life and works by Geoffrey Chaucer

1. Geoffrey Chaucer
and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2020

2. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
1. Chaucer’s life
• Born about 1343.
• The son of a wine merchant.
• Received a fine education.
• Grew up in close contact with the Royal Family.
• Travelled to Italy where he became interested in Dante,
Petrarch and Boccaccio
• Worked as a Controller of the Customs in the Port of
London.
• Supported John Wycliffe and Lollardy.
• Died in 1400 and was the first poet to be buried in
Westminster Abbey, in Poets’ Corner.

3. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
2. The father of English literature
Why is Chaucer the father of English literature?
• One of the first English poets to be known by name.
• His language, the dialect of his native London,
gradually became standard English, thus becoming
the basis of Modern English.
• He coined about 2,000 words and phrases.
• In his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, he was
able to give a portrait of the English society of his
time.

4. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
3. Chaucer’s three periods
• The French Period poems modelled on
French romance styles and subjects:
The Romaunt of the Rose (before 1373) and
The Boke of the Duchesse (ca 1369).
• The Italian Period a greater maturity of
perception and skill in the manipulation of the
metres. Influenced by Boccaccio.
• The English Period marked by greater
realism; includes his masterpiece, The Canterbury
Tales.

5. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
4. The Canterbury Tales
• It is a narrative poem.
• It is told in verse.
• It contains a variety of narrative elements: the setting
in time and place, the description of characters, the use
of a narrator (Chaucer persona).
• It has links with the moral views of the time.
• It gives insight into individual characters as regards
their lifestyles, their psychology and their experiences.

6. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
5. The story
• Thirty people, including Chaucer as narrator, meet
at the Tabard Inn in London.
• They join a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral and
the shrine of Thomas Becket.
• The host of the inn suggests that every pilgrim should
tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the
way back; the pilgrim who tells the best story
will win a free dinner.
• Chaucer died before finishing his work
so the pilgrims never reach Canterbury.

7. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
6. The setting
Point of departure:
London
Destination:
Canterbury
human and linked
to worldly pleasures
holy, the symbol of
the celestial city

8. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
7. The pilgrimage
• Why a pilgrimage to Canterbury?
- Canterbury Cathedral is the
shrine of Thomas Becket,
England’s first martyr;
- going on a pilgrimage was
common in Chaucer’s day;
- people went on a
pilgrimage to ask for
healing or forgiveness
of sins but also
to socialise.

9. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
8. The frame narrative
A general prologue,
where the pilgrims
are introduced
twenty-four tales
usually preceded by a
prologue, which
introduces the theme
of the tale
sometimes followed
by an epilogue

10. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
9. The style
• It is written in rhyming couplets (AABB) made up of
lines with
ten syllables
five feet following the stress
pattern unstressed-stressed
=
The sound is similar to a heartbeat (ba BOOM).
Example:
And bathed every vein in such liquor
iambic pentameters

11. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
10. The language
• By the time Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales:
- English had replaced French as the language of
education in the local schools;
- English was becoming the language of
government;
- there was a growing demand for literary works in
English.
• Chaucer used a literary language shaped by French
and Latin models but built upon the old popular
tradition and on a deep knowledge of actual speech.

12. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
11. Characters
• The characters are introduced in the General Prologue.
• They are realistic and dynamic.
• Chaucer describes their appearance, clothes, actions
and personality.
• Their names refer to their
professions or roles.
• Chaucer uses caricature,
irony and satire.

13. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
12. Characters
• Chaucer wanted to give a portrait of
contemporary English society.
• He portrayed members of the nobility, the clergy
and the emerging middle class of merchants and
craftsmen.
• He did not describe the high aristocracy and
the peasants.

14. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
13. Chaucher and women
• Chaucer did not follow the social hierarchy of
presentation.
• He mixed male and female characters.
• He wanted to underline the importance of women
within the emerging middle class.
• He seems to show a real understanding and respect
for women.

15. Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales
Performer Shaping Ideas
14. Themes
set in the
calendar of
seasons,
spring as a
time of
rebirth
spiritual
journey,
supernatural
kind of
restoration
• The journey
• The pilgrimage