Geoffrey Chaucer (/ˈtʃɔːsər/ CHAW-sər; c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales.[1] He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry".[2] He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey.[3] Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son, Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament.
Among Chaucer's many other works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde. He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin.[4] Chaucer's contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage" (i.e., the first one capable of finding poetic matter in English).[5][6] Almost two thousand English words are first attested to in Chaucerian manuscripts.
Chaucer nació en Londres, probablemente a principios de la década de 1340 (según algunos relatos, incluido su monumento, nació en 1343), aunque se desconocen la fecha y el lugar precisos. La familia Chaucer ofrece un ejemplo extraordinario de movilidad ascendente. Su bisabuelo era tabernero, su abuelo trabajaba como proveedor de vinos y su padre, John Chaucer, ascendió hasta convertirse en un importante comerciante de vinos con un nombramiento real. [7] Varias generaciones anteriores de la familia de Geoffrey Chaucer habían sido viticultores [8] [9] y comerciantes en Ipswich . [10] Su apellido se deriva del francés chaucier , que alguna vez se pensó que significaba "zapatero", pero ahora se sabe que significa fabricante de medias o calzas . [11]
En 1324, su padre, John Chaucer, fue secuestrado por una tía con la esperanza de casar al niño de 12 años con su hija en un intento de conservar la propiedad [ se necesita aclaración ] en Ipswich. La tía fue encarcelada y multada con 250 libras esterlinas, lo que ahora equivale a unas 200.000 libras esterlinas, lo que sugiere que la familia estaba financieramente segura. [12]
John Chaucer se casó con Agnes Copton, quien heredó propiedades en 1349, incluidas 24 tiendas en Londres, de su tío Hamo de Copton, a quien se describe en un testamento fechado el 3 de abril de 1354 y que figura en el City Hustings Roll como "dinero", se dice que es Un monetario en la Torre de Londres . En City Hustings Roll 110, 5, Ric II, fechado en junio de 1380, Chaucer se refiere a sí mismo como yo Galfridum Chaucer, filium Johannis Chaucer, Vinetarii, Londonie , que se traduce como: "Yo, Geoffrey Chaucer, hijo del viticultor John Chaucer, Londres". [13]
Si bien los registros sobre las vidas de sus contemporáneos William Langland y el poeta Gawain son prácticamente inexistentes, dado que Chaucer era un funcionario público, su vida oficial está muy bien documentada, con casi quinientos artículos escritos que atestiguan su carrera. El primero de los "Registros de vida de Chaucer" aparece en 1357, en los relatos domésticos de Elizabeth de Burgh , la condesa de Ulster , cuando se convirtió en el paje de la noble a través de las conexiones de su padre, [14] una forma medieval común de aprendizaje para los niños en nombramientos de caballero o de prestigio. La condesa estaba casada con Lionel de Amberes, primer duque de Clarence , el segundo hijo superviviente del rey Eduardo III , y el puesto llevó al adolescente Chaucer al círculo cercano de la corte, donde permanecería por el resto de su vida. También trabajó como cortesano, diplomático y funcionario, además de trabajar para el rey de 1389 a 1391 como secretario de obras del rey. [15]
En 1359, en las primeras etapas de la Guerra de los Cien Años , Eduardo III invadió Francia y Chaucer viajó con Lionel de Amberes, el marido de Isabel, como parte del ejército inglés . En 1360 fue capturado durante el asedio de Reims . Edward pagó £16 por su rescate, [16] una suma considerable equivalente a £14,557 en 2023, [17] y Chaucer fue liberado.
After this, Chaucer's life is uncertain, but he seems to have travelled in France, Spain, and Flanders, possibly as a messenger and perhaps even going on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa (de) Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen, Philippa of Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford, who later (c. 1396) became the third wife of John of Gaunt. It is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son, Thomas Chaucer, had an illustrious career as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France, and Speaker of the House of Commons. Thomas's daughter, Alice, married the Duke of Suffolk. Thomas's great-grandson (Geoffrey's great-great-grandson), John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was the heir to the throne designated by Richard III before he was deposed. Geoffrey's other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey,[18][19] Agnes, an attendant at Henry IV's coronation; and another son, Lewis Chaucer. Chaucer's "Treatise on the Astrolabe" was written for Lewis.[20]
According to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple (an Inn of Court) at this time. He became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a valet de chambre, yeoman, or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail a wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment. He travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante Visconti, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, in Milan. Two other literary stars of the era were in attendance: Jean Froissart and Petrarch. Around this time, Chaucer is believed to have written The Book of the Duchess in honour of Blanche of Lancaster, the late wife of John of Gaunt, who died in 1369 of the plague.[21]
Chaucer viajó a Picardía al año siguiente como parte de una expedición militar; en 1373 visitó Génova y Florencia . Numerosos estudiosos como Skeat, Boitani y Rowland [22] sugirieron que, en este viaje a Italia, entró en contacto con Petrarca o Boccaccio . Le introdujeron en la poesía italiana medieval , cuyas formas e historias utilizaría más tarde. [23] [24] Los propósitos de un viaje en 1377 son misteriosos, ya que los detalles del registro histórico entran en conflicto. Documentos posteriores sugieren que era una misión, junto con Jean Froissart, concertar un matrimonio entre el futuro rey Ricardo II y una princesa francesa, poniendo así fin a la Guerra de los Cien Años. Si este era el propósito de su viaje, parece que no tuvieron éxito, ya que no se celebró ninguna boda.
En 1378, Ricardo II envió a Chaucer como enviado (despacho secreto) a los Visconti y a Sir John Hawkwood , condotiere (líder mercenario) inglés en Milán. Se ha especulado que fue Hawkwood en quien Chaucer basó su personaje, el Caballero, en los Cuentos de Canterbury , ya que la descripción coincide con la de un condotiero del siglo XIV.
Una posible indicación de que su carrera como escritor fue apreciada se produjo cuando Eduardo III le concedió a Chaucer "un galón de vino diario durante el resto de su vida" para una tarea no especificada. Se trataba de una subvención inusual, pero concedida en un día de celebración, el día de San Jorge de 1374, cuando tradicionalmente se recompensaban los esfuerzos artísticos, se supone que fue para otra obra poética temprana. No se sabe cuál de las obras existentes de Chaucer, si es que hubo alguna, motivó la recompensa, pero la sugerencia de él como poeta a un rey lo coloca como un precursor de los poetas laureados posteriores . Chaucer continuó cobrando el estipendio líquido hasta que Ricardo II llegó al poder, después de lo cual se convirtió en una subvención monetaria el 18 de abril de 1378.
Chaucer obtuvo el importante puesto de contralor de la aduana del puerto de Londres, que comenzó el 8 de junio de 1374. [25] Debió ser apto para el puesto, ya que continuó en él durante doce años, mucho tiempo en tal puesto. una publicación en ese momento. Su vida permanece indocumentada durante gran parte de los siguientes diez años, pero se cree que escribió (o comenzó) la mayoría de sus obras famosas durante este período. La "única letra que se conserva" de Chaucer data de este período. Se trata de una solicitud de baja temporal del trabajo presentada al rey Ricardo II, que hasta ahora se creía obra de uno de sus subordinados debido al bajo nivel del idioma. [26]
On 16 October 1379, Thomas Staundon filed a legal action against his former servant Cecily Chaumpaigne and Chaucer, accusing Chaucer of unlawfully employing Chaumpaigne before her term of service was completed, which violated the Statute of Labourers.[27] Though eight court documents dated between October 1379 and July 1380 survive the action,[28] the case was never prosecuted. No details survive about Chaumpaigne's service or how she came to leave Staundon's employ for Chaucer's.[29][a]
It is not known if Chaucer was in the City of London at the time of the Peasants' Revolt, but if he was, he would have seen its leaders pass almost directly under his apartment window at Aldgate.[33]
While still working as comptroller, Chaucer appears to have moved to Kent, being appointed as one of the commissioners of peace for Kent at a time when French invasion was a possibility. He is thought to have started work on The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. He also became a member of parliament for Kent in 1386 and attended the 'Wonderful Parliament' that year. He appears to have been present at most of the 71 days it sat, for which he was paid £24 9s.[34] On 15 October that year, he gave a deposition in the case of Scrope v. Grosvenor.[35] There is no further reference after this date to Philippa, Chaucer's wife. She is presumed to have died in 1387. He survived the political upheavals caused by the Lords Appellants, despite the fact that Chaucer knew some of the men executed over the affair quite well.
On 12 July 1389, Chaucer was appointed the clerk of the king's works, a sort of foreman organising most of the king's building projects.[36] No major works were begun during his tenure, but he did conduct repairs on Westminster Palace, St. George's Chapel, Windsor, continued building the wharf at the Tower of London and built the stands for a tournament held in 1390. It may have been a difficult job, but it paid two shillings a day, more than three times his salary as a comptroller. Chaucer was also appointed keeper of the lodge at the King's Park in Feckenham Forest in Worcestershire, which was a largely honorary appointment.[37]
In September 1390, records say that Chaucer was robbed and possibly injured while conducting the business, and he stopped working in this capacity on 17 June 1391. He began as Deputy Forester in the royal forest of Petherton Park in North Petherton, Somerset on 22 June.[38] This was no sinecure, with maintenance an essential part of the job, although there were many opportunities to derive profit.
Richard II granted him an annual pension of 20 pounds in 1394 (equivalent to £22,034 in 2023),[39] and Chaucer's name fades from the historical record not long after Richard's overthrow in 1399. The last few records of his life show his pension renewed by the new king and his taking a lease on a residence within the close of Westminster Abbey on 24 December 1399.[40] Henry IV renewed the grants assigned by Richard, but The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse hints that the grants might not have been paid. The last mention of Chaucer is on 5 June 1400, when some debts owed to him were repaid.
Chaucer died of unknown causes on 25 October 1400, although the only evidence for this date comes from the engraving on his tomb, which was erected more than 100 years after his death. There is some speculation[41] that he was murdered by enemies of Richard II or even on the orders of his successor Henry IV, but the case is entirely circumstantial. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, as was his right owing to his status as a tenant of the Abbey's close. In 1556, his remains were transferred to a more ornate tomb, making him the first writer interred in the area now known as Poets' Corner.[42]
Chaucer was a close friend of John of Gaunt, the wealthy Duke of Lancaster and father of Henry IV, and he served under Lancaster's patronage. Near the end of their lives, Lancaster and Chaucer became brothers-in-law when Lancaster married Katherine Swynford (de Roet) in 1396; she was the sister of Philippa (de) Roet, whom Chaucer had married in 1366.
Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess (also known as the Deeth of Blaunche the Duchesse)[43] was written to commemorate Blanche of Lancaster, John of Gaunt's first wife. The poem refers to John and Blanche in allegory as the narrator relates the tale of "A long castel with walles white/Be Seynt Johan, on a ryche hil" (1318–1319) who is mourning grievously after the death of his love, "And goode faire White she het/That was my lady name ryght" (948–949). The phrase "long castel" is a reference to Lancaster (also called "Loncastel" and "Longcastell"), "walles white" is thought to be an oblique reference to Blanche, "Seynt Johan" was John of Gaunt's name-saint, and "ryche hil" is a reference to Richmond. These references reveal the identity of the grieving black knight of the poem as John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Richmond. "White" is the English translation of the French word "blanche", implying that the white lady was Blanche of Lancaster.[44]
Chaucer's short poem Fortune, believed to have been written in the 1390s, is also thought to refer to Lancaster.[45][46] "Chaucer as narrator" openly defies Fortune, proclaiming that he has learned who his enemies are through her tyranny and deceit, and declares "my suffisaunce" (15) and that "over himself hath the maystrye" (14).
Fortune, in turn, does not understand Chaucer's harsh words to her for she believes that she has been kind to him, claims that he does not know what she has in store for him in the future, but most importantly, "And eek thou hast thy beste frend alyve" (32, 40, 48). Chaucer retorts, "My frend maystow nat reven, blind goddesse" (50) and orders her to take away those who merely pretend to be his friends.
Fortune turns her attention to three princes whom she implores to relieve Chaucer of his pain and "Preyeth his beste frend of his noblesse/That to som beter estat he may atteyne" (78–79). The three princes are believed to represent the dukes of Lancaster, York, and Gloucester, and a portion of line 76 ("as three of you or tweyne") is thought to refer to the ordinance of 1390 which specified that no royal gift could be authorised without the consent of at least two of the three dukes.[45]
Most conspicuous in this short poem is the number of references to Chaucer's "beste frend". Fortune states three times in her response to the plaintiff, "And also, you still have your best friend alive" (32, 40, 48); she also refers to his "beste frend" in the envoy when appealing to his "noblesse" to help Chaucer to a higher estate. The narrator makes a fifth reference when he rails at Fortune that she shall not take his friend from him.
Chaucer respected and admired Christians and was one himself, as he wrote in Canterbury Tales, "now I beg all those that listen to this little treatise, or read it, that if there be anything in it that pleases them, they thank our Lord Jesus Christ for it, from whom proceeds all understanding and goodness.",[47] though he was aware that as in any place some people in the church were venal and corrupt.[48]
Chaucer's first major work was The Book of the Duchess, an elegy for Blanche of Lancaster, who died in 1368. Two other early works were Anelida and Arcite and The House of Fame. He wrote many of his major works in a prolific period when he worked as customs comptroller for London (1374 to 1386). His Parlement of Foules, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde all date from this time. It is believed that he started The Canterbury Tales in the 1380s.[49]
Chaucer also translated Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (extended by Jean de Meun). Eustache Deschamps called himself a "nettle in Chaucer's garden of poetry". In 1385, Thomas Usk made glowing mention of Chaucer, and John Gower also lauded him.[50]
Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe describes the form and use of the astrolabe in detail and is sometimes cited as the first example of technical writing in the English language. It indicates that Chaucer was versed in science in addition to his literary talents.[51] The equatorie of the planetis is a scientific work similar to the Treatise and sometimes ascribed to Chaucer because of its language and handwriting, an identification which scholars no longer deem tenable.[52][53][54]
Chaucer wrote in continental accentual-syllabic metre, a style which had developed in English literature since around the 12th century as an alternative to the alliterative Anglo-Saxon metre.[55] Chaucer is known for metrical innovation, inventing the rhyme royal, and he was one of the first English poets to use the five-stress line, a decasyllabic cousin to the iambic pentametre, in his work, with only a few anonymous short works using it before him.[56] The arrangement of these five-stress lines into rhyming couplets, first seen in his The Legend of Good Women, was used in much of his later work and became one of the standard poetic forms in English. His early influence as a satirist is also important, with the common humorous device, the funny accent of a regional dialect, apparently making its first appearance in The Reeve's Tale.
The poetry of Chaucer, along with other writers of the era, is credited with helping to standardise the London Dialect of the Middle English language from a combination of the Kentish and Midlands dialects.[57] This is probably overstated; the influence of the court, chancery and bureaucracy – of which Chaucer was a part – remains a more probable influence on the development of Standard English.
Modern English is somewhat distanced from the language of Chaucer's poems owing to the effect of the Great Vowel Shift sometime after his death. This change in the pronunciation of English, still not fully understood, makes the reading of Chaucer difficult for the modern audience.
The status of the final -e in Chaucer's verse is uncertain: it seems likely that during the period of Chaucer's writing, the final -e was dropping out of colloquial English and that its use was somewhat irregular. It may have been a vestige of the Old English dative singular suffix -e attached to most nouns. Chaucer's versification suggests that the final -e is sometimes to be vocalised and sometimes to be silent; however, this remains a point on which there is disagreement. Most scholars pronounce it as a schwa when it is vocalised.
Besides the irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary is recognisable to the modern reader. Chaucer is also recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first author to use many common English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in the language at the time, but Chaucer was the earliest extant manuscript source with his ear for common speech. Acceptable, alkali, altercation, amble, angrily, annex, annoyance, approaching, arbitration, armless, army, arrogant, arsenic, arc, artillery and aspect are just some of almost two thousand English words first attested in Chaucer.[58]
Widespread knowledge of Chaucer's works is attested by the many poets who imitated or responded to his writing. John Lydgate was one of the earliest poets to write continuations of Chaucer's unfinished Tales. At the same time Robert Henryson's Testament of Cresseid completes the story of Cressida left unfinished in his Troilus and Criseyde. Many of the manuscripts of Chaucer's works contain material from these poets, and later appreciations by the Romantic era poets were shaped by their failure to distinguish the later "additions" from the original Chaucer.
Writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as John Dryden, admired Chaucer for his stories but not for his rhythm and rhyme, as few critics could then read Middle English and the text had been butchered by printers, leaving a somewhat unadmirable mess.[59] It was not until the late 19th century that the official Chaucerian canon, accepted today, was decided upon, largely as a result of Walter William Skeat's work. Roughly seventy-five years after Chaucer's death, The Canterbury Tales was selected by William Caxton as one of the first books to be printed in England.[60]
A veces se considera que Chaucer es la fuente de la tradición vernácula inglesa. Su logro para la lengua puede verse como parte de una tendencia histórica general hacia la creación de una literatura vernácula , siguiendo el ejemplo de Dante , en muchas partes de Europa. Una tendencia paralela en vida de Chaucer estaba en marcha en Escocia a través del trabajo de su contemporáneo ligeramente anterior, John Barbour . Es probable que la obra de Barbour haya sido aún más general, como lo demuestra el ejemplo del Pearl Poet en el norte de Inglaterra.
Aunque el lenguaje de Chaucer está mucho más cerca del inglés moderno que el texto de Beowulf , de modo que (a diferencia del de Beowulf ) un hablante de inglés moderno con un extenso vocabulario de palabras arcaicas puede entenderlo, difiere lo suficiente como para que la mayoría de las publicaciones modernicen su idioma. [61] [62] La siguiente es una muestra del prólogo de The Summoner's Tale que compara el texto de Chaucer con una traducción moderna:
Se cree que la primera asociación registrada del Día de San Valentín con el amor romántico se encuentra en el Parlamento de las Faltas de Chaucer (1382), una visión onírica que representa un parlamento en el que los pájaros eligen a sus parejas. [64] [65] En honor al primer aniversario del compromiso del rey Ricardo II de Inglaterra, de quince años, con Ana de Bohemia, de quince años :
Porque esto fue el día de Volantyny,
cuando todos los bryd vinieron allí para buscar su marca
de cada tipo que los hombres creen que pueden
y que hicieron tal ruido
que erthe & eyr & tre & euever lago
Tan lleno era que uno había espacio
para Me quedé estupefacto, tan lleno estaba todo el lugar. [66]
"La lengua de Inglaterra, a la que Chaucer fue el primero en conferir celebridad, ha justificado ampliamente la previsión que le llevó a desdeñar a todas las demás por ella y, a su vez, ha conferido una celebridad duradera a quien le confió su reputación". sin reserva."
—TR Lounsbury. [67]
El poeta Thomas Hoccleve , que pudo haber conocido a Chaucer y considerarlo su modelo a seguir, aclamó a Chaucer como "el primer descubridor de nuestra bella lengua". [68] John Lydgate se refirió a Chaucer en su propio texto La caída de los príncipes como el "lodesterre (principio rector)... de nuestro lenguaje". [69] Alrededor de dos siglos después, Sir Philip Sidney elogió mucho a Troilo y Criseyde en su propia Defensa de la poesía . [70] Durante el siglo XIX y principios del XX, Chaucer llegó a ser visto como un símbolo de la herencia poética de la nación. [71]
En la novela David Copperfield de Charles Dickens de 1850 , el autor de la época victoriana se hizo eco del uso que hizo Chaucer de Lucas 23:34 de Troilo y Criseyde (Dickens tenía una copia en su biblioteca, entre otras obras de Chaucer), con GK Chesterton escribiendo, "entre los grandes canónicos ". Los autores ingleses, Chaucer y Dickens, tienen más en común." [72]
La gran cantidad de manuscritos supervivientes de las obras de Chaucer es testimonio del interés duradero por su poesía antes de la llegada de la imprenta. Se conservan 83 manuscritos de los Cuentos de Canterbury (en su totalidad o en parte), junto con dieciséis de Troilo y Criseyde , incluida la copia personal de Enrique IV. [73] Dados los estragos del tiempo, es probable que estos manuscritos supervivientes representen cientos desde que se perdieron.
La audiencia original de Chaucer era cortesana y habría incluido tanto mujeres como hombres de las clases sociales altas. Sin embargo, incluso antes de su muerte en 1400, el público de Chaucer había comenzado a incluir miembros de las crecientes clases alfabetizada, media y mercantil. Esto incluía a muchos simpatizantes lollardos que bien podrían haberse sentido inclinados a leer a Chaucer como uno de los suyos.
Los lolardos se sintieron particularmente atraídos por los escritos satíricos de Chaucer sobre frailes, sacerdotes y otros funcionarios de la iglesia. En 1464, John Baron, un granjero arrendatario en Agmondesham ( Amersham en Buckinghamshire ), fue llevado ante John Chadworth , el obispo de Lincoln , acusado de ser un hereje lolardo; confesó poseer un "boke de los Cuentos de Caunterburie", entre otros volúmenes sospechosos. [74]
El primer impresor inglés, William Caxton, fue responsable de las dos primeras ediciones en folio de Los cuentos de Canterbury publicadas en 1478 y 1483. [75] La segunda impresión de Caxton, según él mismo, se produjo porque un cliente se quejó de que el texto impreso difería del un manuscrito que conocía; Caxton utilizó amablemente el manuscrito del hombre como fuente. Ambas ediciones de Caxton tienen el equivalente a la autoridad del manuscrito. La edición de Caxton fue reimpresa por su sucesor, Wynkyn de Worde , pero esta edición no tiene autoridad independiente.
Richard Pynson, the King's Printer under Henry VIII for about twenty years, was the first to collect and sell something that resembled an edition of the collected works of Chaucer; however, in the process, he introduced five previously printed texts that are now known not to be Chaucer's. (The collection is actually three separately printed texts, or collections of texts, bound together as one volume.)
There is a likely connection between Pynson's product and William Thynne's a mere six years later. Thynne had a successful career from the 1520s until his death in 1546 as chief clerk of the kitchen of Henry VIII, one of the masters of the royal household. He spent years comparing various versions of Chaucer's works and selected 41 pieces for publication. While there were questions over the authorship of some of the material, there is no doubt that this was the first comprehensive view of Chaucer's work. The Workes of Geffray Chaucer, published in 1532, was the first edition of Chaucer's collected works. Thynne's editions of Chaucer's Works in 1532 and 1542 were the first significant contributions to the existence of a widely recognised Chaucerian canon. Thynne represents his edition as a book sponsored by and supportive of the king, who is praised in the preface by Sir Brian Tuke. Thynne's canon brought the number of apocryphal works associated with Chaucer to a total of 28, even if that was not his intention.[76] As with Pynson, once included in the Works, pseudepigraphic texts stayed with those works, regardless of their first editor's intentions.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Chaucer was printed more than any other English author, and he was the first author to have his works collected in comprehensive single-volume editions in which a Chaucer canon began to cohere. Some scholars contend that 16th-century editions of Chaucer's Works set the precedent for all other English authors regarding presentation, prestige and success in print. These editions certainly established Chaucer's reputation, but they also began the complicated process of reconstructing and frequently inventing Chaucer's biography and the canonical list of works which were attributed to him.
Probablemente el aspecto más significativo del creciente número de apócrifos es que, a partir de las ediciones de Thynne, comenzaron a incluir textos medievales que hacían aparecer a Chaucer como un lolardo protoprotestante , principalmente el Testamento de amor y El cuento del labrador . Como obras "chaucerianas" que no fueron consideradas apócrifas hasta finales del siglo XIX, estos textos medievales disfrutaron de una nueva vida, con los protestantes ingleses continuando el anterior proyecto lolardo de apropiarse de textos y autores existentes que parecían comprensivos o lo suficientemente maleables como para ser interpretados como comprensivo—con su causa. El Chaucer oficial de los primeros volúmenes impresos de sus Obras fue interpretado como un protoprotestante, ya que lo mismo se hizo al mismo tiempo que William Langland y Piers Plowman .
El famoso cuento del labrador no entró en las obras de Thynne hasta la segunda edición de 1542. Su entrada seguramente fue facilitada por la inclusión por parte de Thynne del Testamento de amor de Thomas Usk en la primera edición. El Testamento de amor imita, toma prestado y, por tanto, se parece a Chaucer, contemporáneo de Usk. ( Testamento de amor también parece tomar prestado de Piers Plowman ).
Dado que el Testamento de Amor menciona la participación de su autor en un complot fallido (libro 1, capítulo 6), su encarcelamiento y (quizás) una retractación de la herejía (posiblemente lolardista ), todo esto estaba asociado con Chaucer. (El propio Usk fue ejecutado como traidor en 1388.) John Foxe tomó esta retractación de la herejía como una defensa de la verdadera fe, llamando a Chaucer un "wicleviano correcto" e identificándolo (erróneamente) como un compañero de escuela y amigo cercano de John Wycliffe en Universidad Merton, Oxford . ( Thomas Speght tiene cuidado de resaltar estos hechos en sus ediciones y en su "Vida de Chaucer".) No existen otras fuentes para el Testamento de Amor ; sólo existe la construcción de Thynne de las fuentes manuscritas que tenía.
John Stow (1525–1605) was an antiquarian and also a chronicler. His edition of Chaucer's Works in 1561[76] brought the apocrypha to more than 50 titles. More were added in the 17th century, and they remained as late as 1810, well after Thomas Tyrwhitt pared the canon down in his 1775 edition.[77] The compilation and printing of Chaucer's works was, from its beginning, a political enterprise, since it was intended to establish an English national identity and history that grounded and authorised the Tudor monarchy and church. What was added to Chaucer often helped represent him favourably to Protestant England.
In his 1598 edition of the Works, Speght (probably taking cues from Foxe) made good use of Usk's account of his political intrigue and imprisonment in the Testament of Love to assemble a largely fictional "Life of Our Learned English Poet, Geffrey Chaucer". Speght's "Life" presents readers with an erstwhile radical in troubled times much like their own, a proto-Protestant who eventually came round to the king's views on religion. Speght states, "In the second year of Richard the second, the King tooke Geffrey Chaucer and his lands into his protection. The occasion wherof no doubt was some daunger and trouble whereinto he was fallen by favouring some rash attempt of the common people." Under the discussion of Chaucer's friends, namely John of Gaunt, Speght further explains:
Later, in "The Argument" to the Testament of Love, Speght adds:
Speght is also the source of the famous tale of Chaucer being fined for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet Street, as well as a fictitious coat of arms and family tree. Ironically – and perhaps consciously so – an introductory, apologetic letter in Speght's edition from Francis Beaumont defends the unseemly, "low", and bawdy bits in Chaucer from an elite, classicist position.
Francis Thynne noted some of these inconsistencies in his Animadversions, insisting that Chaucer was not a commoner, and he objected to the friar-beating story. Yet Thynne himself underscores Chaucer's support for popular religious reform, associating Chaucer's views with his father William Thynne's attempts to include The Plowman's Tale and The Pilgrim's Tale in the 1532 and 1542 Works.
The myth of the Protestant Chaucer continues to have a lasting impact on a large body of Chaucerian scholarship. Though it is extremely rare for a modern scholar to suggest Chaucer supported a religious movement that did not exist until more than a century after his death, the predominance of this thinking for so many centuries left it for granted that Chaucer was at least hostile toward Catholicism. This assumption forms a large part of many critical approaches to Chaucer's works, including neo-Marxism.
Alongside Chaucer's Works, the most impressive literary monument of the period is John Foxe's Acts and Monuments.... As with the Chaucer editions, it was critically significant to English Protestant identity and included Chaucer in its project. Foxe's Chaucer both derived from and contributed to the printed editions of Chaucer's Works, particularly the pseudepigrapha. Jack Upland was first printed in Foxe's Acts and Monuments, and then it appeared in Speght's edition of Chaucer's Works.
La "Vida de Chaucer" de Speght se hace eco del propio relato de Foxe, que a su vez depende de las ediciones anteriores que agregaron Testament of Love y The Plowman's Tale a sus páginas. Al igual que el Chaucer de Speght, el Chaucer de Foxe también fue un superviviente político astuto (o afortunado). En su edición de 1563, Foxe "pensó que no estaba fuera de lugar... combinar... alguna mención de Geoffrey Chaucer" con una discusión sobre John Colet , una posible fuente del personaje de John Skelton, Colin Clout .
Probablemente refiriéndose a la Ley de 1542 para el Avance de la Religión Verdadera , Foxe dijo que
"Es maravilloso considerar... cómo los obispos, condenando y aboliendo todo tipo de libros y tratados ingleses que pudieran llevar al pueblo a algún conocimiento, autorizaron aún que las obras de Chaucer permanecieran quietas y ocupadas; quien, sin duda, vio la religión casi tanto como nosotros ahora, y no expresa menos en sus obras, y parece ser un auténtico wickleviano , o nunca lo hubo, y eso, casi todas sus obras, si son completamente. aconsejado, testificará (aunque hecho con alegría y en secreto); y especialmente el último final de su tercer libro del Testamento de Amor... donde, a menos que un hombre sea completamente ciego, puede espiarlo en su totalidad: aunque en el mismo libro (como en todos los demás que suele hacer), bajo sombras encubiertamente, como bajo una visera, soborna la verdad de tal manera que en secreto pueda beneficiar a los de mente piadosa y, sin embargo, no ser espiada por el astuto adversario. por lo tanto, los obispos, tomando sus obras sólo como bromas y juguetes, al condenar otros libros, permitieron que sus libros fueran leídos". [78]
Es significativo, también, que la discusión de Foxe sobre Chaucer conduce a su historia de "La Reforma de la Iglesia de Cristo en la época de Martín Lutero" cuando "Imprimir, al abrirse, ministraba incontinentemente a la iglesia los instrumentos y herramientas de aprendizaje y conocimiento; que eran buenos libros y autores, que antes estaban ocultos y desconocidos. Una vez descubierta la ciencia de la imprenta, inmediatamente siguió la gracia de Dios que despertó el buen ingenio para concebir la luz del conocimiento y del juicio: por la cual comenzó la oscuridad; para ser espiado, y la ignorancia para ser detectada; la verdad del error, la religión de la superstición, para ser discernida." [78]
Foxe resta importancia a los escritos obscenos y amorosos de Chaucer, insistiendo en que todo da testimonio de su piedad. El material preocupante se considera metafórico, mientras que la sátira más directa (que Foxe prefiere) se toma literalmente.
John Urry produjo la primera edición de las obras completas de Chaucer en letra latina, publicada póstumamente en 1721. Según los editores, se imprimieron varios cuentos y, por primera vez, una biografía de Chaucer, un glosario de palabras inglesas antiguas. y testimonios de escritores sobre Chaucer que se remontan al siglo XVI. Según AS G Edwards,
"Esta fue la primera edición completa de Chaucer impresa en tipo romano. La vida de Chaucer precedida al volumen fue obra del reverendo John Dart , corregida y revisada por Timothy Thomas. El glosario adjunto también fue compilado principalmente por Thomas. El texto de la edición de Urry ha sido criticado a menudo por editores posteriores por sus frecuentes modificaciones conjeturales, principalmente para adaptarlo a su sentido de la métrica de Chaucer. La justicia de tales críticas no debería oscurecer su logro. Ciento cincuenta años para consultar cualquier manuscrito. Además, es la primera desde la de William Thynne en 1534 que busca reunir sistemáticamente un número sustancial de manuscritos para establecer su texto. También es la primera edición que ofrece descripciones de los manuscritos. de las obras de Chaucer, y el primero en imprimir textos de 'Gamelyn' y 'The Tale of Beryn', obras atribuidas a Chaucer, pero no por él." [79]
Aunque las obras de Chaucer habían sido admiradas durante mucho tiempo, el trabajo académico serio sobre su legado no comenzó hasta finales del siglo XVIII, cuando Thomas Tyrwhitt editó Los cuentos de Canterbury , y no se convirtió en una disciplina académica establecida hasta el siglo XIX. [80]
Académicos como Frederick James Furnivall , que fundó la Sociedad Chaucer en 1868, fueron pioneros en el establecimiento de ediciones diplomáticas de los textos primarios de Chaucer, junto con relatos cuidadosos del lenguaje y la prosodia de Chaucer. Walter William Skeat, quien, como Furnivall, estuvo estrechamente asociado con el Oxford English Dictionary , estableció el texto base de todas las obras de Chaucer con su edición, publicada por Oxford University Press. Las ediciones posteriores de John H. Fisher y Larry D. Benson ofrecieron mayores mejoras, junto con comentarios críticos y bibliografías.
Una vez abordadas en gran medida, si no resueltas, las cuestiones textuales, la atención se centró en las cuestiones relativas a los temas, la estructura y la audiencia de Chaucer. El Proyecto de Investigación Chaucer en la Universidad de Chicago comenzó en 1924. [81] Chaucer Review se fundó en 1966 y ha mantenido su posición como la revista más importante de los estudios de Chaucer. En 1994, el crítico literario Harold Bloom colocó a Chaucer entre los más grandes escritores occidentales de todos los tiempos , y en 1997 expuso la deuda de William Shakespeare con el autor. [82]
Las siguientes obras principales están en orden cronológico aproximado, pero los estudiosos aún debaten la datación de la mayor parte de la producción de Chaucer. Es posible que las obras compuestas por una colección de historias hayan sido compiladas durante un largo período.
Chaucer is one of the main characters in the 2001 film A Knight's Tale, and is portrayed by Paul Bettany.
The extraordinary dominance of English now as a world language has made it hard to appreciate that its status in the medieval period was very low. Not only was English just one of three languages used in England before the 15th century, it was not the major one. Although it was, of course, the most widely used spoken language, English fell far short of Latin and French as a written language. [Chaucer's] decision to write exclusively in English was indeed unusual [...] He made English successful because he made it urban and international.
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