Geoffrey Chaucer

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Geoffrey Chaucer

• This chaw-sure is delicious

April Cui, Colleen Dorsey, Ian White
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Chaucers Forebears

• At least four generations of middle-class
• Connections with court increase
• John Chaucer - father
• London vintner (wine maker/merchant)
• Deputy to kings butler
• Member of Edward IIIs expedition to Antwerp
• Name Chaucer derives from the French word
  chaussier, which means a maker of footwear
• The family made their money from wine and leather

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Chaucers Early life

• Exact date of birth unknown
• Customarily given at 1340,
• probably 1342/1343
• In London
• No info on early education
• Probably as fluent in French as Middle English
• Became competent in Latin and Italian
• 1357 - First recorded appearance
• As member of a royal household
• Placed in the household by his father to advance
  Geoffreys career with courtly education
• 1359 - member of Edward IIIs army
• In France, captured during unsuccessful siege of
  Reims
• King contributed to ransom

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Chaucers Later Early Life

• 1361-1365 - probably studying law
• 1366 - begins diplomatic missions to European
  continent
• Flanders, France, Italy
• Encountered Dante, Petrarch, and others
• 1366 - Chaucer had married
• Philippa Pan
• 1367 - annuity for life as yeoman of the king
• 1369/1370 - first important poem - Book of the
  Duchess
• Elegy for duchess of Lancaster

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Chaucers Later Life

• 1374 - appointed a customs official for port of
  London
• Political turmoil
• Thomas of Woodstock
• 1385 - became justice of the peace and knight of
  the shire for Kent
• 1388 - series of suits against him for debts,
  sold his royal pension
• 1389 - clerk of Kings works
• Richard II
• 1380s - wrote Troilus and Criseyde
• 1390s - wrote Canterbury Tales
• 1400 - died in London

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Language in England - French

• By Chaucers time, French was the dominant
  language of the court
• King Edward IIIs court
• French culture
• French poets, e.g. Jean Froissant and Otho de
  Graunson, Chaucers contemporaries
• Parisian French supplants Norman French in court.
  Norman French use reduced to provinces

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Language in England - English

• However, the aristocracy also used English
• King Edward I spoke English and liked English
  poetry
• Elementary schools taught in English
• Late 14th century demand for books in English
• 15th century, London English became dialect of
  those in power

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High Style

• Also golden style
• Diction overflowed the boundaries of straight
  English, much borrowing from Latin and French
• Refers to rhetoric - graceful verse as an art
  form (not persuasion)
• Basis in popular tradition and actual speech
• Became standard style of elegant writers
• Helped establish Chaucers London English as the
  dialect of people of power

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High Style

• Often uses apostrophe (speaking to a character or
  an absent/anonymous person). Apostrophe is also
  applicable to objects or ideas
• O brotil joye! O sweete venim queynte! (MerT
  IV.2061)
• High style is also marked by rhetorical, detailed
  character depictions, and cataloguing (lists) as
  found in The Knights Tales list of trees.
• But how the fire, was made to climb so high Or
  what names all the different trees went by. As
  oak, fir, birch, asp, alder, poplar, holm,
  Willow, plane, ash, box, chestnut, linden, elm,
  Laurel, thorn, maple, beech, yew, dogwood tree,
  Or how they were felled, sha'n't be told by me.

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High Style - Rime Royal

• Aka rhythme royal,
• 7 iambic pentameter lines, ababbcc
• Stanza form Chaucer used in his middle years
• used in Troilus and Criseyde
• became standard for elegant verse
• Chaucer first to use it in English, but source is
  unknown. Also first to use the heroic couplet

Criseyde, which that wel neigh starf for feere,
A So as she was the ferfulleste wight
B That myghte be, and herde ek
with hire ere A And saugh the sorwful
ernest of the knyght, B And in his preier
ek saugh noon unryght, B And for the
harm that myghte ek fallen moore, C She gan
to rewe and dredde hire wonder soore, C
http//academics.vmi.edu/english/audio/Troilus_Yag
er.html
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The Faibliau

• The fabliau is a comical story told in verse that
  originated in France. It has a simple style,
  portraying everyday characters. It features
  plots based on tricks played by the characters,
  often displaying an unnatural amount of
  gullibility and sexual appetite.
• Before Chaucer, fabliaux were only used in French
  literature. During Chaucers time, sophisticated
  comedic stories were popular, but usually in
  prose. Chaucer brought the genre into verse while
  retaining the high style. The Canterbury tales,
  the Millers Tale, Reeves Tale, Shipmans Tale,
  and Summoners Tale are all fabliaux.

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Lyric Poetry

• Originally, the English lyric (a type of sung
  poem) was relatively simple, direct, and had
  diction uninfluenced by the French.
• Chaucer was certainly familiar with this style.
  He quotes lyrics in some of his poetry, for
  example in the Knights Tale(CT I.1510-12), which
  gives us an idea of the style.
• Chaucer applied the elaborate high style to the
  English lyric, as he did with a great majority of
  his writing, notably his later writing. Chaucers
  surviving lyrics, like Gentilesse, are almost
  all written in high style, as are lyrics by many
  of his followers in English literature.

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Lyric Poetry - Examples

• Chaucer - Gentilesse

• Before Chaucer - Cuckoo song
• Sumer is ycomen in,Loude sing cuckou!Groweth
  seed and bloweth meed,And springth the wode
  now.Sing cuckou!Ewe bleteth after lamb,Loweth
  after calve cow,Bulloc sterteth, bucke
  verteth,Merye sing cuckou!Cuckou, cuckou,Wel
  singest thou cuckouNe swik thou never now!

http//academics.vmi.edu/english/audio/Gentilesse.
html
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Canterbury Tales

• Most famous work
• 30 Pilgrims, traveling to shrine of Thomas à
  Becket
• Chaucer didnt complete
• Not all pilgrims, no return trip
• Pilgrimage as framing device for collection of
  stories
• People of many walks of life
• Many literary genres
• Courtly romance, faibliau, allegorical, fable,
  medieval sermon
• Combines religious purpose with seclar aspect of
  spring vacation
• Pleasures and vices of world

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Sources

• Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007 Ultimate Reference
  Suite
• The Riverside Chaucer
• http//encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761562849/chau
  cer.html
• http//www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/chaucer/specia
  l/litsubs/style/rime-roy.html
• http//courses.fas.harvard.edu/chaucer/language.h
  tm
• http//academics.vmi.edu/english/audio/Audio_Index
  .html