ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Information concerning Chaucer’s children is not fully clear. The probability is that he and Philippa had two sons and two daughters.

Detailed explanation-2: -Chaucer had a high-born wife, Philippa, whom he probably married as early as 1366. Chaucer may also have had a daughter, Elizabeth, and two sons, “little Lewis” (for whom he composed the Astrolabe, a prose work on the use of that instrument of an astronomer) and Thomas.

Detailed explanation-3: -Chaucer was not a professional writer, but a courtier and civil servant who successfully served three kings in a long and varied career. Born in about 1342 into a middle-class merchant family, by the age of seventeen he was placed as a page in the household of Prince Lionel, one of the sons of Edward III.

Detailed explanation-4: -What is this? In 1324, when John Chaucer was twelve years old, he was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying him to her daughter in an attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and fined £250, now equivalent to about £200, 000, which suggests that the family was financially secure.