GEOFFREY CHAUCER AND HIS WORKS

1. The life and the career of Chaucer

There is no direct knowledge of the date of the birth of Geoffrey Chaucer, the greatest poet of the English Middle Ages, but indirect evidence of various kinds fixes it “about 1340”. His father, John Chaucer, who was a citizen and vintner of London, seems to have had some link of service with the royal household, and the poet was connected with it more or less all his days. Probably Chaucer was born in Thames Street, London, where his father had a house at the time of his death in 1366.

We hear first of Chaucer himself in 1357 when he was a member of the household of Edward III’s son Lionel, or of his wife Elizabeth de Burgh. Two years later, during his service in France, he was taken prisoner, but was liberated on ransom by March 1360. 8 years later Chaucer rose to be esquire. He joined the army in France in 1369, and, next year, was abroad on public duty of some kind. In 1372, he was sent to Genoa as an officer for Genoese trade. In 1374, Chaucer was made controller of customs for wool in the port of London, receiving an additional pension from his promoter John of Gaunt. In 1377, the poet went on diplomatic duties to Flanders and to France. In 1378, after the death of Edward III and accession of Richard II, it is thought that he was in France again and, later in that year, he certainly went once more to Italy. These duties did not interfere with his controllership; there is a record of various payments and gifts to him up to the autumn of 1386, when Chaucer sat in Parliament as knight of the shire for Kent. Then the circumstances turned against him, he lost his post and for the next decade seems to have been needy. In 1398-99, however, he obtained an additional pension from Richard and John Gaunt’s son, but did not enjoy it for a long time. Chaucer died (according to his tomb, which is of the 16th century) on October 25, 1400, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the chapel of St. Benedict, thus founding the Poets’ Corner. There is much doubt about Chaucer’s family. One of the damsels of the queen, Philippa Chaucer must have been the poet’s wife. If she were born Philippa de Rouet, the daughter of Sir PaynRouet, and the sister of Katherine Rouet (the third wife of John of Gaunt), Chaucer’s undisputed patronage by Gaunt, this “time-honoured Lancaster”, would have been a matter of course. Little is known about children of Geoffrey and Philippa Chaucer. The poet directly dedicates, in 1391, his “Astrolabe” to “little Lewis my son”, but there is nothing more about him. In the generation after Chaucer’s death, there was Thomas Chaucer, a man of position and wealth, who was known as Chaucer’s son. Besides, in 1381, John of Gaunt established Elizabeth Chaucer as a nun at Barking. Beyond these facts and names, nothing is known.

As it is seen, a good many facts of Chaucer are preserved, though they are in very few cases, if any, directly connected with his literary position. There are, however, 1 or 2 references in his lifetime, concerning him as a poet. Among his actual contemporaries Scogan, a correspondent of his, celebrated him; the poet Gower, his personal friend, has left a well-known tribute; the poets of the next generation, Occleve and Lydgate were personal friends likewise. Throughout the 15th and the early 16th century, the chorus of praise continues uninterrupted. Caxton repeatedly prints the works of Chaucer (though never executed a complete edition), and others follow him. Thus, the eminence of Chaucer in English was recognized in a century after him.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 1014