Geoffrey Chaucer - Canterbury Tales (1387)

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1343, his father was a wine merchant of London. Surely his intention was towards a new and higher position in society, so he followed the Edwards III son to war in France where he was taken prisioner and ransomed by the king. He grew up in contact with the royal family. In 1372-73 Chaucer went to Italy, where he becames interested in Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, and his readings in latin to Virgil. In 1374 he began a New Work as controller of the Port of London. Then he married a wealthy woman. He was trusted by the crown. The year 1386 was a difficult one for him. In this period he was oriented to the new work Canterbury Tales. He was the first poet to be buried in the Angle of the poet. Though their chronological order but their dates are uncertain. The poems are divided into three periods: the French, the Italian and the English.

The French period is characterized by the romantic stile:

The Remount of the Rouse: spoke about courtly love.

The Boke of the Duchesse: speak about on elegy where the knight are in grief for the loss of his wife.

The Italian period shows a great maturity for the use of the meters:

The parlement of foules: speak about a genres of medieval literature.

The house of fame: speak about a fantasy and wishes of human.

The legend of good woman: speak about the consequences of love in the woman.

Troylus and Criseyde: speak about the psychological insight into the development of thr characters.

The English period has a great realism with the Canterbury Tales and was written in Middle English that than was adapted by the new language.

Canterbury Tales (1387)

The collection speak about a pilgrimage in spring where thirty people, including Chaucer himself, all provenience from different social classes, are going to Thomas Becket's shrine in Canterbury.

They tell two stories while going to Canterbury, and two coming back. They gather at the Tobard Inn in London, and the best stories will have a prize, and  the worse a penalty.

In this talem, that have various literary styles, emerge the cross- The work consists of a General Prologue, where the pilgrims are introduced, and of 24 tales. The tales are preceded by a prologue and sometimes followed by an epilogue. The point of departure linked to wordly pleasures while the destination is holy. However, the work remained unfinished.

Chaucer intended to give a portrait of society as a whole, the presentation of the characters does not correspond to that established by the prevailing view of society of the period. The new factor is the individualisation, but the character is different from the medieval character.

Chaucer exploited all the main genres of medieval narrative: the parable, the beast feable, the fabliau and the romance. Realism is the most distinctive feature of the work, but also using exaggeration, caricature and grotesque. The pilgrimage is also a key metaphor for life from the religious sphere, in fact the pilgrims are on the way to the heavenly city. The real narrator are Chaucer himself, and he mix the real and the unreal certain.

The tales are narrated by different pilgrims but the reporting pilgrim is Chaucer himself. He tells us, with his irony, what he think about it. For this irony is impossible to interpreted the tales as real or fantastic.

The Canterbury tales is a long narrative poem written in verse. Chaucer used rhyming couplets made up of iambic penrameters, that is, ten-syllable lines alternating unstressed and stressed sylables.

April sweet showers

Here is the opening of the Canterbury Tales, maybe Chaucer's best known lines.

This poem speak about the pilgrimage: the pilgrim assemble they self in spring (when. guarda poesia) and they gather in Southwark, at The Tabard, readily to go at Canterbury to find the stranger strands and the saints, that aren't hallowed (in this period). They before to depart from Canterbury, they pass the night in this tavern, that have the rooms and the stables. When the sun went down, Chaucer started to tell the trip about the journey, and was soon one with them in fellowship, pledged to rise early and to take the way to Canterbury, as they heard Chaucer's say.

The wife of bath                                                                       

This poem speak about a housewife come from Bath, or near, that was deaf. At making cloth she had so great a bent. Her kerchiefs were of finest weave and ground. Her hose of the choicest scarlet red and her shoes were soft and new. She had been respectable in her life, infect with five churched husbands bringing joy and strife. She make a lot of journey and she learn very god the art of love.