Geoffrey Chaucer: riassunto della vita e opere

Riassunto in inglese della vita e opere di Chaucer, in particolare le caratteristiche di "The Canterbury Tales" (1 pagine formato doc)

Appunto di trilly81

GEOFFREY CHAUCER: RIASSUNTO DELLA VITA E OPERE

Geoffrey Chaucer, (c.

1340–1400), English poet, one of the most important figures in English literature.
He was born in London between 1340 and 1344; his parents were vine merchants in London. In 1357 he was in the service of Duke of Clarence, whom he served for many years. In 1372 , Chaucer went to Italy and stopped in Genoa and Florence and in his second trip to Italy, he went to Milan, where he became acquainted with Petrarch's and Bocciaccio's works. In his works, he introduces metrical innovation which were very important for the developement of English poetry.
He introduced the line based on syllabes and the use of ryme. Chaucer's death is in 1400. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Chaucer's literary activity is often divided into three periods.
The first period includes his early work (to 1370), which is based on French models, especially the Roman de la Rose, and the poems of Guillaume de Machaut.

Geoffrey Chaucer: riassunto in inglese

GEOFFREY CHAUCER: OPERE

Chaucer's second period (about 1387) is called  Italian period because during this time his works were modeled primarily on Dante  and Boccaccio. Major works of the second period include The House of Fame, The Parliament of Fowls, and in english verse The Legend of good Women, a poem telling of nine classical heroines, which introduced a heroic couplet in a iambic pentameter. (Iambic pentameter is a line of five metrical feet, each foot of which consist of an unstressed sillable, follow by estressed one); and Troilus and Criseyde, based on Boccaccio's Filostrato, one of the great love poems in the English language, where he perfected the seven-line stanza later called rhyme royal.
Chaucer's final period is the English period which includes his masterpiece: The Canterboury Tales. This unfinished poem, is one of the most brilliant works in all literature: instead of 120 tales, he wrote only 22 stories.  The poem introduces a group of pilgrims going on a pilgrimage to Thomas Becket's shrine in Canterbury. Chaucer himself was invited to join the company.
The pilgrims' tales include a variety of medieval genres. Chaucer was a master storyteller but because of a change in the language after 1400, his metrical technique was not fully appreciated until the 18th century.
The pilgrims can be divided into three main groups: a first group connected with the declining feudal wold (Knight, Yeoman...), a second group associated with religious life (Prioress, Monk...) and a third group including townspeople.

Geoffrey Chaucer: riassunto

GEOFFREY CHAUCER: CANTERBURY TALES

The Tales, are all written in verse (except two that are in prose) i.e. in couplets of ten syllables and five accents (Iambic pentameter).
The Canterbour Tales uses the narrative technique of a "tale within a tale". Boccaccio had used the same technique in his Decameron in which a groups of refugees escaping from the plague, and decide to tell each other stories. Chaucer also used "frame story", a story in which another story will appear.
Though apparently influenced by Boccaccio, Chaucer, differs from the italian writer:
- In Boccaccio, the storyteller are young gentlemen and ladies; Chaucer, instead, chose pilgrims from the most different classes.
-Boccaccio, was not analytical in his way of writing and focused his attention above all on manner. Chaucer was more precise and tied a psychological study of the single characters throught a very detailed description of the middle class of his time.