Geoffrey Chaucher

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Data:	03.01.2002
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- Geoffrey Chaucher -

Social Background

Towards the end of 6th century Christianity began to spread and Saint Augustine established a monastery at Canterbury; it brought written documents. The culture of this period was a fusion of two components: the language and the moral values of Rome. The Norman period starts in 1066 when William the Conqueror invaded England winning the battle of Hastings. The Normans imposed French language and until the 14th century in England were spoken three languages: French among the nobility, Latin among the clergy and English among the common people.
Ballad and lyric
During the Middle Age lyrics became a popular form. Most the earliest lyrics were religious in tone and theme, about Christ or Virgin Mary .we have also love lyrics influenced by French troubadours in which the lady and his relationship with her lover are idealized. In the end, another kind of literature were narrative poems, not in prose, which were sung at banquets. Chaucer wrote metrical verse which was to became the standard language for the whole country. One of the most important features of medieval poetry is the development of ballads, originally sung to a simple instrumental accompaniment (oral transmission) . Popular ballads are anonymous narrative poems.
Chaucer
Chaucer is often called “the father of English poetry”. He established the London dialect as the dominant form of literary language that would later develop into Modern Standard English.
The known facts of Chaucer's life are fragmentary. He was born in London between 1340 and 1344, in a middle class family and he was the son of John Chaucer, a vintner, so he had the opportunity of coming in contact with the social class of merchant. He had a multifaced and eclectic life and he met many kinds of people; in fact he served the duke of Clarence for many years and he entered the household of the duke’s wife, he was an important diplomatic and worked for the king: in 1359–60 he was with the army of Edward III in the hundred years’ war in France, where he was captured by the French but then ransomed by the king himself.
During the years 1370 to 1378, Chaucer was frequently employed on diplomatic missions to the Continent, visiting Italy in 1372–73 and in 1378. Chaucer went to Italy and stopped in Genoa and Florence and in his second trip to Italy, he went to Milan, where he became acquainted with Petrarch's and Bocciaccio's works. He was also a representative of Kent in Parliament. He was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1400.
Main Work
His poems are usually divided into 3 period: French, Italian, English. In the last one period Chaucer’s language gradually became standard English, thus becoming the basis of Modern English. In his works, he introduces metrical innovation which were very important for the development of English poetry. He introduced the line based on syllabus and the use of rhyme.
Canterbury Tales
Chaucer's final period includes his masterpiece: The Canterbury Tales. This unfinished poem is one of the most brilliant works in literature but instead of 120 tales, he wrote only 22 stories. Chaucher wanted to write a “mirror” of England and a book which could be understood by anybody. Maybe he took inspiration from Boccaccio’s “Decameron”.

Structure

The poem, who doesn’t tell an historical event, introduces a group of pilgrims going on a pilgrimage to Thomas Becket's shrine in Canterbury. The pilgrimage is a kind of frame of the book.. The teller of the best tale would be awarded by Harry Bailey, the host of the Tabard Inn, where pilgrims meet to begin their journey. The host of the Tabard suggested that they should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back to London. The best teller, back in London, would be given a free supper as a prize. They all accepted and the following morning the knight started the competition.

Chaucer himself was invited to join the company (so he became an even more eyewitness). Chaucer is the inventor of the narrative, but in his creation it is other people who tell the tales, giving rise to narrative tension between the voice of narrator (Chaucer) and the voices of the narrators within the general narrative (the pilgrims). This let Chaucer to report, comment and criticise without being directly responsible for what he is saying. The pilgrimages is also a metaphor for life: we are all pilgrims on the way to the heavenly city.
In addiction to the General Prologue, most of the individual tales have a prologue in which the teller introduces his themes and point of view. All over Europe pilgrimages were both religious and recreational events joined by people belonging to most levels of society. This gave Chaucer the opportunity of bringing together a heterogeneous society. However, the originality of the final effect is produced by the fact that Chaucer himself is a pilgrim, not an invisible narrator.
The pilgrims' tales include a variety of medieval genres. The pilgrims can be divided into three main groups: a first group connected with the declining feudal world (Knight, Yeoman...), a second group associated with religious life (Prioress, Monk...) and a third group including townspeople.
In that period upper classes did not like to mix with other people and preferred to go on pilgrimages on their own, while poor people did not have the money to afford the journey, so nobles and peasants are not described. Opposing with the rules of the correct procedure in literature, he placed the Knight as the first personage in the description of his characters.
The Tales are all written in verse (except two that are in prose). Among Chaucer’s major metrical innovations mention must be made of his early introduction into English versification of the five-accent line, technically know as the iambic pentameter. It is a line of teen syllables with alternating weak and strong stresses (first syllable is unstressed and second syllable stressed. third syllable unstressed and fourth syllable stressed; and so on). Chaucer carries through his narrative without apparent effort: The Canterbury Tales are written in couplets (two consecutive lines rhyming together) of iambic pentameters.

Though apparently influenced by Boccaccio, Chaucer, differs from the Italian writer:
- In Boccaccio, the storyteller are young gentlemen and ladies; Chaucer, instead, chose pilgrims from the most different classes.
- Boccaccio was not analytical in his way of writing and focused his attention above all on manner. Chaucer was more precise and tied a psychological study of the single characters with a very detailed description of the middle class of his time.
- Chaucer's stroke of genius, absent in Boccaccio, was turn himself into a member of the group, with the others pilgrims, so he became an even more believable eyewitness.
The Middle Age after Chaucer
RELIGIOUS PROSE: Wycliffe
- He attacked religion and the Church, in particular the interferences of Rome in English affairs;
- The priest wrote sermons and letters in English which could be read by the whole nation;
- He said that people should not obey popes who violate the gospel;
- he was against the temporal power of the church; he said that the pope should not have the power of excommunication, the Church should return to a state of poverty and give its property to the state;
- Wycliffe translated the Bible into English and spread religious knowledge
- He created an organization of poor priests who went around the country communicating his ideas (lollards).