2. Chaucer and Europe

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this lecture, we question Chaucer's status as the "Father of English Literature". While people tend to talk about Chaucer in the English context - as a kind of serious, sober literary patriarch - we must not forget that Chaucer was also a great European writer who travelled widely and engaged with peoples and poets from across Europe, and especially from France and Italy. He was particularly influenced by Dante, whose decision to write his Divine Comedy in the local Tuscan dialect encouraged Chaucer to write the Canterbury Tales in English (rather than French or Latin). While Dante and his fellow Italian poet Petrarch saw poetry as an elevated and authoritative medium, however, Chaucer rejected the idea of poetic authority, preferring multiple and competing perspectives and viewpoints, as demonstrated in the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer, it is argued, would have hated the title "Father of English Literature"

Course

In this course, Dr Marion Turner (University of Oxford) provides an introduction to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The course begins with a discussion of the opening lines of the General Prologue, before going on to discuss Chaucer himself, the so-called 'Father of English Poetry'. In the third module, we look at the Miller's Tale and its status as a "literary Peasants' Revolt", before going to discuss the idea of places and spaces in the Merchant's Tale. The fifth and sixth modules focus on The Wife of Bath's Tale; in the first, we consider the concept of gender and authority in the Tale, while in the second, we look at how Chaucer adapts the popular "Loathly Lady" story pattern in the Tale.

Lecturer

Marion Turner is Associate Professor of English at Jesus College, University of Oxford. She is the author of a ground-breaking biography of Chaucer: Chaucer: A European Life (Princeton, 2019). This biography focuses on Chaucer as an international figure, exploring his travels, his multicultural influences, his multilingual identity, and the global aspects of medieval London.

Her other books include Chaucerian Conflict (Oxford, 2007) and, as editor, A Handbook of Middle English Studies (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), and she has published many articles on Chaucer and other aspects of late medieval literature. Marion has received research funding from the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Wellcome Trust. She often speaks in the media, including Radio 4, BBC1, Channel 4, and ITV. She has a particular interest in outreach, taking part in Chaucer Days at the Ashmolean Museum and the Weston Library, aimed at sixth form students of Chaucer, and often speaking at schools and colleges.