Chaucer + Langland Flashcards
(7 cards)
Chaucer’s Life
1343-1399
- went to war, was taken prisoner and was ransomed by the king himself in 1360
- 1372/3 he went to Italy and discovered Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio
Chaucer French period
before 1373- Le Roman de la Rose
- introduces the reader into medieval courtliness and courtly love
- unfinished translation of a French poem
ca. 1369- The Book of the Duchess - personal elegy and allegorical lament over the death of John of Gaunt’s wife
- grief is transposed becoming the universal grief of all men for the death of all good young wives
Chaucer Italian period
ca 1380- The Parlament of Foules
-introduces the reader into one of the most popular genres of medieval literature the Bird and the Beast fable
ca 1383- The House of Fame
-masterpiece of comic fantasy, which contemplates the vanity of human wishes
-Dante and Ovid for inspo
ca 1385- The Legend of Good Women
-it is inspired by Ovid’s Heroides
-speaks of the fate of Cleopatra, Thisbe, Philomela and other who suffered in the name of love
-first attempt to use a couplet
ca 1380/5- Troylus and Criseyde
-poem adapted from Boccaccio which reveals a psychological insight into the development of the characters
-very different attitude towards women and love
Chaucer English period
ca 1387- Canterbury Tales
- 29 people belonging to different social classes are going on a pilgrimage to Thomas Beckett’s grave
- all gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, London
- inn’s host suggests that each pilgrim tell two stories while going and two while coming back
- London=terrestrial city
- Canterbury=celestial city
Langland’s life
1332?-1400?
- everything is very mysterious
- may have been born in Malvern, Worcestershire
- must have suffered great poverty
Piers Plowman plot
- answers the question how can a man win salvation?
- it can be divided into two parts, visions:
1) after falling asleep the poet dreams of a large group of people from different social classes gathered on a plain which is a pretext to attack the general corruption of the time
2) deals with the problems of the individual in his search for truth and perfection
Piers Plowman
- first appeared in 1362
- rare understanding of the social and political problems of the time
- like Wycliffe he is harsh towards the corrupt clergy and advocates its return to poverty and he seems to anticipate the Peasant’s Revolt
- like Chaucer he gives us a true picture of medieval life, but he is more concerned with the political situation and also includes social classes that are missing from the Canterbury tales
