The Life And Times Of Geoffery Chaucer

The Life and Times of Geoffery Chaucer

Writer, official and bureaucrat, as well as the most outstanding English poet before William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer is remembered as the author of Canterbury Tales, which ranks as one of the greatest epic works of world literature. Chaucer made a crucial contribution to English literature in using English at a time when much poetry was written in Anglo-Norman or Latin. Although he spent one of two brief periods of disfavor, Chaucer lived the whole of his life close the centers of English power.

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London. Chaucer was the son of a prosperous wine merchant and deputy to the kings's butler, and his wife Agnes. Little is known of his early education, but his works show that he could read French, Latin, and Italian. In 1359-1360 Chaucer went to France with Edward III's army during the Hundred Years' War. He was captured in the Ardennes and returned to England after the treaty of BrÐ"©tigny in 1360. It it said that during this period he translated from the French the allegory Romaunt of the Rose, which was his first literary work. There is no certain information of his life from 1361 until c.1366, when he married Philippa Roet, the sister of John Gaunt's future wife, and one of Queen Philippa's ladies. Philippa apparently gave him two sons, 'little Lewis', to whom Chaucer addressed A Treatise on the Astrolabe (1391), and Thomas, who was later highly successful in public service. Philippa died in 1387 and Chaucer enjoyed Gaunt's patronage throughout his life. He was in the King's service, held a number of positions at court, and spent some time in Spain.

Between 1367 and 1378 Chaucer made several journeys abroad on diplomatic and commercial missions. It is then that he met Giovanni Boccaccio or Petrarch in pre-Renaissance Italy in 1372-73. And it is said that the example of Dante gave him the idea of writing in the vulgar English rather than in the court French of the day. In 1374 he became a government official at the port of London, holding the post of Comptroller of the Customs and Subside of Wools, Skins, and Tanned Hides. During that time he was charged with rape, but his guilt or innocence has never been determined. In 1380 he paid Cecile Champaigne for withdrawing the suit. In 1385 he lost his employment and rent-free home, and moved to Kent where he was appointed as justice of the peace. He was also elected to Parliament. This was a period of great creativity for Chaucer, during which he produced most of his best poetry, among others Troilus and Cressida (c. 1385), based on a love story by Boccaccio.

When his wife died, Chaucer was sued for debt. Several of his friend were executed by the Merciless Parliament. In 1389 Richard II regained control and Chaucer reentered the service of the crown as Clerk of the King's Works, to upkeep and repair governmental buildings in