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Geoffrey Chaucer. His World His life & Influences His most famous work, The Canterbury Tales. His World:. What was going on?. Rise of the Towns Introduction of Money Emergence of a new social class: Middle or Mercantile Wealth & corruption of the church
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Geoffrey Chaucer • His World • His life & Influences • His most famous work, The Canterbury Tales
His World: What was going on? • Rise of the Towns • Introduction of Money • Emergence of a new social class: Middle or Mercantile • Wealth & corruption of the church • Effect of the Plague: “the death knell of feudalism”
Chaucer’s Life Father was a wine merchant: part of the rising middle class Became a page in an aristocratic household Occupations include diplomat, member of parliament, & customs official Career gave him the opportunity to travel Died 1400 (1st in Poet’s Corner)
Literary Influences • Mastered Latin, French, and Italian • Translated literary works • Aware of French and Italian literary models, particularly Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio • Gentleness and cheerfulness prevail in his verse • Innocent narrator • “The Father of English Literature”
The Canterbury Tales Modeled on Boccaccio’s Decameron Story of a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral A frame story: device of a pilgrimage throws diverse people together: The Ship of Fools Everything from hypocrisy to holiness Representative view of 14th century English society: The Feudal Group (also Agricultural) The Middle Class (or Mercantile) The Ecclesiastical (or Church) Group
The Frame Story: a story within a story The Frame: the Prologue 29 pilgrims meet at the Tabard Inn The tales the pilgrims tell en route (24 in all) The Inside of the Frame: Individual Tales The host, Harry Bailey, proposes a story-telling contest
Chaucer’s language: Chose to write in English: Affected the entire course of the English language: Added to the prestige and use of English over Latin and French Known as Middle English (2nd stage of development of the English language: Old, Middle, New)
Singular Plural Nominative se dæg tha dagas Accusative thone dæg tha dagas Genitive thæs dæges thara daga Dative thæm dæge thæm dagum Instrumental thy dæge thæm dagum Old English Noun Declension
What happened? Several things happened to change English at the time of the Norman Conquest: French became the official written language, and English became the unofficial, spoken language. Effect of this? RADICAL, swift change “To the victor belongs the spoils.” William the Conqueror
How did English after the Norman Conquest? • Endings of Anglo-Saxon words were dropped • Vocabulary doubles in size (this is how we get LATIN in our language) • Inflection was greatly reduced or leveled • WORD ORDER BECOMES IMPORTANT! • Loss of grammatical gender • Archaic letters drop out
Singular Plural Nominative se dæg tha dagas Accusative thone dæg tha dagas Genitive thæs dæges thara daga Dative thæm dæge thæm dagum Instrumental thy dæge thæm dagum Old English Noun Declension All of this
Became. . . Singular: Plural: Nominative/ Accusative:the day the dayes Genitive: the dayes in Middle English
The Prologuein Middle English Whan that Aprill with his shoures sooteThe droghte of March hath perced to the roote,And bathed every veyne in swich licourOf which vertu engendred is the flour;Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breethInspired hath in every holt and heethThe tendre croppes, and the yonge sonneHath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;And specially from every shires endeOf Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,The hooly blisful martir for to seke,That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
