STUDY GUIDE FORTHE CANTERBURY TALES The Author and his Times:Geoffrey Chaucer , 1340 (?) – 1400 Geoffrey Chaucer was born around 1340 in what one historian has called the “calamitous 14thcentury” The series of calamities in this century was great indeed: Hundred Years War was fought (England vs. France); Crusades were undertaken Black Death (1348) raged, killing thousands King Richard II was the subject of a peasant revolt King Richard III was deposed and executed by his own cousin, who became Henry IV (Shakespeare wrote plays about all of these kings) A Man of Many Talents.However, Chaucer was a successful man who spent his life in public service to the Crown.He was a diplomat, a judge, a member of parliament, and an advisor to kings and powerful nobles of England.He seems to have had 2 great interests in life:literature and people. A Talented Amateur.Chaucer was not a professional author.He was an “amateur,” meaning that he wrote for the love of it.Before writing his original works, he translated popular works from French to English, including a famous French “best-seller” called The Romance of the Rose,which influenced his ownCanterbury Tales,and several other long poems. The Father of English Literature.His most famous work,The Canterbury Tales,was begun in l387.He never lived to complete it.However, Chaucer is known as “the father of English literature” because he wrote his most ambitious work in English, the vernacularof his country, not in the French that was spoken at court or the Latin that was the language of the Church. The Uniqueness ofThe Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Talesis a work unique in medieval literature.In an age when most authors concentrated on works of fantasy, allegory, and legends, Chaucer wrote about the real life of his times.
