Biographical Criticism on Geoffrey Chaucer
“Of all the things that men may heed/'Tis most of love they sing indeed.” -J.R.R Tolkien. Even in the medieval era, love was the subject of many of the most famous and popular writings, despite the fact that the common man was illiterate, and that writings were esoteric. Those who were literate often worked for the Roman Catholic Church, the dominant world power of the times. Geoffrey Chaucer is the exception; he worked for the King. He was a well-educated man, and was, given the era, most likely Catholic. He was of the upper middle class, or bourgeois, and married Philippa Roet, the high-born lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Chaucer was also one of the only writers of the time to write in English. In his famous piece, “The Miller's Tale,” (part of the larger Canterbury Tales), Geoffrey Chaucer draws on his own experiences with his wife, his assault, and his piety (or lack thereof) to elucidate that lust drives individuals to irrational thought. In “The Miller’s Tale,” Geoffrey Chaucer utilizes the young
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According to David R. Carlson, “[t]here was an occasion...on which Chaucer was also a victim of violent crime: apparently, he was assaulted and robbed by highwaymen in the autumn of 1390.” Chaucer, being “an intimate of the king and an esquire of the body” (Knox, et al), was carrying up to twenty pounds, and was robbed of this money as many as three times. These men, obviously of a much lower social status than he, stole as much as twenty pounds from him. Although Chaucer was robbed of goods, not his wife, the fact that he was robbed up to three times is a definite similarity to the fact that there were three men after Alison. By relating his robberies to the Miller’s Tale, Chaucer shows that the object of desire for a higher class individual, and the object of desire for a lower class individual are often one and the