Here are the important questions about the life and works of Geoffrey Chaucer including the most important work of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales that can help you to prepare for Literature and expand your knowledge.
Q1: When was Geoffrey Chaucer born?
Answer: Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1343 ( the exact date is not known though).
Q 2: Where was Geoffrey Chaucer born?
Answer: Chaucer was born in London, England.
Q3: What were the occupations of Chaucer?
Answer: He was an author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat and diplomat.
Q4: What is the important title that Chaucer holds?
Answer: Geoffrey Chaucer is called “The Father of English Poetry”.
Q5: Who called Chaucer “The Father of English Poetry”?
Answer: John Dryden called Chaucer “The Father of English Poetry”.
Q6: “Here is God’s plenty“, who said this about Chaucer’s work?
Answer: John Dryden
Q7: Who said ” With him is born our real poetry” about Chaucer?
Answer: Mathew Arnold
Q8: Who called Chaucer “the morning star of the Renaissance“?
Answer: William Henry Hudson
Q9: “Chaucer found his English a dialect and left it a language“, who said this about Geoffrey Chaucer?
Answer: James Russell Lowell, an American poet and critic.
Q10: Chaucer wrote in which type of English specifically?
Answer: Chaucer wrote in Middle English.
Q11 : Who introduced the heroic couplet in English?
Answer: Chaucer introduced the heroic couplet in English.
Q12: In whose reign Chaucer lived?
Chaucer lived during the reigns of Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV.
Q13: When did Chaucer die?
Answer: Chaucer died on 25th October 1400(1400-25) (aged 56-57).
Q14: Where is the resting place of Chaucer?
Answer: Chaucer is buried in Poet’s Corner Westminster Abbey and he is the first poet to be buried there.
Q15: What are the major works of Chaucer?
Answer: 9 major works of Chaucer are mentioned below:
i) The Book of the Duchess
ii) The House of Fame
iii) Anelide and Arcite
iv) Parlement of Foules
v) Translation of Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy as Boece
vi) Troilus and Criseyde
vii) The Legend of Good Women
viii) The Canterbury Tales
ix) Treatise on the Astrolabe
Q16: How many Short poems are written by Geoffrey Chaucer?
Answer: 16 short poems of Chaucer is on record. These are following:
i) Balade to RosemoundeAn ABC
ii) The Complaint unto Pity
iii) The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse
iv) The Complaint of Mars
v) The Complaint of Venus
vi) A Complaint to His Lady
vii) The Former Age
viii) Fortune
ix) Gentilesse
x) Lak of Stedfastnesse
xi) Lenvoy d Chaucer a Scogan
xii) Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton
xiii) Proverbs
xiv) Balade to Rosemounde
xv) Truth
xvi) Womanly Noblesse
Q17: Whose book Chaucer translated into English prose?
Answer: Chaucer was greatly influenced by Latin book of Boethius, “The Consolations of Philosophy” and he translated it into English Prose. Chaucer also used the philosophy of Boethius in The House of fame, Troilus and Criseyde and the Knight’s Tale.
Q18: A Roman poet provided Chaucer with the majority of the material needed for his legend of Thisbe? What was the name of the poet?
Answer: Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
Q19: What is the important rhyming stanza that Chaucer introduced in poetry?
Answer: The “Rhyme Royal” is a stanza of seven lines in iambic pentameter with a rhyming scheme of ababbcc.
Q20: On Whose death Chaucer wrote The Book of Duchess?
Answer: The Book of Duchess is a dream allegory and it was written after the death of Blanche, the duchess of Lancaster as mourning.
Q21: Who observed The Canterbury Tales “much more than a collection of character sketches”?
Answer: Thomas A. Kirby
Q22: Who wrote The Canterbury Tales and in which year?
Answer: Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales sometimes around 1387 A., the uncompleted manuscript was published in 1400.
Q23: In The Canterbury Tales, pilgrims were going to whose shrine?
Answer: St. Thomas a Becket
Q24: How many people were going on the pilgrimage to Canterbury?
Answer: 30 (Thirty)
Q25: Who told the first tale?
Answer: The Knight
Q26: How many tales will each pilgrim tell on the way?
Answer: 4 (four)
Q27: What is the name of the host who organized the pilgrimage?
Answer: Harry Bailey
Q28: How did Harry decide who would be the first to tell the tale?
Answer: By drawing Straws
Q29: What is the name of the inn where the narrator meets all of the pilgrims?
Answer: The Tabard Inn
Q30: The Canterbury Tales consists of 22 complete stories, but how many were originally planned?
Answer: 120 (one hundred and twenty)
Q31: How many tales did Geoffrey Chaucer complete before he died?
Answer: 24 (Twenty four)
Q32: Who is described as “an unmarried maiden”?
Answer: Knight
Q33: Who was wearing a jupon (Jacket) of fustian cloth?
Answer: Knight
Q34: How the Square is mentioned?
Answer: He was as fresh as the month of May and a lusty bachelor.
Q35: Which character was the Nun?
Answer: Prioress
Q36: Whose house was always full of food and wine?
Answer: Frankeleyn (Franklin)
Q37: Who was deaf and had five husbands?
Answer: Wyf of Bathe ( The Lady of Bath)
Q38: Children were afraid of which character because of his appearance?
Answer: Somnour (Summoner)
Q39: Which character was known as Madam Eglantine?
Answer: Prioress
Q40: “Avarice is the root of all evils”, whose story was holding this moral?
Answer: The Pardoner
Q41: Who told the tale of Carpenter?
Answer: The Miller
Q42: Who in rage tells the story about a Miller?
Answer: Reeve who was once a carpenter got offended by Miller’s tale and in rage, he tells the story of a Miller called Simpkin.
Q43: Who tells the story of a white crow?
Answer: The Manciple tells the story of a white crow whose owner in fury plucks all the feathers of the crow and threw it “unto the devil” and this is the reason crows are now black.
Q44: Who tells the tale of seven deadly sins?
Answer: Parson talks about seven deadly sins including Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, Lechery or lust.
Q45: Who tells the tale about three men seeking death?
Answer: Pardoner
Q46: Which instrument was Miller playing when they left the town?
Answer: Bagpipes
Q47: Which of the following Geoffrey Chaucer’s tale is in Prose?
Answer: The Parson’s tale
Q48: Which of the pilgrim women was widowed?
Answer: Wife of Bathe
Q49: Who was selling the fake relics?
Answer: The Pardoner
Q50: Who is presented as the most honest out of all Geoffrey Chaucer’s pilgrims?
Answer: The Parson
Q51: Who is described as the immoral, lecherous drunk?
Answer: The Summoner
Q52: Geoffrey Chaucer’s character Franklin is guilty of which sin?
Answer: Franklin is guilty of Gluttony
Q53: There is a rooster in the tale of Nun about Priest, what is the rooster’s name?
Answer: Chanticleer
Q54: How Miller’s mouth is described in The Canterbury Tales?
Answer: Miller’s mouth is described that “it was as big as a furnace”.
Q55: How Franklin’s beard is described in The Canterbury Tales?
Answer: Franklin beard is described as it was like a forked and “White as daisy”.
Q56: How Pardoner’s hair is described in The Canterbury Tales?
Answer: The Pardoner’s hair was described “as yellow as wex”.
Q57: The Canterbury Tales has many elements in common with an Italian poet’s work, what is the name of the poet?
Answer: Geoffrey Chaucer was greatly influenced by Italian poet Boccaccio, The Canterbury Tales has many elements in common with Boccaccio’s Decameron.
Q58: In which century The Canterbury Tales is set?
Answer: The Canterbury Tales is set in fourteenth-century London.
Q59: What is “Beast Fable” and in which tale did Geoffrey Chaucer use in The Canterbury Tales?
Answer: Beast Fable is a kind of Animal Tale, in which animal characters are presented as having human feelings and Chaucer used it in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”.
Q60: Who called Prologue to The Canterbury Tales “The Prologue to modern fiction and why?
Answer: Henry Wadsworth Long an American poet called it the “Prologue to modern fiction” because of its Narrative unity.
