Contribution of Geoffrey Chaucer to the

Development of English Poetry

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) is generally known as ‘the father of English poetry’. In his poetry
we have the culmination not only of various literary contents but also of the medieval social
customs, the political scene and the cultural heritage of England. His greatness lies in his ability
to present his age faithfully and yet to transcend it to reach that impersonal level which belongs
to all ages and all people.

For our convenience, the life of Chaucer can be divided into three periods. The first (upto 1370)
includes his youth and early manhood, when he was influenced exclusively by the French literary
models. The second (1370-1385) covers his active life as a diplomat and as a man of affairs, and
in theses years the Italian influences seem stronger than the French. The third (1385-1400) is
generally known as the English period where he seems to grow more independent of the
foreign models and is concerned chiefly with the presentation of life of his own English people.

The best known though not the best poem of the first period is the Romaunt of the Rose, a
translation of the French Le Romaunt de la Rose, which was the most popular poem of the Middle
Ages. Chaucer Translated this universal favourite, putting in it some original English touches.
The immediate source of Troilus and Criseyde, a masterpiece of his second phase, was Boccacio’s
Il Filotrato, which was a favourite of many authors during the Middle Ages upto Shakespeare,
Chaucer used this love poem to reflect the ideals of own age and society.

The unfinished The House of Fame and The legend of Good Women are two other works of the
Italian period, and in these two also, Chaucer, imitating the great Italian masters, used to
delineate the English ideals of gallantry and love. But either because he became wearied of his
theme, or because of his plan of The Canterbury Tales which was growing is his mind, THAT he
abandoned the poems.

Chaucer’s masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, which is one of the most famous works in all
literature also, alone fills the third or English period of his life. The plan of the work was
magnificent: to represent the wide sweep of the English life by gathering a motley company
together and letting each class of society to tell its own favourite stories. Though the great work
was never finished, yet Chaucer succeeded in his purpose so well that in the poem he has given
us a picture of contemporary English life – its work and play, its deeds and dreams, its fun and
sympathy and its hearty joy of living. The poet makes brilliant use of irony and humour in the
poem. His power of brilliant characterization is evident in such characters of the poem as The
Clerk of Oxford and The Wife of Bath.

The greatest achievement of Chaucer is that he was the first to introduce the note of modernity
to English literature. Until his time literature was medieval that dealt either with gods or heroes
or with the abstractions of the allegorical romance. It was he who made a clean sweep of this
unrealistic litter by replacing it by real human beings and treating them with a spirit of kindly
tolerance and gentle humour which is the modern way.

Choosing the east-midland dialect for his writings he also made standardization of the English
language. And he discarded altogether the Anglo-Saxon alliterative tradition, ‘the rim, ram, raff’,
and chose the regular, French meter and rhyme, and thus “discovered the music that is in [our]
English speech.”