Chaucer: 1340-1400: The Life and Times of the First English Poet [Hardcover]

Richard West (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 2000

A revelatory portrait of the first great English poet and his times, on the six hundredth anniversary of his death. While Chaucer's comic masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, has brilliantly illuminated human life in the Middle Ages for readers over the past six centuries, the inner life of its creator has remained sometimes elusive and often puzzling. The cheerful authorial spirit that seems so blithely to inhabit the Canterbury pilgrims in their narratives did, after all, survive the Black Death as a child, fight in France during the Hundred Years War, travel as a diplomat in Italy, and serve the government at the time of the Peasants' Revolt and the murder of Richard II. This engaging new life of Geoffrey Chaucer by the critically acclaimed biographer Richard West examines a man whose courtly offices situated him at the center of cultural activity in medieval London and whose work as a poet became a primary force in the evolution of modern English. West seeks out the man behind that poet, the person who not only captured the spirit of an age but who also vitally and creatively lived in the world that embodied it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For the 600th anniversary of Chaucer's death, biographer West (Daniel Defoe: The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures) concentrates more on the times than the life. Chaucer's era, which encompassed the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, the Peasants' Revolt, John Wycliffe's proto-Protestantism and the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, is not without interest. Finding Chaucer often on the periphery of these events, West is left to argue that it was a pivotal era for England, in transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and between a French-dominated culture and a homegrown national identity. As for his treatment of Chaucer, about whom little is known, West relies on a discussion of translation of the French medieval bestseller Le Roman de la Rose to Canterbury Tales. Despite the chronological remoteness of the era, West colors in his subject matter with contemporary parallels, sometimes stretching the point, such as comparing the plot of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde to that of Casablanca. More often than not, in West's presentation Chaucer was neither as forward-looking nor as reactionary as some other biographers, such as Terry Jones or G. K. Chesterton, would have itAhe was simply a man of his time. Students of literature looking for a historical context in which to put Chaucer will find edification here, but the man still remains at a distance. 8 pages b&w photos not seen by PW. (Dec. 1)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

West's biography of the first great English poet whose name we know quite resembles his Life and Strange, Surprising Adventures of Daniel Defoe (1998). Its overall strategy is to discuss the history surrounding its subject's achievements and those achievements in tandem with tracing the events of his life. It differs markedly, though, from West's account of the first modern English novelist, because, at the distance of 600 years from Chaucer's death, nearly no records exist of any strange, surprising adventures on his part. Undismayed, West raids the historical and critical literature and polishes his own sensible opinions about Chaucer's writings to produce a book every bit as readable and fascinating as his life of Defoe. Individual chapters take up such matters as the Black Death's impact on the anti-Semitism evident in the Prioress's Tale ; why Europe quickly forgot the Black Death; how the thirteenth-century French poem Roman de la Rose and the great Florentine poets Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio influenced Chaucer; the impact of the great English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 on Chaucer's worldview; how Troilus and Criseyde anticipates the modern novel; how to read the lengthy Knight's Tale , the boring bane of generations of students, as a satire; and the interpretation of the Wife of Bath as a feminist. A treat for English history and literature buffs who prefer journalistically vital prose to the stodgy varieties usually used to rebury England's liveliest bard. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers (November 25, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786707798
• ISBN-13: 978-0786707799
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,368,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Good book, I guess, UNLESS you're looking for a biography, February 13, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Chaucer: 1340-1400: The Life and Times of the First English Poet (Hardcover)

While the author writes well and entertainingly, I had made the fatal assumption when I ordered this book that something subtitled <<The life and times of the first English poet>> would, in fact, discuss his life.

However, the book mentions Chaucer's wife only once in the main text, plus a mention in the chronology -- and doesn't even acknowledge that Chaucer had three known children, let alone discuss them -- though he does have a one-liner about the birth of Thomas Chaucer in the chronology. The cbronology, BTW, says Thomas was the first-born. An old book (1970s) I have says the first-born was Elizabeth. If that's been discredited, a short paragraph would have been most useful.

A book which omits the most important people in a subject's life is, to my mind, most definitely not a <<life.>> The omission is, for me, most frustrating, because there is or was a controversy about the paternity of Thomas Chaucer and perhaps Elizabeth on which I assumed this book would provide the latest insights.

I gave up about halfway through. IMO, the real subject of this book is a lengthy backgrounder on Chaucer's poetry. When my interest in what influenced Chaucer revives (as it frequently does), perhaps I'll give it another try.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Visit to the XIV Century, December 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Chaucer: 1340-1400: The Life and Times of the First English Poet (Hardcover)

Whoever remembers dreading having to memorize the opening lines of Chaucer's great tale will now take pleasure in these tales. Scholarly yet eye-opening to those to took Eng Lit 101 and have never since returned to Chaucer's great storytelling, this book will make you want read the full stories rather than the crib summaries. Lucidly written, informative and, above all, transporting the reader to the age of medieval storystelling. Richard West brings the social and cultural background to the XXth century reader in the most accessible of academic ways.

3.0 out of 5 stars Yes, but where is Chaucer, July 7, 2009

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James Peyton (columbia, sc United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chaucer: The Life and Times of the First English Poet (Paperback)

I decided to read this book because I had so little to tell about Chaucer, the man, to my senior English students other than what I could gather from the Canterbury Tales. I gave them the usual historical facts, that he was related to John of Gaunt, captured in the war and that Chaucer dislikes hypocrisy, has quite a few remarks to say about the church, seems to have a misogynistic bent, and so on. Therefore, as my summer reading assignment, I decided to learn more about Chaucer and chose this book as a first step. After reading a few chapters, I was somewhat amused and concerned that as interesting as West's book is, there is so little about the name on the cover. There are pages and pages about French poets such as Machaut and Deschamps of whom I was unaware. There is more about Edward III, the Black Prince, and the Bubonic Plague than I remember from my two semesters of British history. The problem is there is so little about Chaucer which perhaps is no fault of the biographer's. There just seems to be no historical data about England's first great satirist, poet, and chronicler of the Middle Ages. One section, however, most disturbingly reports of Chaucer's raping a Lady Cecily which might have given way to the questionable theme in "The Wife of Bath's Tale." West ends the chapter by stating that the knight gave the woman what all women want, a little disturbing even if one looks at this through Freud's or Darwin's mindset as the biographer tell us. The reason the book still receives a favorable review is the author's clear depiction of the Middle Ages, the tension between France and England, and his insight for Chaucer's work. Therefore, I would recommend the book to anyone who wants to know about England and Europe during this period and the background to Chaucer's works, but I wouldn't state that West's biography reveals anymore about Chaucer than what one finds in the numerous literature books, anthologies, or sources of that nature.