English Prose; Selections Volume 1 (Abridged, Paperback, Abridged edition)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAUCER [The year of Chaucer's birth is unknown: it may be reckoned as not later than 1340. He was born in London, the son of a wine merchant; and by the circumstances of his birth and fortune found himself admitted to a knowledge of different ranks of society and different occupations: he was early a courtier, he saw something of war and was prisoner for a short time in France; later, he had considerable experience of affairs, both of routine work in a government office, and of more exciting diplomatic commissions. His prosperity was not uniform, and he was not rich when he died in 1400. To his immediate and vivid knowledge of various aspects of mankind, he added a great amount of learning. Chaucer's prose works are four in number: ?(i) a translation of Boetius, de Consolatione Philosophic, referred to in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women, and the poem to Adam the Scribe: (2, 3) two of the Canterbury Tales; Melibeus, told by Chaucer himself, from Jean dc Meun's abridged French version of the Liber Consolationis et Consilii of Albertano of Brescia (1246); and the Parson s Tale, mainly from the Somme le Roi of Frere Lorens (1279): (4) the Treatise on the Astrolabe, written in 1391 for the author's son Lewis. " Boece" has been edited by Dr. R. Morris, and the Astrolabe by Professor Skeat, for the Early English Text Society. The Chaucer Society has printed the Liber Consolationis, edited by Dr. Sundby; I'Histoire de Melibee et de Prudence, as incorporated in le Minagier de Paris, was published in 1846.] The value of Chaucer's prose lies chiefly in the fact that it was written by Chaucer. Of the four prose treatises belonging to him, there is none that is not translation, close or loose. In his poetry also Chaucer is a " great translator," but there the proport...