Then she decides to speak about each of her husbands. Three were good and two were young men. The good ones were kind, rich and old. She would withhold sex from them to get the riches they might offer her. She would use guilt and jealousy against them, along with other manipulative techniques.

In addition to diplomatic trips to France, Chaucer also went to Flanders in 1377 and to Italy in 1372 and 1378. He became justice of the place and knight of the Shire for Kent.

-Works-

Chaucer’s production is divided into three phases: French, Italian and English.

During his “French phase” his poetic models were French, especially allegorical poems on courtly love such as “Le Roman de la Rose”. Of his Italian phase the best work  is “Troilus and Criseyde” a free rendering of Boccaccio’s “Filostrato”.    

Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London in 1343, he participated in the Hundred Years War which was held in France. This led Chaucer to carry out various diplomatic missions both at home and abroad. Among the many trips he made, he also visited Italy where he met Petrarch, Boccaccio and Dante; hence his passion for literature that will lead him to write several works that are divided into three periods: French period, Italian period and English period.

In the French period, Chaucer was influenced by several French models where he translated the book “Roman de la Rose”.

During the Italian period, Chaucer followed Italian models in particular Petrarca, Boccaccio and Dante, with whom he will be friends. During this period he wrote two important works “The house of Fame”and “Parliament of false”. Chaucer writes the most important work of his collection in the English period”The Canterbury Tales”. This work was to be published in 1387 but this did not happen because Chaucer died.

As said, Chaucer’s most famous work is The Canterbury Tales. Left uncompleted, it was planned to be composed by 120 tales: one group of pilgrims was going to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Thomas Becket. They stopped at the tabard where the host suggested to tell, two tales going to the Canterbury and two tales coming back. At the end the best tales will get a prince. The pilgrim be longed to different social classes; consequently the tales included different tames for example love, marriage, hypocrisy etc.

Heach tales included a prologue were each pilgrims described I’m self or-self.   The most important tale of Chaucer is “The Wife of Bath”.The story tell about a woman( the wife of bath ), that come from bath, she was an housewife and she was the greatest at making clothes in England and she. Bettered those of other French cities.

This woman wear the finest clothes, she was a churched woman but she also had 5 husband’s,  cause of her churched life she travelled to some religious cities like Rome, Cologne and other.

He wrote many works that we can divide him in 3 periods:

1)The French period, influenced by French models, that include his translations of the Roman de La Rose;

2)The Italian period, in which he was inspired by the italian poets Dante and Boccaccio. Dante's Divine Comedy inspired Chaucer for The House of Fame.

3)The English period, in the last part of his life, saw the writing of his most famous work: “The Canterbury Tales”.

As said, Chaucer's most famous work is The Canterbury Tales. Left uncompleted, it was planned to be composed by 120 tales, but at the moment of Chaucer's death only 24 of them written completely. It is considered one of the greatest works ever written in English.

The poem is structured as a group of interlinked stories told by a group of pilgrims durig their journey to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury. After a prologue, Chaucer describes summarily the pilgrims with a nice touch of good humor and irony, making us learn about their qualities, social standing and weaknesses.

The pilgrims begin their journey at Tabard Inn, a tavern where the host proposes a tale-telling competition with an unknown prize for the best story. On the other hand, she’s described as deaf and not so beautiful, and, eventhough she were a good churchwoman, she had five churched husbands and many sexual experiences in her youth. With this contrast and the woman's mastery of the "art of love" Chaucer gives us the image of an indipendent woman, with feminist-like values that uses her qualities to be respected and mantained economically. All of these aspects make the Wife of Bath a modern character.