Nguyễn Duy Bình

Foreign Languages Department

Vinh University
Tel: 0947 492 309
Email: duybinhdhv@gmail.com

2021-2022
2021-2022
 GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340-1400)

1. Biography
Geoffrey Chaucer, born in London in around
1343AD, is a poet of the Middle Ages, widely
known as the Father of English Literature, the
Father of English Poetry. Chaucer was from a
family of successful merchants and as a teenager
was a page to Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, who
was married into the royal family. The royals were
fond of Chaucer, so much so that when he was
taken prisoner by the French in 1359, Edward III
paid his ransom.
 GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340-1400)

The king, further displaying trust in Chaucer, later sent him on

diplomatic missions to France, Genoa and Florence. It was on
these travels that Chaucer gained exposure to great authors such
as Froissart, Dante, and Boccaccio. Chaucer married Philippa Roet
when he was aged around 23, and is presumed to have fathered
three or four children.
 GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340-1400)

Chaucer continued to be successful in his various professions.

Several years later, in 1374, He held posts serving both Edward III
and Richard II, Edward’s successor.
Chaucer disappears from records in 1400AD, and is thought to
have died around this time, aged 57. He was the first poet to be
buried in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner.
 GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340-1400)

Chaucer’s last work The Canterbury Tales is today his most

popular. The Canterbury Tales total altogether about 17,000 lines
- about half of Chaucer’s literary production. A party of pilgrims
agree to tell stories to pass the time on their journey from
London to Canterbury with its great church and the grave of
Thomas a Becket.
 GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340-1400)

There are more than twenty of these stories, mostly in verse,

and in the stories we get to know the pilgrims themselves. Most
of them, like the merchant, the lawyer, the cook, the sailor, the
ploughman, and the miller, are ordinary people, but each of
them can be recognized as a real person with his or her own
character.
 GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340-1400)

One of the most enjoyable characters, for example, is the Wife of

Bath. By the time she tells her story we know her as a woman of
very strong opinions who believes firmly in marriage (she has had
five husbands, one after the other) and equally firmly in the need
to manage husbands strictly. In her story, one of King Arthur’s
knights must give within a year the correct answer to the question
‘What do women love most?’ in order to save his life. An ugly old
witch knows the answer (‘To rule’) and agrees to tell him if he
marries her. At last he agrees, and at the marriage she becomes
young again and beautiful.
(https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/the-canterbury-tales/section10/)
 GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340-1400)

Chaucer’s world in the Canterbury Tales brings together for the

first time, a diversity of characters, social levels, attitudes and
ways of life. The tales themselves make use of a similarly wide
range of forms and styles. Literature, with Chaucer, has taken
on a new role: as well as forming a developing language, it is a
mirror of its times – but a mirror which teases as it reveals,
which questions while it narrates, and which opens up a range
of issues and questions, instead of providing simple, easy
answers.
 Prologue

The Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer is the poem which

introduces the Canterbury Tales. It is written in ten-syllable
couplets and is 558 lines long.
Here at the beginning there is a sense of harmony between man
and nature. The stirrings of spring in nature are associated with
the impulse among people to go on pilgrimages
 Prologue

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathes every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
The slepen al the nyght with opn ye
(So pricketh hem nature in his corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages...
 Prologue

A modern version of the Prologue (Nevill Coghill)

Beauty of the
When in April the sweet showers fall
nature: spring rains,
And pierce the drought of March to the root and fall leaves, flowers,
The veins are bathed in liquor of such power sweet wind, tender
As brings about the engendering of the flower, shoots, sunshine,
chirping birds,
When also Zephyrus with his sweet and breath
Exhales an air in every grove and heath Pilgrims: excited
Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun
➔ Harmony
His half course in the sign of the Ram has run between men and
And the small fowl are making melody nature
That sleep away the night with open eyes
(So nature pricks them and their heart engages)
Then people long to go on pilgrimages...
 Prologue

Analyse
There are five main beats in each line, and the reader
will notice that rhyme has taken the place of Old
English alliteration. Chaucer was a well-educated man
who read Latin, and studied French and Italian poetry;
but he was not interested only in books. He travelled
and made good use of his eyes; and the people whom
he describes are just like living people.
 Prologue

The narrator opens the General Prologue with a description

of the return of spring. He describes the April rains, the
burgeoning flowers and leaves, and the chirping birds.
Around this time of year, the narrator says, people begin to
feel the desire to go on a pilgrimage. Many devout English
pilgrims set off to visit shrines in distant holy lands, but even
more choose to travel to Canterbury to visit the relics of Saint
Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, where they thank
the martyr for having helped them when they were in need.
 Prologue

The narrator tells us that as he prepared to go on such a

pilgrimage, staying at a tavern in Southwark called the Tabard
Inn, a great company of twenty-nine travelers entered. The
travelers were a diverse group who, like the narrator, were on
their way to Canterbury. They happily agreed to let him join
them. That night, the group slept at the Tabard, and woke up
early the next morning to set off on their journey. Before
continuing the tale, the narrator declares his intent to list and
describe each of the members of the group.
 Prologue

Chaucer means to say that the winter has begun to melt and the
flowers of spring are emerging from the frost. It helps to notice
that the author mentions the months of the year. He also uses
words that evoke the fragrance of the spring and its delicate
flavor. Chaucer chooses words that arouse the spirit of the
season. He mentions the sounds of birds and the smell of flowers
“So nature pricks them and their heart engages”.
 MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE

That’s the end

of this chapter!

2021-2022