Chaucer, Geoffrey (c. 1343–1400)

Geoffrey Chaucer was among the foremost poets of late-medieval England. Having been, among other things, a soldier, ambassador, and customs agent, he was also a man of letters who found time to keep abreast of literary developments at home and abroad. Appreciated by 15th-century readers as a moralist, Chaucer appeals to modern audiences largely because of his lively storytelling and judicious insights about human nature.

Chaucer's poetry reveals his acute interest in time, evident even in his choice of poetic genres. Although they focus primarily on love relationships in the manner of the medieval historical romance, Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and the Knight's Tale from the Canterbury Tales are clearly indebted to the epic, set as they are in the remote eras of the Trojan War and the siege of Thebes. Time is no mere abstraction in Chaucer; nor is it simply a feature of the background of his narratives. His antique settings in the aforementioned two works complement the aristocratic status and the idealized, heroic behavior of his characters as well. Very different are the Miller's Tale and Reeve's Tale: as examples of the fabliau, these stories feature coarse characters, scatological humor and frequent deception, and unfold in the narrator's present, a world apart from the epic past. Their peculiar form of entertainment depends on immediacy of action and fast-paced storytelling in the here and now.

Partial or complete sources or analogues can be found for many of Chaucer's works, originality not having been as prized in the Middle Ages as it is in our own day. Despite his frequent debts to earlier and near-contemporary works of literature, however, the poet also saw a good deal of life itself. Born in London in the early 1340s, Geoffrey Chaucer may have attended one of the schools in the district near the River Thames where his father would have plied his trade as a vintner. He also served, possibly as a page, in the court of Elizabeth de Burgh, Countess of Ulster, an opportunity likely brought about by his father's influence as a wealthy wine merchant. Before he was 20 years old he gained firsthand experience, while in the army of King Edward III under Prince Lionel, Elizabeth's husband, of what historians call the Hundred Years' War between France and England (1337–1453). His military years marked the beginning of a varied career as a civil servant. Indeed, it was his service in three royal administrations, not his brilliance as a poet, that led to his being buried in Westminster Abbey in 1400. He was married to Philippa (de) Roet, and one of his children, Thomas, enjoyed an even more brilliant public career than his own.

It is tempting to assume that his political connections and involvement in matters of state must have spurred Chaucer to make overt references to his times. This assumption would be incorrect, however, as the poet seldom mentions significant contemporary events. Whether in his short lyrics or in his longer works, explicit “timeliness” is rare, though his avoidance of topicality also makes it relatively easy for modern readers to enjoy his poetry for its lyrical or narrative qualities.

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