• Geoffrey Chaucer

The greatest writer of the 14^th century was Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400). Whereas his predecessor, Langland, expressed the thoughts of the peasants and Wycliff – the protest against the church, Chaucer was the writer of the new class, the bourgeoisie. He was not, however, the preacher of bourgeois ideology but just a writer of the world: he wrote about the things he saw, and described the people he met. Chaucer was the first to break away from medieval forms and paved the way to realism in literature.

G eoffrey Chaucer was supposedly born in 1340 in London, shortly after the Hundred Years War broke out. John Chaucer, his father, was a London vintner (a wine merchant). Very little is known about Chaucer’s early years. We do know, however, that his parents always lived in rented houses and gave their son some education. He is said to have gone to St. Paul’s school. Although some researchers claim that he must have been educated at Oxford or Cambridge, no data can prove that. Most probably he had no university education.

His father, who had some connections with the court, hoped for a courtier’s career for his son. At the age of 16 or 17 Geoffrey was page to a lady at the court of Edward III. From an old account book we learn that Geoffrey Chaucer received several articles of clothing ‘of his lady’s gift’ and that now and then he was paid small sums of money ‘for necessaries’. Those facts indicate that he was a favourite with the royal family.

During the Hundred Years War, when he was about 20, Chaucer was in France serving as an esquire (an arms-bearer) to a knight. He was then taken prisoner by the French. When his friends raised money to ransom him, even Edward III contributed 16 pounds towards his ransom.

On his return to England, Chaucer passed into attendance on John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of the king. It was there that he met a young lady named Phillipa who became his wife in 1366. At about the same time Chaucer started writing his first poems. It is peculiar that he never wrote a single line of poetry to his young wife: probably, the marriage was not a romantic one.

At different periods of his life Chaucer was a student, a courtier, a soldier, a diplomat, a customs official and a Member of Parliament for Kent. He mixed freely with all sorts of people and in his works gave a true and vivid picture of contemporary England.

Chaucer’s earliest poems were written in imitation of French romances. He translated from French the famous allegorical poem of the 13^th century, “The Romance of the Rose”. These years are usually described as the first, or the French period of Chaucer’s writings.

The second period is known as Italian. In the early 1370s Chaucer travelled much and lived a busy life. He made three trips to Italy where he acquainted himself with Italian literature. Italy made a deep impression on him. Italian literature opened to Chaucer a new world of art and taught him to appreciate the value of national literature. It was then that he wrote The Parliament of Birds, an allegorical poem satirizing Parliament, Troilus and Cressid, the first psychological novel in English, and The Legend of Good Women, a dream poem which describes nine famous women of twenty. The poem forms a bridge between the Italian period and the next, English period.

When Chaucer came back to England, he received the post of the Controller of the Customs for wool and hides in the port of London. He held this position for ten years and apparently had little time to write. Much of his work remained unfinished. But Chaucer’s fame as a poet was spreading although his writings were copied by hand and were very expensive. The court admired his graceful way of writing and his ability of being satirical without being unkind.

In the late 1370s Chaucer was appointed Knight for the shire of Kent, that is became a Member of Parliament representing Kent. Chaucer often had to travel from London to Kent and back and could observe the pilgrimage to the tomb of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. Travelling was dangerous at the time, and several times Chaucer was robbed of all the money that was in his possession. Later he described his experiences in The Canterbury Tales, the greatest work that brought him world fame.

However, his duties grew very tedious to the poet and several times he petitioned the king for permission to give up his post. Finally, the king granted him a pension. But when his patron John of Gaunt went to Spain, Chaucer lost his pension and became so poor that he even had to borrow money for food. When the new king, Henry IV, came to the throne in 1399, the poet addressed him with the poem The Complaints of Chaucer to His Empty Purse. As a result, his old pension was given back to him and a new one granted. Chaucer died in 1400 and was buried in Westminster Abbey in London.

Chaucer’s greatest work, The Canterbury Tales, is a series of stories told by a number of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. In the Prologue Chaucer makes a rapid portrait of 30 men and women from all walks of life. Nearly all of them are described with such particularity that suggests the idea that Chaucer was drawing his portraits from individuals in real life.

In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer sums up all types of stories that existed at the time: the Knight tells a romance, the Nun – a story of a saint, the Miller – a fabliau, the Priest tells a fable and so on. The Canterbury Tales is as popular in England as Decameron is on the Continent.

Chaucer did not only overshadow all his contemporary writers. He is rightly considered to be the greatest English writer before the age of Shakespeare.

In many modern manuals on the history of the English language and English literature, Chaucer is described as the founder of the English literary language. He wrote in a dialect which in the main coincided with that used in documents produced in London shortly before his time and for a long time after. Although he did not actually ‘create’ the literary language, as a poet of outstanding talent, he made better use of it than his contemporaries. He set up a pattern of literary language to be followed in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. Chaucer’s literary language based on the mixed dialect of London is known as classical Middle English. Chaucer’s poems were copied so many times that over 60 manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales have survived up to this day. His books were among the first to be printed in England, a hundred years after their composition. A hundred years later, William Caxton, the first English printer, called him ‘The wonderful father of our language.’