The Life and Poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer

The Life and Poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer

William Caxton, the inventor of the printing press, described Geoffrey Chaucer as, “the worshipful father and first founder and embellisher of ornate eloquence in our English” and two hundred years later John Dryden called him, “the father of English poetry” (Halliday 7). Other than William Shakespeare, many consider Chaucer to be one of the greatest English poets of all time. By looking at Chaucer’s life and his poetry, one can see how Chaucer exemplified life in medieval England in his works.

It is believed that Chaucer was born somewhere around 1340 even though the actual date of his birth is unknown. The name Chaucer is a French name which means “shoemaker” (Halliday 8). Chaucer was born during the reign of Edward III which was one of the busiest times in London’s history. It was also the time of the Black Plague, but Chaucer at the young age of eight was lucky to escape the plague because he was in Southampton where his father was Deputy to the King’s Butler (Halliday 21). We don’t know where he went to school, but we do know that in 1357, he was in the service of Elizabeth, the Countess of Ulster and he met his wife, Phillipa de Roet in 1366, who was in the service of Queen Phillipa (Halliday 30). Before he met his wife, Chaucer served Edward III in one of the battles of the Hundred Years War in 1359. He was captured and taken for ransom, and Edward III himself paid Chaucer’s ransom of sixteen pounds (Liukkonoen n. pag.). In the next twenty years, Chaucer would experience the death of his father and mother, the birth of his two sons, and serving a post as a Member of Parliament (Liukkoneon n. pag.). Before his death in 1400, Chaucer began The Canterbury Tales in 1387. However, he died before completing the project but nevertheless completed a great deal of the work. The Canterbury Tales is considered one of the greatest literary achievements in English literature.

The Canterbury...