1. Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer

2. Geoffrey Chaucer Often called the father of English Poetry.
Made the English Language respectable.
Well known government official who served under three kings – Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV.
Before Chaucer, most literature was written in Latin and French.

3. Background Worked his way up to become government official.
Captured during the Hundred Years’ War and was important enough to have the king contribute his ransom.
1385 – appointed justice of the peace in the county of Kent and later became a member of Parliament.

4. Writing and Working Wrote for pleasure and personal advancement.
1369- composed The Book of the Duchess in memory of his patron’s wife who had died of the plague.
– wrote several allegorical poems.

5. Italian Influence
The Canterbury Tales was influenced by Chaucer’s time in Italy in 1372 and 1378.
Similar to Giovanni Boccaccio’s collection of tales called Decameron.
The Canterbury Tales are unfinished, but still place Chaucer in the company of Shakespeare and Milton.

6. The Tales
Loved for the humor and his personality that emerges in the poems.
Written in iambic pentameter with rhyming couplets.

7. The Canterbury Tales

8. Background Snapshot of life in the middle ages
Characters are on a pilgrimage
All from different stages and stations in life.
Travel to visit the shrine of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.
Tales begin with a general Prologue – introduces all the characters.

9. Background The narrator – some consider to be Chaucer
Starts at the Tabard Inn in Southwark
Meets twenty nine other pilgrims who are also headed for Canterbury
Host of the Tabard suggests the pilgrims tell their tales to pass the time as they make the long journey.

10. Background The time is April.
Chaucer describes the character using direct and indirect characterization, sharp images, and figurative comparisons.
Descriptions of dress and appearance are revealing of psychological traits.
Fall into three divisions of society – feudal order, the church, and the merchant or professional class.