He was buried in Westminster Abbey and was the first of the writers to be entombed there in the area known as the Poets’ Corner. The plan that he laid out in the Prologue was left unfinished when he died on October 25, 1400. There is no record of his progress on The Canterbury Tales. When John of Gaunt returned to England in 1389, he was given a new government post, and Chaucer lived a prosperous life from then on. It is assumed that it was during this period of unemployment that Chaucer planned out and started writing The Canterbury Tales. In December of 1386, he was deprived of all of this political influence when his patron, John of Gaunt, left the country on a military expedition for Spain and the Duke of Gloucester replaced him.
#TAVERN KEEPER PARDONERS TALE PILGRIM SERIES#
His political influence grew with a series of appointments: to Comptroller of taxes on wools, skins, and hides at the Port of London in 1374 Comptroller of petty customs in 1382 Justice of the Peace for the County of Kent in 1385 and Knight of the Shire in 1386. The influences of these languages can be traced in his poetry, and the worldliness of travel affected his storytelling ability. John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, was later to take over the responsibility for ruling England when his father, Edward III, became too senile to rule before a successor was crowned.Īs a valued and trusted member of the court, Chaucer was sent on several diplomatic missions, giving him a rare opportunity to see Italy and France. By 1367, he was the valet for the King himself, and that same year, he married a woman whose rank added to his social standing: Philippa de Roet, the sister to Catherine of Swynford, the third wife of John of Gaunt. Being intelligent and witty, he became increasingly valuable at court for the entertainment of his poetry. Captured near Rheims, he was ransomed the following year and returned to being a squire. He left in 1359 to join the army to fight the French in the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453). Chaucer was given an education in his association with the household, and he met some of England’s exalted royalty. His duties as a squire in court would have included those that are usually associated with domestic help: making beds, carrying candles, helping the gentleman of the house dress. In 1357, he rose in society by taking a position in the royal court of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster. While he was still a child in London, it became clear that Chaucer was a brilliant scholar, and he was sent to the prestigious St. His date of birth is uncertain but is assumed to be around 1340–1345. Geoffrey Chaucer came from a financially secure family that owned ample wine vineyards but held no title, and so from birth he was limited in his capacity for social growth. This entry does not cover all the tales, only some of the most studied. Collections of stories were common in Chaucer’s time, and some still exist today, but the genius of The Canterbury Tales is that the individual stories are presented in a continuing narrative, showing how all of the various pieces of life connect to one another.
Students who are not particularly interested in medieval England can appreciate the author’s technique in capturing the variations of human temperament and behavior. The General Prologue alone provides a panoramic view of society that is not like any found elsewhere in all of literature. In the same way that The Canterbury Tales gives modern readers a sense of the language at the time, the book also gives a rich, intricate tapestry of medieval social life, combining elements of all classes, from nobles to workers, from priests and nuns to drunkards and thieves. Contemporary readers might find his words nearly as difficult to follow as a foreign language, but scholars are thankful for the chance to compare Middle English to the language as it is spoken now, to examine its growth. It is because Chaucer wrote in English that there is a written record of the roots from which the modern language grew. Because of this work, all of the great writers who followed, from Shakespeare to Dryden to Keats to Eliot, owe him a debt of gratitude.
To a great degree, The Canterbury Tales helped make it a legitimate language to work in. English was considered low class and vulgar. Before Chaucer’s time, even poets who lived in England wrote in Italian or Latin, which meant that poetry was only understandable to people of the wealthy, educated class. For one thing, The Canterbury Tales is recognized as the first book of poetry written in the English language. Having recently passed the six hundredth anniversary of its publication, the book is still of interest to modern students for several reasons. the uncompleted manuscript was published in 1400, the year he died.
Geoffrey Chaucer began writing The Canterbury Tales sometime around 1387 A.D.
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