The Life and Times of Chaucer

Posted on 14 May 2017 by John Gardner

The facts about Geoffrey Chaucer s life are plentiful enough It is the connections between the facts that seem to elude us those subtle nuances of feeling emotion that a biographer relies on to paint a true, complete portrait Lacking these, we are almost compelled to make the story up as we go along, weaving together facts, opinions our own personal biases to flesh out an otherwise bloodless life For this reason, John Gardner may well be the perfect candidate to construct a life of Chaucer An award winning novelist a translator of Middle English poetry, Gardner dumps into a pile all the facts we know about the beloved English poet mixes them with a judicious sampling of literary criticism a heaping dose of lively conjecture What emerges is a rollicking good tale that might stand on its own, filled with persuasive answers to vexing questions imaginative reconstructions of the Black Death other compelling events of the times whatever snippets of Chaucer s own poetry may help shed light on his extraordinary age Black white illustrations. Free Read Kindle ePUB The Life and Times of Chaucer By John Gardner – kino-fada.fr A 5 pick from the bargain table at Barnes Noble and 5 very well spent No need for any familiarity of Chaucer before you read it, Gardner provides all the information you ll need, plus heaps of interesting historical background regarding 14th century Britain My copy of the book is even better because when I was walking home one day I passed Eddie Izzard on the street, and, not having anything else for him to sign, I asked him to sign my book, which prompted him to laugh and tell me a A 5 pick from the bargain table at Barnes Noble and 5 very well spent No need for any familiarity of Chaucer before you read it, Gardner provides all the information you ll need, plus heaps of interesting historical ...I read this book seekinginformation on two aspects of Chaucer in particular 1 His choice to write in English, rather than the French of the aristocracy or the Latin of the Catholic Christian priests Middle English had only recently formed, and it is a significant development as it is the only language in Europe not to have artifical gendering in the grammar It lost the artificial gendering of its German roots the table is not der table , nor is it la table This had huge significan I read this book seekinginformation on two aspects of Chaucer in particular 1 His choice to write in English, rather than the French of the aristocracy or the Latin of the Catholic Christian priests Middle English had only recently formed, and it is a significant development as it is the only language in Europe not to have artifical gendering in the grammar It lost the artificial gendering of its German roots the table is not der table , nor is it la table This had huge significance as the Anglo Saxon Chronicle and the Tractatus of Glanville, for example, make clear that the English translation of Magna Carta considers the rights and responsibility to be based in person, man or woman The term person is the basis of the 1689 English Bill of Rights and the 1787 1781 US Constitution, whereas the 1789 French Constitution in based in rights of man The legacy Lat...I ve read a bit of Chaucer and know a bit about 14th century history, but John Gardner does an excellent job of unifying various threads in this account of the poet s times.The main events from an English perspective in the second half of the 1300 s are the internal politics of the Plantagenets the children and grandchildren of Edward II by Isabella of France , the 100 Years War with France, in part to assert the right of the children of Isabella to the French throne , the adoption of Englis I ve read a bit of Chaucer and know a bit about 14th century history, but John Gardner d...These notes were made in 1984 I found this most interesting and informative Although never patronizing, Gardner starts from the assumption correct in my case that his reader knows little or nothing about 14th century history, social or otherwise, and fills in the gaps very nicely He does not hesitate to go off on a tangent for a bit to recount some of the goings on of the generation before Chaucer, for instance and I was pleased especially by the way...Gardner isn t attempting a moment by moment biography of Chaucer here He s trying to reconstruct the story of the man s life and something of who he was and what he was about Because of the elaborate record keeping of medieval England and Chaucer s association with many of the most immenent men of his day, there are a lot of boring facts that we can use to place him on the map and fix a date to his movements But the trouble of teasing the real man out of those facts and out of the ver...I m still reading, so this is just a partial review Gardner seems to bring Chaucer s era to life in a way that it s possible to understand him, and his writing in the context of the times Just to round out my own experience, I m also reading the Canterbury Tales in Middle English while listening to a modern translation on Audible That s a great combination Of course, Chaucer wrote a lotthan the Canterbury Tales, and while I ve read a bit of it before, I am hoping that J...I was grounded one summer for being a very naughty teenagerimagine that and my father made me go to his office with him everyday and sit there I bought this book to read during that time After reading Seton s, Katherine, I felt like I knew Mr Chaucer so this book caught my eye in the store Everyone knew I was in trouble but they thought I must be smart to want to read such a book The book was a bit over my head at the time but I liked it enough to have kept it these 25 years just in c I was grounded one summer for being a very naughty teenagerimagine that and my father made me go to his office with him everyday and sit there I bought this book to read during that time After reading Seton s, Katherine, I felt like I knew Mr Chaucer so this book caught my eye in the store Ever...This is an in depth study of Chaucer s life and the influences on his writing, especially Canterbury Tales Besides writing poetry, Chaucer was an official in the court of the King and his family Throughout turbulent t...This book drags at times, and the chronology jumps around a lot, but I can easily forgive these faults for John Gardner s superb mock historical biography of Chaucer The writing is so loveable and has an easy wit Gardner embraces all the question ...A detailed and dense history of life in 14th century Europe, particularly of course England A fine writer, Gardner suffers from what all Chaucer historians suffer from interpreting the same old contemporaries However, Gardner is muchversed in the times, as if he time traveled to this er...

English
14 May 2017

John Gardner