The conterbury tales

2.3. Geoffrey Chaucer's influence
Like all great writers, Geoffrey Chaucer was a voracious and omnivorous reader, and he was well-versed in the classical Latin literary tradition from Livy and Virgil to Augustine. Ovid’s works – especially the Heroides – may have been particular favorites of Chaucer’s, and John Fyler has shown how much of Chaucer's antifoundationalist stance may have been inspired by Ovid[1.78]. Overall, the Roman tradition pops up in small details throughout his works. Two late Roman texts, however, stand out as more deeply influential upon Chaucer: Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (as one sees especially in Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight’s Tale), and – in a subtler way – a short text by the fifth-century writer Macrobius called the Commentarium super Somnium Scipionis, which discusses the nature of dream, a topic which enthralled Chaucer.[8;32] Other earlier medieval Latin writers whom Chaucer absorbed include St. Augustine, Martianus Capella, Hugh of St. Victor, Alain de Lille, and Walter Map.[236] Chaucer’s more obvious medieval influences are largely French and Italian. Indeed, some scholars divide Chaucer’s early work (previous to 1385) into a “French period” and an “Italian period.” French writers of particular interest to Chaucer include Guillaume Machaut (who lived in England for many years in Chaucer’s youth and whom the poet may well have personally known), Jean Froissart, and the two authors of the famous allegory The Romance of the Rose (which Chaucer translated), Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. The poet was also doubtless familiar with many Old French fabliaux and beast fables, though we cannot pinpoint any specific ones.[5;65] Chaucer probably became familiar with Italian literature in the 1360s and 1370s during his diplomatic missions to Italy, and he seems quite conversant with the works of the great triumvirate of fourteenth-century Italian writers, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), whom he may well have met, and Giovanni Boccaccio . From Petrarch he derived the story that became The Clerk's Tale, as well as a host of other details that turn up . From Boccaccio he adapted the Italian poem Il Teseida, turning it into the basis for his Knight's Tale; another Boccaccio narrative poem, Il Filostrato, was the main source for Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. It is striking, however, that Chaucer seems not to have been familiar with Boccaccio's masterpiece, The Decameron, as the Italian work, with its narrative framework of having different characters tell stories, would have seemed an obvious inspiration for The Canterbury Tales.[18.59] Chaucer's relationship to Dante is more complicated and far more interesting. Often Chaucer will translate lines more or less directly from The Divine Comedy (in The Prioress's Tale, for instance), or "borrow" similes or other imagery from the great Italian poet. At other times, Chaucer seems almost to mock Dante's work, as in The Hous of Fame, where a rather ridiculous eagle spirits the narrator Geffrei away to the heavens, a wry allusion to both Dante's dream in the Valley of the Kings in Purgatorio and to the celestial Eagle the pilgrim encounters in the Sphere of Jupiter in Paradiso.[44] Chaucer seems (surprisingly?) less interested in native English literary traditions. He almost certainly never read such English “classics” as Beowulf, Layamon’s Brut, or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He certainly knew enough Middle English metrical romances to parody them in The Tale of Sir Thopas and in The Squire’s Tale, but his opinion of them may not have been very high (although he seems to have considered them "good fun"). He must also have been familiar with the popular English alliterative revival poetry, since he makes fun of it in passing a few times. He never makes direct reference, however, to England’s greatest contemporary alliterative poet, William Langland. This reticence is telling, and it may have been because Langland’s famous poem Piers Plowman was too politically incendiary in the wake of the Peasant Revolt of 1381[4;43] touching too close to social realities that Chaucer preferred to ironize or downplay. We also know that Chaucer was a good friend of one of fourteenth-century England’s other great poets, John Gower (Shakespeare's "moral Gower" in Pericles). Gower’s Confessio Amantis is, like The Canterbury Tales, a frame-narrative that collects numerous other stories within it. Aside from Chaucer’s The Man of Law’s Tale, however, it is difficult to detect any direct lines of influence from Gower. Note that the literature of ancient Greece was, in general, unknown to Western Europe in the Middle Ages. Chaucer would only have been familiar with Homer through Reader’s Digest-like abridgements in Latin. He had probably never even heard of Hesiod, Aeschylus, Sappho, Pindar, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, etc. Aristotle’s works, however, were known in the West through Latin translations, as were a few of Plato’s works, especially the Timaeus (though not The Republic). [3;43] One of the most important aspects of The Canterbury Tales and its main contribution to English literature was its popularising the literary use of vernacular English. Other mediaeval English writers also wrote in English but because of Chaucer’s vivid and humorous verse and lively and lifelike characters his text was more accessible and he certainly brought English in from the cold to displace French and Latin in English writing.[5;43] Before Chaucer, depictions of English society were more or less restricted to the doings of the elevated – knights, monarchs etc. but Chaucer gave us beggars, poor students, lusty housewives, thugs and out and out crooks. He gave us insights into the considerations that preoccupied ordinary people and was unabashed at offering the crude sexual antics of ordinary people.[5;43] The result is that he has represented people who lived several centuries before us who are just like us, showing that you can change the facilities we enjoy, the clothes we wear, and all external things but the people who went before us are just like us. Chaucer’s characters are as fresh and alive as though they are living today, and they are not alien to us but highly recognisable.[6;43] Geoffrey Chaucer’s Impact on Literature: English poet Geoffrey Chaucer is acclaimed to be one of the best and most influential poets in history. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote several famous literary works in what is called middle English. Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1340 in London, England. Over the course of Chaucer’s life, he entered and exited several different social classes. He began to write his most known pieces when he became a public servant to Countess Elizabeth of Ulster in 1357. He died on October 25, 1400 in London, England, and was buried in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner. In Chaucer’s life he wrote over 500 works of literature, which includes The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde. Chaucer’s best known work is The Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury Tales was highly influential on how different social classes were viewed back in the 1300’s. He is also known for his original style of writing that developed the vernacular of middle English. Chaucer has very clearly influenced and inspired several writers throughout history with his style of writing. Literature was impacted and forever changed by the literary works and style of writing that Geoffrey Chaucer contributed in the middle ages. Geoffrey Chaucer’s most famous work is “The Canterbury Tales”.