我对杰弗里乔叟的评论 My Comment on Geoffrey Chaucer

姓名：钱勇       班级：09级英语本科二班   学号：19

My Comment on Geoffrey Chaucer

1. His life

Geoffrey Chaucer, a great narrative poet, is thought of as “Father of English Poetry”. He was born in a well-to-do wine merchant’s family in London and studied at Oxford and Cambridge.

In 1359, he joined in the Hundred Years War and went with the English army to France, and in 1367 he began to serve in the government. King Edward III sent him on several diplomatic trips to Europe and stayed for some time in France and Italy.

In 1386, he was elected Member of Parliament, but lost that post soon, due to the maneuvers of his enemies. He had some difficult time. In 1389, he was made Clerk of the King’s Works at Westminster and Windsor. He was admired by Henry IV, who issued him a pension.

After Geoffrey Chaucer died, he was buried in the Westminster Abbey. The place became the famous Poets’ Corner.

Geoffrey Chaucer was a creative author. His creative work reflected the changes which had taken place in English culture sine the second half of the 14th century. During that, the foundation of the feudal system was challenged by people’s insurrections like the 1381 peasant uprising. In religion, the glory of the Catholic Church was also on the wane. Chaucer’s creative career is usually divided into three phases:

?      The phase of French influence

?      The phase of Italian influence

?      The English phase

The phase of realism, in which his masterpiece, the Canterbury tales was created.

2. His works

  His major work is Canterbury Tales. In this work, Chaucer presents a picturesque panorama of his contemporary England and shows his realistic tendency, subtle irony and freedom of views, all of which had no equal in the English literature before the 16th century. Although Chaucer is not entirely free from medieval prejudices, they take a very inconsiderable place in the tales. He praises man’s energy, intellect, quick wit and the love for life, and mocks at the Roman Catholic authorities who exploit the English people. All these mark him as an avant-grade of the coming Age of Renaissance in England.  

3. His contributions 

  Geoffrey Chaucer learnt from both French and Latin poetry and then worked out a unique style for the English poetry that had absorbed nourishments from the more advanced European poetry of the time and at the same time reserved its Anglo-Saxon poetic features. And the realism and humanity concerns demonstrated in his works looked forward to the coming English Renaissance.

  His literary career was also closely related with the development of English. There were several dialects in the spoken English of Chaucer’s time. But because he used the English of the London dialect to compose poetry, it became a literary language that is a language rich and expressive enough to use for literary purposes. Today, we call the English used and developed by Chaucer and his contemporaries Middle English, which was the foundation of modern English.