Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400), a brief note.

Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400)

Chaucer was the first great poet writing in English, whose best-known work is 'The Canterbury Tales'.

Geoffrey Chaucer was born between 1340 and 1345, probably in London. His father was a prosperous wine merchant. We do not know any details of his early life and education.

In 1357, he was a page to Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, wife of Edward III's third son. Chaucer was captured by the French during the Brittany expedition of 1359 but was ransomed by the king. Edward III later sent him on diplomatic missions to France, Genoa and Florence. His travels exposed him to the work of authors such as Dante, Boccaccio and Froissart.

Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet, a lady-in-waiting in the queen's household. They are thought to have had three or four children. Philippa's sister, Katherine Swynford, later became the third wife of John of Gaunt, the king's fourth son and Chaucer's patron.

The Canterbury Tales and Chaucer’s literary works:

Chaucer wrote in a range of poetic forms and genres. He composed dream visions such as The Book of the Duchess, The Legend of Good Women and The Parliament of Fowls, as well as Troilus and Criseyde – the great exploration of love and loss set during the Trojan War. He also produced philosophical and scientific works: he translated the Consolation of Philosophy, by the Roman senator and philosopher Boethius (c. 480–524 CE), and he wrote a treatise – a kind of how-to guide – on the astrolabe, which was an astronomical device.

These works show the range of his skill, but perhaps none have the scale and impressiveness of The Canterbury Tales – an ambitious collection of stories in a range of poetic (and in one case, prose) forms. It imagines a group of 31 pilgrims who meet while travelling to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury. To pass the time, they decide to tell two tales to the assembled the company on the journey there and the journey home. This extraordinary work, which presents a portrait of late medieval Britain with humour and tragedy, was left unfinished when Chaucer died in 1400, but it – along with much of his other verse – is still celebrated as some of the greatest works in the English language.

In 1374, Chaucer was appointed comptroller of the lucrative London customs. In 1386, he was elected member of parliament for Kent, and he also served as a justice of the peace. In 1389, he was made clerk of the king's works, overseeing royal building projects. He held a number of other royal posts, serving both Edward III and his successor Richard II.