Geoffrey Chaucer
Before William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer was the preeminent English poet, and still retains the position as the most significant poet to write in Middle English. Chaucer was born in the early 1340s to a middle-class family. His father, John Chaucer, was a vintner and deputy to the king's butler. His family's financial success came from work in the wine and leather businesses. Little information exists about Chaucer's education, but his writings demonstrate a close familiarity with a number of important books of his contemporaries and of earlier times. Chaucer was likely fluent in several languages, including French, Italian and Latin.
Chaucer first appears in public records in 1357 as a member of the house of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster. This was a conventional arrangement in which sons of middle-class households were placed in royal service so that they may obtain a courtly education. Two years later Chaucer served in the army under Edward III and was captured during an unsuccessful offensive at Reims, although he was later ransomed. Chaucer served under a number of diplomatic missions. By 1366 Chaucer had married Philippa Pan, who had been in service with the Countess of Ulster. Chaucer married well for his position, for Philippa Chaucer received an annuity from the queen consort of Edward III. Chaucer himself secured an annuity as yeoman of the king and was listed as one of the king's esquires.
Chaucer's first published work was The Book of the Duchess, a poem of over 1,300 lines that is an elegy for the Duchess of Lancaster. For this first of his important poems, which was published in 1370, Chaucer used the dream-vision form, a genre made popular by the highly influential 13th-century French poem of courtly love, the Roman de la Rose, which Chaucer translated into English. Throughout the following decade, Chaucer continued with his diplomatic career, traveling to Italy for negotiations to open a Genoa port to Britain as well as military negotiations with Milan. During his missions to Italy, Chaucer encountered the work of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, which were later to have profound influence upon his own writing. In 1374 Chaucer was appointed comptroller of the customs and subsidy of wool, skins, and tanned hides for the Port of London, his first position away from the British court.
Boardman, Phillip C. "Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400)." Enduring Legacies: Ancient and Medieval Cultures. 6th ed. Boston: Pearson Custom Pub., 2000. 430-54. Print.
Chaucer's Prologue is an introduction to the characters that he will soon be talking about in his short stories. It was written to combat the Italian Buchartio, and write his own version to achieve fame. The reason that the Italian version became so popular is because of how it was written in the Italian of the street people, in other words, it could be understood by the whole of Italy, not just the rich. Chaucer wanted to do the same thing, but came to halt when he was deciding what language to write it in, he thought of Russian and other languages, but soon decided on English. This is extremely important because it is the first time that English has ever been written down, usually it is just a spoken language with no written form. This is why it was so important to the English language that he wrote it specifically in English. Giving the language a written form, sort of. It was a mixture of German of the east and native language from the Anglo Saxons. It is difficult to read, because this is the first time English has been written down, so there wasn’t any set way to spell words, and they were spelled how they sounded phonetically.”Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of March Hath Perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich liquor” (Page 97 Lines 1-3). Typically, this meant that the same word was spelled fifty different ways throughout the entire Prologue. Though it is hard to read it is still an excellent story, and has very depth in its characters, which are fully developed and give further detail into the story and make it one of the best stories in English there is today.
Hansen, Elaine Tuttle. Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender. Berkeley: U of California P. 1992. Print. (Kennedy Library PR1928.W64 H36 1992)
Shapiro, L. J. and Cederbaum, S. 1984. Recombinant DNA in Medicine. Western Journal of Medicine, 141 (2), p. 210. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1021739/ [Accessed: 10 Feb 2014].
Most people have an aspiration to get rid of a certain unhealthy behaviour or to employ a new health behaviour that would benefit their wellbeing. Some examples include a wish to stop smoking, eating a balanced diet or getting rid of a sedentary lifestyle. Many psychologists have been trying to find a model that would help people fight these kinds of unwanted health behaviours. One of such is the Transtheoretical model of behavioural change (TTM) which will be the main focus of this essay. Specifically, how one’s sedentary lifestyle can be changed by bringing out a systematic exercising routine using TTM.
The Transtheoretical Model integrates cognitive, behavioural and temporal aspects into a comprehensive framework of intentional change. This model guides individuals and populations in their progression to adopt and maintain healthy lifestyle behaviours, such as regular exercise. There are two main strengths of this theory in terms of changing exercise behaviour. By acknowledging different mind-sets, the TMM shows sensitivity towards different levels of readiness to adopt change, as well as supporting the notion that change is underlying continuum (Plotnikoff et al. 2001). The model is broken down into four main interdependent constructs which reflect these strengths: Stages of changes, processes of change, self-efficacy and decisional balance. These constructs are
Geoffrey Chaucer was born around 1340, in London, Great Britain. He was a court writer during the rule of Edward III and Richard II. He had many acquaintances within nobles of that time. During his job, court writer, he observed the immoralities in the court, and as a reaction wrote his works. His purpose of his works was to entertain, and he mostly used the English language in order to deliver his work to as many people (to both noble, and not noble people) as possible, because French was the noble language, and English was a speaking language. Chaucer uses different kinds of people as his character, to deliver a real story. The Canterbury Tales is the most famous work of the Geoffrey Chaucer. It consists of the tales
behavior of persons in diet and exercise. It seems, however, that these approaches have had a
Chaucer did not begin working on “The Canterbury Tales” until he was in his early 40s. Chaucer took his narrative inspiration for his works from several sources but still remained an entirely individual poet, gradually developing his personal style and techniques. (Wallace 293)
...lves at risk of them will move into the contemplation phase of the TTM, thus getting them closer to changing their behaviours.
Geoffrey Chaucer is a writer from the late middle ages who is most famous for his poetic narrative, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer, however, was not writing simply to entertain his fans, but also to speak through his characters. During the Middle Ages freedom of speech was not a conceivable concept, if someone did not agree with either the state or the church their time on Earth would be quite limited. These were unfortunate circumstances for Chaucer as his ideas were not particularly welcome with the people of power in his country. To express his opinions and stay away from the gallows Chaucer wrote stories in which he used the characters to express his philosophy. One such character in the Wife of Bath who Chaucer uses to express his egalitarian views and critique patriarchy.
Heroic Couplets are commonly used for epics and narrative poetry in English (Poets.org). Chaucer wrote many shorter poems and translated a medieval French poem. Chaucer prepared a translation of a Latin article on the use of the astrolabe. An astrolabe is used to predict and find the location of the sun, moon, planets, and stars. Chaucer also could’ve been the translator of a work having to do with the use of an equatorium (Notablebiographies.com). Throughout a lot of Chaucer’s works he wrote in the English vernacular while other poetry was still being written in Anglo-Norman or Latin.
Another fantastic site that relates to Chaucer is http://www.media.wright.edu/studorgs/english20403/chaucer.html. This site has all the links that a person may ever need for Chaucer. Some of the many links that are offered on this site is his biography, Chaucerian language, online reports, and online texts of The Canterbury Tales and medieval sites. Each main link has a few choices beneath it so a person can pick and choose between different sites and writing styles, which is always helpful. Getting different perspectives on different topics relating to Chaucer can only help a person in receiving a better grade and better understanding the material.
Tatlock, John S.P., and Arthur G. Kennedy. A Concordance to the Complete Work of Geoffrey Chaucer. Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1963.
The Medieval period of The Canterbury Tales is held on April 11, 1387. The writing style of tales are literary skilled. “There is clear evidence in them that Chaucer was familiar with a considerable number of the great book of his time, and it is fairly well established that his writings show a steady increase in his literary skill” (Chaucer xxxvii). Chaucer is a writer of surprise. His stories not only come from plots of other writers but also from his lifetime. “There is of course no explaining where or how Chaucer acquired his ability as a great storyteller. However, the fact that he was a man of affairs as well as a man of books, a civil servant who dealt frequently with people from all walks of life, seem to have had great influence on the writing he did at night when he returned home from the office” (Chaucer xxxv). The Prioress tells an anti-Semitic tale, which reflects her position among the clergy.