Anne Collins - Amazing Writers: B1 (Collins Amazing People ELT Readers)

c.1330/13401400

the man who wrote the first great works of English Literature

I could tell wonderful stories, and I was very good at describing people. I wrote some romantic poems, but I also wrote about people in ordinary English society. My greatest work is an entertaining record of life in medieval England.

My name was Geoffrey Chaucer and I was born in London. During the centuries before my birth, different groups of people had attacked England, including the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and the Normans. England had become the permanent home of each of these groups. And they had tried to make the English people speak their language and live in the same way as them. As a result, people with a high social position no longer communicated with each other in English. Kings and queens, nobles and people who held important jobs in Court the place where the King and Queen lived usually spoke and wrote in French.

But as I walked the streets of London, what language did I hear? Not French, or Latin, or Scandinavian. People in the streets and at the markets were speaking English in their daily lives. Of course, English had taken in some words from other languages too. There was justice which came from Latin, speech from Anglo-Saxon, outlaw from the Vikings and parliament from French. But ordinary people were using English to communicate. They were a free people, who shared their hopes and problems in their own language. As I listened, I decided that I was going to use English to write stories about the daily lives of English people.

There was a huge difference between the lives of rich people and poor people in England. The poor had to work very hard, and their lives were very difficult. If you became ill or were injured , you had to depend on your family or friends to help you. In addition, people were afraid of becoming sick from the plague , or other terrible illnesses. There were no good doctors, and people didnt understand much about medicine. I was very lucky because my family was quite wealthy . My father and grandfather were in the business of making wine, although it was said that my family had been makers of shoes in France. The French for shoemaker is chausseur and in England, this became changed to Chaucer. So my name is a perfect example of how language develops!

My father had excellent connections in society in other words he knew a lot of important people. So he made sure that I got a good education in law. In 1357, I became a page, a young boy working for the wife of King Edward IIIs son, Lionel. Two years later, in 1359, I became a soldier, and served in the English Army in their fight against the French in the Hundred Years War. However, by bad luck, I was taken prisoner by the French at the Siege of Reims. In March 1360, King Edward paid sixteen pounds to the French so that I could leave prison.

After my return to England, I entered the Kings service , working in the royal household . While I was working at Court, I met a beautiful girl called Philippa Roet. Philippa was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, a lady whose duties were to go everywhere with the Queen and help her. Philippa and I fell in love and married in 1366. In 1367, our first son, Thomas, was born. This was a very happy time for me, especially as my job was going well too. The King was pleased with my work, and he wanted to give me a reward to thank me for my past and future services. So on 10th June 1367 he granted me a pension of 20 marks an amount of money which I would receive every year.

Although my job at Court kept me busy, I still found time to write. In 1367, I began a translation of a French poem called The Romaunt of the Rose. In 1368, after the death of the Duchess of Lancaster, a noble lady, I wrote a poem called the Book of the Duchess in her memory. During the next few years, I often travelled abroad in the Kings service. I also served for a second time in the English Army. During my travels, I learned many new things and met some interesting people. The great Italian poets, Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch, and the French writer, Froissart, all inspired me to develop my interest in writing.