Marion Turner will discuss her recent biography, Chaucer: A European Life, which was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize in 2020 and named as a book of the year in 2019 by The Times, the Sunday Times and the TLS. This is the first full biography of the poet for a generation, and it challenges traditional ideas of Chaucer as the ‘father of English literature’.
She focuses on his European and global contexts, his extraordinary travels, his multilingual influences, and his poetic innovations. Exploring the places, buildings, art and books that shaped Chaucer’s imagination, she reveals the experiences that led this vintner’s son to become the poet of the Canterbury Tales.
Please book by 1pm on the day of the lecture
Marion Turner is is a Tutorial Fellow of Jesus College and Associate Professor of English at the University of Oxford, where she teaches medieval literature and life-writing. She has published many articles and books on Chaucer and other aspects of late medieval literary culture, including Chaucerian Conflict and A Handbook of Middle English Studies. She is a Trustee of the New Chaucer Society.