Geoffrey Chaucer

The father of English literature, as some consider him, died on October 25, 1400.  Chaucer's most famous work was his Canterbury Tales.  Sir Walter Scott certainly read his works, as he made several allusions (and references) to Chaucer in his correspondence with others.

One individual with whom Scott exchanged several letters was dramatist Joanna Baillie.  On December 12, 1811 Scott writes to Ms. Baillie of her work as a playwright: '...While I was watching my infant or rather embryo oaks you have been wandering under the shade of those celebrated by Pope and Denham or in a still earlier age by Surrey and Chaucer. How often have you visited the site of Hearnes oak and calld up the imaginary train of personages who fill the stage around it in representation?...'

Earlier, in a letter to William Clerk (September 30, 1792), Scott invokes Chaucer in a more analytical reference on the inhabitants of Hexham: '...Hard by the town is the field of battle where the forces of Queen Margaret were defeated by those of the House of York- a blow which the Red Rose never recovered during the civil wars. The spot where the Duke of Somerset and the northern nobility of the Lancastrian faction were executed after the battle, is still called Dukesfield. The inhabitants of this country speak an odd dialect of the Saxon, approaching nearly that of Chaucer, and have retained some customs peculiar to themselves. They are the descendants of the ancient Danes, chased into the fastnesses of Northumberland by the severity of William the Conqueror...'

The Canterbury Tales

CHAPTER II


A Monk there was, a fayre for the maistrie,
An outrider that loved venerie;
A manly man, to be an Abbot able,
Full many a daintie horse had he in stable :
And whan he rode, men might his bridle hear
Gingeling in a whistling wind as clear,
And eke as loud, as doth the chapell bell,
There as this lord was keeper of the cell.

Chaucer

Walter Scott employed the above passage from the prologue to "The Canterbury Tales" as the motto to Chapter II of  "Ivanhoe".  April 17 has two resonances with Chaucer's work.  In 1397, Chaucer told "The Canterbury Tales" for the first time, in the court of English King Richard II.  It is also the date the pilgrimage to Canterbury is supposed to have begun, in 1387.

Saint Valentine's Day

"...Tomorrow is St. Valentine's Day, when every bird chooses her mate; but you will not see the linnet pair with the sparrow hawk, nor the Robin Redbreast with the kite. My father was an honest burgher of Perth, and could use his needle as well as I can. Did there come war to the gates of our fair burgh, down went needles, thread, and shamoy leather, and out came the good head piece and target from the dark nook, and the long lance from above the chimney. Show me a day that either he or I was absent when the provost made his musters! Thus we have led our lives, my girl, working to win our bread, and fighting to defend it. I will have no son in law that thinks himself better than me; and for these lords and knights, I trust thou wilt always remember thou art too low to be their lawful love, and too high to be their unlawful loon. And now lay by thy work, lass, for it is holytide eve, and it becomes us to go to the evening service, and pray that Heaven may send thee a good Valentine tomorrow." 

The above is from "The Fair Maid of Perth, or St. Valentine's Day".


Named after the Bishop of Terni, who was martyred in the 3rd century, Valentine's Day became associated with romantic love, and the selection of partners, through to the influence of such authors as Chaucer.

Poet's Corner - Westminster Abbey

On Monday, December 20, 1784, Samuel Johnson's remains were buried in Westminster Abbey. Johnson, who died a week earlier (on the 13th), joined several other illustrious poets/writers interred or memorialized in Poet's Corner. Geoffrey Chaucer was the first poet buried there. Others include John Dryden, Lord Tennyson, and Robert Browning.

Memorials includes such famous poets/writers as John Milton, William Blake, Robert Burns, and, of course, Sir Walter Scott. Scott himself is buried in Dryburgh Abbey, near his Abbotsford.