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History of English Literature

Notes also the language of the fashionable who cultivated it as a social necessity. We recall here Chaucer’s
Summoner who “wolde speke no word but Latyn” after having drunk “well”! The contribution of
Chaucer towards the standardization and popularization of the English language cannot be over-
estimated. As regards his contribution to English poetry, he has well been characterised as the
father of English poetry. No doubt there were other poets contemporaneous with him Langland,
Gower, and a few more, but Chaucer is as head and shoulders among them as Shakespeare is
among the Elizabethan dramatists. He stands like a majestic oak in a shrubbery. The English prose,
too, was coming to itself. Mandeville’s travelogues and Wyclif s reformative pamphlets give one
a feeling that the English prose was on its way to standardization and popular acclamation. As E.
Albert puts it, “Earlier specimens have been experimental or purely imitative; how, in the works
of Mandeville and MaJo/y, we have prose that is both original and individual. The English prose
is now ripe for a prose style.”
In another way, too, the age of Chaucer stands between the medieval and the modern life. There
was in this age some sort of a minor Renaissance. The dawn of the real Renaissance in England was
yet about two centuries ahead, yet in the age of Chaucer there are signs of growing influence of the
ancients on native literature. Chaucer own poetry was influenced by the Italian writer Boccaccio
(1313-75) and to a lesser extent, Petrarch (1304-74). The frameworks of Boccaccio’s Decameron and
of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales are almost similar. However, it is somewhat doubtful if Chaucer
had read the Italian writer. It was through the work of the two above-named Italian writers that
humanism made its way into-English intellectual culture. Well does Compton-Rickett observe:
“Chaucer’s world is medieval; but beneath his medievalism the leaven of the Renaissance is
already at work.”
Before William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer was the preeminent English poet, and he remains
in the top tier of the English canon. He also was the most significant poet to write in Middle
English.

Did u know? Chaucer was born in the early 1340s to a fairly rich, well-to-do, though not
aristocratic family.
Chaucer's father, John Chaucer, was a vintner and deputy to the king’s butler. His family’s financial
success came from work in the wine and leather businesses, and they had considerable inherited
property in London. Little information exists about Chaucer’s education, but his writings
demonstrate a close familiarity with a number of important books of his contemporaries and of
earlier times (such as Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy). Chaucer likely was fluent in
several languages, including French, Italian, and Latin. Sons of wealthy London merchants could
receive good educations at this time, and there is reason to believe that, if Chaucer did not attend
one of the schools on Thames Street near his boyhood home, then he was at least well-educated at
home. Certainly his work showcases a passion for reading a huge range of literature, classical and
modern.

Chaucer first appears in public records in 1357 as a member of the house of Elizabeth, Countess of
Ulster. This was a conventional arrangement in which sons of middle-class households were
placed in royal service so that they could obtain a courtly education. Two years later, Chaucer
served in the army under Edward III and was captured during an unsuccessful offensive at Reims,
although he was later ransomed. Chaucer served under a number of diplomatic missions.
By 1366 Chaucer had married Philippa Pan (daughter of the Flemish Sir Gilles de Roet, called
“Paon”—medieval surnames were often changed between generations), who had been in service
with the Countess of Ulster. Chaucer married well for his position, for Philippa Chaucer received
an annuity from the queen consort of Edward III. Philippa’s sister Katherine de Roet (later Lady
Swynford, later Duchess of Lancaster) was John of Gaunt’s mistress for twenty years before becoming
the Duke’s wife. Through this connection, John of Gaunt was Chaucer’s “kinsman.” Chaucer
himself secured an annuity as yeoman of the king and was listed as one of the king’s esquires.

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