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Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer led a busy official life, as an esquire of the royal court, as the administrator of the customs for the port of London, as a participant in important diplomatic missions, and in a variety of other official duties. Before William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer was the distinguished English poet, and still retains the position as the most significant poet to write in Middle English.

Geoffrey

Chaucer was born in 1342, but historians are uncertain about his exact date of birth. Geoffrey's well-to-do parents, John Chaucer and Agnes Copton, possessed several buildings in the vintage quarter in London. Not much is known about Geoffrey's school career, but most historians feel that he was fluent in Latin and Greek.

(Thompson, 2)

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 may obtain a courtly education.(Singman, 76) Two years later Chaucer served in the army under Edward II 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, 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 wife of Edward II. Chaucer himself secured an annuity as yeoman of the king and was listed as one of the king's esquires.

Geoffrey Chaucer pursued many occupations during his life: soldier, diplomat, intelligence officer, construction supervisor, Controller of Customs, and member of Parliament. (Norman) Yet, it is for his literary accomplishments that he has achieved enduring fame.

Chaucer's first published work was The Book of the Duchess; a poem of over 1,300 lines that is an elegy for the Duchess of Lancaster. (The Catholic Encyclopedia) For this first of his important

(Thompson, 3)

poems, which was published in 1370, Chaucer used the dream-vision form, a genre made popular by the highly influential 13th-century French poem of courtly love, the Roman de la Rose, which Chaucer translated into English. Throughout the following decade, Chaucer continued with his diplomatic career, traveling to Italy for negotiations to open a Genoa port to Britain as well as military negotiations with

Milan. During his missions to Italy, Chaucer encountered the work of Dante, Patriarch, and Boccaccio, which were later to have profound influence upon his own writing. In 1374 Chaucer was appointed administrator of the customs and subsidy of wool, skins, and tanned hides for the Port of London, his first position away from the British court. Chaucer's only major work during this period was House of Fame, a poem of around 2,000 lines in dream-vision form, but this was not completed.

In a dead of May 1, 1380, Cecily Chaumpaigne charged Chaucer with rape. Rape (raptus) could at the time mean either sexual assault or abduction; scholars have not been able to establish which meaning applies here, but, in either case, the release suggests that Chaucer was not guilty as charged. (The Catholic Encyclopedia)

(Thompson, 4)

This charge had little effect on Chaucer's political career. In October 1385, he was appointed a justice of the peace...

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