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Medieval English Literature: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)


- Son of a wine merchant in service of the King, with good connections to the court
- Began courtly career as a royal page at the Earl of Ulsters, gradually moved up the ladder
- Received excellent education (Inner Court, St. Pauls Almonry)
- Did military service in France during 100 Years War, taken POW (ar. 1359), ransomed by King
Edward III - In 1368 became one of 37 squires at the royal household (some say due to marriage
to Phillipa de Roet in 1366)
- Chaucer travelling to France, Italy and the Low Countries on diplomatic missions (from 1370s-
1380s)

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)


- From 1370s onwards Chaucers literary career goes hand in hand with his public career
- Held less or more prestigious positions:
- Customs Officer at London port;
- the Controller of Customs and Subsidies for Wools, Skins and Tanned Hides (1374- 1385/6);
- Justice of Peace for Kent County in 1385;
- Representative of Kent in Parliament (1386) etc.
- Partly due to Chaucers connections to court, his own skill and wit; partly due to his patron/
benefactor John of Gaunt, uncle to King Richard II & father of Henry Bolingbroke (future Henry
IV, the usurper king).

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)


- From 1386-1389 Chaucers public career in decline as the Duke of Gloucester (Gaunts
brother), using the absence of John of Gaunt, forced Chaucer into retiring from public positions
- Upon return of John of Gaunt in 1389, Chaucer appointed as the Clerk of the Kings Works in
and out of London.
- Chaucer spent his final years comfortably and by 1399 he was given tenancy of living in the
precincts of Westminster Abbey where he was interred upon his death in 1400 (as one of its
residents this part of the Cathedral will later be known as the poets corner)

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)


- Chaucer only nominally in the Medieval period, as his career and worldliness brings him close
to the Renaissance model of vita activa
-Successfully pursued a non-clerical career that made him more independent of church opinion
(than his predecessors)
- With Chaucer, English literature gets its first non-medieval artist, a self-confident author, who
is consciously upholding his public image of an energetic man of the world
- Thus, Chaucer could afford to be highly personal and ironic, even when operating within the
predetermined traditional & in spite of ups and downs of his public career.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)


- Most obvious trait of Chaucers literary work is a profound knowledge of human behaviour
and psychology, resulting from his rich career filled with public positions, tasks and travels that
involved daily communication with humans, providing him one-of-a-kind opportunity to closely
observe human manners.
-Chaucer = uomo universalis, possessing a range of non-literary knowledge (in diverse
disciplines such as mathematics, astronomy, astrology, alchemy, philosophy, and medicine) and
fluent in French, Latin, even Italian.
- Most significant promoter of London English as a literary language, as well.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)


- Most evident feature of Chaucers poetry its indebtedness to continental European models
(French and Italian influences)
- His literary scope usually divided into three distinct phases (depending on the role-models):
French (> 1370)
Italian (1370 1385)
English (1387 - 1400)

Chaucer: French Phase (> 1370)


- Period of literary apprenticeship of Chaucer and heavily influenced by French works and
authors
- Translation of French dream allegory, Roman de la Rose (by 1360)
- Chaucers translation both reinforced & altered usual conventions of dream allegory and
courtly love, recasting romantic material using irony and satire.
- Several works of this phase exploit the conventions of dream allegory & echo basic plot of
Roman de la Rose.
- The Book of the Duchess (1369/79): dedicated to Gaunts deceased wife, Blanche; combines
love elegy with the elements of French courtly love poetry & dream allegory (setting,
personifications and the dreamer suffering from unrequited love); written in octosyllabic
couplets; Chaucers original move to entwine parallel stories about unhappy lovers:
1) the dreamers story;
2) the classic tale of unhappy love, Ceyx & Alcyone from Ovids Metamorphoses;
3) Black Knights story; contains over 1300 lines
Chaucer: Italian Phase (1370 1385)
- Moved away from sheer translations to adaptations of classical models found in the literature
of Ovid, Vergil & Dante
- Coincides with Chaucers frequent travels as Kings envoy to Italy
- The House of Fame (c. 1370s), fragmentary poem, using dream vision conventions modified
with elements of burlesque (def.: derisive imitation that parodies style, class or genre)
- Translation of Boethius Consolation of Philosophy
- The Parliament of Fowls (1379/80): dream allegory conventions with the narrator witnessing
a debate on love carried out by birds (convention of estates satire); consists of 2000 lines &
uses different models including Boccaccio; example of rhyme royal /Chaucers rhyme (7 lines
stanzas, in iambic pentameter & with ababbcc rhyming scheme)
- The Legend of Good Women (1386): ordered by Queen Anne to write a more respectful book
about women, praising their virtue and for that sake Chaucer included loosely connected
stories on Dido, Lucrecia, Cleopatra, Medea, etc; Women praised as embodiment of faithfulness
& as victims of deceit and wickedness of men; the work breaks off near the end of 9th story;
the works key appeal is its Prologue (displaying Chaucers finest irony)
- Minor shorter poems (of varied themes and metrical forms)
- Troilus and Criseyde (1382-6)?

Chaucer: English Phase (1385/7 1400)


- Phase in which Chaucer displays his literary mastery, his wit and erudition
- Work(s):
Troilus and Criseyde (1382-6)?
The Canterbury Tales (unfinished)
- All that Chaucer had written prior to his last, English phase led exclusively to the masterpiece
of The Canterbury Tales.

(1) Chivalric love from the Book of the Duchess,


(2) influence of Dante and Boccaccio felt in The House of Fame,
(3) the estates satire marking the Parliament of Fowls
(4) the concept of loosely connected stories from the Legend of Good Women,
(5) invention of a distinctive narrative voice, as well as more realist characterisation of his chief
protagonists in Troilus and Criseyde are all entwined in this unfinished masterpiece.
- Novelties: its setting, London area, & the presentation of the English society;
- In the Canterbury Tales Chaucer mixes genres, styles and distinct subject-matters

Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales


- Structure: collection of stories introduced and connected by a framing narrative proem (The
General Prologue)
- Role models: possibly Boccaccios Decameron (1353; most immediate model) or Giovanni
Sercambi di Luccas Novelle (closer to Chaucer as it narrates of the different social classes
travelling from one place to another, escaping plague, and telling stories to their amusement)
- The framing narrative is of pilgrimage to Canterbury.
- Each pilgrim is to tell two stories, yet as it is incomplete, the work contains about 24 stories
(one fragmentary).
- Chaucer created a literary-social document of the times (The General Prologue introduces
characters coming from different classes of the society who are living different lifestyles, having
differing attitudes and opinions)

Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales


- The characters: include an inn-keeper (Harry Bailey) & a narrator; a knight, a page & a yeoman
(nobility/martial estate); church figures (prioress, Friar, Monk, Parish priest/Parson, the Clerk of
Oxford, a Summoner & a Pardoner); professional men and women (Miller, the Reeve; Franklin,
craftsmen The Merchant, Cook, Haberdasher, Dyer, Weaver, Carpenter, the Arras-maker) &
Plowman (the lowest estate)
- Genre: narrative proem using the conventions of estate satire (giving a panorama of the
society while criticising abuse & misuse of the privileges of ones own estate); individual tales
exploiting other genres as well (exemplum; romances; saints lives; fabliaux etc)

Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales


- Characterisation, criticism, irony: In most cases, Chaucer abstains from direct criticism of the
pilgrims, mostly using subtle techniques such as their mannerisms in talking, description of
pilgrims behaviour, gestures, facial features, clothes, horses/ carriages, accessory (if any) &
individual tales they are telling for characterisation and ensuing criticism
- Clerics progressing from Madam Eglentyne (prioress) to Monk to Friar etc are described with
harsher and harsher irony (in a sort of a gradation)
- Exceptions: Summoner and Pardoner (Chaucer uses the two characters to pass a judgement
on the practice of selling indulgences and on homosexuality (symbolising Church corruption &
what then was considered a human deviation, respectively); thus openly criticized them harshly
- Other characters are ridiculed and satirized (even when Chaucer admires characters, as in
the case of Clerk of Oxford)
- Characters: types (representing a class or a profession) & individuals (round characters, quite
realistic human beings with their virtues an weaknesses).

Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales


Prologues to individual tales:
a) device to link the separate tales,
b) device for further characterisation (revealing personality),
c) displaying reaction to a story previously told or demonstrating professional conflicts and
envy.
- Examples of stories used as characterisation: Knights tale (classical romance);
Pages tale (more extravagant romance pointing in the direction of courtly love tradition);
Pardoners tale (exemplum used to frighten his clients into buying fake relics, but also
showing moral ugliness of the sins of the protagonists);
Wife of Baths (a fairytale of a knight who accepts a womans domination, instructing tale in
the war of the sexes), and alike.

Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales


The Narrator (s):
a) Harry Bailey (the inn-keeper who controls the storytelling, determines order in which the
stories would be told, tells jokes, disciplines when needed, reminds them of making the point in
their storytelling etc.
b) simple-minded and naive narrator, belonging to auctorial voice, Chaucer, the only one who
tells two stories, but both boring or disapproved of (self-irony). Used to intentionally play with
narrative levels (blurring reality and fiction).

Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales


- An interesting cultural document of the time, with numerous references to medieval artistic,
scientific or quasi-scientific, philosophical and religious traditions, including disciplines of law,
astrology, medicine, religion, alchemy, or widespread concepts such as chivalry, courtly love or
the theory of humours.
- Chaucers last famous achievement is marked by a unique blend of literary and cultural
conventions.
- The Canterbury Tales established Chaucer as an early poetic genius who resists ordinary
classifications and invites diverse interpretations even today

Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde


- General: Regardless of its classification (Italian or English phase) the work was a cause of
anger of Queen Anne, for its presentation of main heroine, as an unfaithful and fickle woman
that provokes the death of main hero.

- Form: narrative verse exploiting rhyme-royal/Chaucers stanza (iambic pentameter 7 line-


stanzas; rhyming pattern as follows: ababbcc)
- Greatest sustained narrative, unprecedented in medieval English literature , due to its use of
psychological and intellectual range
- Sources: classical story of the siege of Troy, the Trojan war and the accompanying events
(well-spread in England and Europe as of the Middle Ages);
Boccaccios work Il Filostrato; & French medieval adaptation of the story found in the work by
Guido delle Colonne (from the 12th century work of Frenchman, St. Maure)

Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde


- Structure & content: 5 books;
- The first 3 follow the history of lovers relationship from initial infatuation over courtship to
the union of lovers with the help of Criseydes uncle Pandarus.
- The fourth book introduces the tragic reversal as Criseydes father demands Criseyde to join
him at a Greek camp, and before leaving Criseyde pledges herself to Troilus for eternity, and
promises to return in ten days.
- The final book, Book Five, tells us of Criseydes betrayal and of Troilus suicidal throw into
combat and his eventual death. The final lines of the poem (and book 5) portray Troilus spirit
ascending to heaven where he finally finds peace.

Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde


- Narrators: uniquely original, multiple narrators;
a) he, as the author, reveals himself to the readers using auctorial narrator (detached as he
tells the story, not passing his own judgement nor reproving their behaviour; often bringing in
laughter and comic relief)
b) a good-natured and naive narrator (side by side with the auctorial voice, he relates the
facts as they appear without questioning them or as they are recorded in the books he says hes
adapting from)
- When Chaucer renounces his characters, or shows he is aware of their human imperfection,
he does not do it in a manner of a moralist (His judgement biting but not harsh).

Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde


Thematic framework:
- romancing
- courtly love
- inability of human beings to control their destiny (Book IV in particular).

- At the end of the poem an insight confirming both Boethius and Christian world-view is given:
Troilus states that only amor dei, the love of God in both the possible senses: loving God, and
Gods love of men- Grace , provides true happiness and peace of mind

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