Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) was the great early English poet, who is considered as the father of modern English poetry. His best and ripest work, which occupied him at intervals from 1373 to 1400, is his "Canterbury Tales", characterised by Stopford Brooke as "the best example of English story-telling we possess". Besides this famous work, he wrote, among other compositions, "The Life of St. Cecilia," "Troilus and Cressida," the "House of Fame," and the "Legend of Good Women". His influence on English literature has been compared to that of Dante on Italian, and his literary life has been divided into three periods - the French, the Italian, and the English, according as the spirit of it was derived from a foreign or a native source.He was the son of a vintner and taverner, born probably in London around 1340, where he lived almost all his days. His father and grandfather were wine merchants in London. When a lad, he served as page in the royal household of the Duke of Clarence, and he was taught there courtesy and chivalry. His work was to carry messages, wait at table, help the great of the land to dress, learn to ride, to use a sword, to joust etc. He won the favour and patronage of the king, Edward III. and his son, John of Gaunt, who pensioned him; served in an expedition to France; was made prisoner, but ransomed by the king. He was often employed on royal embassies, in particular to Italy; held responsible posts at home; was thus a man of the world as well as a man of letters.
He comes first before us as a poet in 1369 and his poetic powers developed gradually.
He went to France as a soldier in the year 1359. His memory was very sharp. He started his writing career wich composing love lyrics. All those were lost, but seven-line rhyme royal which was his earliest lyric to be preserved. Grammar and spelling was not formalized at that time. Grammar was not systematic until the eighteenth century. Final ‘e’ was sounded in poetry and other defects were also found in sentences. He wrote Boke of the Duchesse under the influence of French. It was great lament about the death of Blanche in 1369. She was loving wife of John of Gount. He wrote a prose titled Treaties on the Astrolabe, but he could not finish it. He translated some stories that were wrote by Dante, Boccaccio, and Patriarch. He also translated Boethius’s prose. That was De Consolatione Philophiae. Chaucer wrote The Parliament of Foules, The Hous of Fame and The Legende of Good Women in between 1372 and 1385.All works were about god, goddess of vice, and virtue, well known stories with talking birds of early cultures, and about classical figures. He also translated French verse romance Jean de Meung, Roman de la Rose and Guillaume de Lorris with the help of a northern poet. This all was an exposition of Love. Chaucer says, he meant ‘pitee/Frendshipe, love and all bounte’. Chaucer’s first master piece was Troilus and Criseyde. He produced this between 1382 and 1385. The Canterbury Tales was his second masterpiece. Although he was a translator, and an adaptor of Italian, French, and European writings, he turned to create in English in 1386 and he wrote The Canterbury Tales, a narration of stories in poetry. He imagined thirty pilgrims from different walks of life. These pilgrims started from London to shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. Each pilgrim was required to narrate two tales on way to Canterbury and anther two on the way back from there. He wrote Canterbury Tales in five –beat, iambic line, rhymeing in pairs. It was later called the heroic couplet and was neither verse-form nor rhyme- royal. This was Chaucer’s own invention. The Canterbury Tales was a valuable gift to English poetry. Chaucer uses Midland dialect, which was also seen in Malory's and Shakespeare’s works. It later become Standard English. He died in 1400 and buried in Poet’s corner in Westminster Abbey.
Wisdom & Quotes
- The guilty think all talk is of themselves.
- The latter end of joy is woe.
- Love is blind.
- Men love newfangledness.
- Hard is the heart that loved naught in May.
Kasim-i-Anwar