Chaucer
A European Life
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Narrated by:
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Marion Turner
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By:
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Marion Turner
About this listen
A groundbreaking biography that recreates the cosmopolitan world in which a wine merchant's son became one of the most celebrated of all English poets.
More than any other canonical English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer lived and worked at the center of political life - yet his poems are anything but conventional. Edgy, complicated, and often dark, they reflect a conflicted world, and their astonishing diversity and innovative language earned Chaucer renown as the father of English literature. Marion Turner, however, reveals him as a great European writer and thinker. To understand his accomplishment, she reconstructs in unprecedented detail the cosmopolitan world of Chaucer's adventurous life, focusing on the places and spaces that fired his imagination.
Uncovering important new information about Chaucer's travels, private life, and the early circulation of his writings, this innovative biography documents a series of vivid episodes, moving from the commercial wharves of London to the frescoed chapels of Florence and the kingdom of Navarre, where Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived side by side. The narrative recounts Chaucer's experiences as a prisoner of war in France, as a father visiting his daughter's nunnery, as a member of a chaotic Parliament, and as a diplomat in Milan, where he encountered the writings of Dante and Boccaccio. At the same time, the book offers a comprehensive exploration of Chaucer's writings, taking the listener to the Troy of Troilus and Criseyde, the gardens of the dream visions, and the peripheries and thresholds of The Canterbury Tales.
By exploring the places Chaucer visited, the buildings he inhabited, the books he read, and the art and objects he saw, this landmark biography tells the extraordinary story of how a wine merchant's son became the poet of The Canterbury Tales.
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- Sex, Greed, Violence and Depravity in an Age of Beauty
- By: Alexander Lee
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Renowned as a period of cultural rebirth and artistic innovation, the Renaissance is cloaked in a unique aura of beauty and brilliance. Its very name conjures up awe-inspiring images of an age of lofty ideals in which life imitated the fantastic artworks for which it has become famous. But behind the vast explosion of new art and culture lurked a seamy, vicious world of power politics, perversity, and corruption that has more in common with the present day than anyone dares to admit.
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Author falls into the pit he digs for others
- By Sean on 01-23-16
By: Alexander Lee
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A Brief History of Life in the Middle Ages
- Brief Histories
- By: Martyn Whittock
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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A fascinating new portrait of Medieval Britain that brings together the everyday and the extraordinary. Using wide-ranging evidence, Martyn Whittock shines a light on Britain in the Middle Ages, bringing it vividly to life. Thus we glimpse 11th century rural society through a conversation between a ploughman and his master. The life of Dick Whittington illuminates the rise of the urban elite.
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Really good book
- By Claire on 11-11-18
By: Martyn Whittock
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The Queen's Agent
- Sir Francis Walsingham and the Rise of Espionage in Elizabethan England
- By: John Cooper
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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A captivating true story that chronicles the exploits of Sir Francis Walsingham - the first great English spymaster and the man who saved Elizabeth's regime and the country's independence. Elizabeth I came to the throne at a time of insecurity and unrest. Rivals threatened her reign; England was a Protestant island, isolated in a sea of Catholic countries. Spain plotted an invasion, but Elizabeth's Secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham, was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her. He ran a network of agents in England and Europe who provided him with information about invasions or assassination plots.
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The Power Behind the Throne
- By Troy on 02-21-15
By: John Cooper
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The Bookseller of Florence
- The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings - the dazzling handiwork of the city's skilled artists and architects. But equally important for the centuries to follow were geniuses of a different sort: Florence's manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars, and booksellers, who blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, through the discovery and diffusion of ancient knowledge, imagined a new and enlightened world.
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Great book, Horrible narrator
- By Sergio Remon on 07-01-21
By: Ross King
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Fifth Sun
- A New History of the Aztecs
- By: Camilla Townsend
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time, in Fifth Sun, the history of the Aztecs is offered in all its complexity based solely on the texts written by the indigenous people themselves. Camilla Townsend presents an accessible and humanized depiction of these native Mexicans, rather than seeing them as the exotic, bloody figures of European stereotypes.
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Ethnocentric ethnohistory
- By Jeffrey D on 03-24-21
By: Camilla Townsend
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Germany: Memories of a Nation
- By: Neil MacGregor
- Narrated by: Neil MacGregor
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental Europe. Thirty years ago, a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people now understand themselves? Neil MacGregor argues that uniquely for any European country, no coherent, over-arching narrative of Germany's history can be constructed, for in Germany, both geography and history have always been unstable.
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Engaging and Informative
- By William on 06-15-24
By: Neil MacGregor
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The Ornament of the World
- How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain
- By: Maria Rosa Menocal, Harold Bloom - foreword
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Widely hailed as a revelation of a "lost" golden age, this history brings to vivid life the rich and thriving culture of medieval Spain, where, for more than seven centuries, Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in an atmosphere of tolerance, and literature, science, and the arts flourished.
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Excellent Book
- By Zahid Ahmad on 08-14-18
By: Maria Rosa Menocal, and others
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Natasha's Dance
- A Cultural History of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 29 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world.
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A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
- By Tarquin on 02-13-19
By: Orlando Figes
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Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD
- By: Peter Brown
- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
- Length: 31 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure. Through the Eye of a Needle is a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity.
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A learned, well-balanced postmodern history
- By Jacobus on 11-21-12
By: Peter Brown
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Shakespeare and the Resistance
- By: Clare Asquith
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece a year later. Although wildly popular during Shakespeare's lifetime, to modern readers both works are almost impenetrable. But in her enthralling new book, the Shakespearean scholar Clare Asquith reveals their hidden contents.
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Excellent scholarship unveiling hidden history
- By Lumen Fidei on 07-03-23
By: Clare Asquith
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In the Wake of the Plague
- The Black Death and the World It Made
- By: Norman F. Cantor
- Narrated by: Bill Wallace
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Much of what we know about the greatest medical disaster ever, the Black Plague of the fourteenth century, is wrong. The details of the Plague etched in the minds of terrified schoolchildren the hideous black welts, the high fever, and the final, awful end by respiratory failure are more or less accurate. But what the Plague really was, and how it made history, remain shrouded in a haze of myths.
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Don't waste time or money
- By Anne on 01-22-09
By: Norman F. Cantor
What listeners say about Chaucer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Angela L.
- 11-19-21
Fantastic in its depth and breadth!
Impressive work that illuminates Geoffrey Chaucer’s experiences and how his writing and ideas were shaped.
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- Victoria Smith
- 08-01-23
Not a typical biography
While this book is an amazing history covering the time period of Chaucer’s life, I would categorize it more as a history centered around Chaucer as opposed to a biography. Though I feel that I learned a ton about the period; there are a lot of names and dates that get thrown out at you and I think having familiarity with world events in the 1300’s would be helpful. I also understand why she organized by places, but I was very unused to a non-linear timeline and kept trying to remember who was alive, dead, etc. as years are talked about with relevance, not time order.
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- S. Cremona
- 06-03-23
Understanding Chaucer and His Writings
“Chaucer: A European Life” was an in-depth and detailed excursion into the life and times of Geoffrey Chaucer, one of the English language’s most famous authors. Marion Turner examines, in close detail, the writings down to the multiple meaning of words being used, the political environment, and general conditions of the times. The book is a valuable reference to understand Chaucer and the words he has left for us to read, understand, and enjoy. Experienced as an AUDIO book.
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- Theresa Donovan Brown
- 05-20-24
Chaucer’s Genius in Context and Continuum
I appreciate the author’s deep understanding of Chaucer’s multifaceted genius, well woven with the story of his fascinating life. A brilliant biography!
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- Lucky
- 03-20-23
Amazing scholarship - less so narration
Why do authors insist on reading their own books? This would have been so much better, and easier to comprehend in the hands (or voice) of any of a number of seasoned audiobook readers. I persevered but what a slog.
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- Jeff W
- 02-06-22
A dense slog, perhaps better read than listened to
I’m in the minority of listeners who found this audiobook quite a slog to get through. (I’m not one to complain about history detailed audiobooks—while others said Dan Jones’s The War of the Roses difficult to follow in audiobook form, I found it captivating and pretty easy to follow.) Part of the problem is listening to, rather than reading, the text. I found a portion of Chapter 13 “Empire” in print online and reading along with the text made it much easier to follow.
Here’s a sample paragraph:
“Pope Urban VI had been elected in April, but his cardinals were already regretting his election, and a large group had withdrawn from Rome to Anagni. While Chaucer was still in Lombardy, they pronounced the election void (on August 2nd); and the day after Chaucer returned to England, they elected a rival pope, Clement VII. Chaucer was also in Lombardy when Galeazzo Visconti died at Pavia on August 4th. He had ruled jointly with his brother Bernabò, and his death initially allowed Bernabò even freer reign, until Galeazzo’s son, Giangaleazzo, executed a coup against his uncle in 1385, a turn of Fortune’s wheel memorialized in the ‘Monk’s Tale.’”
Think about how dense that short paragraph is when listening to it. We have one event occurring on 2 August, another happening “the day after Chaucer returned to England”—it’s not clear when that is—and then another happening on 4 August. Chaucer “was still in Lombardy” on 2 August and “also in Lombardy” on 4 August—the author has already said in the previous paragraph that “Chaucer probably arrived in Milan around the end of June or beginning of July and stayed in Lombardy until mid-August” so we already know that Chaucer was in Lombardy on both the 2nd and 4th of August. It would have been clearer for the listener if the author had written a portion of the paragraph as something like “While Chaucer was in Lombardy, the cardinals pronounced the election void on August 2nd; two days later, Galeazzo died at Pavia, putting an end to his joint rule with his brother Bernabò…On 20 September 1378, the day after Chaucer returned to England, the cardinals elected a rival pope, Clement VII.”
A few paragraphs later, the author writes “ In Pavia, he could have found Boccaccio’s Filostrato, Amorosa Visione, Decameron, De Genealogia Deorum Gentilium, De Claris Mulieribus, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, and De Montibus.” If you’re reading these titles, you can at least take each one in, one at a time, but, unless you’re familiar with Boccaccio’s works (I know only of Decameron), the stream of titles in Latin as audio is impenetrable.
Much of the book is like that.
I acknowledge the author’s erudite, scholarly approach to Chaucer and his life. The book had interesting things to say about Chaucer as a prisoner of war, the diplomat, the civil servant in the “counting house,” the father—and, perhaps a bit too gingerly, the accused rapist of Cecily Champaigne (Turner speculates freely elsewhere but not there). But it’s so dense, so unsuitable as an audiobook, that it is difficult to recommend.
And, as an exceedingly minor point, I thought some of the author’s pronunciations were just plain weird: for example, she says “counterfeit” as “counter-fate” (which sounds like a Chaucerian affectation, honestly) and “treatise” as “tree-tize” (the second syllable rhyming with “size”). Perhaps they are dialectal variations but I found them to be a bit distracting.
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