Geoffery Chaucer: Life, Works, and the Canterbury Tales

Geoffery Chaucer's early life

Geoffery Chaucer's exact birthdate is uncertain. He was born some time between 1340 and 1345. He lived in an eventful age. The Hundred Years War had broken out a few years before his birth. Several plagues, among which the terrible Black Death of 1349, reduced the population of England by a third. Social unrest culminated in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The Feudal structure of society was starting to crumble and the mercantile class was beginning to rise. French, as the language of the court and Parliament, was being replaced by English.

Chaucer's literary contributions

In that historical background Chaucer was the first major writer to promote English as a literary language. Chaucer belonged to the wealthy middle class,being the son of a well-to-do-wholesale wine merchant. He studied the classics, he could speak French, knew Latin and later also learnt Italian. He married Philippa de Roet in 1366. He was a diplomat for ten years and travelled also in Italy where he acquired Dante's Divina Commedia.

In 1374 he was appointed Controller of the Customs of Wools in the port of London . When he died in 1400 he was buried in Westminster Abbey in what has comes to be known as "Poet's Corner".

Canterbury Tales overview

Canterbury Tales

Chaucer probably began to write the Canterbury Tales around 138. It is is most famous and important work. It's a collection of stories introduced by a General Prologue which provides the narrative framework of the book. It's mainly written in verse, although there are parts in prose,and the predominant form is the rhyming couplet (two rhyming iambic pentameters). It has come to us in manuscript form, since printing had not been invented yet.

The General Prologue and its characters

This is what we learn from the General Prologue: It's spring and the poet meets twenty-nine pilgrims in the Tabard Inn, in Southwark, a suburb south of London.

They are all going on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury.

A detailed description of each pilgrims is given. They belongs to various social classes. There are only three women among them, all the others are men who represents the upper and middle classes, the clergy and the trades.

The storytelling competition

The Host of the Inn suggests that each pilgrim should tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two to the way back to London. The teller of the best tale will have a free dinner at the Tabard Inn on their return. The Host himself will travel with the company as judge of his tale-telling competition.

The work is incomplete . It contains only twenty-four stories. It's uncertain in what order they should come since the extant manuscripts show different orders.