Concetti Chiave
- Geoffrey Chaucer, born in 1343, was a wealthy wine merchant’s son who became a young courtier and was involved in various royal missions.
- Chaucer's literary career is divided into three periods: French, Italian, and English, with each reflecting different influences and maturity in his work.
- The Canterbury Tales features 30 pilgrims sharing stories on a journey to Canterbury, symbolizing the human life journey; the work was left unfinished.
- The general prologue of The Canterbury Tales highlights social classes, gender roles, and individual characteristics, portraying a diverse medieval society.
- Chaucer's narrative style combines realism with medieval exaggeration, using verse to depict life’s pilgrimage metaphorically, with Chaucer himself as a pilgrim.
Chaucer's early life and career
Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1343, the son of a rich wine merchant in London. As a young courtier, he followed Edward III in France, but he was imprisoned and then ransomed. He stayed in contact with royal family and travelled to various missions for the king. He interested in Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. He was appointed to some offices and he became then a prosperous bourgeois with the marriage to a lady, so he had a high income and he became a member of parliament. In 1386 he was dismissed to his offices and in this period wrote the Canterbury Tales. Then he was appointed Clerk of the King's works at West Minster and the king doubled his pension. He died at Westminster, where he was buried.
Chaucer's literary periods
Chaucer is the father of English literature and his language became the standard English. Their dates are not certain. His life is divided in 3 periods:
- French period, modelled on french romance styles: the Romance of the rose which introduces the reader into medieval court; the Book of the Duchess, an elegy of a knight for the death of his wife.
- Italian period shows a greater maturity: the - English period: Canterbury Tales.
The Canterbury Tales and its structure
There are thirty people, belonging in the clergy and not, that are going in Kent for pilgrimage. They gather at the Tabard inn in London and the most suggest that every pilgrim tells a story. The best story will be a prize. All agree.
The structure hasn't a logical order o events. The 24 tales are introduced by a prologue, and followed by an epilogue. Canterbury is the celestial city. The end of life and the journey of the pilgrims symbolises the course of human life. The work remaned unfinished, but Chaucer wanted write another cycle of tales.
The general prologue: a double wiew
The general prologue and its themes
It is spring in the work, symbol of rebirth, an event in the calendar of nature that returnes after the winter.
Chaucer portrays the feudal representatives, members of the clergy and the middle classes. The aristocracy isn't portrayed because it doesn't mix with the commoners and the peasants can't travel for the expansive cost of trip. Men and women are mixed to underline the new importance of the women. The individualisation is more important (pilgrims clothes, tools, personal qualities, thoughts are described). The names is conditioned by the work.
Chaucer's narrative style and realism
Chaucer uses all the main genres of medieval narrative. Realism is the most distinctive feature of the work, but in a medieval sense; with exaggeration caricature and grotesque. The pilgrimage is a metaphor: we are all pilgrims on the way to the heavenly.
Chaucer tells us what he sees and what he thinks: he also is a pilgrim. The tales are narrated by the other pilgrims.
He writes in verse (lambic pentameters with unstressed and stressed syllables with ten line).
Accedi a tutti gli appunti
Tutor AI: studia meglio e in meno tempo
