3.

Middle English Literature Geoffrey Chaucer

(1340-1400)

The Plan:
1.Geoffrey Chaucer(1340-1400);
2.“The Canterbury Tales”(1387-1400)

Bibliography: O.V. Tumbina “Lectures on English Literature 5 th-

20th centuries”, St. Petersburg
1.Geoffrey Chaucer(1340-1400)
 The last poet of the Middle Ages and the first
English poet who opened the way to English
realistic literature, free of the influence of the
Church, was Geoffrey Chaucer.
Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London in 1340
into the family of a wine merchant John Chaucer.
He was not of high birth. His parents were not
rich. Being a wine merchant his father was close
to the court. He wanted a courtier career for his
son Geoffrey. When Geoffrey was nineteen he
was taken by Edward lll to France where he was
put into prison by the French.
 But Edward lll paid the ransom to free Chaucer .
At court Geoffrey met travellers and many
educated men, who taught him about the world
more than all the churchmen at universities of
the Middle Ages did when the printing of books
had not yet been invented.
William Caxton set up the first English printing
press in 1476- 1477. Chaucer visited Italy in 1373
where he was greatly interested in Italian poets
and writers and got acquainted with Boccaccio’s
“Decameron”. Geoffrey Chaucer was influenced
by many kinds of writing.
 He used many European models, but his aim was to
create the English tradition in literature of the Middle
Ages. Chaucer was a highly educated courtier, that is why
he was a useful servant of the king. For instance, the king
sent him to other countries to speak for the court.
In 1366 Chaucer met a young lady at court named
Philippa, and they got married. In 1387 he planned his
“Canterbury Tales”, and in 1388 he himself made a
pilgrimage to Canterbury to visit the Cathedral where the
Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered in 1170 by the
knights of Henry ll. The Cathedral was founded as a
monastery by St.Augustine in 597 and was enlarged in
the 11th – 14th centuries.
 Chaucer didn't manage to finish his book,
because he died in 1400. he was buried in
Westminster Abbey in the “Poet’s Corner”.
Geoffrey Chaucer is called the Father of
English poetry and the last poet of the Middle
Age.
 2.“The Canterbury Tales”
“The Canterbury Tales” was the first great
work in English literature, written in “heroic
couplets”, ten syllable lines that rhyme in pairs
replaced alliteration. There were 17000 lines in
the book where Chaucer painted a vivid picture of
English society as it was in his days . Chaucer didn’t
write in French or Latin. In those times there were
still several different forms of English . It was written
in the London dialect.
 His “Canterbury Tales” helped to make the London
dialect the main written version, enriched by many
French and Latin words.
“The Canterbury Tales” is a series of linked stories
told by a group of people. The idea of linked stories
was not new. In Boccaccio’s “Decameron” ten people
escaping from the plague told stories to pass the
time. Chaucer borrowed that idea from Boccaccio. He
had planned 120 stories , but he wrote only 24.
The stories are told by a group of people, pilgrims,
on their way from an inn in London to the Canterbury
Cathedral.
 A pilgrim is a person making a journey for
religious reasons to a holly place to please God.
The owner of the inn is a fat jolly man whose
name is Harry Bailey. He suggests that each
pilgrim should tell two stories on the way to
Canterbury and two more on the way back. They
should decide whose story is the best , and a
dinner would be given to the winner. Chaucer
introduces his pilgrims in the Prologue. Each of
them is a real person. There are 30 of them in
the book , men and women. They are of different
social levels except the lowest and the highest.
 Most of them are the representatives of the
middle class: a student , a lawyer, a clerk, a
doctor , a sailor, a merchant and even a knight.
They tell different stories: religious and secular,
classical and modern.
In April the pilgrims started on their journey.
When they stopped to give water to their horses,
the leader of the group , the inn-keeper, asked
the knight to start telling the first story. The
Knight’s story was a beautiful love story . Two
knights fell in love with a beautiful lady Emily.
Each of them wanted to become her husband.
 They fought with each other
for the right to win her
heart .At
the end of the story one of
them fell down from his
horse and hurt himself badly.
The second knight appeared
to be a lucky one. He managed
to win Emily’s heart and
become her husband.
 The next pilgrim who had to tell
his tale was a clerk, who was
learning to be a priest. The Clerk
was very poor, he had no money
to buy clothes and food. His tale
was about a patient wife whose
name was Griselda and who
loved her husband Marquis Walter
faithfully. Walter was unkind to her,
but she loved him and suffered a lot.
 Finally, when Walter understood that Griselda
loved him, he cried that he would never hurt her
again or bring sadness to her. The end of the
Clerk’s story was a happy one.Walter and Griselda
lived happily for many years with their children. It
is interesting to know that at the end of the story
Chaucer asked all the husbands not to try the
patience of their wives. Thus the Clerk’s story was
a moral one.
One of the most enjoyable characters was the
Wife of Bath. She was large ,her face was red. She
was rich ,and her horse was fat.
 She had travelled a lot and
was a woman of strong
opinions. She was sure that
husbands must be young and
generous. She had 5 husbands
who were kind and loving, but
all of them died. Her story was
about the time of King Arthur
and his Knights of the Round
Table. She tried to prove the
idea that men should do what
their wives want them to do.
 Besides men should not be too careful with
their money, because the love for money caused
all the bad things that happened to men.
Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” is a perfect
collection of vivid portraits of medieval life
written in the London dialect, which was
becoming at that time the spoken language.
Unfortunately ,“The Canterbury Tales”
remained unfinished. Chaucer’s death was a
great blow to English poetry.