The History of Literature 797 Marion Turner and Chaucer (Revisited)
Apr 30, 2026
Marion Turner, J. R. R. Tolkien Professor at Oxford and author of Chaucer: A European Life, guides listeners through Chaucer’s multilingual, cosmopolitan world. She traces his London origins, education, travels, poetic innovations and the Canterbury Tales’ deliberate incompletion. The conversation highlights Chaucer’s performance culture, earthy humour, and how archival research reshapes his biography.
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Archives Reveal Chaucer's Public Career
- Contrary to myth, Chaucer left extensive bureaucratic records—over 500 life documents—because he served as a civil servant and diplomat.
- Records include travel payments, clothing purchases, and official roles like customs officer and clerk of the king's works.
Place-Based Biography Reveals Imagination
- Marion Turner structured her biography around places and spaces to access Chaucer's imagination rather than a strict chronology.
- Chapters focus on real sites (Genoa, Vintry Ward) and conceptual spaces (the threshold) to show how environment shaped his metaphors.
Chaucer As A European Poet
- Turner calls Chaucer 'A European Life' because his writing and networks were continental, not narrowly national.
- He read Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, travelled to Italy, Navarre, France and mixed with multilingual courts and merchants.
