see, and a grete pesiblenesse is maad. Forsothe men wonderden, sayinge: What manere man is he this, for the wyndis and the see obeishen to hym." Geoffrey Chaucer It was, then, just at the time when the people of England were stirring under the impression of new ideas, when the modified English was coming into general use among all classes of people, that Geoffrey Chaucer was born. The date of his birth is not known with certainty and the information we have concerning his life is vague and incomplete. We know he was born about the year 1340 in the city of London and lived a life of comparative ease. As a youth he studied in both Oxford and Cambridge and was a page in the house of one of the royal family. For a while he served with the army in France and was taken prisoner there. He was at one time Comptroller of the Port of London, at another was a member of Parliament and in the course of his life he held a number of other important offices. He died in the year 1400 and was the first poet honored by burial in the "Poet's Corner" of Westminster Abbey. He was a stout and jovial man, with fine soft eyes peering out of a bright face, and by his gracious manners he gained the warm friendship of most of the leading men of his time. To quote Lowell, "If character may be divined by works, he was a good man, genial, sincere, hearty, temperate of mind, more wise, perhaps, for this world than the next, but thoroughly human, and friendly with God and man." Tales Canterbury His most productive period was between the years 1381 and 1389, during which time he wrote the House of Fame, Legend of Good Women, and the best part of the Canterbury Tales. It is upon this last work that his fame chiefly rests. The plan of the Canterbury Tales is as follows: Chaucer imagined that there met at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, England, about thirty people representing nearly all classes of society and types of men. Different as these persons were, they were united by one common interest; all were pilgrims to the tomb of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. It was proposed that they should travel together and to while away the time each person was to tell to the others two stories, one on the journey to the shrine and another while returning. The teller of the best tale was to be feasted by the others. Chaucer did not complete his work and but two dozen of the stories now exist. The best part of the Tales is the Prologue, in which Chaucer describes one by one the persons who make up his party. These descriptions are bright and keen and in them Chaucer shows marvelous power of penetration into character and has delineated types of humanity as they exist to-day. He has drawn them so perfectly that they are for all time. They seem like the people we know |