Chaucer
Chaucer refers to Geoffrey Chaucer, the fourteenth-century English poet best known for *The Canterbury Tales*.
He's often called the father of English literature for helping establish English as a literary language when French and Latin dominated.
Chaucerian describes his style or era: Chaucerian verse, Chaucerian English.
Masculine given name
- Canterbury TalesMedieval English story collection
- storytellerOne who recounts tales
- poetWriter of verse
- narratorOne who tells events
pilgrimage · courtier · diplomat · customs official · London · fourteenth century · Philippa · Richard II
Land-for-service social structure
- pilgrimageReligious journey to shrine
- knightHonored mounted soldier
- manorLanded aristocratic residence
- chivalryKnightly code of honor
courtly love · guild · plague · Black Death · Hundred Years War · monastery · friar · pardoner
Language between 1100-1500
- vernacularEveryday regional speech
- dialectRegional language variety
- iambic pentameterUnstressed-stressed pattern, five feet
- coupletTwo successive verse lines
prose · verse · French influence · Latin influence · Italian influence · wordplay · irony · double entendre
Study of historical texts
- etymologyWord origin study
- linguisticsScience of language structure
- glossaryAlphabetical list with definitions
- annotationAdded explanatory comment
Boccaccio · Petrarch · Ovid · translation · adaptation · allegory · exegesis · historicism
Manual document copier
- parchmentTreated hide for manuscripts
- quillFeather used for writing
- illuminatedMade visible by light
- folioSingle-fold page format
copyist · marginalia · rubric · vellum · codex · hand · incunabula · edition
Geoffrey
Masculine given name
- Canterbury TalesMedieval English story collection
- storytellerOne who recounts tales
- poetWriter of verse
narrator · pilgrimage · courtier · diplomat · customs official · London · fourteenth century · Philippa · Richard II · Westminster Abbey
feudalism
Land-for-service social structure
- pilgrimageReligious journey to shrine
- knightHonored mounted soldier
- manorLanded aristocratic residence
chivalry · courtly love · guild · plague · Black Death · Hundred Years War · monastery · friar · pardoner · summoner
Middle English
Language between 1100-1500
- vernacularEveryday regional speech
- dialectRegional language variety
- iambic pentameterUnstressed-stressed pattern, five feet
couplet · prose · verse · French influence · Latin influence · Italian influence · wordplay · irony · double entendre · pun
philology
Study of historical texts
- etymologyWord origin study
- linguisticsScience of language structure
- glossaryAlphabetical list with definitions
annotation · Boccaccio · Petrarch · Ovid · translation · adaptation · allegory · exegesis · historicism · critical edition
scribe
Manual document copier
- parchmentTreated hide for manuscripts
- quillFeather used for writing
- illuminatedMade visible by light
folio · copyist · marginalia · rubric · vellum · codex · hand · incunabula · edition · transmission
- British AuthorsCharles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl
- poetspoet, Homer, Dante, Milton, Emily Dickinson
- Medieval FiguresGenghis Khan, Joan of Arc, Marco Polo, William the Conqueror, Dante
- Medieval WritersJulian of Norwich, Geoffrey of Monmouth, medieval chronicles
- literaturebooks, book, fiction, poetry, stories
- AuthorsShakespeare, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Chaucercontemporary authors
Living creators of literature
modern writers · Toni Morrison · David Foster Wallace · Thomas Pynchon