Major Poetry

by Geoffrey Chaucer, Albert C. Baugh (Editor )

Critiques of all Chaucer's poetry (except the Romaunt of the Rose, the fragmentary Anelida and Arcite, and a few of the short lyrics).

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Literature, History

616 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son, Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament.
Among Chaucer's many other works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde. He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin. Chaucer's contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage" (i.e., the first one capable of finding poetic matter in English). Almost two thousand English words are first attested to in Chaucerian manuscripts. As scholar Bruce Holsinger has argued, charting Chaucer's life and work comes with many challenges related to the "difficult disjunction between the written record of his public and private life and the literary corpus he left behind". His recorded works and his life show many personas that are "ironic, mysterious, elusive [or] cagey" in nature, ever-changing with new discoveries.

Reviews

[Martin Bihl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another volume of poetry that I own but never read, part of a series that I'm working my way through. In other editions, I'd already polished off Canterbury Tales, Troilus & etc., and many of the poems here (though admittedly in translation in to modern English) before jumping into this. So it was with some trepidation that I cracked this volume. And with good reason - for while this would be a good text for a class on Chaucer (where the professor illuminates the work each week), it's easy to get a bit lost on your own. True, the introductions do an admirable job; one wishes their voice continued throughout the text.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks, Julie, for the most excellent Christmas gift! Now I can read it aloud and have a vague idea of what I'm saying (not uncommon in my usual banter). But I'll be having fun and sounding beautiful (insert moment here). I'll brush up on my prologue.

[Prisoner 071053 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice hefty tome. Troilus and Cressida is worth every minute spent reading it.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the deth of Tholome the kyng,
That all Egiput hadde in his governing,
Regned hys queene Cleopataras . . .

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Way easier to read, funnier, and more interesting than I had any idea of.

[Machim]

Poetry