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The Canterbury Tales.
Geoffrey Chaucer.
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Geoffrery Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales.
ContentsPurchase the entire Coradella Collegiate Bookshelf on CD at
http://collegebookshelf.net
About the author
Geoffrey Chaucer (ca.1343-
1400) was an English author, philoso-
pher, diplomat, and poet, and is best
known and remembered as the au-
thor of The Canterbury Tales. He is
sometimes credited with being the
first author to demonstrate the artistic
legitimacy of the English language.
He was a contemporary of Giovanni Boccaccio and Christine de
Pizan. Although born as a son of a vintner, he became a page at the
court of Edward III of England. He was in the service of first Eliza-
beth de Burgh, Countess of Ulster, and then Lionel of Antwerp, son of
Edward III. He traveled from England to France, Spain, Flanders, and
Italy (Genoa and Florence), where he came into contact with medieval
continental poetry.
Geoffrey Chaucer
Chaucer married, ca. 1366, Philippa (de) Roet, a lady-in-waiting to
Edward III's queen, Philippa of Hainault and a sister of Katherine
Swynford, who later (ca. 1396) became the third wife of Chaucer's
friend and patron, John of Gaunt.
Chaucer wrote poetry as a diversion from his job as Comptroller of
the Customs for the port of London, and also translated such impor-
tant works as The Romance of the Rose, written in French by Guillaume
de Lorris and enlarged years later by Jean de Meun, and Anicius
Manlius Severinus Boëthius' De consolatione philosophiae. He also
wrote the Parlement of Foules and the House of Fame. However, he's
best known as the writer of Troilus and Criseyde and of The Canter-
bury Tales, a collection of stories (told by fictional pilgrims on the road
to the cathedral at Canterbury) that would help to shape English
literature.
Chaucer's Chanticleer and the Fox was based on a story by Marie
de France. The image shows an outdoor production of the tale