CHAUCER'S THE PROLOGUE AND THE KNIGHTES TALE EDITED BY A. M. VAN DYKE, M. A. FORMERLY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, CINCINNATI HIGH SCHOOLS NEW YORK: CINCINNATI: CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY EducT 813.175 140 Harvard University MAY 10 1911 TRANSFERRED TO HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY Copyright, 1898, by CHAUCER W. P. I h INTRODUCTION. THE parentage, date of birth, and many other details in the life of Geoffrey Chaucer, the "Father of English Poetry," are involved in more or less obscurity, and those mentioned in the following brief biography, although in accordance with the best authorities, must not all be regarded as unquestionably established. He was born probably in 1340 (not in 1328, as formerly believed). His father was John Chaucer, a wealthy vintner, evidently of some social standing, since in 1338 he was in attendance on King Edward III. Geoffrey was liberally educated. Both Cambridge and Oxford claim him as a student, and it is probable that he attended both universities, a practice not uncommon with scholars of his day. "At the period of his leaving Oxford," says Leland, "he was already an acute dialectician, a persuasive orator, an elegant poet, a grave philosopher, an able mathematician, and an accomplished divine." In 1357 he was in the king's service as page in the household of Lionel, third son of Edward III.; and in 1359 he served in the army that invaded France, where he was taken prisoner, but soon after released, the king paying sixteen pounds toward his ransom. During the next seven years no mention is made of him in any 5 |