The Canterbury Tales

by

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer

• His year of birth is disputed, but he was probably born in 1343 or 1344

• He came from a family of prosperous wine-merchants who had rising fortunes and some standing at court

• His grandfather and father had started the family in a career of public service

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Chaucer’s grandfather had been collector of customs on wines from Aquitaine

• His father had attended Edward III in Flanders in 1338, and in 1348 was appointed to collect the custom (tax) on cloths in certain ports

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Chaucer began his public service in the house of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, wife of Prince Lionel, second son of Edward III

• During his life, he held a number of public positions and even served as “knight of the shire” for Kent (i.e., was the representative in Parliament)

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Chaucer served in the English army and was taken prisoner in France in 1359

• Chaucer married well. He married Philippa, daughter of Sir Paon Roet of Hainault in 1366

• Chaucer’s wife Philippa was the sister to John of Gaunt’s third wife

Geoffrey Chaucer

• John of Gaunt was Chaucer’s wife’s brother-in-law, and the fourth and longest-lived son of Edward III, as well as the father of Henry IV and Chaucer’s patron

• John of Gaunt (the duke of Lancaster) died in 1399, the year before Chaucer died

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Partly due to John of Gaunt’s patronage, Chaucer traveled abroad on numerous diplomatic missions

• In 1374 Chaucer was appointed controller of customs in the port of London and leased his house over Aldgate

Geoffrey Chaucer

• In 1386 Chaucer became “knight of the shire” for Kent, where he probably lived for most of the rest of his life

• His last official position was deputy forester in the King’s Forest at Petherton in Somerset (1391–8 at least), and he could have lived there for some time

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Chaucer currently resides in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey, where a monument was erected to him in 1555

• Apparently sensing that he had peaked, Chaucer stopped writing at his death and has written nothing new in more than 600 years

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Chaucer went through three periods with his writing, largely dependant on the styles he was imitating and the writers he was reading

• He demonstrated throughout his career that he was a very well-read man

• He steadily developed his artistic skill and intellectual stature

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Chaucer’s writings indicate a familiarity with Virgil, Ovid, Boethius, Petrarch, Dante, and Bocaccio

• The “French period,” (1355-1370) culminated in The Book of the Duchess in c.1370, which was an elegy on the death of Blanche, first wife of John of Gaunt

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Chaucer’s “Italian period” (1370-1385) includes The House of Fame, a fragmentary satire, in the 1370s, and the mature, Italian-influenced love story Troilus and Criseyde, c.1385, as well as a translation of the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

• His final period, considered his “English period” (1385-1400) includes most of The Canterbury Tales and his short lyrics

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Throughout his career Chaucer wrote short pieces—courtly lyrics, a group of ballads dealing with Boethian themes, some personal pieces of astonishing quality, and many translations or adaptations

The Canterbury Tales

• Probably designed about 1387, extends to 17,000 lines in prose and verse of various meters (although the rhyming couplet is the predominant form)

• Some of the stories may have been written earlier and then incorporated into the collection

• Tales are from various sources. Chaucer was gifted at adapting material not his own to original uses

The Canterbury Tales

• The General Prologue describes the meeting of the 29 pilgrims in the Tabbard Inn in Southwark (there are actually 31 of them)

• Characters represent a cross section of contemporary middle-class English society

• He may have had real people in mind when he created particular characters, but in most cases he chose details that would typify his characters as representatives of particular classes or outlooks

Why are they traveling?

• The travelers are on a “pilgrimage” to the cathedral in Canterbury

• Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been slain on the orders of the king during a Church and crown dispute during the reign of Henry II in 1170. He was canonized in 1173

The Saint of the Common Folk

• Thomas à Becket was perceived by the “common folk” as having taken their side in the dispute with the crown, so he was immensely popular after his death

• His tomb became the most famous shrine in medieval England, a place where miracles were performed

The Plan of the Tales

• Each pilgrim is to tell two stories on the trip to Canterbury and two more on the return journey to London, which should have yielded 120 stories

• Only 24 stories survive, and four of these are unfinished

The Plan of the Tales

• Chaucer evidently modified the scheme to include only one tale by each pilgrim, but didn’t finish this revised plan either

• Among the 24 stories, virtually every type of medieval fiction is represented, including a characteristic medieval sermon, which isn’t a narrative at all

The Plan of the Tales

• The stories follow each other in an apparently natural course, with the Host (the Innkeeper) acting as master of ceremonies and extemporaneous critic

• Not all the manuscripts of the Tales agree on the ordering

• Some tales are grouped together because the people telling them are engaged in a quarrel

The Plan of the Tales

• For example, the Friar tells a tale against summoners; the Summoner replies with a filthy tale about a friar

• Several tales are connected by the problem of happiness in married life (the so-called Marriage group)

• The Canterbury Tales reflects the entire life of fourteenth-century England, in both the multitude of characters it represents and the variety of literary styles and genres that Chaucer uses

• The Tales are so artfully fashioned that we often confuse them with life itself