Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 – 1400)

• Birth: London, 1340
• Patron: John of Gaunt
• Era: Plantagenet.
• First poet to be buried in Poets Corner in West-Minister Abbey.
• Chaucerian Age saw three reigns: 
  • Edward III 1327-1377 (Chaucer lived during)
  • Richard II 1377-1399
  • Henry IV 1399-1413
  • In 1359, at the age of 19, Chaucer accompanied Lionel, the Duke of Clarence on a military campaign to France, where he was taken in prison. English King Edward III (1312- 1377) paid a ransom for Chaucer’s release. Later he was sent by Edward III on a diplomatic mission to France, Genoa (Genova) and Florence. His travel exposed him to the works of authors such as Dante, Bocaccio, Froissant.
• Served as a soldier in France in the campaigns of the Hundred Year’s War in 1359-1360.
• Wrote a scientific instruction manual for his 10 years old son, A Treatise on Astrolabe.

French period – 1359-72

The Remount of the Rose from Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose)

1. 1. • His early works are translation from French
      • Translation of famous allegory written in 13th century by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung: Le Roman de la Rose.
      • A fragment of 800 lines.
      • The Rose Symbolizes the lady.
      • Written in Octasyllabic Couplet
      • Story: The Roman de la Rose is an allegorical love poem which takes the form of a dream vision. The 25-year-old narrator recounts a dream he had approximately five years previously, which has since come to pass. In his dream he journeyed to a walled garden in which he viewed rosebushes in the Fountain of Narcissus.

• • • First original poem, an Elegy
    • The poet is greatly indebted in this poem to Machaut, Froierart, Ovid and other poets.
    • It is recorded in an unusually graceful way the loss which John of Gaunt suffered in 1369 in the death of his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster.
    • The poem serves twin purpose of elegy and eulogy. It is composed of more than 1300 lines, in Octosyllabic couplet.
    • In dream, the poet played chess with fortune and lost his lady named White.
    • The poem is also known as The Death of Blunche.
    • It is preceded by his short poem An ABC and possibly by his translation The Roman de la Rose or The Remaunt of the Rose.
    • At the end of the poem, there are references to a “long castel” suggesting the house of Lancaster and a “rychehil” as John of Gaunt was earl of Richmound.
    • Mythological characters in the poem: Ceyxand Alcyone, June, Morpheus, Octarian.

Italian Period – 1373-86

• • Italy was then approaching the zenith of her artistic energy, Patrarch, Boccacio were still alive, although Dante died in 1321. Chaucer read all their works.

The Parlement of Foules (Allegory)

• • Approximately 700 lines.
  • The poem is written to celebrate the marriage of King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia in 1382.
  • It presents a vision of birds gathers to choose their mates on St. Valentine’s Day.

The House of Fame (Satire) – 2005 lines

• • Autobiographical poem
  • Original spelling: Hous of Fame
  • Composed of 3 books
  • Written between 1374 and 1385
  • Written after The Book of the Duchess 
  • Written in Dream Allegorical form, Octasyllabic Couplet
  • The poem contains the earliest reference in English language of the terms ‘galaxy’ and ‘milky way’.
  • The House of Fame is held up by a number of large columns, and standing atop them are a number of famous poets and scholars, who carry the fame of their most prominent stories on their shoulders.

1. 1. Josephus, a scholar of Jewish history, standing on a column of lead and iron and holding the fame of the Jewish people. He is accompanied by seven others, unnamed, who help him carry the burden. Chaucer notes that the reason the column is of lead and iron is because they wrote of battles as well as wonders, and iron is the metal of Mars and lead is the metal of Saturn.
   2. Statius, on an iron pillar covered in tiger’s blood, holding up the fame of Thebes and ‘cruel Achilles’.
   3. On an iron pillar, holding up the fame of Troy: Homer, Dares, Dictys, “Lollius”, Guido delle Colonne, and Geoffrey of Monmouth.
   4. Chaucer notes some ill-will between them. One claims that “Homer’s story was just a fable, and that he spoke lies, and composed lies in his poems, and that he favored the Greeks”.
   5. Virgil on a column of brightly tinned iron.
   6. Ovid on a column of copper.
   7. Sir Lucan on a column of stern iron, holding the fame of Julius and Pompey, accompanied by a number of Roman historians.
   8. Claudian on a pillar of sulfur, holding the fame of Pluto and Proserpine.

1. 1. In 1609, Ben Johnson and Inigo Jones appropriated the image ‘The House of Fame’ for their ‘Masque of Queenes’ commissioned by Anne of Denmark, JamesVI and Its queen consort.
   2. In the 18th C, it was adapted by Alexander Pope as The Temple of Fame;A Vision.
   3. John Skelton made an earlier emendation to Chaucer’s vision of Fame, rumour and fortune with his A Garlande of Laurell

The Legend of Good Women

• • Planned to narrate 19 tales of virtuous women of antiquity remarkable for their chestity, sincerity and devotion to love. 
  • first known attempt in English to use the heroic couplet.
  • He could complete only 8 legends
  • Written in heroic couplet. Which in 18th C. perfected by Alexander Pope.
  • The Legend of Good Women is a poem in the form of a dream vision by Geoffrey Chaucer during the fourteenth century.
  • The poem is the third longest of Chaucer’s works, after The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde, and is possibly the first significant work in English to use the iambic pentameter or decasyllabic couplets which he later used throughout The Canterbury Tales. This form of the heroic couplet would become a significant part of English literature possibly inspired by Chaucer.
  • The prologue describes how Chaucer is reprimanded by the god of love and his queen, Alceste.
  • The poet recounts ten stories of virtuous women in nine sections. The “legend” is Chaucer’s retelling of several stories that he long admired: Cleopatra, Thisbe, Medea, Phyllis, Hypsipyle, Ariadne, Lucretia, Philomela, Hypermnestra, and, most notably, Dido. The work is similar in structure to the later Monk’s Tale and like that tale, and many of his other works, seems to be unfinished. Chaucer’s sources for the legends include: Virgil’s Aeneid, Vincent of Beauvais, Guido delle Colonne’s Historia destructionis Troiae, Gaius Julius Hyginus’ Fabulae and Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Heroides.

Troilus and Criseyde

• • Chief work of Italian Period.
  • A poem of 8200 lines, rhyme royal
  • Adopted from Boccacio’s II Filostrato
  • Troilus and Criseyde is an epic poem by Geoffrey Chaucer which re-tells in Middle English the tragic story of the lovers Troilus and Criseyde set against a backdrop of war during the siege of Troy. It was composed using rime royale and probably completed during the mid-1380s. Many Chaucer scholars regard it as the poet’s finest work. As a finished long poem it is more self-contained than the better known but ultimately unfinished The Canterbury Tales. This poem is often considered the source of the phrase: “all good things must come to an end”. 
• Characters
  • Achilles, a Greek warrior
  • Antenor, a soldier held captive by the Greeks, traded for Criseyde’s safety, eventually betrays Troy
  • Calchas, a Trojan prophet who joins the Greeks
  • Criseyde, Calchas’ daughter
  • Diomede, woos Criseyde in the Greek Camp
  • Helen, wife to Menelaus, lover of Paris
  • Pandarus, Criseyde’s uncle, who advises Troilus in the wooing of Criseyde
  • Priam, King of Troy
  • Cassandra, Daughter of Priam, a prophetess at the temple of Apollo
  • Hector, Prince of Troy, fierce warrior and leader of the Trojan armies
  • Troilus, Youngest son of Priam, and wooer of Criseyde
  • Paris, Prince of Troy, lover of Helen
  • Deiphobus, Prince of Troy, aids Troilus in the wooing of Criseyde
• Influences
  • The Canticus Troili is a translation of Petrarch’s Sonnet 132 from Il Canzoniere.
  • Troilus’ philosophical monologue in Book IV is from Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, a book that was extremely influential to Chaucer.

Anelida and Arcite

• • Anelida and Arcite is a 357-line English poem by Geoffrey Chaucer. It tells the story of Anelida, queen of Armenia and her wooing by false Arcite from Thebes, Greece.
  • The poem uses some of elements of the Teseida of Boccaccio, and the Thebaid of the Roman poet Statius, works which Chaucer would use again as a basis for The Knight’s Tale.

English period – 1386-1400

The Canterbury Tales

Prose of Chaucer

1. The Tale of Melibeus
2. The Person’s Tale

Quotes about Chaucer

Facts and Mindmap

• Age of Chaucer: reign of 
  • Edward III – 1327 – 77
  • Richard II
  • Henry IV – 1399
• Highest development in Medieval England or Midsummer of English Chivalry during Edward III’s reign. remarked by W.H. Hudson.
• Medieval school of rhetoric at the time encouraged diversity, dividing literature (as Virgil) suggested into high, middle, low style.
• Another popular method of division came from St. Augustine: Majestic persuades, Temperate pleasure, Subdued teaching.
• Writers were encouraged to write in a way keeping in mind: Speaker, Subject, Audience, Purpose, Manner and Occasions
• Chaucer moved freely from these stigmas and showed favouritism to none.
• Chaucer used the same meter throughout almost all of his tales. It is a decasyllable line, probably borrowed from French and Italian Forms, with siding rhyme and occasionally a caesura in the middle of a line.
• His meter would later develop  into the heroic meter of 15th and 16th century and is an ancestor to iambic pentameter.
• 4 of his tales: The Man of Law’s, Clerk’s, Prioress’ and Second Nun use Rhyme Royal.
• 2 characters, The Pardoner and the Summoner, whose role aplly to Chaucer’s secular powers, are both portrayed as deeply corrupt, greedy, and abusive.
• In the Friar’s Tale, Summoner is shown to be working on the side of the devil.
• Four types of interpretations or allegories: 1.Literal 2.Typological 3.Moral 4.Analogical
• Dante describes interpreting through a four-fold method in his epistle to Can Grande della Scala.  
• Chaucer employed 3 principal meters:
  • The 8 syllable line, rhyming in couplets as in The Book of Duchess
  • Ten Syllable line, also rhyming couplets, as in Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.
  • And the same line arranged in a 7 line stanza known as Rhyme Royal, as in Troilus and Criseyde.
• The heroic couplet he introduced in English Verse.
• Rhyme Royal he invented.
• The only form of versification known before Chaucer was alliteration.

Practice:

1. Between which sets of dates did Chaucer live? 1340-1400
2. Chaucer lived during the reign of: Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV
3. Which was the closest contemporary of Chaucer? William Langland.
4. Who called Chaucer “the father of English Poetry”? Dryden
5. Who described Chaucer as “The Well of English Poetry”? Spenser
6. “With Chaucer is born our real poetry” – who holds this view? Matthew Arnold.
7. “Chaucer found his native tongue a dialect and left it a language” – said Lowes
8. “Chaucer is the earliest of the great moderns.” – said: Matthew Arnold
9. “If Chaucer is the father of English Poetry, he is the Grandfather of the English novel.” said: G.K. Chesterton
10. Who says about Chaucer’s ‘Characters’ – “Here is God’s Plenty.” – Dryden
11. In which month did Chaucer’s pilgrimgs go on their pilgrimage? April
12. How many pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canteurbury Tales are going on the pilgrimage? 29
13. How many pilgrims in the Prologue represents the knighthood?: Three
14. How many ecclesiastical characters are portrayed in the Prologue? Eight.
15. How many women characters figure in the Prologue? Three
16. It is believed that the Host at the Inn was a real man. What is the name of the Host? Harry Bailly.
17. What was the name of the Inn the pilgrims assemble for the night? Tabard Inn.
18. To which shrine are the pilgrims going? Shrine of St. Thomas a’Becket at Canterbury
19. One of the Tales in Chaucer’s Canteurbury Tales is in prose. Which was? The Parson’s Tale
20. One of the Portraits in Prologue is that of the Wife of Bath. What is Bath? The name of the town to which she belonged, South-Western England.”He was fresh as the month of May.” This line occurs in the Prologue. Whom does this line refer to? Squire.