Chaucer: A European Life
by Marion Turner
“People who know a bit about Chaucer tend to think of him as the father of English literature—there’s a famous picture of him as an old patriarch, pointing with a rosary—or they think of him as a genial, middle-aged man telling slightly risqué stories in a pub. That’s the popular image of Chaucer. But really, that image came about after his death. In his lifetime, no one thought of him in that way.”
Read more in our interview with biographer Marion Turner on the best books on The Canterbury Tales.
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“You might think a study of Chaucer would be a study of literature, but this is history as well as literature. It’s very wide-ranging scholarship, but it’s written in a witty, chatty style and it’s very, very accessible. Marion Turner follows him around on his travels as an official—his daytime job. Chaucer is regarded as one of the fathers of English literature, but what Marion Turner shows, in this deeply researched and highly readable life, is that he was a European figure.” Read more...
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