Geoffrey Chaucer’s Literary Works and Influences
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) and His Works
It was once customary to divide Chaucer’s literary career into three periods:
- The French period (to 1372)
- The Italian period (to 1385)
- The English period (to 1400)
This categorization should not be taken as watertight; it is valid for didactic purposes.
The courtly lyrics Chaucer wrote in the manner of contemporaneous French poets might well be mentioned first, although there is no way of dating most of these little poems. And they present to us the familiar figure of the lover complaining of the heartlessness of his beloved. Many of them take the form of the balade—three 8-line stanzas with a refrain in the last line of each stanza.
French Influence on Chaucer’s Early Works
The two works of Chaucer that show most clearly a French influence are his translation of the Roman de la Rose and The Book of the Duchess. Concerning the first, it is unlikely that Chaucer translated more than the first 1700 lines. As far as it goes, it is a competent translation though a fragmentary one.
The Book of the Duchess
The Book of the Duchess is an elegy on the death of Blanche, the first wife of John of Gaunt. It may be presumed that the poem was written shortly after the event (1369). The poem tells in octosyllabic couplets of the poet’s dream: On a beautiful May morning he wandered in the woods until he came upon a man in black. He fell into conversation with this man and discovered that Fortune, playing chess with him, had taken his queen (i.e., his White Lady).
Later Works and Influences
The Parlement of Foules
The Parlement of Foules (dated between 1377 and 1382) describes how all birdkind is assembled to choose mates under the benign eye of the goddess Nature.
The House of Fame
The House of Fame (dated before 1382) is fragmentary, breaking off before its ultimate purpose is clear to the reader.
Moreover, Chaucer’s prose translation of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy was probably completed some time near 1380. Boethius, together with his arguments about Fortune’s fickle gifts, has tremendous influence upon Chaucer’s works (wheel of Fortune).
The Legend of Good Women
The Legend of Good Women, generally assigned to the late 1380s, is a collection of secular saints’ lives, possibly in imitation of Boccaccio’s De Claris Mulieribus, in which the protagonists are not sainted ladies but rather martyrs to love (against misogynist traditions).
Major Works: Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales
Furthermore, it remains to consider Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s immediate source for Troilus and Criseyde was Boccaccio’s Filostrato (ca. 1338), from which he took over all the major episodes. But he also added much of his own, not only in respect to incident but also in respect to characterization. Most experts think that the work was finished in 1385 or 1387. Troilus and Criseyde is the tragedy of Troilus, not of Criseyde: as is made clear in the first line, it is the story of the “double sorwe” of Troilus.
It is a chivalric romance and Troilus is the hero. Hence all the attention to Troilus’s lovesickness, to his absurd fears, to his own good name, to the clandestine nature of his love for Criseyde.