Author of the Canterbury Tales (among other works), Geoffrey Chaucer is a pioneer of the English language from the late middle ages. He is eclipsed in his innovations perhaps only by William Shakespeare. Peter Ackroyd is a modern British historian and a worthy biographer of this giant. In this accessible series (read: short books), Ackroyd provides us with a great summary of what there is to know about Chaucer from historical records.
Chaucer was not only a fine poet; he was also and principally a diplomat in the king’s service. In that role, he travelled across the mainland of Europe, including Italy. In Italy, he came in contact with early humanist leaders of what became the Renaissance. Of course, they weren’t known as humanists at that time. They were just interesting writers to Chaucer, a fellow journeyer. He borrowed their methods into his writing and laid a foundation for future authors in the English language to build upon.
Aside from the peerless Canterbury Tales, Chaucer wrote poems of love in an era when true love was harder than today. Ackroyd focuses his attention on all of Chaucer’s work in an attempt to get to know the man from the influences of his time. As a diplomat, his life and his wife’s life were also recorded in English records. Ackroyd examines these as well in an attempt to get to know Chaucer outside of his bookish side (a side he reveled in). We learn of where Chaucer might have gotten inspirations for his ingenious writings. We also learn that Chaucer was probably not educated in the modern hierarchical sense, though his role in diplomacy would have certainly have required learning the ways of European court.
To Ackroyd and many before him, Chaucer is a great social contributor to English national life and one of the founders of the English language. Like the Norman conquerors, he brought the ways of the European mainland into mixture with those of the Anglo-Saxons. And like the great Bard, he brought the English language out of middle English into its modern forms. Through his writing, he taught English civilization about the ways of the church, the ways of women, and the ways of society. We are all richer because of Chaucer; I am likewise richer having read this book.
Chaucer
by Peter Ackroyd
Copyright (c) 2015
ISBN13 9780385507974
Audiobook
Genre: British History, Literary History
www.amazon.com