Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400), author of The Canterbury Tales and the first great English poet. His claim to this tide, and to the oft-quoted " well of English undefiled, " lies in the fact that he established the English language as the medium of the English poet. Up to and during his time Latin and French were both more fashionable; after his day neither could compete with English. Also, more than any other writer, he established one dialect of English as " standard English. "
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Geoffrey Chaucer, name is derived from the French word
chaussier, meaning a maker of footwear, the family's financial success was derived from wine and leather. He is
the most outstanding writer in England before Shakespeare . He contributed importantly in the second half of the 14th century to the management of public affairs as courtier, diplomat, and civil servant. In that career he was trusted and aided by three successive kings - Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV. But it is his avocation the writing of poetry - for which he is remembered. His writings also consistently reflect an all-pervasive humour, combined with serious and tolerant consideration of important philosophical questions. |
The Book of the Duchess is evidence of his connection with persons in high place, that poem of more than 1,300 lines, probably written in late 1369 or early 1370, is an elegy for Blanche, duchess of Lancaster, John of Gaunt's first wife, who died of plague in September 1369. For this first of his important poems, Chaucer used the dream-vision form, a genre made popular by the highly influential 13th-century French poem of courtly love, the Roman de la rose. Although political events of the 1380s, from the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 through the Merciless Parliament of 1388, must have kept Chaucer steadily anxious, he produced a sizable body of writings during this decade, some of very high order.
The Parlement of Foules, a poem of 699 lines, is a dream-vision for St.Valentine's Day, making use of the myth that each year on that day the birds gathered before the goddess Nature to choose their mates. Beneath its playfully humorous tone, it seems to examine the value of various kinds of love within the context of "common profit" as set forth in the introductory abstract from the Somnium Scipionis (Dream of Scipio) of Cicero. The narrator searches unsuccessfully for an answer and concludes that he must continue his search in other books.
His prose translation of the Consolation is carefully done, and in his next poem-- Troilus and Criseyde--the influence of Boethius' book is pervasive. Chaucer took the basic plot for this 8,239-line poem from Boccaccio's Filostrato." Troilus and Criseyde" Some critics consider Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer's finest work, greater even than the far more widely read Canterbury Tales. Also in the 1380s Chaucer produced his fourth and final dream-vision poem, the Legend of Good Women, which is not a success. It presents a "Prologue," existing in two versions, and nine stories. In the "Prologue" the god of love is angry because Chaucer had earlier written about so many women who betrayed men. As penance, Chaucer must now write about good women. The "Prologue" is noteworthy for the delightful humour of the narrator's self-mockery and for the passages in praise of books and of the spring.
Chaucer's great literary accomplishment of the 1390s was The Canterbury Tales.
In it a group of about 30 pilgrims gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, across the Thames from London, and agree
to engage in a storytelling contest as they travel on horseback to the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury,
Kent, and back. Harry Bailly, host of the Tabard, serves as master of ceremonies for the contest. The pilgrims
are introduced by vivid brief sketches in the "General Prologue." Interspersed between the 24 tales told
by the pilgrims are short dramatic scenes presenting lively exchanges, called links and usually involving the host
and one or more of the pilgrims. Chaucer did not complete the full plan for his book: For this crowning glory of
his 30 years of literary composition, Chaucer used his wide and deep study of medieval books of many sorts and
his acute observation of daily life at many levels. He also employed his detailed knowledge of medieval astrology
and subsidiary sciences as they were thought to influence and dictate human behaviour.
Geoffrey Chaucer styled himself Poet Laureate, but the office really dates from the reign of Charles I, when Ben
Jonson received the post with a pension of 100 marks. Among other famous holders of the office was John Dryden
(1631-1700), renowned in his day as dramatist, poet and prose writer. His plays are for the most part forgotten:
a number of his poems, including his political satires, and the still popular Alexander's Feast, remain famous;
while his prose Essay of Dramatic Poesie is among the English classics. In Dryden's time the Poet Laureate's remuneration
included each year a cask of Canary wine, and this continued to be given until the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
