The Medieval Narrative poem PDF

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The Medieval Narrative poem In the Middle Ages collections of stories were very popular because of their purpose of entertaining and instructing. In this period began to take hold the medieval narrative poem which was a narrative in verse that has a lot of narrative elements, such as the description of characters, setting in time and place, and the use of the narrator in the first person. This kind of poem includes a narration showing links with the common moral views and with the changing social structure. The greatest example of a narrative poem is “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucher, which is a long poem introduced by a general prologue.

Geoffrey Chaucher Geoffrey Chaucher was born in 1343 in London by a rich wine merchant. Even if his origins were in the urban Middle Class, he grew up in close contact with the royal family and during his life he travelled freely between France and England. In 1370 he came to Italy where he studied the greatest writers like Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Virgil. He also became a Member of Parliament in Kent. In 1386 he was dismissed from all his offices and was left without an income. Because of this in this period he started to work on his masterpiece, “The Canterbury Tales”. Geoffrey Chaucher died in 1400 and he was the first poet to be buried in Westminster Abbey. He’s also known as the Father of English literature in first place because of his language (the dialect of his native city), and in second place because of “The Canterbury Tales”, in which he was able to portray the English society of his time. His works are divided in three peiods: the French, the Italian and the English. The French period contains poems modelled on French romance styles and subjects (The Romaunt of the Rose, The Book of the Duchess). The Italian period is the result of a greater maturity of perception and skill in the manipulation of metres ( The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women). The English period is characterized by greater realism and includes Chaucher’s masterpiece, “The Canterbury Tales”....