Geoffrey Chaucer

         Hello readers, I am writing this blog as an assignment by the Department of English, MKBU. Here, I'm trying to put an overview about Geoffrey Chaucer and his masterpiece 'The Canterbury Tales'.

       

        The great author, poet and philosopher Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1340 in London. The precise date and location of his birth remain unknown. He died on 25 October 1400 in London. 

   Life :

       The name Chaucer is derived from the French word chaussier, meaning a maker of footwear. The family’s financial success derived from wine and leather.Geoffrey Chaucer came from a well settled family. His great grandfather was tavern keeper, his grandfather worked as the purveyor of wines and his father John Chaucer Rose to become an important wine merchant with royal appointment. Chaucer also worked as a courtier, a diplomat and a civil servant as well as he was working for the king from 1389 to 1391 as Clerk of the King's Works. 

    Generally, his life is divided into three periods:

    

First period: First period of 30 years, includes his youth and early manhood, when he was influenced by French literary models.

Second period: Second period of 15 years, this was his active life and here he was influenced by Italian literary models.

Third Period: Third period of 15 years, known as the English period, was the time of Chaucer's highly developed. This was the period of his writing. He was still more influenced by French and it is shown in his masterpiece the contemporary tales.

     

       Through these three periods we can see that Chaucer was first influenced by French literary models and in the second period he was traveling in Italy and met Petrarch and Boccaccio and by this Chaucer was influenced by Italian literary models. Chaucer produced works with much Italian influence after his Italian trip of 1373, whereas works written before his travels demonstrated French influence. In the third Period of his life he was again influenced by French, by this we found the love poetry of Chaucer that showed French tradition including 'The Romaunt of the Rose' and 'Saint cecilia'. 

   His Works:

The Book of the Duchess :

      Chaucer's first major work was The Book of the Duchess, an elegy for Blanche of Lancaster who died in 1368.  

The House of Fame:

   The House of Fame is a Middle English poem, probably written between 1374 and 1385,It was most likely written after The Book of the Duchess, but its chronological relation to Chaucer's other early poems is uncertain. 'The central theme of The House of Fame' is Fame, embracing the spheres of nature, death, heroism, love, chivalry, wisdom, conscience, virtue, fortune, myth, language, and poetry.

      

Anelida and Arcite:

   Anelida and Arcite is a 357-line English poem. It tells the story of Anelida, queen of Armenia and her wooing by false Arcite from Thebes, Greece.

 

The Parliament of Flows: 

    This poem was written in the late 14th century. It describes a group of birds which gather together in the early spring – on ‘seynt valentynes day’ – to choose their mates for the year. It seems that the poem sparked a tradition.

Troilus and criseyde:

     Troilus and Criseyde is usually considered to be a courtly romance, although the generic classification is an area of significant debate in most Middle English literature. It narrate the love story of Troilus, son of the Trojan king Priam, and Criseyde, widowed daughter of the deserter priest Calchas.  

The Legend of Good Women:

  The fourth and final work of the genre that Chaucer composed, it presents a “Prologue” (existing in two versions) and nine stories. In the “Prologue” the god of love is angry at Chaucer for writing about so many women who betray men. As penance, Chaucer is instructed to write about good women. And then he wrote this work. 

 

 The Canterbury Tales : 

    The Canterbury Tales tells the story of a group of 31 pilgrims who meet while travelling from the Tabard Inn in Southwark to Canterbury. To pass the time on the journey, they decide to each tell two tales to the assembled company on the journey there and the journey home. The result is regarded as a masterpiece of medieval literature, and The Canterbury Tales holds a central place in English literature. 

  

       The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories held together by the story of the pilgrimage. When the pilgrims begin to tell their stories, however, there is a change of gear. There is often a shift in form: ‘The Monk’s Tale’ is written in rhyme royal, ‘The Friar’s Tale’ is in rhyming couplets and ‘The Parson’s Tale’ is in prose. This formal variation is matched by contrasts in genre and tone. This interaction between the individual tales and the frame narrative is a layered and masterful exercise in characterisation – and one of the great joys of the work. 

       The Canterbury Tales is unfinished. The pilgrims never reach Canterbury, the return journey is not described, and not all the pilgrims who appear in the poem's prologue end up telling a tale. The Prologue describes a ploughman among the company, for example, whose tale is nowhere to be found. Whereas Chaucer’s original plan presumably envisaged over 100 stories, only 24 survived. Some of those are incomplete and others are taken from his earlier work.

      Finally, we can say without a doubt that The Canterbury Tales was the first major work written in the English language and it endures as a masterpiece of English Literature.

Language of Chaucer :

       It's difficult to read Chaucer's works, because he wrote it in the middle English language. If readers want to read Chaucer's real works then they should observe some general rules about pronunciations. In dealing with Chaucer's masterpiece, The reader is urged to read widely at first, for the simple pleasure of the stories and to remember that poetry and romance are more interesting and important than middle English. When we like and appreciate Chaucer, his poetry, his humour, his good stories, his kind heart. It will be time enough to study his language.

       Thus, Geoffrey Chaucer is considered one of the first great English poets. Chaucer has been known as the father of English poetry. A model of writing to be imitated by English poets. He was the first poet of his days to write exclusively in English.