Geoffrey Chaucer andThe Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400)

Diplomat, soldier, scholar. Modern English poetry begins with him. He had a keen eye for the ordinary man. He knew medieval Latin like every scholar of his time. It is for The Canterbury Tales that he is best remembered.

• Born into the middle class.• Father wine merchant.• Spent his boyhood in London’s Vintry,

the wine-merchandising area.• Had privileges in the way of education

but mixed daily with commoners of all sorts.

• Sent to serve as a page in one of the great aristocratic households of England, that of Lionel of Antwerp, a son of King Edward.

• Spent the rest of his life in close association with the ruling nobility.

Works:• The Book of the Duchess (1370)• The House of Fame• The Parliament of Fowls• Troilus and Criseyde (1385)• The Legend of Good Women• The Canterbury Tales (begun in

1386)• Other works such as the translation

of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy

The Knight

The Squire

• The Prioress

The Monk

The Friar

• The Clerk (student)

• The Wife of Bath