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 Geoffrey
CHAUCER was born, probably in London, about 1340. His father
and his grandfather belonged to the guild of vintners: of his
early education nothing is known. In 1357 he was a page in the
household of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, 3rd son of Edward III.
Two years afterwards he joined the unsuccessful expedition into
France, in the course of which he was taken prisoner. In 1367
he appears in the records as valet of the King's chamber. In
1372 he was sent on a special mission to Genoa to arrange for
a port aat which Genoese merchandise should be brought into the
country. It is probable that on this occassion he saw Petrarch
at Padua: he may have seen Boccaccio, who was then preparing
lectures on Dante. In 1374 he was made Controller of Customs,
and occupied for twelve years from this date the rooms above
Aldgate. In 1386 he was in Parliament as a knight of the shire
for Kent; where he was a strong supporter of John of Gaunt's
party. With the accession of Richard II, he was for a time in
disfavour, but in 1389 he was appointed Clerk of the King's Works.
During the latter part of his life he occupied a house near Westminster
Abbey on the site now filled by Henry VII's Chapel. He died,
October 25, 1400, and was buried in the south transept of the
Abbey.
Chaucer's early poetry was written under French influences,
his later under Italian. He is known to have translated the Roman
de la Rose, though probably not commonly attributed to him.
From Boccaccio he borrowed the Palamon and Arcite, the
Troilus and Cressida, and the Knight's, the Franklyn's,
the Reeve's, and the Clerk's Tales, the last
of these indirectly through Petrarch. But his racy humour, and
his loving sympathy with the sights and sounds and fragrance
of nature are all his own. The Prologue to the Canterbury
Tales will remain the most popular and most solid basis of
his fame. It was a happy stroke of genius to have seized the
occasion of the yearly pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas,
the champion of spiritual independence, for leaving us his lifelike
portraiture of each phase of social life in the England of the
14th century.
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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