Geoffrey Chaucer, an Englishman who lived from about 1343 to 1400, worked mainly as a royal bureaucrat. No records document him receiving any payment or favors specifically for his poetry. As a member of the gentry participating on the margins of the English royal court, Chaucer appears to have written mainly for women. Irony, gynocentrism, and misandry are prominent features of his work. If you hate reading Chaucer, you understanding him well. He has ironically come to be known as the Father of English literature.
As the eminent medieval thinker Alan of Lille expressed in Liber parabolarum, trust isn’t inherent in woman. All that glitters isn’t gold. Men, beware. … Read the post Alan of Lille, Chaucer & Shakespeare knew all that glistens isn’t gold
Chauntecleer in Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale would reject his wife Pertelote’s advice and keep silent if he understood the Latin Speculum stultorum. … Read the post cock Chauntecleer nearly devoured for lack of good Latin learning
Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee, following Albertanus of Brescia’s Latin work Liber consolationis et consilii, reversed women inciting violence against men. … Read the post Melibee reversed women’s incitement of violence against men
In Wife of Bath’s Prologue & Tale, criminal justice is a pretext for promoting men’s subordination to women. Men deserve better than laughing with Jankyn. … Read the post Wife of Bath, criminal justice & men’s subordination to women
In translating Boccacco’s Griselda story, Petrarch shifted it to clerical moralization, while Chaucer moved it toward noble ladies’ amusement. … Read the post Boccaccio’s Griselda in new contexts of Petrarch & Chaucer