geoffrey chaucer biography in english

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Forebears and early years

• Diplomat and civil servant
• The middle years: political and personal anxieties
• Last years and The Canterbury Tales
• Descendants and posthumous reputation

What did Geoffrey Chaucer do for a living?

What is geoffrey chaucer known for, what is the canterbury tales .

Geoffrey Chaucer

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• History of Parliament Online - Geoffrey Chaucer
• Poetry Foundation - Biography of Geoffrey Chaucer
• Poets.org - Geoffrey Chaucer
• History Learning Site - Biography of Geoffrey Chaucer
• World History Encyclopedia - Geoffrey Chaucer
• Humanities LibreTexts - Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400)
• Historic UK - Geoffrey Chaucer
• Pressbook - Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
• Official Site The Chaucer Heritage Trust
• University of Glasgow - The World of Chaucer
• Harvard's Geoffrey Chaucer Website - Life of Chaucer
• Geoffrey Chaucer - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

Geoffrey Chaucer is today one of the most highly regarded English poets, but during his lifetime his writing was largely subsidiary to his role in public affairs in 14th-century England. He undertook diplomatic missions to the European continent for several kings, and he served as a clerk for the maintenance of royal buildings.

Geoffrey Chaucer is considered one of the first great English poets. He is the author of such works as The Parlement of Foules , Troilus and Criseyde , and The Canterbury Tales . Humorous and profound, his writings show him to be an acute observer of his time with a deft command of many literary genres.

Written at the end of his life, The Canterbury Tales is Geoffrey Chaucer’s best-known work. It is a collection of 24 stories told by a group of 30 pilgrims who travel from Southwark to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Thomas Beckett . Chaucer did not complete the work before he died.

Geoffrey Chaucer (born c. 1342/43, London?, England—died October 25, 1400, London) was the outstanding English poet before Shakespeare and “the first finder of our language.” His The Canterbury Tales ranks as one of the greatest poetic works in English. He also contributed importantly in the second half of the 14th century to the management of public affairs as a courtier, diplomat, and civil servant. In that career he was trusted and aided by three successive kings— Edward III , Richard II , and Henry IV . But it is his avocation—the writing of poetry—for which he is remembered.

Perhaps the chief characteristics of Chaucer’s works are their variety in subject matter, genre , tone, and style and in the complexities presented concerning the human pursuit of a sensible existence. Yet his writings also consistently reflect an all-pervasive humour combined with serious and tolerant consideration of important philosophical questions. From his writings Chaucer emerges as poet of love, both earthly and divine, whose presentations range from lustful cuckoldry to spiritual union with God. Thereby, they regularly lead the reader to speculation about man’s relation both to his fellows and to his Maker, while simultaneously providing delightfully entertaining views of the frailties and follies, as well as the nobility, of mankind.

Chaucer’s forebears for at least four generations were middle-class English people whose connection with London and the court had steadily increased. John Chaucer, his father, was an important London vintner and a deputy to the king’s butler; in 1338 he was a member of Edward III’s expedition to Antwerp, in Flanders , now part of Belgium, and he owned property in Ipswich , in the county of Suffolk, and in London. He died in 1366 or 1367 at age 53. The name Chaucer is derived from the French word chaussier , meaning a maker of footwear. The family’s financial success derived from wine and leather.

Although c. 1340 is customarily given as Chaucer’s birth date, 1342 or 1343 is probably a closer guess. No information exists concerning his early education, although doubtless he would have been as fluent in French as in the Middle English of his time. He also became competent in Latin and Italian. His writings show his close familiarity with many important books of his time and of earlier times.

Chaucer first appears in the records in 1357, as a member of the household of Elizabeth, countess of Ulster, wife of Lionel, third son of Edward III. Geoffrey’s father presumably had been able to place him among the group of young men and women serving in that royal household, a customary arrangement whereby families who could do so provided their children with opportunity for the necessary courtly education and connections to advance their careers. By 1359 Chaucer was a member of Edward III ’s army in France and was captured during the unsuccessful siege of Reims. The king contributed to his ransom, and Chaucer served as messenger from Calais to England during the peace negotiations of 1360. Chaucer does not appear in any contemporary record during 1361–65. He was probably in the king’s service, but he may have been studying law—not unusual preparation for public service, then as now—since a 16th-century report implies that, while so engaged, he was fined for beating a Franciscan friar in a London street. On February 22, 1366, the king of Navarre issued a certificate of safe-conduct for Chaucer, three companions, and their servants to enter Spain. This occasion is the first of a number of diplomatic missions to the continent of Europe over the succeeding 10 years, and the wording of the document suggests that here Chaucer served as “chief of mission.”

By 1366 Chaucer had married. Probably his wife was Philippa Pan, who had been in the service of the countess of Ulster and entered the service of Philippa of Hainaut, queen consort of Edward III, when Elizabeth died in 1363. In 1366 Philippa Chaucer received an annuity, and later annuities were frequently paid to her through her husband. These and other facts indicate that Chaucer married well.

In 1367 Chaucer received an annuity for life as yeoman of the king, and in the next year he was listed among the king’s esquires . Such officers lived at court and performed staff duties of considerable importance. In 1368 Chaucer was abroad on a diplomatic mission, and in 1369 he was on military service in France. Also in 1369 he and his wife were official mourners for the death of Queen Philippa. Obviously, Chaucer’s career was prospering, and his first important poem— Book of the Duchess —seems further evidence of his connection with persons in high places.

That poem of more than 1,300 lines, probably written in late 1369 or early 1370, is an elegy for Blanche, duchess of Lancaster, John of Gaunt’s first wife, who died of plague in September 1369. Chaucer’s close relationship with John , which continued through most of his life, may have commenced as early as Christmas 1357 when they, both about the same age, were present at the countess of Ulster’s residence in Yorkshire. For this first of his important poems, Chaucer used the dream-vision form , a genre made popular by the highly influential 13th-century French poem of courtly love , the Roman de la rose . Chaucer translated that poem, at least in part, probably as one of his first literary efforts, and he borrowed from it throughout his poetic career. The Duchess is also indebted to contemporary French poetry and to Ovid , Chaucer’s favourite Roman poet. Nothing in these borrowings, however, will account for his originality in combining dream-vision with elegy and eulogy of Blanche with consolation for John. Also noteworthy here—as it increasingly became in his later poetry—is the tactful and subtle use of a first-person narrator , who both is and is not the poet himself. The device had obvious advantages for the minor courtier delivering such a poem orally before the high-ranking court group. In addition, the Duchess foreshadows Chaucer’s skill at presenting the rhythms of natural conversation within the confines of Middle English verse and at creating realistic characters within courtly poetic conventions. Also, Chaucer here begins, with the Black Knight’s account of his love for Good Fair White, his career as a love poet, examining in late medieval fashion the important philosophic and religious questions concerning the human condition as they relate to both temporal and eternal aspects of love.

Geoffrey Chaucer

(1343-1400)

Who Was Geoffrey Chaucer?

In 1357, Geoffrey Chaucer became a public servant to Countess Elizabeth of Ulster and continued in that capacity with the British court throughout his lifetime. The Canterbury Tales became his best known and most acclaimed work. He died October 25, 1400, in London, England, and was the first to be buried in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner.

Poet Geoffrey Chaucer was born circa 1340, most likely at his parents’ house on Thames Street in London, England. Chaucer’s family was of the bourgeois class, descended from an affluent family who made their money in the London wine trade. According to some sources, Chaucer’s father, John, carried on the family wine business.

Geoffrey Chaucer is believed to have attended the St. Paul’s Cathedral School, where he probably first became acquainted with the influential writing of Virgil and Ovid.

In 1357, Chaucer became a public servant to Countess Elizabeth of Ulster, the Duke of Clarence’s wife, for which he was paid a small stipend—enough to pay for his food and clothing. In 1359, the teenage Chaucer went off to fight in the Hundred Years’ War in France, and at Rethel he was captured for ransom. Thanks to Chaucer’s royal connections, King Edward III helped pay his ransom. After Chaucer’s release, he joined the Royal Service, traveling throughout France, Spain and Italy on diplomatic missions throughout the early to mid-1360s. For his services, King Edward granted Chaucer a pension of 20 marks.

In 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet, the daughter of Sir Payne Roet, and the marriage conveniently helped further Chaucer’s career in the English court.

Public Service

By 1368, King Edward III had made Chaucer one of his esquires. When the queen died in 1369, it served to strengthen Philippa’s position and subsequently Chaucer’s as well. From 1370 to 1373, he went abroad again and fulfilled diplomatic missions in Florence and Genoa, helping establish an English port in Genoa. He also spent time familiarizing himself with the work of Italian poets Dante and Petrarch along the way. By the time he returned, he and Philippa were prospering, and he was rewarded for his diplomatic activities with an appointment as Comptroller of Customs, a lucrative position. Meanwhile, Philippa and Chaucer were also granted generous pensions by John of Gaunt, the first duke of Lancaster.

In 1377 and 1388, Chaucer engaged in yet more diplomatic missions, with the objectives of finding a French wife for Richard II and securing military aid in Italy. Busy with his duties, Chaucer had little time to devote to writing poetry, his true passion. In 1385 he petitioned for temporary leave. For the next four years he lived in Kent but worked as a justice of the peace and later a Parliament member, rather than focusing on his writing.

When Philippa passed away in 1387, Chaucer stopped sharing in her royal annuities and suffered financial hardship. He needed to keep working in public service to earn a living and pay off his growing accumulation of debt.

Major Works: 'The Canterbury Tales'

The precise dates of many of Chaucer’s written works are difficult to pin down with certainty, but one thing is clear: His major works have retained their relevancy even in the college classroom of today.

Chaucer’s body of best-known works includes the Parliament of Fouls , otherwise known as the Parlement of Foules , in the Middle English spelling. Some historians of Chaucer’s work assert that it was written in 1380, during marriage negotiations between Richard and Anne of Bohemia. Critic J.A.W. Bennet interpreted the Parliament of Fouls as a study of Christian love. It had been identified as peppered with Neo-Platonic ideas inspired by the likes of poets Cicero and Jean De Meun, among others. The poem uses allegory, and incorporates elements of irony and satire as it points to the inauthentic quality of courtly love. Chaucer was well acquainted with the theme firsthand—during his service to the court and his marriage of convenience to a woman whose social standing served to elevate his own.

Chaucer is believed to have written the poem Troilus and Criseyde sometime in the mid-1380s. Troilus and Criseyde is a narrative poem that retells the tragic love story of Troilus and Criseyde in the context of the Trojan War. Chaucer wrote the poem using rime royal, a technique he originated. Rime royal involves rhyming stanzas consisting of seven lines apiece.

Troilus and Criseyde is broadly considered one of Chaucer’s greatest works, and has a reputation for being more complete and self-contained than most of Chaucer’s writing, his famed The Canterbury Tales being no exception.

The period of time over which Chaucer penned The Legend of Good Women is uncertain, although most scholars do agree that Chaucer seems to have abandoned it before its completion. The queen mentioned in the work is believed to be Richard II’s wife, Anne of Bohemia. Chaucer’s mention of the real-life royal palaces Eltham and Sheen serve to support this theory. In writing The Legend of Good Women , Chaucer played with another new and innovative format: The poem comprises a series of shorter narratives, along with the use of iambic pentameter couplets (seen for the first time in English).

The Canterbury Tales is by far Chaucer’s best known and most acclaimed work. Initially Chaucer had planned for each of his characters to tell four stories a piece. The first two stories would be set as the character was on his/her way to Canterbury, and the second two were to take place as the character was heading home. Apparently, Chaucer’s goal of writing 120 stories was an overly ambitious one. In actuality, The Canterbury Tales is made up of only 24 tales and rather abruptly ends before its characters even make it to Canterbury. The tales are fragmented and varied in order, and scholars continue to debate whether the tales were published in their correct order. Despite its erratic qualities, The Canterbury Tales continues to be acknowledged for the beautiful rhythm of Chaucer’s language and his characteristic use of clever, satirical wit.

A Treatise on the Astrolabe is one of Chaucer’s nonfiction works. It is an essay about the astrolabe, a tool used by astronomers and explorers to locate the positions of the sun, moon and planets. Chaucer planned to write the essay in five parts but ultimately only completed the first two. Today it is one of the oldest surviving works that explain how to use a complex scientific tool, and is thought to do so with admirable clarity.

From 1389 to 1391, after Richard II had ascended to the throne, Chaucer held a draining and dangerous position as Clerk of the Works. He was robbed by highwaymen twice while on the job, which only served to further compound his financial worries. To make matters even worse, Chaucer had stopped receiving his pension. Chaucer eventually resigned the position for a lower but less stressful appointment as sub-forester, or gardener, at the King’s park in Somersetshire.

When Richard II was deposed in 1399, his cousin and successor, Henry IV, took pity on Chaucer and reinstated Chaucer’s former pension. With the money, Chaucer was able to lease an apartment in the garden of St. Mary’s Chapel in Westminster, where he lived modestly for the rest of his days.

The legendary 14th century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer died October 25, 1400 in London, England. He died of unknown causes and was 60 years old at the time. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey. His gravestone became the center of what was to be called Poet’s Corner, a spot where such famous British writers as Robert Browning and Charles Dickens were later honored and interred.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Geoffrey Chaucer
• Birth Year: 1343
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the unfinished work, 'The Canterbury Tales.' It is considered one of the greatest poetic works in English.
• Fiction and Poetry
• Death Year: 1400
• Death date: October 25, 1400
• Death City: London
• Death Country: United Kingdom

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• Article Title: Geoffrey Chaucer Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
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• Last Updated: May 26, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was born between the years 1340-1345, the son of John and Agnes (de Copton) Chaucer. Chaucer was descended from two generations of wealthy vintners who had everything but a title and in 1357 Chaucer began pursuing a position at court. As a squire in the court of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, the wife of Lionel, Earl of Ulster (later Duke of Clarence), Chaucer would have served as a gentleman’s gentleman—essentially a butler. A young man in this position would be in service to the aristocrats of the court who required diversions as well as domestic help. The way must have opened quickly for Chaucer, who could both tell stories and compose songs. The countess was French, so French poets such as Guillaume de Machaut and Eustache Deschamps provided an early inspiration, and Chaucer’s earliest poems, The Book of the Duchess and The Parliament of Birds , rest on a heavy French base. At this time, Chaucer made the acquaintance of the man who would most deeply influence his political career: John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Chaucer and Gaunt married the daughters of the French Knight Sir Paon de Roet—Gaunt in order to legitimize his sons by the Roet’s daughter, who had been his mistress for some time (all the English kings after Henry VI came from this line), and Chaucer to enter the world of the aristocracy. Of all the Canterbury pilgrims (and there is a “Chaucer”), the one who most closely approximates his situation is the social-climbing Franklin, a man heartily concerned with the gentility of his son. Chaucer’s own son, Thomas, became one of the richest men in London, and his great-grandson (who died on the battlefield) was named heir apparent to the throne of England. Although Chaucer was close to Gaunt, he was always on the fringes of the world of courtly political intrigue of this time, a period Shakespeare dramatized in Richard II.

Known as the first English author, Chaucer wrote in English at a time when Latin was considered the grammatica , or language which would not change, and most of the upper-class English spoke French. Chaucer himself often used French translations of Latin texts; that he chose the language of the lower-class Saxons rather than Norman nobility has perplexed readers and scholars for centuries. As Sir Walter Scott pointed out, the Saxon language can name only barnyard animals on the hoof. If one fed a domestic animal, they used its Saxon name, sheep ; but if one ate it, they likely called it by its French name, mouton , which soon became mutton . This linguistic distinction was a class distinction in Chaucer’s England: if one raised a farm animal, one was a Saxon and called it by its English name; if one were rich enough to eat it, one named it in French: calf/veau (veal); chicken/poulet (pullet); pig/porc (pork) . Chaucer did not try, however, to impress his relatives with his French, but began to develop English into a highly flexible literary language.

Chaucer wrote many works, some of which like The Canterbury Tales (circa 1375-1400) he never finished. He pioneered many recognizably “modern” novelistic techniques, including psychologically complex characters: many claim that Troilus and Criseyde is the first English novel because of the way its main characters are always operating at two levels of response, verbal and intellectual. All of Chaucer’s works are sophisticated meditations on language and artifice. Moving out of a medieval world view in which allegory reigned, Chaucer developed a model of language and fiction premised on concealment rather than communication or theological interpretation. Indeed, Chaucer misrepresents himself in his early works, creating self-portraits in The Book of the Duchess (circa 1368-1369) and The House of Fame (circa 1378-1381) as an innocent, overweight bookworm far from the canny businessman and social climber he actually was.

Chaucer’s first major work, The Book of the Duchess , is an elegy on the death of Blanche, John of Gaunt’s first wife. The poem, though filled with traditional French flourishes, develops its originality around the relationship between the narrator, a fictionalized version of the poet, and the mourner, the Man in Black, who represents Gaunt. Chaucer uses a naïve narrator in both The Book of the Duchess and The House of Fame, which employs a comic version of the guide-narrator relationship of Dante and Virgil in the Commedia . The talkative Eagle guides the naive “Chaucer” just as the naive Dante is guided by the gossipy Virgil. The Eagle takes “Chaucer” to the House of Fame (Rumor), which is even more the house of tales. Here Chaucer makes a case for the preeminence of story, an idea that he explored to great effect in The Canterbury Tales . The inhabitants of the House of Fame are asked whether they want to be great lovers or to be remembered as great lovers, and all choose the latter: the story is more important than the reality.

Dating Chaucer’s works is difficult but scholars generally assume that his dream-vision poem The Parliament of Birds (circa 1378-1381), which is less obviously tied to source texts or events, is his third work because it marks a shift in form: he begins to use the seven-line pentameter stanza that he would use in Troilus and Criseyde (circa 1382-1386). The Parliament of Birds is an indictment of courtly love staged as an allegory with birds corresponding to social classes: the hunting birds (eagles, hawks) represent the nobles, the worm eaters (cuckoos) represent the bourgeois, the water fowl are the merchants, and the seed eaters (turtledoves) are the landed farming interests. Each class is given a distinctive voice. In The Parliament of Birds Chaucer examined themes that will pervade his later work: the conflict between Nature and courtly love will permeate Troilus and Criseyde and the experimentation with different voices for all the characters and social classes of birds presages The Canterbury Tales .

By 1374 Chaucer was firmly involved in domestic politics and was granted the important post of controller of customs taxes on hides, skins, and wool. Chaucer had to keep the records himself as well as oversee the collectors. These were prosperous times for Chaucer; his wife had gotten a large annuity, and they were living rent free in a house above the city gate at Aldgate. After visits to Genoa and Florence in 1372-1373 and to Lombardy in 1378, Chaucer developed an interest in Italian language and literature, which influenced his poem Troilus and Criseyde . Chaucer retold the medieval romance of doomed lovers, setting his epic poem against the backdrop of the siege of Troy. The poem takes its story line from Giovanni Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato (1335-1340), but its inspiration from Dante’s love for Beatrice as told in the Convito (1307) and from Petrarch’s love for Laura as manifested in the sonnets.

In the poem, Chaucer is presenting a case for ennobling passion which fits with the French romances he had read in his youth; only in Troilus and Criseyde this romance takes a particularly Italian turn. The poem analyzes the artifices of love as well as the complex motivations of lovers. Both Dante and Petrarch begin by seeing love as artifice and then show how love breaks free of that artifice. Petrarch’s rime (poems) to Laura are in two groups divided by a simple fact, her death. The sonnets in “Vita di ma donna Laura” are artificial, conventional poems filled with such tropes as oxymoron, antithesis, hyperbole, and conceit. The style was so conventional that the French poets had a verb, Petrarquizer , to write like Petrarch. The sonnets change radically after Laura’s death, as the artifices fall away in his attempt to re-create the true Laura. The same change occurs in Troilus after the absence of Criseyde. Through his trials Troilus learns, as have Dante and Petrarch before him, that loving a real woman is the only real love.

Chaucer most famous work, The Canterbury Tales, also has similarities with Italian literature: the unfinished poem draws on the technique of the frame tale as practiced by Boccaccio in The Decameron (1349-1351), though it’s not clear that Chaucer knew The Decameron in its entirety. The pretext for storytelling in Boccaccio is a plague in Florence which sends a group of ten nobles to the country to escape the Black Death. For each of ten days, they each tell a tale. Each day’s tales are grouped around a common topic or narrative subject. The tales, all one hundred of them, are completed; the plague ends in Florence; and the nobles return to the city.

The Canterbury Tales innovates on this model in significant ways. Far from being noble, Chaucer’s tale-tellers run the spectrum of the middle class, from the Knight to the Pardoner and the Summoner. And the tales are not told in the order that might be expected—from highest-ranking pilgrim to lowest. Instead, each character uses his tale as a weapon or tool to get back at or even with the previous tale-teller. Once the Miller has established the principle of “quiting,” each tale generates the next. The Reeve, who takes offense because “The Miller’s Tale” is about a cuckolded carpenter (the Reeve had been a carpenter in his youth), tells a tale about a cuckolded miller, who also gets beaten up after his daughter is deflowered. As in many of the tales, subtle distinctions of class become the focal point of the story.

Chaucer’s refusal to let his tale end conventionally is typical of the way he handles familiar stories. He wants to have it both ways, and he reminds the reader of this constantly. In “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale,” for example, he argues both against an allegorical reading of the tale, “My tale is of a cok,” and for it, “Taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille.” At work in many of these tales is an important Chaucerian device: a false syllogism based on the movement from the specific to the general back to the specific again, although the specific now occupies a new moral ground. Almost every time Chaucer offers a list of examples, he is playing with this disparity between the general and the specific. As Chaucer worked against the impossibility of finishing The Canterbury Tales according to the original plan—120 tales, four told by each of thirty pilgrims (in the Middle Ages, which had many systems based on twelve, 120 was as round a number as the 100 of The Decameron )—he began to consider the nature of finishing an act of storytelling. In The Canterbury Tales , in addition to several unfinished tales (the Cook’s, the Squire’s), there are two tales that are interrupted by other pilgrims: Chaucer’s own “Tale of Sir Thopas” and “The Monk’s Tale.” In handling these tales, Chaucer moves into issues, particularly that of closure, that are now important to narratology and literary theory. Put another way, Chaucer worries both about what a story can mean and what a story can be. In considering the ramifications of an invented teller telling about other invented tellers telling stories whose main purpose is to get back (“quite”) at other tellers, Chaucer finds himself with a new conception of fiction, one that is recognizably modern and even postmodern.

There is much speculation as to why Chaucer left The Canterbury Tales unfinished. One theory is that he left off writing them in the mid 1390s, some five or six years before his death. It is possible that the enormousness of the task overwhelmed him. He had been working on The Canterbury Tales for ten years or more, and he was not one quarter through his original plan. He may have felt he could not divide his time successfully between his writing and his business interests. Chaucer himself offers an explanation in the “Retraction” which follows “The Parson’s Tale,” the last of The Canterbury Tales . In it Chaucer disclaims apologetically all of his impious works, especially “the tales of Caunterbury, thilke that sowen into synne.” There has been some speculation about the “Retraction”: some believe that Chaucer in ill health confessed his impieties and others that the “Retraction” is merely conventional, Chaucer taking on the persona of the humble author, a stance favored in the Middle Ages. If the reader is to take Chaucer at his word, he seems to suggest that his works were being misread, that people were mistaking the sinful behavior in The Canterbury Tales for its message. The last thirteen years of Chaucer’s life correspond almost exactly to the span of years covered by Shakespeare’s Richard II , that is, the period marked by Richard’s claiming his majority (he had become king at age nine) and his assumption of the power of the throne in 1389 until his deposition and death in 1399. The realm was marred by the power struggles of the Lancastrian (Gaunt and his son, the eventual Henry IV) and Court (Richard) parties but Chaucer had connections in both camps, and over the dozen years of Richard’s reign it was possible to be of the court without being Gaunt’s enemy. That Chaucer was able to do this is indicated by the fact that Henry renewed annuities granted to Chaucer when Richard was king. Nonetheless, these appear to have been financially trying times for Chaucer. His wife received the last payment of her annuity in 1387, which suggests she died in the following year. Although Chaucer lost his post as controller of customs in 1386, he had been appointed justice of peace for the County of Kent in 1385, and in 1389, following the coming to power of Richard, Chaucer was named clerk of public works. This post, which amounted to being a kind of general contractor for the repair of public buildings, was more lucrative than the controller’s job that he had lost, but it caused him no end of headaches. One of the duties of this position required him to carry large sums of money, and in 1390 he was robbed of both his and the king’s money three times in the space of four days. Though there was no direct punishment, he was appointed subforester of North Pemberton in Somerset. It appears that in 1390 or 1391 he was eased out of his clerk’s job; he eventually got into financial trouble. In 1398 he borrowed against his annuity and was sued for debt.

His last poem, “The Complaint to his Purse,” is a letter asking King Henry for money. It is quite likely that in the last years of his life, he was constantly asking the king, whoever he was, for money. The poem, or his connections to the Lancastrians, must have worked because Chaucer was granted a sizable annuity by Henry. Nonetheless, Chaucer moved to a house in the Westminster Abbey Close because a house on church grounds granted him sanctuary from creditors. And so, from the fact of Chaucer’s debts comes the tradition of burying poets, or erecting memorials to them, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer died in 1400, the year after the accession of Henry to the throne and also the year after the death of John of Gaunt, the king’s father. That Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey was due primarily to the fact that his last residence was on the abbey grounds. So important was he deemed as a poet that the space around his tomb was later dubbed the Poets’ Corner, and luminaries of English letters were laid to rest around him.

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Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London sometime between 1340 and 1344 to John Chaucer and Agnes Copton. John Chaucer was an affluent wine merchant and deputy to the king's butler. Through his father’s connections, Geoffrey held several positions early in his life, serving as a noblewoman’s page, a courtier, a diplomat, a civil servant, and a collector of scrap metal. His early life and education were not strictly documented although it can be surmised from his works that he could read French, Latin, and Italian.

In 1359, Chaucer joined the English army’s invasion of France during the Hundred Years’ War and was taken prisoner; King Edward III of England paid his ransom in 1360. In 1366, Chaucer married Philipa de Roet, who was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III’s wife. In 1367, Chaucer was given a life pension by the king, and began traveling abroad on diplomatic missions. During trips to Italy in 1372 and 1378, he discovered the works of Dante , Giovanni Boccaccio , and Petrarch —each of which greatly influenced Chaucer’s own literary endeavors.

Chaucer’s early work is heavily influenced by love poetry of the French tradition, including the Romaunt of the Rose (c. 1370) and Saint Cecilia (c. 1373), later used as the “Second Nun’s Tale” in the Canterbury Tales .

Chaucer was named Controller of Customs on wools, skins, and hides for the port of London in 1374, and continued in this post for twelve years. Around that time, Chaucer's period of Italian influence began, which includes transitional works such as Anelida and Arcite (c. 1379), Parlement of Foules (c. 1382), and Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1385). Chaucer established residence in Kent, where he was elected a justice of the peace and a member of Parliament in 1386. His wife died the following year.

His period of artistic maturity is considered to begin at this time, marked by the writing of the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales , which Chaucer continued to work on for many years—most likely until his death in 1400. Considered a cultural touchstone, if not the very wellspring of literature in the English language, Chaucer’s tales gather twenty-nine archetypes of late-medieval English society and present them with insight and humor.

Now considered the “Father of English literature,” Chaucer wrote in the English vernacular while court poetry was still being written in Anglo-Norman or Latin. The decasyllabic couplet Chaucer used for most of the Canterbury Tales later evolved into the heroic couplet, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry in English. Chaucer is also credited with pioneering the regular use of iambic pentameter .

As the American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his essay “ The Poet ” in 1844: “...the rich poets, such as Homer , Chaucer, Shakespeare , and Raphael, have obviously no limits to their works, except the limits of their lifetime, and resemble a mirror carried through the street, ready to render an image of every created thing.”

Until less than a year before his death, Chaucer remained Clerk of Works of the Palace of Westminster. He leased a tenement in the garden of the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey. After his death, he was buried at the entrance to the chapel of St. Benedict, in the South Transept. In 1556, a monument was erected in Chaucer’s honor. When the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser died in 1599 and was buried nearby, the tradition of the “Poets’ Corner” in the Abbey began. Since then, more than thirty poets and writers are buried there—including Robert  Browning , John Dryden , Thomas  Hardy , Ben  Jonson , and Rudyard  Kipling —and more than fifty others are memorialized.

Chaucer died on October 25, 1400.

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• Life of Chaucer

For a brief chronology of Chaucer's life and times, click here .

Geoffrey Chaucer led a busy official life, as an esquire of the royal court, as the comptroller of the customs for the port of London, as a participant in important diplomatic missions, and in a variety of other official duties. All this is richly recorded in literally hundreds of documents (see Martin Crow and Clair C. Olson,  Chaucer Life Records  (Austin, 1966)). But such documents tell us little about Chaucer the man and poet. Nor does Chaucer himself tell us all that much. He is a lively presence in his works, and every reader comes to feel that he knows Chaucer very well. Perhaps we do. There is a certain consistency in the character of Chaucer as he appears in his works, and occasional biographical passages, such as this from The House of Fame , seem to ring true:         "Wherfore, as I seyde, ywys,         Jupiter considereth this,         And also, beau sir, other thynges:         That is, that thou hast no tydynges         Of Loves folk yf they be glade,         Ne of noght elles that God made;         And noght oonly fro fer contree         That ther no tydynge cometh to thee,         But of thy verray neyghebores,         That duellen almost at thy dores,         Thou herist neyther that ne this;         For when thy labour doon al ys,         And hast mad alle thy rekenynges,         In stede of reste and newe thynges         Thou goost hom to thy hous anoon,         And, also domb as any stoon,         Thou sittest at another book         Tyl fully daswed ys thy look;         And lyvest thus as an heremyte,         Although thyn abstynence ys lyte."         (House of Fame, 641-60) This has the ring of truth, and yet we can never be sure how much is true and how much a role that Chaucer adopts for his poetic self. The only non-fictionalized scrap of autobiography that we have from Chaucer is the record of his deposition in the Scrope-Grosvener Trial . It reveals Chaucer as a curious and sociable character, rather like the man who scurried about meeting and talking to all the nine and twenty pilgrims that gathered at the Tabard. By the 1380's Chaucer had earned wide admiration for his work, and a number of contemporaries mention Chaucer and his poetry. Naturally enough, they describe Chaucer's works rather than Chaucer the man. A biography of Chaucer therefore depends on some extrapolation and the exercise of good judgement, not always apparent in works of this genre. For a good brief life of Chaucer see that by Martin Crow and Virginia Leland in The Riverside Chaucer , pp. xv-xxvi, and, slightly altered, in The Canterbury Tales Complete pp. xiii-xxv. For an excellent full treatment see Derek A. Pearsall,  The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A critical biography   (Oxford, 1992) [PR 1905.P43 1992].       For a bibliography of critical and scholarly works on Chaucer's life, click here .

• A Brief Chronology of Chaucer's Life and Times

Biography Online

Geoffrey Chaucer Biography

“Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.”

– Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – October 25, 1400) was an English writer, poet, and philosopher. He is famous for writing Canterbury Tales which were not finished. He is one of the first writers to write in English and is considered the father of English literature

By 1357 Chaucer was a page to Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, wife of Lionel, 1st Duke of Clarence. In 1360, he was captured by the French near Reims during a battle in the Hundred Years War. He was then ransomed and released. King Edward III gave £16 towards his release. Chaucer married Phillipa (de) Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to the queen and had close family connections to John of Gaunt. He had about three or four children.

The king’s esquire

Chaucer may have studied law in the Inner Temple. He joined the Royal Court and travelled a lot around Europe on business for the king. He became one of the king’s esquires. One of his first known poems was written in 1369. It was called The Book of The Duchess and was written after the death of John of Gaunt’s wife, Blanche. In 1373, Chaucer travelled to Italy where he became acquainted with Italian medieval poetry. He learnt from the forms and compositions of these poems and would later incorporate some of these ideas into his own poetry.

In 1374, he became Comptroller (in charge of the money) of the Customs for the Port of London. He did this well-paid job for 12 years and became quite wealthy.

When Richard II became king, Chaucer continued to working in Customs. He was also sent to Europe on several more diplomatic jobs for the king. Richard II was to be a good patron to Chaucer whilst the king lived.

Country life

Chaucer moved to Kent in 1385 where he had a new position as Justice of the Peace. He was also elected as one of two knights of the shire to be a member of parliament. At the end of the year, he lost his customs jobs. His wife, Phillipa, died in 1387. But on 12 July 1389, he was made the Clerk of the Kings Works looking after repairs to the royal palaces. He was given other small positions including looking after the river banks of the Thames, and as a deputy forester in the Royal Forest. Over the next few years, Chaucer became poorer and often was given small payments and pensions from the king.

He died at St.Mary’s Chapel at Westminster on October 25, 1400. Chaucer is buried in Westminster Abbey, in what is now called the Poets’ Corner.

His writings

Chaucer did most of his writing between 1369 and 1393. He is famous for his collection of stories called The Canterbury Tales. Many of the characters featuring in the book were based on Chaucer’s own experiences of many different jobs. These gave Chaucer an insight into the manners and characteristics of a diverse range of people – and enabled him to satirise them in his book.

Chaucer helped to standardise modern English. He is considered the first great English writer. Though still the English of Chaucer has drifted, making it difficult for modern readers to understand the original.

When William Caxton began the first English printing press, Caxton chose ‘The Canterbury Tales’ to be the finest example of English writing.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Geoffrey Chaucer” , Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net , 22nd Jan. 2010. Last updated 6th March 2017.

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English History

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Born: c. 1340s, London, England
• Died: October 25, 1400 (aged 56-57), London, England
• Notable Works: The Canterbury Tales, The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, Troilus and Criseyde

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s – 25 October 1400) was an English author and poet, most known for his The Canterbury Tales. He is widely considered one of the greatest English poets of the Middle Ages and has been called the “father of English literature”.

Chaucer had a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament, as well as writing well-known works such as The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde.

He is credited as legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant languages in England were still French and Latin, and his poetry went on to shape future of English literature. Chaucer was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London, between the years 1340-1345. The precise date and location remain unknown. He was born to John and Agnes (de Copton) Chaucer and both his father and his grandfather were London vintners. The family name is derived from the French chausseur, meaning “shoemaker”.

In 1324, when John Chaucer was twelve years old, he was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying him to her daughter in an attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and fined £250, now equivalent to about £200,000, which suggests that the family was financially secure. Agnes had also inherited properties in 1349, including 24 shops in London from her uncle Hamo de Copton.

Chaucer’s official life is well-documented, thanks to the fact he was a public servant. There are nearly five hundred written items testifying to his career, with the first being dated from 1357. The document shows that Chaucer was squire in the court of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, the wife of Lionel, Earl of Ulster (later Duke of Clarence), most likely through his father’s connections. Here, he would have served as a gentleman’s gentleman; essentially a butler.

A young man in this position would be in service to the aristocrats of the court who required diversions as well as domestic help. This was a common medieval form of apprenticeship for boys into knighthood or prestige appointments. The countess was married to Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the second surviving son of the king, Edward III, and the position brought Chaucer into the close court circle.

He also worked as a courtier, a diplomat and a civil servant, as well as, in his later years, working for the King from 1389 to 1391 as Clerk of the King’s Works.

In 1359, Chaucer travelled with Lionel as part of the English army when Edward III invaded France in the early stages of the Hundred Years’ War . A year later, in 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims. Edward paid £16 for his ransom, which was a considerable sum equivalent to £11,610 in 2019, and Chaucer was released.

Travel and Study

After this, it is not completely clear what Chaucer did. It is thought that he travelled in France, Spain, and Flanders, possibly as a messenger and perhaps even going on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. It was during this time, around 1366, that Chaucer married Philippa (de) Roet.

Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple (an Inn of Court) at this time, according to tradition. On 20 June 1367, he became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a valet de chambre, yeoman, or esquire, which was a position which could entail a wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment.

He travelled abroad many times, possibly even to the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante Visconti, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, in Milan in 1368. There were two other famous authors in attendance there — Jean Froissart and Petrarch. It is thought that during this time he wrote The Book of the Duchess in honour of Blanche of Lancaster, the late wife of John of Gaunt, who died of the plague in 1369.

In 1370, Chaucer travelled to Picardy as part of a military expedition and, in 1373, he visited Genoa and Florence. According to scholars such as Skeat, Boitani and Rowland, this could have been the trip to Italy where Chaucer met Petrarch or Boccaccio, who introduced him to medieval Italian poetry, the forms and stories of which he would use later.

Another voyage occurred in 1377, although the purposes for this voyage are unclear and there are conflicting historical records. Some documents suggest it was a mission, along with Jean Froissart, to arrange a marriage between the future King Richard II and a French princess, which would end the Hundred Years War. However, if this was the purpose of their trip, it would have been unsuccessful, as no wedding occurred.

Comptroller

Back in London, Chaucer obtained the very substantial job of comptroller of the customs for the port of London on 8 June 1374. This job lasted for twelve years, which was unusual for the time and shows he must have been suited to the role.

For the following ten years, there are no documents that indicate what Chaucer was up to. However, it is believed that he wrote, or began writing, most of his famous works during this period.

In law papers of 4 May 1380 Chaucer’s name was mentioned, indicating he was involved in the raptus (rape or seizure) of Cecilia Chaumpaigne. However, what took place was unclear and the incident seems to have been resolved quickly with an exchange of money in June 1380. It did not tarnish Chaucer’s name or reputation.

Chaucer moved to Kent while he was still working as comptroller. He was appointed as one of the commissioners of peace for Kent, at a time when French invasion was a possibility. It is during this time that he started work on The Canterbury Tales.

In 1836, he lost his job as controller, but became a member of parliament for Kent, and attended the ‘Wonderful Parliament’ that year. On October 15, he gave a deposition in the case of Scrope v. Grosvenor. He also survived the political upheavals that were caused by the Lords Appellants, despite the fact that he knew some of the men executed over the affair.

In 1387, Chaucer’s wife received the last payment of her annuity, which suggests she died in the following year. Two years later, following the coming to power of Richard, Chaucer was named clerk of public works, which was a sort of foreman organising most of the King’s building projects.

Although no major works were begun during his tenure, he did conduct repairs on Westminster Palace, St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, continue building the wharf at the Tower of London, and build the stands for a tournament held in 1390. This job was difficult for Chaucer, but it paid well — more than three times his salary as a comptroller.

Chaucer was also appointed keeper of the lodge at the King’s park in Feckenham Forest in Worcestershire during this time, which was a largely honorary appointment.

However, one of the duties of being clerk of public works required him to carry large sums of money, and, in 1390, he was robbed of both his and the King’s money three times in the space of four days. Although there was no direct punishment, he was appointed subforester of North Pemberton in Somerset, which was a difficult job. Around this time, 1390 or 1391, he was eased out of his clerk’s job and he eventually got into financial trouble. In 1398, he borrowed against his annuity and was sued for debt.

Richard II granted him an annual pension of 20 pounds in 1394 (roughly £25,000/US$33,000 in 2018 money), however Chaucer’s name fades from the historical record not long after Richard’s overthrow in 1399. It is thought that his last poem, “The Complaint to his Purse,” is a letter asking King Henry for money. The last mention of Chaucer is on 5 June 1400, when some money was paid which was owed to him.

Chaucer died on 25 October 1400, of unknown causes. The evidence of the date comes from the engraving on his tomb which was erected more than 100 years after his death. There is some speculation that he was murdered by enemies of Richard II or even on the orders of his successor Henry IV , but this hasn’t been proven.

Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, as his residence was on the abbey grounds. In 1556, his remains were transferred to a more ornate tomb, and the space around this tomb became the area now known as Poets’ Corner.

John of Gaunt

Chaucer was the close friend of John of Gaunt (6 March 1340 – 3 February 1399), the wealthy Duke of Lancaster and father of Henry IV. Chaucer served under Lancaster’s patronage. Lancaster and Chaucer also became brothers-in-law when Chaucer married Philippa (Pan) de Roet in 1366, and Lancaster married Phillippa’s sister Katherine Swynford (de Roet) in 1396.

Chaucer references Gaunt in many of his works, including Book of the Duchess and his short poem Fortune. Gaunt heavily influenced his political career, too, although Chaucer was always on the fringes of the world of courtly political intrigue.

Marriage and Family

In around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa (de) Roet, who was lady-in-waiting to Edward III’s queen, Philippa of Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford, who later (around 1396) became the third wife of John of Gaunt.

It is not known how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. Chaucer’s son, Thomas Chaucer, had a distinguished career, as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France, and Speaker of the House of Commons.

Thomas’s daughter, Alice, married the Duke of Suffolk, and his great-grandson (Geoffrey’s great-great-grandson), John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was the heir to the throne designated by Richard III before he was deposed.

It is thought that Chaucer’s other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey, Agnes, an attendant at Henry IV’s coronation, and another son, Lewis Chaucer. Chaucer’s “Treatise on the Astrolabe” was written for Lewis.

• The Canterbury Tales

It is thought that Chaucer started The Canterbury Tales in the 1380s, but he never finished them. They are a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English, mostly in verse, although some are in prose.

They are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.

The tales paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, and particularly of the Church. While Chaucer seems to have respected and admired Christians and to have been one himself, he also recognised that many people in the church were venal and corrupt.

He writes in Canterbury Tales, “now I beg all those that listen to this little treatise, or read it, that if there be anything in it that pleases them, they thank our Lord Jesus Christ for it, from whom proceeds all understanding and goodness.”

The Canterbury Tales are also sometimes considered the source of the English vernacular tradition, as opposed to French, Italian or Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary language centuries before Chaucer’s time.

There is much speculation as to why Chaucer left The Canterbury Tales unfinished. One theory is that he left off writing them in the mid 1390s, some five or six years before his death. It is possible that the enormousness of the task had overwhelmed him, as he had been working on The Canterbury Tales for ten years or more, and he was not one quarter through his original plan.

Other Works

Chaucer’s first major work, The Book of the Duchess, is an elegy on the death of Blanche, John of Gaunt’s first wife, in 1368. His other two early works were Anelida and Arcite and The House of Fame, while some of his most known works — Parlement of Foules, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde — came from the period when he held the job of customs comptroller for London (1374 to 1386).

Chaucer indicated he was versed in science in addition to his literary talents when he wrote Treatise on the Astrolabe, which describes the form and use of the astrolabe in detail. It is sometimes cited as the first example of technical writing in the English language

Chaucer didn’t just write; he also translated. He translated Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy and The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (extended by Jean de Meun).

Chaucer’s original audience was a courtly one, and would have included women as well as men of the upper social classes. Yet even before his death, Chaucer’s audience had begun to include members of the rising literate, middle and merchant classes.

A possible indication that Chaucer’s career as a writer was appreciated came when Edward III granted Chaucer “a gallon of wine daily for the rest of his life” for some unspecified task. This was an unusual grant, but it was given on a day of celebration, St George’s Day , 1374, when artistic endeavours were traditionally rewarded. It is not known which, if any, of Chaucer’s works prompted the reward, but the suggestion of him as poet to a king places him as a precursor to later poets laureate. Chaucer continued to collect the wine until Richard II came to power, after which it was converted to a monetary grant on 18 April 1378.

The poet Thomas Hoccleve, who may have met Chaucer, considered him his role model and hailed Chaucer as “the firste fyndere of our fair langage”. During the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Chaucer came to be viewed as a symbol of the nation’s poetic heritage.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Chaucer was printed more than any other English author, and he was the first author to have his works collected in comprehensive single-volume editions.

Although Chaucer’s works had long been admired, serious scholarly work on his legacy did not begin until the late 18th century, when Thomas Tyrwhitt edited The Canterbury Tales, and it did not become an established academic discipline until the 19th century.

Writing Style

Chaucer’s writing style was one that stood out from the crowd. He wrote in continental accentual-syllabic metre, which had developed in English literature since around the 12th century as an alternative to the alliterative Anglo-Saxon metre.

He is known for metrical innovation, inventing the rhyme royal, and he was one of the first English poets to use the five-stress line, a decasyllabic cousin to the iambic pentametre.

Chaucer, along with other writers of the era, is credited with helping to standardise the London Dialect of the Middle English language from a combination of the Kentish and Midlands dialects. He is also considered the source of the English vernacular tradition, particularly thanks to The Canterbury Tales, as opposed to French, Italian or Latin.

Chaucer is also recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first author to use many common English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in the language at the time. Words such as acceptable, alkali, altercation, amble, angrily, annex, annoyance, approaching, arbitration, armless, army, arrogant, arsenic, arc, artillery and aspect are just some of the many English words first used by Chaucer.

What’s more, the first recorded association of Valentine’s Day with romantic love is believed to be in Chaucer’s Parliament of Fowls (1382), a poem which in the form of a dream, portraying a parliament for birds to choose their mates.

Historical Significance

Chaucer holds huge historical significance in the literary world thanks to his innovative style and accurate historical picture of English society at his time. By writing in English instead of French, which was the language spoken by those in power, Chaucer shifted the norm of British literature. He also managed to create realistic characters and replicate a natural conversational tone within the constraints of formal poetry, and, although his poems often address serious topics, he does so with humour.

Chaucer is said to have influenced William Shakespeare , who drew inspiration both from his stories and his writing style. Chaucer’s writing has shaped generations of poets, authors, and playwrights who followed.

Major works

• Translation of Roman de la Rose, possibly extant as The Romaunt of the Rose
• The Book of the Duchess
• The House of Fame
• Anelida and Arcite
• Parlement of Foules
• Translation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy as Boece
• Troilus and Criseyde
• The Legend of Good Women
• A Treatise on the Astrolabe

Short poems

• Chaucers Wordes unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn (disputed)
• The Complaint unto Pity
• The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse
• The Complaint of Mars
• The Complaint of Venus
• A Complaint to His Lady
• The Former Age
• Lak of Stedfastnesse
• Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan
• Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton
• Balade to Rosemounde
• Womanly Noblesse

Poems of doubtful authorship

• Against Women Unconstant
• A Balade of Complaint
• Complaynt D’Amours
• Merciles Beaute
• The Equatorie of the Planets

Works thought to be lost/presumed lost

• Of the Wreched Engendrynge of Mankynde, possible translation of Innocent III’s De miseria conditionis humanae
• Origenes upon the Maudeleyne
• The Book of the Leoun

False works

• The Pilgrim’s Tale – written in the 16th century with many Chaucerian allusions
• The Plowman’s Tale or The Complaint of the Ploughman — its body is largely a version of Thomas Hoccleve’s “Item de Beata Virgine”
• Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede
• The Ploughman’s Tale
• “ La Belle Dame Sans Merci ” – frequently attributed to Chaucer, but actually a translation by Richard Roos of Alain Chartier’s poem
• The Testament of Love – actually by Thomas Usk
• Jack Upland – a Lollard satire
• The Floure and the Leafe – a 15th century allegory

Derived works

• God Spede the Plough – Borrows twelve stanzas of Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale

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Explaining Literature

Geoffrey Chaucer Biography | The Father of English Literature

Geoffrey Chaucer is known as the “Father of English Literature”. He was a medieval English poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, and diplomat. He was born around 1343 in London. Chaucer’s life coincided with a period of significant social, political, and cultural upheaval in England. His literary contributions, particularly “The Canterbury Tales”, have left an unforgettable mark on English literature. He is among those writers who shaped the English language.

Table of Contents

Early Life and Education.

Chaucer’s early life is not documented. We know about him from legal records, contemporary writings, and his own works. He was born to John Chaucer, a vintner and deputy to the King’s butler, and Agnes Copton. Little is known about his childhood, but it is believed that he received a decent education, likely at the St Paul’s Cathedral School.

Career and Bureaucratic Service.

Chaucer’s career began in the service of the royal court. He entered into the service of Elizabeth de Burgh, the Countess of Ulster. Later he became a page in the household of Prince Lionel. His diplomatic career took him to various European countries. He experienced diverse cultures that later influenced his writing.

Chaucer’s diplomatic missions included trips to Italy. He encountered the works of Italian poets like Dante and Petrarch. These encounters significantly impacted his writing style and contributed to the richness of his literary works.

Literary Works.

Chaucer’s literary work shows his ability to master various genres and styles. Some of his notable works include:

The Canterbury Tales (c. 1387-1400).

Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” is a collection of stories narrated by a diverse group of pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury. This work is a social commentary on medieval society. The book explores themes such as love, morality, and human nature.

Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1382).

A narrative poem based on the tragic love story of Troilus.

The Parliament of Fowls (c. 1382).

A dream vision poem that explores themes of love, nature, and the power of destiny.

The Book of the Duchess (c. 1369-1372).

A poem written in the elegiac tradition, possibly dedicated to the memory of Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster.

Legacy and Influence.

Chaucer’s influence on English literature is immeasurable. For writing, he used Middle English, which is a blend of French and Old English. He shaped the evolving English language. His narrative techniques, characterizations, and keen observations of human behaviour set a precedent for future writers.

“The Canterbury Tales” is worth mentioning in this regard. The book is known for depicting realism, humour, and portrayal of a cross-section of medieval society. The work has inspired countless adaptations, translations and scholarly discussions.

Death and Recognition.

Geoffrey Chaucer passed away on October 25, 1400. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. His tomb became a symbol of literary recognition. He was the first poet to be interred in what later became known as the “Poet’s Corner”.

Chaucer’s impact extends beyond his lifetime. His contributions to English literature continue to be celebrated. His ability to capture the nuances of human experience and society has ensured his enduring legacy as a pioneer in the world of literature.

By Anwaar Ahmed

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Promoting the Life and Works of Geoffrey Chaucer

The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer is widely regarded as England’s greatest medieval poet and has been called the father of the English language. Despite a great deal of scholarship, the exact details of Chaucer’s life are far from clear. The following provides an introduction to some of the key known moments in Chaucer’s life.

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London c. 1340 to John Chaucer, a London wine merchant, and his wife Agnes. John and Agnes owned a house on Upper Thames Street which stands today between London Bridge and Monument Stations. John Chaucer supplied wine to King Edward III’s court and through this royal contact the young Geoffrey was employed in the household of Elizabeth de Burgh, Countess of Ulster and wife of Lionel, a son of Edward III. In April 1357 he was granted a set of clothes and 2 s . 6 d . – suggesting he may have been a page in the household. Nonetheless, even at a young age Chaucer was in an excellent position to observe people from across the social spectrum.

In 1359 (probably not yet twenty years old), Chaucer joined the army of Edward III for Edward III’s invasion of France, just one of many campaigns of what would be known as the Hundred Years War. During the campaign Chaucer was taken prisoner and released only upon payment of a ransom – £16 of which was paid by the king himself. One might easily imagine that without his royal patronage the life of Geoffrey Chaucer might have been eventful but brief.

Career                                                                                                                                                           

In October 1368 Prince Lionel died, at which point it seems Chaucer moved into the service of his younger brother, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. In autumn 1369 Gaunt’s wife, Blanche of Lancaster, died, possibly of plague. Chaucer wrote the poem ‘The deth of Blaunche the Duchess’ (The Book of the Duchess) in her honour.

In the 1370s and 80s Chaucer traveled widely on diplomatic missions for the king, especially in Italy. Chaucer’s good service of the crown brought him a variety of rewards. In April 1374 Edward III rewarded Chaucer, at the St George’s day celebrations at Windsor Castle, with a grant for a pitcher of wine a day from the king’s butler. In May that year Chaucer took the lease of a house in Aldgate from the Corporation of London (which he gave to a friend in 1386 ). In June that year Chaucer was appointed Comptroller of Wool Customs in London, and a few weeks later John of Gaunt granted him a life pension of £10 per year.  In 1375 Chaucer received lands in Kent from the crown for three years, during which time they brought him over £100. In 1377 and 1378 Chaucer on diplomatic missions to France and Italy, which brought him great rewards. At this time Chaucer appointed John Gower, a poet and friend, to act as his agent in his absence. In 1380 was released from a court case against him by a lady named Cecilia Chaumpayne.

In 1382 Chaucer was appointed Comptroller of Petty Customs in London, while still retaining the Comptrollership of Wool Customs. In February 1385 he was granted the great privilege of nominating a permanent deputies in these duties, perhaps through the patronage of Queen Anne, wife of Richard II.

In 1386 Chaucer was elected a Knight of the Shire of Kent (a member of the House of Commons), during which time he was probably living in Greenwich. That year Philippa Chaucer was admitted to the fraternity of Lincoln Cathedral. In 1387 Philippa Chaucer disappears from the records and his presumed to have died. They had been married for more than twenty years.

In 1390 Chaucer was appointed clerk of the works at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. He was also put on a commission to repair the banks of the river Thames between Woolwich and Greenwich. In 1391 Chaucer lost his appointment as clerk of the works; the same year he composed Treatise of the Astrolabe for his son Lewis.

In 1394 Chaucer was awarded £20 a year for life by King Richard II. In October 1398 he was granted a tun of wine each year for life. In 1399 Henry IV doubled Chaucer’s pension of 20 marks a year (£13 6s. 8 d .) in addition to the grant of £20 a year of 1394 . The same year Chaucer took a long lease on a house in the garden of the Chapel of St Mary, Westminster.

Death and Burial

Chaucer died in 1400 , perhaps in his new home at Westminster, leaving his greatest work The Canterbury Tales unfinished. The Tales begin in The Tabard Inn in Southwark. The likely location of the inn is marked today by a blue plaque.

Chaucer was buried in Westminster abbey, in likelihood because of his years of faithful service to the crown, rather than for his fame as a writer. Nonetheless, Chaucer’s tomb became the first in Poet’s Corner where writers including Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling and Alfred Tennyson have since been interred.

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Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works (Career, Themes and Politics)

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Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works (Career, Themes and Politics) Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 1400) is widely regarded as one of the greatest English poets of the Middle Ages. His works, including The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Book of the Duchess, are considered seminal works of English literature. Chaucer’s influence on the development of the English language and literature is significant, and his works continue to be studied and appreciated today.

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London around 1343, the son of a prosperous wine merchant. Little is known about his early life, but he likely received an education and was fluent in several languages. In 1359, Chaucer served as a page in the household of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, and later joined the military campaign in France. Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works 

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Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works :- In 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Philippa of Hainault, and began a career in government service. He held various positions in the royal court, including Clerk of the King’s Works and Comptroller of the Customs for the Port of London. He also served as a Member of Parliament for Kent.

Chaucer’s literary career began in the 1360s with translations of French and Italian literature. His first major work, The Book of the Duchess, was written in 1369 in memory of Blanche, the wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Chaucer continued to write poetry throughout his life, and his best-known work, The Canterbury Tales, was written in the late 14th century.

Chaucer died in London in 1400 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Early Career :

Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works  Chaucer’s works are known for their vivid characters, intricate plots, and use of language. He was a master of different literary genres, including poetry, prose, and satire.

The Canterbury Tales written in the late 14th century, is perhaps Chaucer’s most famous work. It tells the story of a group of pilgrims traveling to Canterbury and the tales they tell along the way. The tales cover a wide range of genres including romance, satire, and religious allegory, and offer a rich portrayal of medieval life and society. Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works 

Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works :- Another notable work by Chaucer is Troilus and Criseyde, a long narrative poem that tells the story of the Trojan prince Troilus and his love for Criseyde, a woman of Greek descent. The poem is considered one of the finest works of English literature of the Middle Ages and is admired for its psychological depth and nuanced character portrayal.

The Book of the Duchess, written in memory of Blanche, the wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, is another notable work by Chaucer. The poem is a elegiac work that mourns the loss of a loved one and is admired for its vivid language and use of imagery.

Chaucer also wrote several other works, including The House of Fame, The Parliament of Fowls, and The Legend of Good Women, all of which showcase his mastery of different literary genres.

Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works 

#1 the canterbury tales :.

• Publish Date: Late 14th century (unfinished)
• Summary: “The Canterbury Tales” is Chaucer’s most renowned work, consisting of a collection of stories framed as a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury. The tales are narrated by a diverse group of pilgrims from different social backgrounds, offering a rich portrayal of medieval English society. The stories cover a wide range of genres, including romance, comedy, and tragedy, and explore various themes such as love, morality, and human nature.

#2 Troilus and Criseyde :

• Publish Date: 1380s
• Summary: “Troilus and Criseyde” is a long narrative poem based on the Trojan War. It follows the tragic love affair between Troilus, a Trojan prince, and Criseyde, a Trojan woman. The poem explores themes of love, honor, and the fickleness of fortune. Chaucer’s work presents a nuanced portrayal of the complexities of human emotions and the consequences of one’s choices.

#3 The Book of the Duchess :

• Publish Date: 1369-1372
• Summary: “The Book of the Duchess” is an elegy written in the form of a dream vision. The poem mourns the death of Blanche, the wife of John of Gaunt’s first wife. It showcases Chaucer’s poetic skill and explores themes of grief, love, and the passage of time. The dream-like narrative incorporates elements of allegory and classical mythology.

#4 The Parliament of Fowls :

• Publish Date: Late 14th century
• Summary: “The Parliament of Fowls” is a poetic work that uses a dream framework to depict a parliament of birds gathering to choose their mates on Valentine’s Day. The poem explores themes of love, desire, and the complexities of romantic relationships. It also contains subtle social commentary and satirical elements.

#5 The Legend of Good Women :

• Summary: “The Legend of Good Women” is a collection of narratives in verse that celebrate the virtues and stories of various legendary women from history and mythology. Chaucer originally planned to include several more tales, but the work remains unfinished. The poem engages with themes of love, fidelity, and the representation of women in literature.

These works, along with Chaucer’s other poems and shorter compositions, contribute to his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of the Middle Ages. Chaucer’s innovative use of vernacular English and his insightful characterization continue to captivate readers and scholars, making him a significant figure in the development of English literature.

Social class: Chaucer’s works often examine the social hierarchy of medieval society and the relationships between people of different social classes.

Love and romance: Chaucer’s works frequently explore the theme of love, including romantic love, courtly love, and love of God.

Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works :- Religion and morality: Chaucer’s works often address religious and moral issues, such as the role of the church in society, the importance of living a virtuous life, and the consequences of sin.

Gender roles: Chaucer’s works often challenge traditional gender roles and expectations, particularly in his portrayal of female characters.

Chaucer’s writing style is characterized by its use of vivid characterization, intricate plots, and use of language. He was a master of different literary genres, including poetry, prose, and satire, and his works reflect his deep knowledge of classical literature and his love of language.

Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works :- Chaucer’s poetry is known for its use of Middle English, which was the language spoken in England in the Middle Ages. His use of language is often rich and ornate, and he uses metaphor and symbolism to convey his ideas. Chaucer was also skilled in using humor and satire to critique contemporary society

Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works (Career, Themes and Politics) Geoffrey Chaucer was a prolific writer and one of the most important figures in English literature. His works, including The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Book of the Duchess, are considered seminal works of English literature, and his influence on the development of the English language and literature is significant. Chaucer’s writing style is characterized by its use of vivid characterization, intricate plots, and use of language. He was a master of different literary genres, including poetry, prose, and satire, and his works continue to be studied and appreciated today for their psychological depth and nuanced character portrayal, and for their portrayal of medieval life and society.

FAQ. Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works  

Q: what is geoffrey chaucer most famous for.

A: Geoffrey Chaucer is most famous for his work The Canterbury Tales, which is a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on their way to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.

Q: What language did Geoffrey Chaucer write in?

A: Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in Middle English, which was the language spoken in England in the Middle Ages.

Q: What was Geoffrey Chaucer’s most important contribution to English literature?

A: Geoffrey Chaucer’s most important contribution to English literature was his use of the vernacular English language in his works, which helped to establish English as a literary language in its own right.

Q: When was Geoffrey Chaucer born?

A: Geoffrey Chaucer was born around 1343, although the exact date is not known.

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• World Biography

Geoffrey Chaucer Biography

Born: c. 1345 London, England Died: October 1400 London, England English poet, author, and courtier

Called the father of English poetry, Geoffrey Chaucer is ranked as one of the greatest poets of the late Middle Ages (C. E. 476 c.–1500). He was admired for his philosophy as well as for his poetic talents. His best-known works are The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde.

Early years and marriage

The exact date and place of Geoffrey Chaucer's birth are not known. The evidence suggests, however, that he was born about 1345, or a year or two earlier, in his father's house located on Thames Street, London, England. It is likely that young Geoffrey attended school at St. Paul's Cathedral, and that he was introduced to great writing and the poetry of Virgil (70–19 B.C.E. ) and Ovid (43 B.C.E. –? C. E.).

The first historical record of Chaucer reveals that in 1357 he was a page (a young boy in the service of a knight) in the household of the Countess of Ulster, the wife of Prince Lionel. During 1359–1360 Chaucer was in France with Prince Lionel (1338–1368). This was during the period of the Hundred Years' War (1137–1453) between England and France. Chaucer was taken prisoner. The English King Edward III (1312–1377) paid a ransom for his release.

Early poetry and continued diplomatic missions

The year 1369 marked a turning point both in the fortunes of England and in the career of young Chaucer. John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, asked Chaucer to compose a memorial poem, written in English, to be recited at the Mass for his deceased wife. Prior to 1369 poetry in the English court had been written in French. French was the natural language of both the king and his queen. It is possible that he had written his English devotional poem, "An A B C," which is a translation from a French source, for the queen at some time before her death. The theme of his poem, The Book of the Duchess, which was written for intellectual and sophisticated people, was a fitting memorial to one of the highest-ranking ladies of the English royal household.

Chaucer was sent abroad on diplomatic missions in 1370 and again in 1372–1373. The latter mission took him to Florence and Genoa, Italy. There he may have deepened his acquaintance with the poetic traditions established by Dante (1265–1321) and Petrarch (1304–1374).

Times were good for Chaucer and Philippa because they were economically secure. John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, gave Chaucer a yearly salary of ten pounds, the normal income for a squire in an aristocratic or distinguished household. The king appointed Chaucer a position as controller (chief accounting officer) of taxes on wools, skins, and hides in the port of London. This position brought ten pounds annually and a bonus of ten marks. The City of London granted Chaucer a free residence above Aldgate. He remained at Aldgate until 1386, though he went abroad several times on diplomatic missions for King Edward, who died in 1377, and for King Richard II (1367–1400). In 1382 Chaucer was made controller of taxes on wine and other goods with the right to employ a deputy.

Troilus and Criseyde

While he was living above Aldgate, Chaucer completed his translation of Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius (c. 480–524), a Roman philosopher, whose phrases and ideas repeat throughout Chaucer's poetry. He also probably composed some short poems and Troilus and Criseyde, a tragedy. This long poem is set against the background of the Trojan War and is based on an earlier poem by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375), an Italian poet.

Chaucer lost his positions at the custom house in 1386 and moved to a residence in Kent, England. He served as a Member of Parliament from Kent. It is likely that Philippa died in 1387. Chaucer received his highest position, the clerkship of the royal works, in 1389. He served as clerk until he resigned in 1391. For a time thereafter he served as deputy forester for the royal forest at North Petherton, England. The king granted him a pension of twenty pounds in 1394, and in 1397 an annual cask of wine was added to this grant. King Henry IV (1553–1610) renewed and increased these grants in 1399.

The Canterbury Tales

Between 1387 and 1400 Chaucer must have devoted much time to the writing of his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer gives his tale of pilgrimage, or journey to a sacred site, national suggestions by directing it toward the shrine of St. Thomas Becket (c. 1118–1170), a citizen of London and a national hero. The humor is sometimes very subtle, but it is also often broad and out-spoken.

His original plan for The Canterbury Tales called for two tales each from over twenty pilgrims (people who travel to a holy site) making a journey from Southwark, England, to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury, England, and back. He later modified the plan to write only one tale from each pilgrim on the road to Canterbury, but even this plan was never completed. The tales survive in groups connected by prologues (introductions) and epilogues (conclusions), but the proper arrangement of these groups is not altogether clear. The series is introduced in a "General Prologue" that describes the pilgrimage and the pilgrims taking part in it.

Life after Canterbury Tales

In addition to the translation and major works mentioned, Chaucer wrote a number of shorter poems and translated at least part of Roman de la rose, a late medieval French poem by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. Chaucer's interests also included science. He prepared a translation of a Latin article on the use of the astrolabe, an instrument for finding the latitude of the sun and planets. He may also have been the translator of a work concerning the use of an equatorium, an instrument for calculating the positions of the planets.

In December 1399 Chaucer retired and leased a house in the garden of Westminster Abbey, London. In October 1400 Chaucer died.

For More Information

Bloom, Harold, ed. Geoffrey Chaucer. New York: Chelsea House, 1999.

Childress, Diana. Chaucer's England. North Haven, CT: Linnet Books, 2000.

Chute, Marchette G. Geoffrey Chaucer of England. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1946.

Wagenknecht, Edward. The Personality of Chaucer. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968.

User Contributions:

Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic:.

to Chaucer and at      Geoffrey Chaucer: A Biography Geoffrey chaucer 1343-1400. Geoffrey Chaucer stands as the great giant of English poetry. His verse is still read and enjoyed today and often adapted for theatre performances. It is full of characters, still recognisable as types we encounter in daily life in spite of having been inspired by people Chaucer observed more than seven hundred years ago. There is a freshness in Chaucer’s poetry. His characters act their lives out in every conceivable human situation from the deeply serious to the crude, belly laughing comical. His stories are both funny and thought-provoking: people caught in sexual mix-ups; two young knights fighting to the death for the love of a beautiful young woman; a badly behaved young knight travelling the country on a desperate quest to find the answer to a question that will save his life and learning a great lesson; the tragic love story of Tristan the son of the Trojan king, and the beautiful young Isolde; young wives giving their old husbands the slip to sleep with handsome young suitors. The list of human tales goes on indefinitely, and all of them still appealing to the modern reader. If a writer can connect with a readership seven centuries after his death he is most certainly a great writer. Geoffrey Chaucer led an eventful, exciting life, by any standards. He is known to us as a poet and, indeed, he has the distinction of being the first poet to be buried in poet’s corner in Westminster Abbey , but that was, to him, not much more than an interest. He was an immensely, multi, talented man with a long and very successful full-time career as a diplomat. He was also a philosopher, astronomer and alchemist. In his own time Chaucer would have been far better known as a diplomat than a poet. He was greatly valued by Edward III. During the Hundred Years War, Chaucer was on a mission to Rhiems in 1360, when he was captured. The King paid a £16 ransom, which was worth a few hundred thousand dollars in today’s currency, to get him back. Geoffrey Chaucer portrait Chaucer was deeply immersed in public life and he established a family tradition of that, his son, Thomas rising to distinguished heights, including the position of Speaker of the House of Commons. While pursuing his career, Chaucer was writing his poems and reading them aloud at court, no doubt amid great laughter. His most famous work is The Canterbury Tales , a series of fictional tales related by pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, and part of its fame and importance is that it was revolutionary as an English literary work. It is not only written in vernacular English but its characters talk in a naturalistic way, according to their class and background – something unknown in English literature until this moment. The narrators of the stories talk in a way fitted to their characters and states of life rather than in stylised conventional language. Readings of such verse would have been immensely engaging and the language offered opportunities for humour. Chaucer had many jobs during his life – soldier, messenger, valet, administrator, clerk etc. – and had observed colleagues in all of these areas, allowing him to portray them convincingly in his tales. Chaucer’s influence on English literature is one thing; he also had an enormous influence on the development of the English language. This is clear when one looks at other English texts of his time, which are almost unrecognisable as English while his are fairly easily comprehensible to the modern reader. In using language the way he did he pointed the way forward. Read more about England’s top writers >> Read biographies of the 30 greatest writers ever >> My greatest among all writers the Pardoner’s tale embodies all what life is all about Leave a Reply Leave a reply cancel reply. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer, his Life and his Minor Works Geoffrey Chaucer was an English Poet, writer and philosopher who lived between 1343-1400. He is best known as the author of the Canterbury Tales , but this video is going to explore his lesser-known poems, often referred to as his 'Minor Works.' These works include The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, Anelida and Arcite, The Parliament of Fowls, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Legend of Good Women (which doesn’t survive in its entirety). Geoffrey Chaucer didn’t make his living as a writer (since publishing, as we know it, wasn’t even a thing yet), but he was held in high esteem as a poet by his noble patrons. He knew many languages including English, French, Latin and Italian. He translated a number of different works and established Middle English as a respectable language to compose literature in during the medieval period rather than the traditional French and Latin. We have much to thank Geoffrey Chaucer for, including the English words amble, bribe, femininity, plumage, and twitter, the rhyming stanza called the rhyme royal, and his most popular work, The Canterbury Tales. During Chaucer’s lifetime, his works were popular! They were written out and copied by scribes, as close as they could come to publishing literary works at that time, and after his death in 1400 CE, his popularity and audience continued to grow. When he died, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, and was the first to be laid to rest in the famous Poet's Corner of the abbey where many great writers and poets have been buried and memorialized since. — ATTRIBUTIONS — You can find all attribution and credits for images, animations, graphics and music here - https://worldhistory.typehut.com/introduction-to-geoffrey-chaucer-his-life-and-his-minor-works-images-and-attributions-5481 — MUSIC — 41-There-Were-Three-Young-Ladies-FULL-SM440 Greg Joy (SOCAN) https://download.audiohero.com/# !details?id=23208251 — THUMBNAIL IMAGE — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brown-The_Seeds_and_Fruits_of_English_Poetry.jpg Ford Maddox Brown Public domain About the Author Related Content Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales Egyptian Gods - The Complete List Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess Full Text & Summary The Life of Diogenes of Sinope in Diogenes Laertius Enuma Elish - The Babylonian Epic of Creation - Full Text License & copyright. Original video by Kelly Macquire . Embedded by Kelly Macquire , published on 17 July 2021. Please check the original source(s) for copyright information. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. Cite This Work Macquire, K. (2021, July 17). Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer, his Life and his Minor Works . World History Encyclopedia . Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/video/2601/introduction-to-geoffrey-chaucer-his-life-and-his/ Chicago Style Macquire, Kelly. " Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer, his Life and his Minor Works ." World History Encyclopedia . Last modified July 17, 2021. https://www.worldhistory.org/video/2601/introduction-to-geoffrey-chaucer-his-life-and-his/. Macquire, Kelly. " Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer, his Life and his Minor Works ." World History Encyclopedia . World History Encyclopedia, 17 Jul 2021. Web. 29 Sep 2024. Geoffrey Chaucer Biography Born In: London, England Recommended For You Died At Age: 60 Spouse/Ex-: Philippa Roet father: John Chaucer mother: Agnes Copton children: Elizabeth Chaucer, Thomas Chaucer Poets British Men Died on: October 25 , 1400 place of death: London, England City: London, England You wanted to know What is geoffrey chaucer known for. Geoffrey Chaucer is known for being considered the "Father of English literature" and for writing "The Canterbury Tales," a collection of stories set within a framing narrative of a group of pilgrims traveling to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury. What was the historical context in which Geoffrey Chaucer wrote? Geoffrey Chaucer lived during the Middle Ages in England, a time of great political, social, and religious change. He served in various roles at the royal court and was influenced by the events and culture of his time. What were some of the themes explored in Geoffrey Chaucer's works? Geoffrey Chaucer's works often explore themes such as love, marriage, social class, gender roles, and religious hypocrisy. He used satire and humor to comment on the society and values of his time. How did Geoffrey Chaucer's writing style influence English literature? Geoffrey Chaucer's writing style, characterized by his use of vernacular Middle English and realistic character portrayals, had a significant impact on the development of English literature. His work helped establish English as a literary language. What is the significance of "The Canterbury Tales?" "The Canterbury Tales" is considered a landmark work in English literature for its portrayal of a diverse group of characters and its exploration of various aspects of medieval society. It remains a classic example of storytelling and social commentary. Recommended Lists: Geoffrey Chaucer was a multitalented individual who not only wrote poetry but also served as a diplomat, civil servant, and astronomer during his lifetime. Chaucer was the first poet to be buried in what is now known as Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, a prestigious resting place for renowned literary figures. Despite being known as the "Father of English literature," Chaucer was also a bit of a rebel, as he was once fined for beating a Franciscan friar in a street altercation. Chaucer had a diverse range of interests and influences, drawing inspiration from various cultures and languages, which contributed to the richness and depth of his work. See the events in life of Geoffrey Chaucer in Chronological Order How To Cite People Also Viewed Also Listed In © Famous People All Rights Reserved Geoffrey Chaucer Early life and education, political career, personal life and death, some important facts about him, literary career, some important works of geoffrey chaucer, geoffrey chaucer’s impact on future literature, famous quotes, related posts:, post navigation. 145 COMMENTS Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (born c. 1342/43, London?, England—died October 25, 1400, London) was the outstanding English poet before Shakespeare and "the first finder of our language." His The Canterbury Tales ranks as one of the greatest poetic works in English. He also contributed importantly in the second half of the 14th century to the management of public affairs as a courtier, diplomat, and ... Geoffrey Chaucer The legendary 14th century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer died October 25, 1400 in London, England. He died of unknown causes and was 60 years old at the time. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey. Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (/ ˈ tʃ ɔː s ər / CHAW-sər; c. 1343 - 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. [1] He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". [2] He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. [3] Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (l. c. 1343-1400 CE) was a medieval English poet, writer, and philosopher best known for his work The Canterbury Tales, a masterpiece of world literature. The Canterbury Tales is a work of poetry featuring a group of pilgrims from different social classes on a journey to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury who agree to tell each other stories to pass the time. Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer was born between the years 1340-1345, the son of John and Agnes (de Copton) Chaucer. Chaucer was descended from two generations of wealthy vintners who had everything but a title and in 1357 Chaucer began pursuing a position at court. ... Known as the first English author, Chaucer wrote in English at a time when Latin was ... Geoffrey Chaucer Biography Geoffrey Chaucer Biography. Geoffrey Chaucer occupies a unique position in the Middle Ages. He was born a commoner, but through his intellect and astute judgments of human character, he moved freely among the aristocracy. Although very little is definitely known about the details of his life, Chaucer was probably born shortly after 1340. About Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer - Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London sometime between 1340 and 1344 to. ... In 1359, Chaucer joined the English army's invasion of France during the Hundred Years' War and was taken prisoner; King Edward III of England paid his ransom in 1360. In 1366, Chaucer married Philipa de Roet, who was a lady-in-waiting to Edward ... Life of Chaucer For a good brief life of Chaucer see that by Martin Crow and Virginia Leland in The Riverside Chaucer, pp. xv-xxvi, and, slightly altered, in The Canterbury Tales Complete pp. xiii-xxv. For an excellent full treatment see Derek A. Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A critical biography (Oxford, 1992) [PR 1905.P43 1992]. Geoffrey Chaucer Biography Geoffrey Chaucer Biography "Truth is the highest thing that man may keep." - Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 - October 25, 1400) was an English writer, poet, and philosopher. He is famous for writing Canterbury Tales which were not finished. Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer. Born: c. 1340s, London, England. Died: October 25, 1400 (aged 56-57), London, England. Notable Works: The Canterbury Tales, The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, Troilus and Criseyde. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s - 25 October 1400) was an English author and poet, most known for his The ... Geoffrey Chaucer Biography Geoffrey Chaucer is known as the "Father of English Literature". He was a medieval English poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, and diplomat. He was born around 1343 in London. Chaucer's life coincided with a period of significant social, political, and cultural upheaval in England. His literary contributions, particularly "The Canterbury ... The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer License: CC-BY-SA 3. Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London c. 1340 to John Chaucer, a London wine merchant, and his wife Agnes. John and Agnes owned a house on Upper Thames Street which stands today between London Bridge and Monument Stations. John Chaucer supplied wine to King Edward III's court and through this royal contact the young ... Geoffrey Chaucer Biography Geoffrey Chaucer Biography. G eoffrey Chaucer, now considered English literary royalty, did not have such lofty beginnings. He was born into a family of winemakers and merchants sometime in the ... Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works (Career, Themes Geoffrey Chaucer Biography and Works (Career, Themes and Politics) Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 - 1400) is widely regarded as one of the greatest English poets of the Middle Ages. His works, including The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Book of the Duchess, are considered seminal works of English literature. Geoffrey Chaucer Biography Geoffrey Chaucer Biography. Born: c. 1345 London, England Died: October 1400 London, England English poet, author, and courtier Called the father of English poetry, Geoffrey Chaucer is ranked as one of the greatest poets of the late Middle Ages (C. E. 476 c.-1500). He was admired for his philosophy as well as for his poetic talents. Geoffrey Chaucer 1721 edition of "The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer". Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-25 October 1400) was an English writer, poet, and philosopher. He is most famous for writing Canterbury Tales which had 24 stories but was not completed. He was one of the first writers to write in English. He wrote in Middle English. The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) [Chaucer Biography] GEOFFREY CHAUCER, English poet. The name Chaucer, a French form of the Latin calcearius, a shoemaker, is found in London and the eastern counties as early as the second half of the 13th century.Some of the London Chaucers lived in Cordwainer Street, in the shoemakers' quarter; several of them, however, were vintners, and among others the poet's father John, and probably also his grandfather ... Geoffrey Chaucer Overview: A Biography Of Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer 1343-1400. Geoffrey Chaucer stands as the great giant of English poetry. His verse is still read and enjoyed today and often adapted for theatre performances. It is full of characters, still recognisable as types we encounter in daily life in spite of having been inspired by people Chaucer observed more than seven hundred years ... Introduction to Geoffrey Chaucer, his Life and his Minor Works Geoffrey Chaucer was an English Poet, writer and philosopher who lived between 1343-1400. He is best known as the author of the Canterbury Tales, but this video is going to explore his lesser-known poems, often referred to as his 'Minor Works.'These works include The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, Anelida and Arcite, The Parliament of Fowls, Troilus and Criseyde, and The Legend of ... Geoffrey Chaucer Biography Geoffrey Chaucer, hailed as the Father of English literature, was the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. He was also the first poet to be buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. Chaucer was also famous as an author, philosopher, alchemist and astronomer. He also had an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier ... Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the father of English literature, stands out in the world of literature because he was really smart and clever. His special writings give us a peek into how people talked, lived, and wrote in his time. Even today, his works connect with our world. He wrote stories in poems, with his big masterpiece being The ... The Miller's Tale Illustration of Robin the Miller, from The Miller's Tale, playing a bagpipe "The Miller's Tale" (Middle English: The Milleres Tale) is the second of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1380s-1390s), told by the drunken miller Robin to "quite" (a Middle English term meaning requite or pay back, in both good and negative ways) "The Knight's Tale".The Miller's Prologue is the first "quite ... Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer in un'illustrazione su History of England - Century Edition di Cassel, 1902. Le informazioni biografiche su Geoffrey Chaucer sono molto scarse. Sappiamo che egli nacque nel 1343 a Londra da un mercante di vini, e visse al servizio di tre re (Edoardo III, Riccardo II ed Enrico IV). È noto inoltre che tra il 1368 e il 1378 egli venne in Italia, dove conobbe i testi di Petrarca ... assignment essay homework phd report resume review speech thesis