Who’s Chaucer?

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Geoffrey Chaucer is the famous medieval author of The Canterbury Tales. Although much is known about this and other works, it is more difficult to trace his biography. He is the best English writer of his period. Much of his work is directly copied and improved upon by French and Italian writers, but this follows the literary convention of the time, where inventing new works was not considered as respectable as recreating or translating existing works.

Literary historians believe Chaucer was born in England in AD 1340. Chaucer became a page in 1357 to Prince Lionel, then served as a soldier for Edward III and spent some time in France. He married Phillipa Roet, sometime around this time period. His death is reported in the year 1400.

His first work The Duchess’ Tale, written in 1369, is a lament for the death of John of Gaunt’s wife. While Chaucer continued to write, he also continued to work for the English court. He served as an emissary to Italy on several diplomatic missions. His work in Italy is thought to have greatly influenced the writing of him, as he has often been compared to the poet Boccaccio. Canterbury Tales is quite similar in structure to Boccaccio’s Decameron.

Historians are also certain that the magisterial work, Troilus and Criseyde, derives from the influence of both classical opera and Italian literature. These travels also brought Chaucer into contact with Boetheus’ work, which he would later translate into Middle English. Boeteo was a philosopher whose main work, Consolation of Philosophy, was commonly read. Boeteo’s theories suggest that even when colliding with bad luck or bad times, a rational state of mind will be “consolation” and help a person overcome such things.

This theory is repeated throughout Chaucer’s work and is most notable in The Parliament of Fowls, a work concerning the love choices of each of the birds, with the falcon unable to decide who to choose as lover. Other short works by Chaucer include The Legend of Good Women which is unfinished and an unfinished translation of the French Roman de la Rose.

Troilus and Criseyde, a classical Greek origin story, is a tragic tale of courtly love. The first work in verse on this theme is by Boccaccio, in his work Filostrato. Chaucer’s version is considered one of the most beautiful works of literature ever. The work is in verse and tells of the love of Troilus and Cressida (or Crisie), set against the backdrop of the Trojan War.
Chaucer’s last work, The Canterbury Tales, is considered his best, even if it is not finished. The piece is brilliant and highly entertaining, recounting a game played by 30 characters on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. The intended story was to have each character tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two stories on the journey back, at which point the characters would be judged on their stories. However, the work only includes about a quarter of that, with many characters not even telling a story.

Tales is significant in its analysis of a broad spectrum of human characters. Nuns, priests, widows, knights and others are all wittily described. The most important tales are probably “The Knight’s Tale” and “Tale of the Wyf of Bath”. The stories range from the high to the vernacular, representative of a cross-section of human society.
The unfinished work is over 17,000 lines long. It would have been interesting to see Chaucer’s complete oeuvre because his explorations of humanity are precise and sophisticated, as well as often quite entertaining. As it stands, Tales is still considered a masterpiece.

Chaucer is innovative because he wrote in his native language, rather than Latin, which was the convention of his time. His work is in Middle English, which differs significantly from Modern English. Reading his Middle English texts can be challenging, but it’s also rewarding. Perhaps the best collection of Chaucer’s lyrics is Riverside Chaucer, which includes word translations, pronunciation guides, and a comprehensive set of critical essays.

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