{"id":3469,"date":"2017-04-17T18:56:56","date_gmt":"2017-04-17T18:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/news\/specialcollections\/?p=3469"},"modified":"2017-04-17T18:56:56","modified_gmt":"2017-04-17T18:56:56","slug":"today-in-1397-the-first-reading-of-the-canterbury-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/2017\/04\/17\/today-in-1397-the-first-reading-of-the-canterbury-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in 1397 – the first reading of the Canterbury Tales"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chaucer<\/a>
Title page of The Canterbury tales of Chaucer, modernis\u2019d by several hands. Published: London, Printed for J. and R. Tonson, 1741. Located in Binghamton University Libraries’ Special Collections.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

April 17, 1397 would turn out to be very significant in the development of English literature, for on this day Geoffrey Chaucer read his Canterbury Tales<\/em> out loud for the first time in King Richard II’s court.\u00a0He read it in English, the language of the common man, instead of the Norman French usually spoken at court.<\/p>\n

It is believed that Chaucer may have written\u00a0The Tales<\/i>\u00a0in the hope of having English accepted as a courtly language. On 17th<\/sup>\u00a0April 1397, he was given the privilege of reciting his own works before the ladies and gentlemen of the court. In those days, public entertainment often consisted of a reader, reciting works from a book. Although readers were scarce and books scarcer still, the king could afford to pay for a narrator to read at his court.<\/p>\n

The Canterbury Tales<\/em>, the magnum opus of Sir Geoffrey Chaucer and his best known work, concerns a diverse group of 30 pilgrims embarking upon a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury. To pass the time on their journey, they tell stories;\u00a0the traveler who spun the best tale was to receive a free meal at the Tabard Inn upon his return.\u00a0Their individual tales mirror their station in life \u2013 knight, parson, clerk, etc., for both good and ill.<\/p>\n

\"Chaucer<\/a>
Illustration of Chaucer from The Canterbury tales of Chaucer, modernis\u2019d by several hands, 1741, located in the Binghamton University Libraries’ Special Collections.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chaucer died October 25, 1400 in London, England, and was the first to be buried in Westminster Abbey\u2019s inaugurated Poet\u2019s Corner. After his death,\u00a0The Canterbury Tales<\/em> reached the wider world and were widely reproduced. By the mid-15th century he was regarded as the greatest English poet of all time, the art form he had pioneered about to flourish after the invention of the printing press in 1476. \u00a0This invention would come to mass-produce Chaucer and would make The Tales<\/em> available to all writers who would follow him.<\/p>\n

Visit Special Collections<\/a>, located on the second floor of the Bartle Library to view the Libraries’ 1741 edition of The Canterbury Tales.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 17, 1397 would turn out to be very significant in the development of English literature, for on this day Geoffrey Chaucer read his Canterbury Tales out loud for the first time in King Richard II’s court.\u00a0He read it in English, the language of the common man, instead of the Norman French usually spoken at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-books"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}