chaucer Flashcards
Info on Chaucer’s life is often frustrating because
much is known about his professional life, but little is “known” about his personal life and his career as a poet.
Chaucer’s parents were wine merchants and held minor court positions;
therefore, he maintained a role at court.
He was born into a “rising mercantile family,” part of a growing bourgeois class that brought much wealth to England,
while disrupting the old model of medieval social order (the three classes: aristocrats (fighting class); clergy (praying class); and peasants (working class)
He served under three (3) kings:
Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV.
He was superbly but typically educated,
“probably” attending one of London’s fine grammar schools and later studying law at at one of the Inns of Court.
Chaucer’s poems reflect a vast reading in classical
Latin, French, and Italian (he was among the earliest English readers of these)
He traveled frequently to France during his lifetime
and made at least two trips to Italy.
He married “up” – a woman of a higher social status than he – Her name:
Philippa de Roet, a minor Flemish noblewoman whose sister later became mistress, then wife, of Chaucer’s great patron, John of Gaunt.
Chaucer wore different “hats”:
soldier, courtier, diplomat, and government official in a wide range of jobs, several of them lucrative.
His frequent work overseas extended his contacts
with French and Italian literature (great influences on his work).
His personal fortunes were affected by frequent struggles between
King Richard and his magnates.
Peasants Revolt of 1381 rocked English society.
(Peasants revolted for better pay and working/living conditions and were aided by some “renegade” priests. Of course, the king’s army put them down in short order, but they had “made a statement.”
1380: Chaucer was accused of X
1380: Chaucer was accused of raptus (rape in legal language—much “nervous” scholarship has resulted about this) by Cecilia Chaumpaigne, daughter of a London baker
What is known: the case was quickly
settled and hushed up at quite high levels of government.
He has been called a Janus-faced poet
: innovative at the levels of language and theme yet deeply involved with literary and intellectual styles that stretched back to Latin antiquity and 12th-13thcentury France. (foreign influences further evidenced)
Genres he perfected:
estates satire, dream visions, romance, fabliaux, exemplum (sermon), beast fable.
Specific foreign influences on Chaucer’s work:
Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch (Italian) and Deschamps and Machaut (French).
With his reliance on the English vernacular,
he became a major literary figure with the likes of William Langland and the Pearl poet.
Chaucer’s New & Disruptive Perspectives: Role of Women and the emerging Middle Class (248)
important fact
CT are preserved on the famous
Ellesmere Manuscript
Literally about a pilgrimage
TRUE
Its greatness lies in its exploration of the variousness of the journey
and that journey’s reflection of a world pressured by spiritual and moral fractures.
Based loosely on Boccacio’s Decameron (tale of a pilgrimage of 10)
TRUE
Unlike Dante,
Chaucer is non-judgemental—at least he is not “openly” judgemental
CT contains a parade of opposites: profound religious belief vs. squalid clerical corruption, for example
true
CT exhibits multiple vocabularies:
Anglo-Saxon, Latin, French
CTcasts doubt on such
solid social institutions as marriage and religious ones like penance.
A ther was, a wantown and mery, a lymtour, a ful solempne man.
FRIAR
He wore a coat of green and peacock-feathered arrows bright and keen and neetly sheathed, hung at his belt the while
YEOMAN
There was also a ______, a ________. That of hir smyling was ful simpie and coy, Hire gretteste ooth was but by Seinte Loy
NUN/PRIORESS
A lovere and a lusty bacheler with locks as currly as they are pressed. He was twenty years of age
SQUIRE
A _____ ther was, and that a worthy man, That fro the time that he first began, to riden out he loved chivalrye
KNIGHT
Robin he was cleped
MILLER
She was gap-teeth, set widely , large hips, and was hard of hearing in one ear.
THE WIFE OF BATH
He had a forked beard and wore a beaver hat
MERCHANT
He wore a tabard smock and rode a mare. He tithed like he was suppose to
PLOWMAN
of his visage children were aferd
SUMMONER
He could distinguish London Ale by flavour
COOK
He wore a dagger around his neck on a lanyard, swinging free
SHIPMAN
He was grounded in astronomye
DOCTOR
These five were “all in of one impressive guild-fraternity”. They were so trim and fresh their gear would pass as new.
Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Tapestry Maker
He had a white beard and loved to sop his morning cake with wine, Epicurus very son
FRANKLIN
A learned man rich in holy thought and work
PARSON
Purchaser of food or caterers might follow his example
MANCIPAL
He had a store of treasure well tucked away, he rode a Stallion by the name of Scot
REEVE
He had a buldging eyeballs like a hare, his waller lay before him on his lap
PARDONER
He was less busy than he seemed to be. He knew of every judgement, case and crime, Every recorded since King Williams time.
LAWYER
His horse was thinner than a rake, He was not too fat
CLERK
a secretary
NUN’s NUN
A manly man who owned many dainty horses
MONK
His eyes were bright, his girth a little wide
HOST
Chaucer promises three but only delivers one
PRIESTS
What season of the year is celebrated
SPRING
most significant invention
printing press
1st book published English
Morte De Arthur
What does Chaucer translate
Roman de la Rose- French
Chaucers benifactor
John of Gaunt
Legend of a Good Woman
Chaucer made the queen mad.
How do other writers make a living.
Had a Patron. wrote for their celebrations
Chaucers language
iambic pentameter
Best looking pilgrim
Squire
Brother of the Priest
Plowman
Holy Man
Parson
clergy
nuns priest, second nun, pardoner, monk
pardoner
love of money is root of all evils
influences of middle english
germanic, latin , french
