Paul Strohm

Paul Strohm reminds us in this book that the Canterbury Tales is almost the very first medieval writing to truly include members of several "estates" (social classes), from the Knight, who is a member of the gentry, down to the Ploughman and the other "churls." Much of the power of the tales (and the Tales) comes from this very mixture of classes. Some of its contents are very modern, as in the feminism of the Wife of Bath or the blatant sexual interests of the Miller; sometimes it offers show more something so medieval as to be almost unreadable, as in the anti-Semitism of the Prioress.

Chaucer's Tale is an equally curious mixture of gold and lead, without even the excuse of being intended for medieval tastes.

The gold is the brilliant description of life in fourteenth century England, and the political environment in which Chaucer found himself. I have read a lot of fourteenth century history, and I don't think any book has conveyed the feeling of it as well. There are a few places where Strohm seems a little too sure of himself -- for instance, he is convinced that Chaucer's long-time residence above Aldgate was a miserable hole in the wall (literally), while others are convinced it was a comfortable, desirable home. Who is right? I would guess the latter, but I don't know; I do know that Strohm should have mentioned that there is disagreement.

The one real problem, though, is the portrayal of Chaucer. In particular, Strohm's contention that, until 1386, Chaucer had been basically a private poet, writing only for himself and some sort of inner circle, which is why his poetry never seems to be mentioned in all our "Life-records."

I just don't buy it. By that time, Guillaume de Machaut had called Chaucer a great translator, and John Gower was talking about Chaucer's poetry. Later, lesser writers like Lydgate and Hoccleve were growing up with his poetry. But the kicker is Chaucer's first long work, The Book of the Duchess. There is near-universal agreement (including by Strohm) that this is about Blanche of Lancaster, the first wife of John of Gaunt. Why would Chaucer have written such a book, were it not for presentation to Gaunt? (Since Blanche was dead by then; it is, in large part, an exploration of how Gaunt reacted to her death.) Chaucer was a public poet; it's just that our records are about his work as a civil servant and ambassador, in which his poetry is not relevant.

Also, I think Strohm is missing the clues in Chaucer's portrayal of himself. Yes, Chaucer the Pilgrim, and the narrator of the House of Fame, and all the others, are caricature, but they are caricature based on the real Chaucer -- as bookish as a medieval man could be, private, not a great success with women (Strohm himself suggests that he and his wife Philippa mostly lived apart), a bit bumbling in manner. Throw in a fact that Strohm doesn't use: of Chaucer's six longest works, three (The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, and The Canterbury Tales) are unfinished. These hints add up to a clear personality, and it's not the personality Strohm describes. It's a man who was an intellectual genius, but not a good manager; a man who knew almost everything it was possible to know in medieval England (remember, apart from his poetry, he wrote the first English-language scientific textbook, the Treatise on the Astrolabe!, and he knew at least four languages) -- but who wasn't good at planning. For this reason, I don't think, e.g., that Chaucer in his work at the wool custom went along with the infamous Nicholas Bembre; I think he just couldn't push back -- and didn't try.

Many of the conclusions in this book are dependent on Chaucer's psychology, and I just don't think that Strohm has that right. So I am forced to strenuously disagree with him on those matters. But he certainly makes an interesting case. I don't think this should be anyone's first reading about Chaucer, because of that psychological error, but this is clearly a must-read for anyone truly interested in the life of the man who brought iambic pentameter into English, the first great author Britain ever produced, the greatest poet ever to write in English. show less

Strohm looks at the events of 1386 and how they affected Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer's life changed dramatically in 1386 - he was essentially kicked out of London and lost his job as a wool customs clerk. As a writer, this meant that Chaucer no longer had access to his audience, and there wasn't yet a concept of writing for a general audience. Strohm surmises that this led Chaucer to conceive of the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales as his audience: in other words, having lost his real show more audience, Chaucer invented a new one.

Unfortunately, Strohm takes a very long time to get to this interesting thesis. He goes into exhaustive detail about the workings of the wool customs, and about London politics in 1386. This is interesting information, but it feels like padding - it doesn't further Strohm's main argument, and it can get pretty tedious. It seems like he wrote an essay about Chaucer's audience, and then needed to make it three times longer, so he added a whole bunch of detail about customs and politics.

Nonetheless, this is an interesting read and provides fascinating information about Chaucer and the circumstances under which the Canterbury Tales were written. show less

This book markets itself as an exploration of 1386 being Chaucer’s year of doom. As it turns out this is short section of literary criticism at the end where Strohm argues that Chaucer was lonely without his poetry group so he invented a group of pilgrims who listened to each other’s poetry. Fine.

The rest of the book is far more interesting. Strohm’s procedure is as follows. He takes what we know of Chaucer from the documentary evidence and fleshes it out, giving us a snapshot history show more of the late 14th Century. This history informs our knowledge of Chaucer and there’s thus a nice feedback loop. So we have a picture drawn for us of the court of John of Gaunt, one of conditions in London and Chaucer’s digs, and the English wool trade. Particularly interesting were the digs and, strangely, the wool trade, which Strohm presents as a hive of scum and villainy.

Strohm is at pains to stress a sort of low-status Chaucer living in poor housing in a filthy city. I’ll accept that London was filthy, but otherwise I think we need a reality check. His father may have been ‘in trade’, but in comparison to the poor shack-dwellings sods whose job it was to collect faecal matter he was living it large in his stone tower. I wonder if Strohm is attempting to create a vulnerable Chaucer we can identify with. Still, you don’t need to agree with everything to learn something from it.

The first edition is particularly nice. Paper cover covered boards blind-stamped with the author’s initials. Quarter bound in cloth with gilt lettering on the spine. The dust jacket is platicky on the inside and pithy on the outside. A bit like an inside-out satsuma. show less

The importance of Geoffrey Chaucer on English literature cannot be measured, but if not for one bad year both Chaucer and the history of English literature could have been remembered completely differently. Paul Strohm writes in his new book, “Chaucer’s Tale”, that if not for the rapidly changing political environment in 1386 Chaucer’s life might have not provided him the opportunity to write “The Canterbury Tales”.

Strohm begins his microbiography of Chaucer by placing the author show more within English society as first the son of a wine importer then a courtier and finally a bureaucrat. Chaucer’s connects to the growing Lancastrian family through family connections while politically aligned to Richard II are discussed in connection to the position he received in London. Chaucer’s professional career in London, along with his sideline interest in composing words into poems and tales, is discussed before he is transitioned into a Member of Parliament for the fateful 1386 Parliament.

After setting the stage, Strohm shows how Chaucer became adrift in the political storm that was just beginning in 1386 which resulted in him losing his job and home leading to a change of focus. At this point Strohm gives a glimpse into the emerging culture of English letters in the late fourteenth century and how Chaucer approached the concept of fame before and after 1386. Strohm then relates how Chaucer did something completely different in relation to audience and creating the spark of English literature that would continue through Shakespeare through Joyce to today.

The research that Strohm put into this book is excellent, even with the lack of sources because of the seven centuries gap. The detailed descriptions of life in medieval London were fascinating as well as the political drama going into the background that impacted Chaucer for good and ill. However this detail in setting background for 1386 dominates the first half of the book leaving the reader waiting for Strohm to show how 1386 resulted in Chaucer’s masterpiece. The biggest fault of the book is that Strohm continually adds detail after detail along with supporting evidence to facts he has already proven for background while not advancing towards the central thrust of the book.

“Chaucer’s Tale” shows how a minor individual in the political landscape of medieval England became a literary giant that is better remember than the kings, lords, and gentlemen of his time. Paul Strohm shows Chaucer’s radically new idea that spawned “The Canterbury Tales” and jumped started English literature, however he takes his time to get to the point while over describing the background of life and events leading to the fateful Parliament of 1386 and the consequences of it.

I received an Advanced Uncorrected Proofs edition of this book through Goodreads First Reads. show less