1. The Life of Chaucer. 2. The Three Periods of Chaucer's Writings. 3. Canterbury Tales. 4. Chaucer's Role in English Literature.

The Life of Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer ( ) was born in the family of a wine merchant. Chaucer's parents were far from being wealthy. Chaucer, however, received what education his parents were able to give him. Many people think that he must have been educated at Oxford or Cambridge, because he was a poet, but nothing is known about that for sure.

The Three Periods of Chaucer's Writings The 1st is the French period. Chaucer's earliest poems were written in imitation of the French romances. Chaucer spoke French brilliantly and was very fond of French poetry. It had taught him rhyme and rhythm. He translated from French the famous allegorical poem of the 14th century "The Romance of the Rose. Chaucer made 3 trips to Italy and this country made a deep impression on him. Chaucer returned from these journeys a changed man. Italy was the 1st country, where the bourgeoisie triumphed over feudalism. And it was there that Chaucer saw the 1st city republics. Italian literature was at its high and opened to Chaucer a new world of art.

The 2nd one is the Italian period The second period of Chaucer's writing was that of Italian influence. To this period belong the following poems "The parliament of Birds", an allegorical poem "Troilus and Cressid", which is supposed to be the 1st psychological novel in English, although its characters are those of ancient Greece. The legend of "Good Women" is a dream poem, which is written in couplets and forms a bridge between the poems of Italian period and the next one. The 3rd one is the English period. It begins from the year 1374 when he left behind the Italian influence and became entirely English as he started writing literary work in the English Language. It was in this time that he wrote his masterpiece "Canterbury Tales".

"Canterbury Tales" This is a collection of stories written in Middle English (mostly written in verse although some are in prose). The framework, which serves to connect the stories, is a Pilgrimage to Canterbury. The Pilgrims agree to tell stories to shorten a tiresome four days trip. The distance from London to Canterbury is only 60 miles. But in those days there was no straight way to go by. Pilgrimages of every kind were extremely common in Chaucer's time and strongly advocated by the church. Such journeys were, no doubt, very valuable as a means to break up the monotony of life in days when there were no printed books, theatres, and mass media and so on. The most famous English Pilgrimage was to Canterbury.

The Role of Chaucer in English Literature 1. "Canterbury Tales" sum up all types of stories that existed in the middle Ages, following the literary classification. The knight tells a romance, the Nun a story of a Saint, the Miller a fabliaux, the priest a fable and so on. 2. Various ranks of society pass by Chaucer and he observes them with mental calmness: It was very common to criticize the church, but Chaucer was the 1st to attack the clergy with real humour. Most of his churchmen are not religious at all. To be a churchman meant to have a job that was paid well and Chaucer never concealed this fact in his work. Yet he never was an atheist himself. 3. Chaucer was the creator of a new literally language. He chose to compose in the popular English language though the aristocracy of that time read and spoke French. It's to be remembered that with Chaucer's poetry the popular tongue became literally English. Chaucer was the earliest English poet who is still read for human pleasure today. 4. Chaucer drew his characters from life. He saw people not only as rich and poor, but as belonging to a certain rank of society. Chaucer was the first writer, who described the individual features of his characters according to the profession and degree. So, they instantly became typical of their class.