlong wey of space, And before half a furlong of space,
Right so as bees out swarmen from an hyve, Just as bees swarm from a hive,
Out of the develes ers ther gonne dryve Out of the devil's arse there were driven
Twenty thousand freres on a route, Twenty thousand friars on a rout,
And thurghout helle swarmed al aboute, And throughout hell swarmed all about,
And comen agayn as faste as they may gon, And came again as fast as they could go,
And in his ers they crepten everychon. And every one crept back into his arse.
He clapte his tayl agayn and lay ful stille. He shut his tail again and lay very still.[17]

Critical reception

Historical criticism

The poet Thomas Hoccleve, who may have met Chaucer and considered him his role model, hailed Chaucer as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage."[18] John Lydgate referred to Chaucer within his own text The Fall of Princes as the 'lodesterre...off our language'.[19] Around two centuries later, Sir Philip Sidney greatly praised Troilus and Criseyde in his own Defence of Poesie.[20]

Manuscripts and Audience

The large number of surviving manuscripts of Chaucer's works is testimony to the enduring interest in his poetry prior to the arrival of the printing press. There are 83 surviving manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales (in whole or part) alone, along with sixteen of Troilus and Criseyde, including the personal copy of Henry IV.[21] Given the ravages of time, it is likely that these surviving manuscripts represent hundreds since lost. Chaucer's original audience was a courtly one, and would have included women as well as men of the upper social classes. Yet even before his death in 1400, Chaucer's audience had begun to include members of the rising literate, middle and merchant classes, which included many Lollard sympathizers who may well have been inclined to read Chaucer as one of their own, particularly in his satirical writings about friars, priests, and other church officials. In 1464, John Baron, a tenant farmer in Agmondesham, was brought before John Chadworth, the Bishop of Lincoln, on charges he was a Lollard heretic; he confessed to owning a "boke of the Tales of Caunterburie" among other suspect volumes.[22]

Printed editions

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William Caxton, the first English printer, was responsible for the first two folio editions of The Canterbury Tales which were published in 1478 and 1483. Caxton's second printing, by his own account, came about because a customer complained that the printed text differed from a manuscript he knew; Caxton obligingly used the man's manuscript as his source. Both Caxton editions carry the equivalent of manuscript authority. Caxton's edition was reprinted by his successor, Wynkyn de Worde, but this edition has no independent authority.

Richard Pynson, the King's Printer under Henry VIII for about twenty years, was the first to collect and sell something that resembled an edition of the collected works of Chaucer, introducing in the process five previously printed texts that we now know are not Chaucer's. (The collection is actually three separately printed texts, or collections of texts, bound together as one volume.) There is a likely connection between Pynson's product and William Thynne's a mere six years later. Thynne had a successful career from the 1520s until his death in 1546, when he was one of the masters of the royal household. His editions of Chaucers Works in 1532 and 1542 were the first major contributions to the existence of a widely recognized Chaucerian canon. Thynne represents his edition as a book sponsored by and supportive of the king who is praised in the preface by Sir Brian Tuke. Thynne's canon brought the number of apocryphal works associated with Chaucer to a total of 28, even if that was not his intention. As with Pynson, once included in the Works, pseudepigraphic texts stayed within it, regardless of their first editor's intentions.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Chaucer was printed more than any other English author, and he was the first author to have his works collected in comprehensive single-volume editions in which a Chaucer canon began to cohere. Some scholars contend that sixteenth-century editions of Chaucer's Works set the precedent for all other English authors in terms of presentation, prestige and success in print. These editions certainly established Chaucer's reputation, but they also began the complicated process of reconstructing and frequently inventing Chaucer's biography and the canonical list of works which were attributed to him.

Probably the most significant aspect of the growing apocrypha is that, beginning with Thynne's editions, it began to include medieval texts that made Chaucer appear as a proto-Protestant Lollard, primarily the Testament of Love and The Plowman's Tale. As "Chaucerian" works that were not considered apocryphal until the late nineteenth century, these medieval texts enjoyed a new life, with English Protestants carrying on the earlier Lollard project of appropriating existing texts and authors who seemed sympathetic—or malleable enough to be construed as sympathetic—to their cause. The official Chaucer of the early printed volumes of his Works was construed as a proto-Protestant as the same was done, concurrently, with William Langland and Piers Plowman. The famous Plowman's Tale did not enter Thynne's Works until the second, 1542, edition. Its entry was surely facilitated by Thynne's inclusion of Thomas Usk's Testament of Love in the first edition. The Testament of Love imitates, borrows from, and thus resembles Usk's contemporary, Chaucer. (Testament of Love also appears to borrow from Piers Plowman.) Since the Testament of Love mentions its author's part in a failed plot (book 1, chapter 6), his imprisonment, and (perhaps) a recantation of (possibly Lollard) heresy, all this was associated with Chaucer. (Usk himself was executed as a traitor in 1388.) Interestingly, John Foxe took this recantation of heresy as a defense of the true faith, calling Chaucer a "right Wiclevian" and (erroneously) identifying him as a schoolmate and close friend of John Wycliffe at Merton College, Oxford. (Thomas Speght is careful to highlight these facts in his editions and his "Life of Chaucer.") No other sources for the Testament of Love exist—there is only Thynne's construction of whatever manuscript sources he had.

John Stow (1525-1605) was an antiquarian and also a chronicler. His edition of Chaucer's Works in 1561 brought the apocrypha to more than 50 titles. More were added in the seventeenth century, and they remained as late as 1810, well after Thomas Tyrwhitt pared the canon down in his 1775 edition. The compilation and printing of Chaucer's works was, from its beginning, a political enterprise, since it was intended to establish an English national identity and history that grounded and authorized the Tudor monarchy and church. What was added to Chaucer often helped represent him favourably to Protestant England.

Engraving of Chaucer from Speght's edition

In his 1598 edition of the Works, Speght (probably taking cues from Foxe) made good use of Usk's account of his political intrigue and imprisonment in the Testament of Love to assemble a largely fictional "Life of Our Learned English Poet, Geffrey Chaucer." Speght's "Life" presents readers with an erstwhile radical in troubled times much like their own, a proto-Protestant who eventually came around the king's views on religion. Speght states that "In the second year of Richard the second, the King tooke Geffrey Chaucer and his lands into his protection. The occasion wherof no doubt was some daunger and trouble whereinto he was fallen by favouring some rash attempt of the common people." Under the discussion of Chaucer's friends, namely John of Gaunt, Speght further explains:

Yet it seemeth that [Chaucer] was in some trouble in the daies of King Richard the second, as it may appeare in the Testament of Loue: where hee doth greatly complaine of his owne rashnesse in following the multitude, and of their hatred of him for bewraying their purpose. And in that complaint which he maketh to his empty purse, I do find a written copy, which I had of Iohn Stow (whose library hath helped many writers) wherein ten times more is adjoined, then is in print. Where he maketh great lamentation for his wrongfull imprisonment, wishing death to end his daies: which in my iudgement doth greatly accord with that in the Testament of Love. Moreover we find it thus in Record.

Later, in "The Argument" to the Testament of Love, Speght adds:

Chaucer did compile this booke as a comfort to himselfe after great griefs conceiued for some rash attempts of the commons, with whome he had ioyned, and thereby was in feare to loose the fauour of his best friends.

Speght is also the source of the famous tale of Chaucer being fined for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet Street, as well as a fictitious coat of arms and family tree. Ironically—and perhaps consciously so—an introductory, apologetic letter in Speght's edition from Francis Beaumont defends the unseemly, "low", and bawdy bits in Chaucer from an elite, classicist position. Francis Thynne noted some of these inconsistencies in his Animadversions, insisting that Chaucer was not a commoner, and he objected to the friar-beating story. Yet Thynne himself underscores Chaucer's support for popular religious reform, associating Chaucer's views with his father William Thynne's attempts to include The Plowman's Tale and The Pilgrim's Tale in the 1532 and 1542 Works.

The myth of the Protestant Chaucer continues to have a lasting impact on a large body of Chaucerian scholarship. Though it is extremely rare for a modern scholar to suggest Chaucer supported a religious movement that didn't exist until more than a century after his death, the predominance of this thinking for so many centuries left it for granted that Chaucer was at least extremely hostile toward Catholicism. This assumption forms a large part of many critical approaches to Chaucer's works, including neo-Marxism.

Alongside Chaucer's Works, the most impressive literary monument of the period is John Foxe's Acts and Monuments.... As with the Chaucer editions, it was critically significant to English Protestant identity and included Chaucer in its project. Foxe's Chaucer both derived from and contributed to the printed editions of Chaucer's Works, particularly the pseudepigrapha. Jack Upland was first printed in Foxe's Acts and Monuments, and then it appeared in Speght's edition of Chaucer's Works. Speght's "Life of Chaucer" echoes Foxe's own account, which is itself dependent upon the earlier editions that added the Testament of Love and The Plowman's Tale to their pages. Like Speght's Chaucer, Foxe's Chaucer was also a shrewd (or lucky) political survivor. In his 1563 edition, Foxe "thought it not out of season . . . to couple . . . some mention of Geoffrey Chaucer" with a discussion of John Colet, a possible source for John Skelton's character Colin Clout.

Probably referring to the 1542 Act for the Advancement of True Religion, Foxe said that he "marvel[s] to consider . . . how the bishops, condemning and abolishing all manner of English books and treatises which might bring the people to any light of knowledge, did yet authorise the works of Chaucer to remain still and to be occupied; who, no doubt, saw into religion as much almost as even we do now, and uttereth in his works no less, and seemeth to be a right Wicklevian, or else there never was any. And that, all his works almost, if they be thoroughly advised, will testify (albeit done in mirth, and covertly); and especially the latter end of his third book of the Testament of Love . . . . Wherein, except a man be altogether blind, he may espy him at the full : although in the same book (as in all others he useth to do), under shadows covertly, as under a visor, he suborneth truth in such sort, as both privily she may profit the godly-minded, and yet not be espied of the crafty adversary. And therefore the bishops, belike, taking his works but for jests and toys, in condemning other books, yet permitted his books to be read."

It is significant, too, that Foxe's discussion of Chaucer leads into his history of "The Reformation of the Church of Christ in the Time of Martin Luther" when "Printing, being opened, incontinently ministered unto the church the instruments and tools of learning and knowledge; which were good books and authors, which before lay hid and unknown. The science of printing being found, immediately followed the grace of God; which stirred up good wits aptly to conceive the light of knowledge and judgment: by which light darkness began to be espied, and ignorance to be detected; truth from error, religion from superstition, to be discerned."

Foxe downplays Chaucer's bawdy and amorous writing, insisting that it all testifies to his piety. Material that is troubling is deemed metaphoric, while the more forthright satire (which Foxe prefers) is taken literally.

John Urry produced the first edition of Chaucer in Latin font, published posthumously in 1715.

Modern Scholarship

Although Chaucer's works were admired for many years, serious scholarly work on his legacy did not begin until the nineteenth century. Scholars such as Frederick James Furnivall, who founded the Chaucer Society in 1868, pioneered the establishment of diplomatic editions of Chaucer's major texts, along with careful accounts of Chaucer's language and prosody. Walter William Skeat, who like Furnivall was closely associated with the Oxford English Dictionary, established the base text of all of Chaucer's works with his edition, published by Oxford University Press. Later editions by John H. Fisher and Larry D. Benson have offered further refinements, along with critical commentary and bibliographies.

With the textual issues largely addressed, if not solved, the questions of Chaucer's themes, structure, and audience were addressed. In 1966, the Chaucer Review was founded, and has maintained its position as the preeminent journal of Chaucer studies.

List of works

The following major works are in rough chronological order but scholars still debate the dating of most of Chaucer's output and works made up from a collection of stories may have been compiled over a long period.

Major works

Short poems

To Rosemounde

Poems dubiously ascribed to Chaucer

Works mentioned by Chaucer, presumed lost

Spurious Works

Works incorporating Chaucerian text

Chaucer in popular culture

Notes

  1. ^ Skeat, W.W., The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899, Vol. I p. ix.
  2. ^ Skeat, op. cit., pp. xi-xii.
  3. ^ Skeat, op. cit., p. xvii.
  4. ^ Chaucer Life Records, p.24
  5. ^ Power, Eileen (1988), Medieval English Nunneries, C. 1275 to 1535, Biblo & Tannen Publishers, pp. 19, ISBN 0819601403, http://books.google.com/books?id=1ll6BuF4-kgC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=%22elizabeth+chaucy%22&source=web&ots=5B-HcUko6Z&sig=7dLlijAW1j4-_PdB5lA4EFZ-eSQ, retrieved on 2007-12-19
  6. ^ Coulton, G. G. (2006), Chaucer and His England, Kessinger Publishing, pp. 74, http://books.google.com/books?id=tgP7qB4Br-4C&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=%22elizabeth+chaucy%22&source=web&ots=iLFZpmcvwF&sig=B39ACboh618EWIWQMRrbcvNyhRE, retrieved on 2007-12-19
  7. ^ Henry Morley, English Writers: An Attempt Towards a History of English Literature (London: Cassell & Co., 1890), Vol. V. p. 106.
  8. ^ Corrine J. Saunders, A Concise Companion to Chaucer (Blackwell 2006), p. 19
  9. ^ Morley, Vol. 5, p. 245.
  10. ^ Ward, 109.
  11. ^ Morley, Vol. V, pp. 247-248.
  12. ^ Simon Singh: The Code Book, page 27. Fourth Estate, 1999
  13. ^ C.B. McCully and J.J. Anderson, English Historical Metrics, Cambridge UP 1996, p. 97.
  14. ^ Marchette Gaylord Chute, Geoffrey Chaucer of England E.P. Dutton 1946, p. 89.
  15. ^ Edwin Winfield Bowen, Questions at Issue in our English Speech, NY: Broadway Publishing, 1909, p. 147
  16. ^ "From The Preface to Fables Ancient and Modern". The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. Vol. C. New York, London: Norton, 2006. 2132-33. pg. 2132
  17. ^ Original e-text available online at the University of Virginia website[1], trans. Wikipedia.
  18. ^ Thomas Hoccleve,The Regiment of Princes, TEAMS website, Rochester University http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/hoccfrm.htm
  19. ^ As noted by Carolyn Collette in 'Fifteenth Century Chaucer', an essay published in the book A Companion to Chaucer ISBN 0631235906
  20. ^ 'Chawcer undoubtedly did excellently in his Troilus and Creseid: of whome trulie I knowe not whether to mervaile more, either that hee in that mistie time could see so clearly, or that wee in this cleare age, goe so stumblingly after him.' The text can be found here
  21. ^ Benson, Larry, The Riverside Chaucer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), p. 1118.
  22. ^ Potter, Russell A., "Chaucer and the Authority of Language: The Politics and Poetics of the Vernacular in Late Medieval England", Assays VI (Carnegie-Mellon Press, 1991), p. 91.

References

See also

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Geoffrey Chaucer
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External links

Educational institutions

Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales
General Prologue • The Knight's Tale • The Miller's Tale • The Reeve's Tale • The Cook's Tale • The Man of Law's Tale • The Wife of Bath's Tale • The Friar's Tale • The Summoner's Tale • The Clerk's Tale • The Merchant's Tale • The Squire's Tale • The Franklin's Tale • The Physician's Tale • The Pardoner's Tale • The Shipman's Tale • The Prioress's Tale • Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas • The Tale of Melibee • The Monk's Tale • The Nun's Priest's Tale • The Second Nun's Tale • The Canon's Yeoman's Tale • The Manciple's Tale • The Parson's Tale • Chaucer's Retraction
Other works
The Book of the Duchess • The House of Fame • Anelida and Arcite • The Parliament of Fowls • Boece • The Romaunt of the Rose • Troilus and Criseyde • The Legend of Good Women • Treatise on the Astrolabe
Persondata
NAME Chaucer, Geoffrey
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION English author and poet
DATE OF BIRTH c. 1343
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH 25 October 1400
PLACE OF DEATH

Categories: British civil servants | Burials at Westminster Abbey | English astrologers | English poets | English Poets Laureate | Medieval poets | Members of the pre-1707 English Parliament | Middle English poets | Physiognomists | English Christians | People from the City of London | 14th-century writers | 14th-century English people | 1343 births | 1400 deaths

 

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