Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400)\
Geoffrey Chaucer has often been called "The father of English poetry," a phrase that makes him sound like a stuffy sort of writer. However, The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's Masterpiece, is anything but stuffy. In fact, its realistic language and coarse humor prompted critics to call Chaucer everything from "observant" to "contemptible." Chaucer was a man of the world who knew how a variety of people spoke and acted. This knowledge was invaluable to his writing. Born in London into a middle-class wine merchant's family, he became a page in the royal household while still a teenager. Despite the lowly duties of the job -making beds, carrying candles, and running errands, the position offered Chaucer exposure to a world of fine manners and high-born people. A few years later, he saw more of the world when he served in a military campaign in France.
While in his twenties, Chaucer was made a court official, an appointement that was the start of many years of public service. During his career, he traveled abroad on diplomatic missions and was therefore exposed both to French and Italian literature and culture. For the rest of his life, he held a variety of governmental posts. Despite these busy professional duties, Chaucer managed to create a large body of writing. His work is often divided into three distinct periods. His early poetry, which is influenced by the French medieval tradition, includes the book of Duchess and the Romaunt of the Rose. Later, he wrote the Parliament of Fowls and the masterful Troilus and Cressida. His most mature writing, crafted in he 40's, includes The Legend of Good Woman and finally The Canterbury Tales.
The Canterbury Tales is considered Chaucer's masterpiece for several reasons. First, it marks the beginning of the new tradition; Chaucer was the first writer to use English in a major literary work. Before him, literature was composed of French or Latin. Secondly, because the Canterbury Tales focuses on an assortment of people who are thrown together on a journey, it gives a life-like and engaging picture of a cross section of society during the 1300's. Finally, it is an outstanding literary achievement. Chaucer created approximately 17,000 lines of vivid poetry which still attract new readers centuries later.
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, a
collection of stories in a frame story, between 1387 and 1400. It is the story
of a group of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to Canterbury (England). The
pilgrims, who come from all layers of society, tell stories to each other to
kill time while they travel to Canterbury.
If we trust the General Prologue, Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell
two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back. He never
finished his enormous project and even the completed tales were not finally
revised. Scholars are uncertain about the order of the tales. As the printing
press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, The Canterbury
Tales has been passed down in several handwritten manuscripts.
