Contents introduction chapter I. Forebears and early years

The aim of the work is to determine the genre originality of the Canterbury Tales by G. Chaucer. In connection with the purpose of the study, we set ourselves the following tasks:
-to Consider the concept of genre in literary theory;
-to generalize the current level of the problem of the genre specificity of the Canterbury Tales by G. Chaucer;
-to Highlight the genre features of the short story and the knightly novel in the "Canterbury Tales";
The actuality of this work is due to an attempt to systematize the existing concepts of the genre originality of the "Canterbury Tales", as well as an attempt to consider this problem in the light of the achievements of modern literary criticism. The scientific novelty of the work is due to the lack of special works devoted to this problem.


CHAPTER 1. Forebears and Early Years.
Chaucer’s ancestors for at slightest four eras were middle-class English individuals whose association with London and the court had consistently expanded. John Chaucer, his father, was an vital London vintner and a agent to the king’s butler; in 1338 he was a part of Edward III’s undertaking to Antwerp, in Flanders, presently portion of Belgium, and he possessed property in Ipswich, within the province of Suffolk, and in London. He kicked the bucket in 1366 or 1367 at age 53. The title Chaucer is inferred from the French word chaussier, meaning a creator of footwear. The family’s money related victory determined from wine and calfskin.
In spite of the fact that c. 1340 is generally given as Chaucer’s birth date, 1342 or 1343 is likely a closer figure. No data exists concerning his early instruction, in spite of the fact that without a doubt he would have been as familiar in French as within the Center English of his time. He too got to be competent in Latin and Italian. His compositions appear his near nature with numerous critical books of his time and of earlier times.Chaucer to begin with shows up within the records in 1357, as a part of the family of Elizabeth, lady of Ulster, spouse of Lionel, third child of Edward III. Geoffrey’s father apparently had been able to put him among the bunch of youthful men and ladies serving in that regal family, a standard course of action whereby families who might do so given their children with opportunity for the vital dignified instruction and associations to progress their careers. By 1359 Chaucer was a part of Edward III’s armed force in France and was captured amid the unsuccessful attack of Reims.¹
The ruler contributed to his deliver, and Chaucer served as delivery person from Calais to Britain amid the peace arrangements of 1360. Chaucer does not show up in any modern record amid 1361–65. He was likely within the king’s benefit, but he may have been examining law—not abnormal arrangement for open benefit, at that point as now—since a 16th-century report suggests that, whereas so locked in, he was fined for beating a Franciscan monk in a London road. On February 22, 1366, the lord of Navarre issued a certificate of safe-conduct for Chaucer, three companions, and their workers to enter Spain. This event is the primary of a number of discretionary missions to the landmass of Europe over the succeeding 10 a long time, and the wording of the record recommends that here Chaucer served as “chief of mission.”
By 1366 Chaucer had hitched. Likely his spouse was Philippa Container, who had been within the benefit of the lady of Ulster and entered the benefit of Philippa of Hainaut, ruler associate of Edward III, when Elizabeth kicked the bucket in 1363. In 1366 Philippa Chaucer gotten an annuity, and afterward annuities were as often as possible paid to her through her spouse. These and other actualities show that Chaucer hitched well. In 1367 Chaucer gotten an annuity for life as yeoman of the ruler, and within the following year he was recorded among the king’s esquires. Such officers lived at court and performed staff obligations of significant significance. In 1368 Chaucer was overseas on a conciliatory mission, and in 1369 he was on military benefit in France. Moreover in 1369 he and his spouse were official grievers for the passing of Ruler Philippa. Clearly, Chaucer’s career was thriving, and his to begin with critical poem—Book of the Duchess—seems assist prove of his association with people in tall places.
That sonnet of more than 1,300 lines, likely composed in late 1369 or early 1370, is an funeral poem for Blanche, duchess of Lancaster, John of Gaunt’s to begin with spouse, who kicked the bucket of torment in September 1369. Chaucer’s near relationship with John, which proceeded through most of his life, may have commenced as early as Christmas 1357 when they, both approximately the same age, were display at the lady of Ulster’s home in Yorkshire. For this to begin with of his critical sonnets, Chaucer utilized the dream-vision shape, a sort made prevalent by the exceedingly persuasive 13th-century French sonnet of dignified cherish, the Roman de la rose.
Chaucer deciphered that sonnet, at slightest in portion, likely as one of his to begin with scholarly endeavors, and he borrowed from it all through his wonderful career. The Duchess is additionally obligated to modern French verse and to Ovid, Chaucer’s top choice Roman artist. Nothing in these borrowings, be that as it may, will account for his inventiveness in combining dream-vision with funeral poem and tribute of Blanche with reassurance for John. Too essential here—as it progressively got to be in his afterward poetry—is the prudent and inconspicuous utilize of a first-person storyteller, who both is and isn't the artist himself.²
The gadget had self-evident focal points for the minor squire conveying such a sonnet orally some time recently the high-ranking court gather. In expansion, the Duchess portends Chaucer’s aptitude at showing the rhythms of normal discussion inside the limits of Center English verse and at making practical characters inside dignified lovely traditions. Moreover, Chaucer here starts, with the Dark Knight’s account of his cherish for Great Reasonable White, his career as a adore writer, analyzing in late medieval mold the vital logical and devout questions concerning the human condition as they relate to both transient and interminable viewpoints of adore.

1.