title: Lana Turner

text: In November 1960, Turner married her fifth husband, Frederick "Fred" May, a rancher and member of the May department-store family whom she had met at a beach party in Malibu shortly after filming "Imitation of Life". Turner moved in with him on his ranch in Chino, California, where the two took care of horses and other animals. The following year, she made her final film at MGM with Bob Hope in "Bachelor in Paradise" (1961), a romantic comedy about an investigative writer (Hope) working on a book about the wives of a lavish California community; the film received a mostly positive critical reception. Upon completing filming, Turner collected the remaining $92,000 from her pension fund with MGM. The same year, she starred in "By Love Possessed" (1961), based on a bestselling novel by James Gould Cozzens. The film became the first in-flight movie to be shown on a regular basis on a scheduled airline flight when TWA showed it to its first-class passengers.


title: Lana Turner

text: In mid-1962, Turner filmed "Who's Got the Action?", a comedy in which she portrayed the wife of a gambling addict opposite Dean Martin. In September of that year, Turner and May separated, divorcing shortly after in October. They remained friends throughout her later life. In 1965, she met Hollywood producer and businessman Robert Eaton, who was ten years her junior, through business associates. The two married in June of that year at his family's home in Arlington, Virginia.


title: Lana Turner

text: In 1966, Turner had her last major starring role in the courtroom drama film "Madame X", based on the 1904 play by Alexandre Bisson, in which Turner portrayed a lower-class woman who marries into a wealthy family. A review in the "Chicago Tribune" praised her performance, noting: "when she takes the stand in the final (with Keir Dullea) courtroom scene, her face resembling a dust bowl victory garden, it's the most devastating denouement since Barbara Fritchie poked her head out the window." Kaspar Monahan of the "Pittsburgh Press" lauded her performance, writing: "Her performance, I think, is far and away her very best, even rating Oscar consideration in next year's Academy Award race, unless the culture snobs gang up against her." The role earned Turner a David di Donatello Golden Plaque Award for Best Foreign Actress that year.


title: Lana Turner

text: In late 1968, she began filming the low-budget thriller "The Big Cube", in which she portrayed a glamorous heiress being dosed with LSD by her stepdaughter in hopes of driving her insane and receiving the family estate. One critic deemed Turner's acting in the film "strained and amateurish", and declared it "one of her poorest performances". In April 1969, Turner filed for divorce from Eaton after four years of marriage upon discovering he had been unfaithful to her. Weeks later, on May 9, 1969, she married Ronald Pellar, a nightclub hypnotist whom she had met at a Los Angeles disco. According to Turner, Pellar (also known as Ronald Dante or Dr. Dante) falsely claimed to have been raised in Singapore and to have a Ph.D. in psychology.


title: Lana Turner

text: With few film offers coming in, Turner signed on to appear in the television series "Harold Robbins' The Survivors". Premiering in September 1969, the series was given a major national marketing campaign, with billboards featuring life-sized images of Turner. Despite ABC's extensive publicity campaign and the presence of other big-name stars, the program fared badly, and it was canceled halfway into the season after a 15-week run in 1970. Meanwhile, after six months of marriage, Turner discovered Pellar had stolen $35,000 she had given him for an investment. In addition, she later accused him of stealing $100,000 worth of jewelry from her. Pellar denied the accusations and no charges were filed against him. She filed for divorce in January 1970, after which she claimed to be celibate for the remainder of her life. Turner married a total of eight times to seven different husbands, and later famously said: "My goal was to have one husband and seven children, but it turned out to be the other way around."


title: Lana Turner

text: Turner returned to feature films with a lead role in the 1974 British horror film "Persecution", in which she played a disturbed wealthy woman tormenting her son. "Variety" noted of her performance: "Under the circumstances, Turner's performance as Carrie, the perverted dame of the English manor, has reasonable poise." In April 1975, Turner spoke at a retrospective gala in New York City examining her career, which was attended by Andy Warhol, Sylvia Miles, Rex Reed and numerous fans. Her next film was "Bittersweet Love" (1976), a romantic comedy in which she portrayed the mother of a woman who unwittingly marries her half-brother. Lawrence Van Gelder of "The New York Times" wrote that the film served "as a reminder that Miss Turner was never one of our subtler actresses".


title: Lana Turner

text: In the early 1970s, Turner transitioned to theater, beginning with a production of "Forty Carats", which toured various East Coast cities in 1971. A review in "The Philadelphia Inquirer" noted: "Miss Turner always could wear clothes well, and her "Forty Carats" is a fashion show in the guise of a frothy, little comedy. It wasn't much of a play even when Julie Harris was doing it, and it all but disappears under the old-time Hollywood glamor of Miss Turner's star presence." In 1975, Turner gave a single performance as Jessica Poole in "The Pleasure of His Company" opposite Louis Jourdan at the Arlington Park Theater in Chicago. From 1976 to 1978, she starred in a touring production of "Bell, Book and Candle", playing Gillian Holroyd. Critic Elaine Matas noted of a 1977 performance that Turner was "brilliant" and "the bright spot in an otherwise mediocre play". In the fall of 1978, she appeared in a Chicago production of "Divorce Me, Darling", an original play in which she portrayed a San Francisco divorce attorney. During rehearsals, a stagehand told reporters that Turner was "the hardest working broad I've known". Richard Christiansen of the "Chicago Tribune" praised her performance, writing that, "though she is still a very nervous and inexpert actress, she is giving by far her most winning performance".


title: Lana Turner

text: Between 1979 and 1980, Turner returned to theater, appearing in "Murder Among Friends", a murder-mystery play that showed in various U.S. cities. During this time, Turner was in the midst of a self-described "downhill slide". She was suffering from an alcohol addiction that had begun in the late 1950s, was missing performances and weighed only . In 1980, Turner made her final feature-film appearance alongside Teri Garr in the comedy horror film "Witches' Brew". The same year, she had what she referred to as a "religious awakening", and again began practicing her Catholic faith. On October 25, 1981, the National Film Society presented Turner with an Artistry in Cinema award. In December 1981, it was announced that Turner would appear as the mysterious Jacqueline Perrault in an episode of "Falcon Crest", marking her first television role in 12 years. Her appearance was a ratings success, and her character returned for an additional five episodes.


title: Lana Turner

text: In January 1982, Turner reprised her role in "Murder Among Friends", which toured throughout the U.S. that year; paired with Bob Fosse's "Dancin'", the play earned a combined gross of $400,000 during one week at Pittsburgh's Heinz Hall in June 1982. In September, Turner released an autobiography entitled "". She subsequently guest-starred on an episode of "The Love Boat" in 1985, which marked her final on-screen appearance.


title: Lana Turner

text: Turner was a regular drinker and cigarette smoker for most of her life. During her contract with MGM, photographs that showed her holding cigarettes had to be airbrushed at the studio's request in an effort to conceal her smoking. In her early 60s, Turner stopped drinking to preserve her health, but she was unable to quit smoking. She was diagnosed with throat cancer in the spring of 1992. In a press release, she stated that the cancer had been detected early and had not damaged her vocal cords or larynx. She underwent exploratory surgery to remove the cancer, but it had metastasized to her jaw and lungs. After undergoing radiation therapy, Turner announced that she was in full remission in early 1993. The cancer was found to have returned in July 1994.


title: Lana Turner

text: In September 1994, Turner made her final public appearance at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award, and was confined to a wheelchair for much of the event. She died nine months later at the age of 74 on June 29, 1995, of complications from the cancer, at her home in Century City, Los Angeles, with her daughter by her side. According to Cheryl, Turner's death was a "total shock", as she had appeared to be in better health and had recently completed seven weeks of radiation therapy. Turner's remains were cremated and given to Cheryl. Multiple accounts have the ashes still in Cheryl's possession, while other accounts say the ashes were scattered in the ocean, but which ocean and location varies by the sources.


title: Lana Turner

text: Cheryl and her partner Joyce LeRoy, whom Turner said she accepted "as a second daughter", inherited some of Turner's personal effects and $50,000 in Turner's will. Her estate was estimated in court documents to be worth $1.7 million. Turner left the majority of her estate to her maid, Carmen Lopez Cruz, who had been her companion for 45 years and caregiver during her final illness. Cheryl challenged the will, and Cruz said that the majority of the estate was consumed by probate costs, legal fees and medical expenses.


title: Lana Turner

text: When Turner was discovered, MGM executive Mervyn LeRoy envisioned her as a replacement for the recently deceased Jean Harlow and began developing her image as a sex symbol. In "They Won't Forget" (1937) and "Love Finds Andy Hardy" (1938), she embodied an "innocent sexuality" portraying ingénues. Film historian Jeanine Basinger notes that she "represented the girl who'd rather sit on the diving board to show off her figure than get wet in the water ... the girl who'd rather kiss than kibbitz". In her early films, Turner did not color her auburn hair—see "Dancing Co-Ed" (1939), in which she was billed "the red-headed sensation who brought "it" back to the screen". 1941's "Ziegfeld Girl" was the first film to showcase Turner with platinum blonde hair, which she wore for much of the remainder of her life and for which she came to be known.


title: Lana Turner

text: After Turner's first marriage in 1940, columnist Louella Parsons wrote: "If Lana Turner will behave herself and not go completely berserk she is headed for a top spot in motion pictures. She is the most glamorous actress since Jean Harlow." She also likened her to Clara Bow, adding: "Both of them, trusting and lovable, use their hearts instead of their heads. Lana ... has always acted hastily and been guided more by her own ideas than by any advance any studio gave her." By the mid-1940s, Turner had been married and divorced three times, had given birth to her daughter Cheryl and had numerous publicized affairs. However, her image in 1946's "The Postman Always Rings Twice" marked a departure from her strictly-sex symbol screen persona to that of a full-fledged femme fatale.


title: Lana Turner

text: By the 1950s, both critics and audiences began noting parallels between Turner's rocky personal life and the roles she played. The likeness was most evident in "Peyton Place" and "Imitation of Life", both films in which Turner portrayed single mothers struggling to maintain relationships with their teenage daughters. Film scholar Richard Dyer cites Turner as an example of one of Hollywood's earliest stars whose publicized private life perceptibly inflected their careers: "Her career is marked by an unusually, even spectacularly, high degree of interpenetration between her publicly available private life and her films ... not only do her vehicles furnish characters and situations in accord with her off-screen image, but frequently incidents in them echo incidents in her life so that by the end of her career films like "Peyton Place", "Imitation of Life", "Madame X" and "Love Has Many Faces" seem in parts like mere illustrations of her life."


title: Lana Turner

text: Basinger echoes similar sentiments, noting that Turner was often "cast only in roles that were symbolic of what the public knew—or thought they knew—of her life from headlines she made as a person, not as a movie character ... Her person became her persona." In addition, Basinger credits Turner as the first mainstream female star to "take the male prerogative openly for herself", publicly indulging in romances and affairs that in turn fueled the publicity surrounding her. Film scholar Jessica Hope Jordan considers Turner an "implosion" of both a "real-life image and star image" and suggests that she utilized one to mask the other, thus rendering her representative of the "ultimate femme fatale". Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen took note of the intersections between Turner's life and screen persona early in her career, writing in 1946:


title: Lana Turner

text: Historians have cited Turner as one of the most glamorous film stars of all time, an association that was made both during her lifetime and after her death. Commenting on her image, she once told a journalist: "Forsaking glamour is like forsaking my identity. It's an image I've worked too hard to obtain and preserve." Michael Gordon, who directed Turner in "Portrait in Black", remembered her as "a very talented actress whose chief reliability was what I regarded as impoverished taste ... Lana was not a dummy, and she would give me wonderful rationalizations why she should wear pendant earrings. They had nothing to do with the role, but they had to do with her particular self-image."


title: Lana Turner

text: According to her daughter, Turner's obsessive attention to detail often resulted in dressmakers storming out during dress fittings. No matter the setting, Turner also took care to ensure she was always "camera-ready", wearing jewelry and makeup even while lounging in sweatpants. Turner often purchased her favorite styles of shoes in every available color, at one time accumulating 698 pairs. She favored the designers Salvatore Ferragamo, Jean Louis, Helen Rose and Nolan Miller. Film historians Joe Morella and Edward Epstein have observed that, unlike many female stars, Turner "wasn't resented by female fans", and that women made up a large part of her fan base in later years. Turner maintained her glamorous image into her late career; a 1966 film review characterized her as "the glitter and glamour of Hollywood". While she consistently embraced her glamorous persona, she was also vocal about her dedication to acting and attained a reputation as a versatile, hard-working performer. She was an admirer of Bette Davis, whom she cited as her favorite actress.


title: Lana Turner

text: Turner has been noted by historians as a sex symbol, a popular culture icon and "a symbol of the American Dream fulfilled ... Because of her, being discovered at a soda fountain has become almost as cherished an ideal as being born in a log cabin." Critic Leonard Maltin noted in 2005 that Turner "came to crystallize the opulent heights to which show business could usher a small-town girl, as well as its darkest, most tragic and narcissistic depths". She has also been cited by scholars as a gay icon because of her glamorous persona and triumphs over personal struggles. While discussions surrounding Turner have largely been based on her cultural prevalence, little scholarly study has been undertaken on her career, and opinion of her legacy as an actress has divided critics. Upon Turner's death, John Updike wrote in "The New Yorker" that she "was a faded period piece, an old-fashioned glamour queen whose fifty-four films, over four decades didn't amount, retrospectively to much ... As a performer, she was purely a studio-made product."


title: Lana Turner

text: Defenders of Turner's acting ability, such as Jessica Hope Jordan and James Robert Parish, cite her performance in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" as an argument for the value of her work. Turner's role in the film has also caused her to be frequently associated with film noir and the femme fatale archetype in critical circles. In a 1973 "Films in Review" retrospective on her career, Turner was referred to as "a master of the motion picture technique and a hardworking craftsman". Jeanine Basinger has similarly championed Turner's acting, writing of her performance in "The Bad and the Beautiful": "None of the sex symbols who have been touted as actresses—not Hayworth or Gardner or Taylor or Monroe—have ever given such a fine performance."


title: Lana Turner

text: Because of the intersections between Turner's high-profile, glamorous persona, and storied, often troubled personal life, she is included in critical discussions about the Hollywood studio system, specifically its capitalization on its stars' private travails. Basinger considers her the "epitome of the Hollywood machine-made stardom". Turner has also been cited in scholarly discussions of women's sexuality.


title: Lana Turner

text: Turner has been depicted and referenced in numerous works across literature, film, music and art. She was the subject of the poem "Lana Turner has collapsed" by Frank O'Hara, and was depicted as a minor character in James Ellroy's novel "L.A. Confidential" (1990). The Stompanato murder and its aftermath were also the basis of the Harold Robbins novel "Where Love Has Gone" (1962). In popular music, Turner was referenced in songs recorded by Nina Simone and Frank Sinatra, and was the source of the stage name of singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey. In 2002, artist Eloy Torrez included Turner in an outdoor mural, "Portrait of Hollywood", painted on the auditorium of Hollywood High School, her alma mater. Turner has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6241 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2012, "Complex" named her the eighth-most infamous actress of all time.


title: Kane Brown

text: Kane Allen Brown (born October 21, 1993) is an American singer. Brown first came to the attention of the public through social media. He released his first EP, titled "Closer", in June 2015, and followed it with a new single, "Used to Love You Sober", in October 2015. After Brown signed with RCA Nashville in early 2016, the song was included on his EP "Chapter 1", released in March 2016. He released his first full-length album, the self-titled "Kane Brown", on December 2, 2016. The single "What Ifs" came from this album, and in October 2017, Brown became the first artist to have simultaneous number ones on all five main "Billboard" country charts. Brown released his second album, "Experiment", in November 2018, which became his first number one album on the "Billboard" 200.


title: Kane Brown

text: Brown was raised in rural northwest Georgia and in the Chattanooga, Tennessee, area. He is multiracial, with a white mother, Tabatha Brown, and an African-American father who is also part Cherokee. In 2018, he told "People" magazine he did not know he was biracial until he was 7 or 8 years old: "I thought I was full white... I found out that I was biracial, and I still wasn't thinking anything of it, but then I started getting called the N-word ... I learned what it meant, and that's when it started affecting me. I got in fights over it when I was little." His father has been incarcerated since 1996, and he was raised by his single mother.


title: Kane Brown

text: Sometimes homeless, his family moved around northwest Georgia when he was younger from Rossville to Fort Oglethorpe to LaFayette before finally settling in Red Bank, Tennessee. As a result, he attended many schools, among them Lakeview Fort Oglethorpe High School in Fort Oglethorpe, where he sang in the choir with Lauren Alaina, the runner-up on Season 10 of "American Idol". He also attended Red Bank, Ridgeland, and Soddy Daisy High Schools. After graduation, he lived with his grandmother, who had also helped raise him.


title: Kane Brown

text: Brown grew up listening to country music but became interested in R&B music in middle school. However, after winning a school talent show in 11th grade with a rendition of Chris Young's "Gettin' You Home", he began to perform country music. He auditioned for both "American Idol" and "The X Factor" after the success of his school friend Lauren Alaina on "American Idol". He was chosen for "The X Factor" after an audition in 2013 but left the show when its producers wanted to include him in a boy band. After that, he decided to post his cover versions of popular songs online.


title: Kane Brown

text: In 2014, Kane Brown began posting videos of his covers of songs by Brantley Gilbert, Billy Currington, Alan Jackson, and other singers on social media. He acquired a following for his homemade videos on Facebook. His cover of Lee Brice's "I Don't Dance" was one early video that gained wide attention. Released on September 30, 2015, his cover of George Strait's "Check Yes or No" went viral and received more than seven million views. His number of followers on Facebook quickly reached more than a million, leading to a teaser clip for his own single "Used to Love You Sober" hitting one million views in less than three hours upon its release on October 8, 2015, and then reaching more than 11 million views in two weeks.


title: Kane Brown

text: Brown was initially signed to Zone 4 with Jay Frank as his first manager. Martha Earls became his manager in 2016.


title: Kane Brown

text: In 2014, Brown raised funds via crowdfunding site Kickstarter to produce a six-song EP, which he recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, at the home studio of Noah Henson, guitarist for Brantley Gilbert. The EP, titled "Closer", was released on June 2, 2015, and debuted on the Top Country Albums chart at number 22, selling 3,200 copies in its debut week. A single from the EP, "Don't Go City on Me", was first released on October 22, 2014, and reached number 43 on the Country Digital Songs chart.


title: Kane Brown

text: Brown released a new single "Used to Love You Sober" on his birthday (October 21) in 2015, and the song was spotlighted on Zane Lowe's Beats 1. It reached number two on the Country Digital Songs chart based on just two days of sales, with 38,000 copies sold. The release of the single also pushed his EP "Closer up" the chart to number 22 on the Top Album Sales chart. A second song, "Last Minute Late Night", was released on November 4, 2015, and debuted on the Country Digital Songs chart at number nine, with 26,000 copies sold. Another single, "I Love That I Hate You", followed three weeks later on November 30, 2015, and sold 17,000 copies in the first week.


title: Kane Brown

text: Brown opened for Florida Georgia Line on their summer 2016 "Dig Your Roots Tour" and collaborated with Chandler Stephens on a song they wrote together, "Can't Stop Love", which released on February 12, 2016.


title: Kane Brown

text: He signed with Sony Music Nashville on January 27, 2016, and records under the RCA Nashville label. His first EP under the label, titled "Chapter 1", released on March 18, 2016. It includes the singles "Used to Love You Sober" and "Last Minute Late Night" and debuted at number nine on the U.S. "Billboard" "200" and at number three on the Top Country Albums chart, selling 30,000 units (23,000 in traditional albums) in its first week.


title: Kane Brown

text: On June 17, 2016, "Ain't No Stopping Us Now" was released as a promotional single ahead of his debut full-length album. "Thunder in the Rain" was released as the debut radio single from the album on August 3, 2016, and Brown headlined his own Ain't No Stopping Us Now Tour produced by Monster Energy and Outbreak Presents starting on November 3, 2016. The self-titled album featuring those songs was released on December 2, 2016, and debuted at number 10 on the U.S. "Billboard" 200. "What Ifs", recorded with his friend Lauren Alaina, was released as the second single from the album and has been certified 5× Platinum by the RIAA. It became a number one hit on the "Billboard" Country Airplay charts for the week of October 28, 2017, the first for Brown and the second for Alaina. It also spent five weeks at number one on the "Billboard" Hot Country Songs chart.


title: Kane Brown

text: An expanded deluxe edition of Brown's debut album was released October 6, 2017, featuring four new tracks, including a duet with Chris Young and "Heaven", released as the album's third single on November 13, 2017. Upon the release of the deluxe edition, the album went to number five on the "Billboard" 200 and returned to number one on the Top Country Albums chart. With the single "What Ifs", which reached number one on multiple charts, and the new song "Heaven" released with the deluxe edition, Brown became the first artist to have simultaneous number ones on all five main country charts: Top Country Albums, Hot Country Songs, Country Airplay, Country Digital Song Sales, and Country Streaming Songs.


title: Kane Brown

text: On June 7, 2018, RCA Nashville released "Lose It" as the lead single for his second RCA album. A second track from the album, "Weekend", was released on August 8, 2018. On September 4, 2018, Brown announced the album's title, "Experiment", via Twitter along with its cover art and news of the upcoming track "Homesick". "Experiment" was released on November 9, 2018 and became Brown's first No. 1 on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart.


title: Kane Brown

text: Over the course of 2018–19, Brown released several collaborations with artists such as Becky G, Camila Cabello, and Digital Farm Animals, including a remix of "Saturday Nights" with R&B singer Khalid which was released as a single. He also appeared on Brooks & Dunn's album "Reboot" in a new rendition of their past hit "Believe". In August 2019, Brown collaborated with Marshmello for "One Thing Right", his first release to Mainstream Pop Radio.


title: Kane Brown

text: In June 2020, Brown released the song "Worldwide Beautiful", which aims to highlight peace and equality and benefits the Boys & Girls Club of America. In July 2020, Brown released his second single to pop radio, "Be Like That" with Khalid and Swae Lee, another single off his EP.


title: Kane Brown

text: On August 14, 2020, Brown released his third EP, "Mixtape, Vol. 1", which includes "Cool Again", "Worldwide Beautiful", and "Be Like That", as well as four other tracks.


title: Kane Brown

text: In September 2020, Brown announced a drive-in concert, held at more than 200 theaters across the U.S. on September 26, 2020. That same week Brown appeared on stage at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in a PORTL "hologram" machine to sing "Be Like That" live from Nashville with Swae Lee and Khalid who were in the studio in Los Angeles, California.


title: Kane Brown

text: In October 2020, "Worship You" was sent to country radio as his second official single to that format off the EP.


title: Kane Brown

text: On November 26, 2020, Brown performed in a pre-recorded halftime show in the "Thanksgiving Thursday Night Football" game between the Washington Football Team and the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium.


title: Kane Brown

text: On February 11, 2021, Brown launched his own label, 1021 Entertainment, in association with Sony Nashville.


title: Kane Brown

text: Also in 2021, Brown became the first black person to win Video of the Year at the ACM Awards, which he won for "Worldwide Beautiful". He was included in 2021's "Time" 100, "Time"s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.


title: Kane Brown

text: On March 3, 2022, Brown released the song "Leave You Alone", which he initially previewed on social media in late 2021.


title: Kane Brown

text: Brown announced his third studio album, "Different Man", on July 18, 2022. The album was released on September 9, 2022.


title: Kane Brown

text: Brown is married to Katelyn Jae, who is also a singer. He proposed to her on Easter Sunday in 2017 and announced their engagement during a concert in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a short time later in April 2017. They were married at Mint Springs Farm in Nolensville, Tennessee, on October 12, 2018, with about 200 relatives and friends in attendance. On April 15, 2019, Brown announced they were expecting their first child. Less than a month later, on May 1, 2019, he revealed the baby was a girl during a walk down the red carpet at the "Billboard" Music Awards. On October 29, 2019, Jae gave birth to their daughter. On December 31, 2021, Brown announced that Jae had given birth to their second daughter a day prior.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: The Old Man and the Sea is a novella written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cayo Blanco (Cuba), and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction written by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it tells the story of Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Cuba.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: In 1953, "The Old Man and the Sea" was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and it was cited by the Nobel Committee as contributing to their awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Hemingway in 1954.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: Santiago is an aging, experienced fisherman who has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish. He is now seen as ""salao"" (colloquial pronunciation of ""salado"", which means salty), the worst form of unlucky. Manolin, a young man whom Santiago has trained since childhood, has been forced by his parents to work on a luckier boat. Manolin remains dedicated to Santiago, visiting his shack each night, hauling his fishing gear, preparing food, and talking about American baseball and Santiago's favorite player, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago says that tomorrow, he will venture far out into the Gulf Stream, north of Cuba in the Straits of Florida to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: On the eighty-fifth day of his unlucky streak, Santiago takes his skiff out early. By noon, he has hooked a big fish that he is sure is a marlin, but he is unable to haul it in. He is unwilling to tie the line to the boat for fear that a sudden jerk from the fish would break the line. With his back, shoulders, and hands, he holds the line for two days and nights. He gives slack as needed while the marlin pulls him far from land. During this time, he subsists on flying fish, bonito and a dolphinfish, using his other hooks to catch them. The line cuts his hands, his body is sore, and he sleeps little. Despite this, he expresses compassion and appreciation for the marlin, often referring to him as a brother. He determines that no one is worthy enough to eat the marlin.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: On the third day, the fatigued marlin begins to circle the skiff. Santiago, almost delirious, draws the line inward, bringing the marlin towards the boat. He pulls the marlin onto its side and stabs it with a harpoon, killing it. Seeing that the fish is too large to fit in the skiff, Santiago lashes it to the side of his boat. He sets sail for home, thinking of the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: The trail of blood from the dead marlin attracts sharks. Santiago berates himself for having gone out too far. A great mako shark ambushes them and tears a large wound into the marlin before Santiago kills it with his harpoon, but loses the weapon to the dead shark. He makes a spear by strapping his knife to the end of an oar. He kills three more sharks before the blade of the knife snaps, and he clubs two more sharks into submission. But each shark has bitten the great marlin, increasing the flow of blood. That night, an entire school of sharks arrives. Santiago attempts to beat them back. When the oar breaks, Santiago rips out the skiff's tiller and continues fighting. Upon seeing a shark attempt to eat the marlin's head, Santiago realizes the fish has been completely devoured. He tells the sharks they have killed his dreams.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: Santiago reaches shore before dawn the next day. He struggles to his shack, leaving the fish head and skeleton with his skiff. Once home, he falls into a deep sleep. In the morning, Manolin finds Santiago. As he leaves to get coffee for Santiago, he cries. A group of fishermen have gathered around the remains of the marlin. One of them measures it at from nose to tail. The fishermen tell Manolin to tell Santiago how sorry they are. A pair of tourists at a nearby café mistake the dead fish for a shark. When Santiago wakes, he donates the head of the fish to Pedrico, a fellow fisherman who has long been kind to Santiago. He and Manolin promise to fish together once again. Santiago returns to sleep, and he dreams of his youth and of lions on an African beach.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: Written in 1951, "The Old Man and the Sea" is Hemingway's final work published during his lifetime. The book, dedicated to Charlie Scribner and to Hemingway's literary editor Max Perkins, was simultaneously published in book formfeaturing a cover illustration by his young muse, Adriana Ivancich, and black and white illustrations by Charles Tunnicliffe and Raymond Sheppardand featured in "Life" magazine on September 1, 1952. The first edition print run of the book was 50,000 copies and five million copies of the magazine were sold in two days.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: "The Old Man and the Sea" became a Book of the Month Club selection, and made Hemingway a celebrity. In May 1953, the novella received the Pulitzer Prize and was specifically cited when in 1954 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature which he dedicated to the Cuban people. The success of "The Old Man and the Sea" made Hemingway an international celebrity. "The Old Man and the Sea" is taught at schools around the world and continues to earn foreign royalties.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: "The Old Man and the Sea" served to reinvigorate Hemingway's literary reputation and was greeted with relief by some critics who had been dismayed by his last full-length novel "Across the River and into the Trees" and believed Hemingway was a spent force. The novella was initially received with much popularity; it restored many readers' confidence in Hemingway's capability as an author. Its publisher, Scribner's, on an early dust jacket, called the novella a "new classic", and many critics favorably compared it with such works as William Faulkner's 1942 short story "The Bear" and Herman Melville's 1851 novel "Moby-Dick".


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: Several critics note that Santiago hails from the Canary Islands, and that his Spanish origins have an influence in the novella. “Santiago is a Spaniard living in Cuba,” Jeffrey Herlihy comments, and his “Spanish self is an absent but ever-present factor in the novel.” After immigrating to Cuba in his 20s, he has adopted Cuban dress, food preferences, and “speaks two dialects of the Spanish language.” Every night Santiago dreams about Spain, and this “nostalgic reminiscing—which is for the Canary Islands, not Cuba—evidences the resonant influences of his Spanish/Canarian identity, foregrounding the migrant experience of the old man as a concealed foundation to the novella”. His biography has many similarities to that of Gregorio Fuentes, Hemingway's first mate.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: Gregorio Fuentes, who many critics believe was an inspiration for Santiago, was a blue-eyed man born on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. After going to sea at age ten on ships that called in African ports, he migrated permanently to Cuba when he was 22. After 82 years in Cuba, Fuentes attempted to reclaim his Spanish citizenship in 2001. Critics have noted that Santiago was also at least 22 when he immigrated from Spain to Cuba, and thus old enough to be considered an immigrant—and a foreigner—in Cuba.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: Hemingway at first planned to use Santiago's story, which became "The Old Man and the Sea", as part of an intimacy between mother and son. Relationships in the book relate to the Bible, which he referred to as "The Sea Book". Some aspects of it did appear in the posthumously published "Islands in the Stream" (1970). Hemingway mentions the real life experience of an old fisherman almost identical to that of Santiago and his marlin in "On the Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter" ("Esquire", April 1936).


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: Joseph Waldmeir's 1957 essay ""Confiteor Hominem": Ernest Hemingway's Religion of Man" is a favorable critical reading of the novel—and one which has defined analytical considerations since. Perhaps the most memorable claim is Waldmeir's answer to the question—What is the book's message?


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: The answer assumes a third level on which "The Old Man and the Sea" must be read—as a sort of allegorical commentary on all his previous work, by means of which it may be established that the religious overtones of "The Old Man and the Sea" are not peculiar to that book among Hemingway's works, and that Hemingway has finally taken the decisive step in elevating what might be called his philosophy of Manhood to the level of a religion.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: Waldmeir considered the function of the novel's Christian imagery, most notably through Hemingway's reference to the crucifixion of Christ following Santiago's sighting of the sharks that reads:


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: ""Ay"," he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: One of the most outspoken critics of "The Old Man and the Sea" is Robert P. Weeks. His 1962 piece "Fakery in "The Old Man and the Sea"" presents his argument that the novel is a weak and unexpected divergence from the typical, realistic Hemingway (referring to the rest of Hemingway's body of work as "earlier glories"). In juxtaposing this novel against Hemingway's previous works, Weeks contends:


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: The difference, however, in the effectiveness with which Hemingway employs this characteristic device in his best work and in "The Old Man and the Sea" is illuminating. The work of fiction in which Hemingway devoted the most attention to natural objects, "The Old Man and the Sea", is pieced out with an extraordinary quantity of fakery, extraordinary because one would expect to find no inexactness, no romanticizing of natural objects in a writer who loathed W. H. Hudson, could not read Thoreau, deplored Melville's rhetoric in "Moby Dick", and who was himself criticized by other writers, notably Faulkner, for his devotion to the facts and his unwillingness to 'invent.'


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: In 1954, Hemingway wanted to donate his Nobel Prize in Literature gold medal to the Cuban people. To avoid giving it to the Batista government, he donated it to the Catholic Church for display at the sanctuary at El Cobre, a small town outside Santiago de Cuba where the Marian image of Our Lady of Charity is located. The Swedish medal was stolen in the mid-1980s, but the police recovered it within a few days.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: "The Old Man and the Sea" has been adapted for the screen three times: a 1958 film starring Spencer Tracy, a 1990 miniseries starring Anthony Quinn, and a 1999 animated short film. In 2007, an audio version performed by Donald Sutherland was a finalist for the Audie Award for Best Male Narrator. It also inspired the 2012 Kazakhstani movie "The Old Man", which replaces the fisherman with a shepherd struggling to protect his flock from wolves. It is often taught in high schools as a part of the U.S. literature curriculum. The book was reportedly a favorite of Saddam Hussein.


title: The Old Man and the Sea

text: In 2003, the book was listed at number 173 on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's 200 "best-loved novels".


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: The 2011 NBA draft was held on June 23, 2011, at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The draft started at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (23:00 UTC), and was broadcast in the United States on ESPN. Kia Motors was the presenting sponsor of the 2011 NBA draft. In this draft, National Basketball Association (NBA) teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball players and other eligible players, including international players. The Cleveland Cavaliers had the first pick due to a previous trade they had involving the Los Angeles Clippers, choosing point guard Kyrie Irving of Duke. Of the 60 players drafted, 7 were freshmen, 7 were sophomores, 14 were juniors, 19 were seniors, 12 were international players without U.S. college basketball experience (including the first-ever Qatari-selected player), and 1 was a D-League player.


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: The 2011 NBA draft marked the final time the New Jersey Nets made an NBA draft appearance. After the end of the Nets' 2011–12 season, the franchise relocated to Brooklyn, New York and was renamed to the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets made their first draft appearance with the Brooklyn moniker in 2012. Four of the first-round picks, including three of the top four picks, Kyrie Irving, Derrick Williams, Tristan Thompson, and Iman Shumpert, would all eventually become teammates on the Cleveland Cavaliers. The 2011 draft is considered one of the most loaded drafts in NBA history; seven players in the draft would play in at least two All-Star games and six were selected to at least one All-NBA Team, including the final pick of the draft, Isaiah Thomas.


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: The basic requirement for automatic eligibility for a U.S. player is the completion of his college eligibility.


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: Players who meet the CBA definition of "international players" are automatically eligible if their 22nd birthday falls during or before the calendar year of the draft (i.e., born on or before December 31, 1989). U.S. players who were at least one year removed from their high school graduation and have played minor-league basketball with a team outside the NBA are also automatically eligible.


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: A player who is not automatically eligible must declare his eligibility for the draft by notifying the NBA offices in writing no later than 60 days before the draft. For the 2011 draft, this date fell on April 24. Under NCAA rules, players will only have until May 8 to withdraw from the draft and maintain their college eligibility. This year, a total of 69 collegiate players and 20 international players declared as early entry candidates. At the withdrawal deadline, 41 early entry candidates withdrew from the draft (25 from US colleges and institutions), leaving 42 collegiate players and six international players as the early entry candidates for the draft.


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: A player who has hired an agent will forfeit his remaining college eligibility, regardless of whether he is drafted. Also, while the CBA allows a player to withdraw from the draft twice, the NCAA mandates that a player who has declared twice loses his college eligibility.


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: The first 14 picks in the draft belong to teams that missed the playoffs; the order will be determined through a lottery. The lottery will determine the three teams that will obtain the first three picks on the draft. The remaining first-round picks and the second-round picks were assigned to teams in reverse order of their win–loss record in the previous season. As it is commonplace in the event of identical win–loss records, the NBA performed a random drawing to break the ties on April 15, 2011.


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: The lottery was held on May 17, 2011, in Secaucus, New Jersey. The Cleveland Cavaliers, who obtained the Los Angeles Clippers' first-round draft pick, won the lottery. The Cavaliers won the lottery with a 22.7% chance to win, combining a 19.9% chance from their own pick and 2.8% chance from the Clippers' pick. However, their winning lottery combination came from the Clippers' pick, which had a significantly lower chance to win. The Minnesota Timberwolves, who had the worst record and the biggest chance to win the lottery, won the second pick. The Utah Jazz, who obtained the New Jersey Nets' first-round draft pick, won the third pick.


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: Below were the chances for each team to get specific picks in the 2011 draft lottery, rounded to three decimal places.


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: Players who do not meet the criteria for "international" players are automatically eligible if they meet any of the following criteria:


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: Players who meet the criteria for "international" players are automatically eligible if they meet any of the following criteria:


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: The NBA annually invites 10 to 15 players to sit in the so-called "green room", a special room set aside at the draft site for the invited players plus their families and agents. This season, the following players were invited (listed alphabetically):


title: 2011 NBA draft

text: Prior to the day of the draft, the following trades were made and resulted in exchanges of draft picks between the teams.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Paul Anthony Sorvino (, ; April 13, 1939 – July 25, 2022) was an American actor. He often portrayed authority figures on both the criminal and the law enforcement sides of the law.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Sorvino was particularly known for his roles as Lucchese crime family "caporegime" Paulie Cicero (based on real life gangster Paul Vario) in Martin Scorsese's 1990 gangster film "Goodfellas" and as NYPD Sergeant Phil Cerreta on the second season of the TV series "Law & Order". He also played a variety of father figures, including Juliet's father in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film "Romeo + Juliet", as well as guest appearances as the father of Bruce Willis' character on the TV series "Moonlighting" and the father of Jeff Garlin's character on "The Goldbergs". He was in additional supporting roles in "A Touch of Class" (1973), "Reds" (1981), "The Rocketeer" (1991), "Nixon" (1995, as Henry Kissinger), and "The Cooler" (2003).


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Usually cast in dramatic supporting roles, he occasionally acted in lead roles in films including "Bloodbrothers" (1978), and also in comedic roles including his turn as a bombastic Southern evangelist in Carl Reiner's "Oh, God!" (1977). Sorvino was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor for the 1972 play "That Championship Season", and later starred in film and television adaptations. He was the father of actors Mira Sorvino and Michael Sorvino.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Sorvino was born on April 13, 1939, and raised in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. His mother, Angela Maria Mattea (née Renzi; 1906–1991), was a homemaker and piano teacher of Italian (Molisan) descent who was born in Connecticut. His father, Ford Sorvino, was an Italian (Neapolitan) immigrant who worked in a robe factory as a foreman.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Sorvino attended Lafayette High School (where he was a classmate of Peter Max, a painter and artist), graduated, and then went to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Sorvino began his career as a copywriter in an advertising agency. He took voice lessons for 18 years. While attending The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, he decided to go into the theatre. He made his Broadway debut in the 1964 musical "Bajour", and six years later he appeared in his first film, Carl Reiner's "Where's Poppa?", starring George Segal and Ruth Gordon. In 1971, he played a supporting role in Jerry Schatzberg's critically acclaimed "The Panic in Needle Park", starring Al Pacino and Kitty Winn.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Sorvino received critical praise for his performance as Phil Romano in Jason Miller's 1972 Broadway play "That Championship Season", a role he reprised in the 1982 film version. He acted in another George Segal-starring film with a prominent supporting role in the Academy Award-winning romantic comedy "A Touch of Class" (1973). In "It Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Guy" (1974), he played Harry Walters, a real estate salesman randomly picked up by a beautiful woman (JoAnna Cameron) and raped at gunpoint as a prank. He appeared in the 1976 Elliott Gould/Diane Keaton vehicle "I Will, I Will... for Now". He starred in the weekly series "We'll Get By" (1975, as George Platt), "Bert D'Angelo/Superstar" (1976, in the title role), and "The Oldest Rookie" (1987, as Detective Ike Porter). He also directed "Wheelbarrow Closers", a 1976 Broadway play by Louis La Russo II, which starred Danny Aiello.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: In 1981, Sorvino played the role of Italian-American communist Louis C. Fraina in Warren Beatty's film "Reds". He appeared in Larry Cohen's 1985 horror film "The Stuff" as a reclusive militia leader, alongside future "Law & Order" co-star Michael Moriarty. Sorvino also helped found the American Stage Company, a group that launched several successful Off-Broadway shows, in 1986.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: In 1991, Sorvino took on the role of Sergeant Phil Cerreta (replacing actor George Dzundza in a new role) on the popular series "Law & Order". Sorvino initially was excited about the role but left after 29 episodes, citing the exhausting schedule demanded by the filming of the show, a need to broaden his horizons, and the desire to preserve his vocal cords for singing opera. Sorvino's exit from the series came in an episode in which Sgt. Cerreta is shot in the line of duty and transferred to an administrative position in another precinct.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: In 1993, Sorvino substituted for Raymond Burr in a Perry Mason TV movie, "The Case of the Wicked Wives". He had earlier appeared as Bruce Willis' father in the weekly series "Moonlighting" and the "Lamont" counterpart in the never-aired original pilot for "Sanford and Son". Some of his most notable film roles were "caporegime" Paul Cicero in Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" (1990) and Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone's "Nixon" (1995). In addition to "Goodfellas", Sorvino also played mob bosses Eddie Valentine in "The Rocketeer" and Tony Morolto in "The Firm".


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Sorvino founded the Paul Sorvino Asthma Foundation; he intended to build asthma centers for children and adults across the United States. In 1998, he narrated the series "The Big House" for The History Channel. In 1999, he directed and again starred in (albeit playing a different role) a TV version of "That Championship Season".


title: Paul Sorvino

text: In "", Sorvino voiced the main antagonist, Mr. Scheck, the CEO of Future Tech Industries, who wants to convert Arnold's neighborhood into a huge shopping mall. From 2000 to 2002, Sorvino had a lead role as Frank DeLucca in the television drama "That's Life". He also starred in the comedy "Still Standing" as Al Miller, father to Bill (Mark Addy). Sorvino filmed "The Trouble with Cali" in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area of Pennsylvania. He directed and starred in the film, and his daughter Mira also acted in a lead role in the film.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Sorvino played GeneCo founder Rotti Largo in the 2008 musical film "Repo! The Genetic Opera". Working with "Repo!" director Darren Lynn Bousman again, Sorvino played God in "The Devil's Carnival", a short film screened on tour beginning in April 2012.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Sorvino's final motion picture "The Ride" will be released posthumously in 2022. Sorvino appeared alongside Dean Cain, D.B. Sweeney, and his wife Dee Dee Sorvino for his final performance. Sorvino's scenes were filmed in Jacksonville, Florida.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Sorvino lived in Los Angeles and Madison, Indiana. He had three children: Mira, Michael, and Amanda from his first marriage with Lorraine Davis. Mira and Michael are actors.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: On January 17, 2007, news reports detailed that he pulled a gun in front of Daniel Snee, an ex-boyfriend of his daughter Amanda, after the man pounded on her hotel room door and made threats. Amanda testified that Snee threatened to kill her at a hotel on January 3 in Stowe, Vermont. She said she locked herself in the bathroom and called both the police and her father. Her 67-year-old father showed up before police, she testified. When police arrived, the young man was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, she said. As a deputy sheriff in Pennsylvania, Sorvino was legally authorized to carry a gun in different states. He did not point the gun at Snee or threaten him.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: In March 2008, Sorvino and his daughter Amanda lobbied with the Americans Against Horse Slaughter in Washington D.C., for U.S. Congress to pass the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (S311/HR503). The Sorvinos run a private horse rescue operation in Gilbert, Pennsylvania.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Sorvino was also an accomplished sculptor, specializing in cast bronze. In December 2008 his sculpture of the late playwright Jason Miller was unveiled in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In addition, he guest-starred on the 2008 album of Neapolitan singer Eddy Napoli, "Napulitanata", performing a duet of the song "Luna Rossa".


title: Paul Sorvino

text: In 2007, Sorvino launched Paul Sorvino Foods to market a range of pasta sauces. Based on his mother's recipe, the product appeared in supermarkets in the northeastern United States in late 2009. Three years later, Sorvino became part owner in Janson-Beckett Cosmeceuticals.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: In an April 2014 interview, Sorvino said, "Most people think I'm either a gangster or a cop or something, but the reality is I'm a sculptor, a painter, a best-selling author, many, many things—a poet, an opera singer, but none of them is gangster, but, you know, obviously I sort of have a knack for playing these things. It's almost my later goal in life to disabuse people of the notion that I'm a slow-moving, heavy-lidded thug, and most people's impression of me "IS" that—because of the success of "Goodfellas" and a few other things, but they forget that I was also Dr. Kissinger in "Nixon", the deaf lawyer in "Dummy", and they forget a lot of things that I've done. It would be nice to have my legacy more than that of just tough guy."


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Before screening his film "Once Upon a Time in Queens" at the Florida Film Festival in Orlando in April 2014, Sorvino revealed that he practiced New Formalism, by writing rhymed and metrical verse after the heyday of Modernist poetry, and recited one of his own poems as an example.


title: Paul Sorvino

text: In December 2014, Sorvino married political pundit Dee Dee Benkie after he met her while appearing as a guest on "Your World With Neil Cavuto".


title: Paul Sorvino

text: In January 2018, Sorvino found out that Harvey Weinstein allegedly sexually harassed his daughter Mira, and blacklisted her within the film industry after she rejected the film mogul's sexual demands. In response, Sorvino told TMZ, "He's going to go to jail. Oh yeah. That son of a b__. Good for him if he goes, because if not, he has to meet me. And I will kill the m__. Real simple. If I had known it, he would not be walking. He'd be in a wheelchair. This pig will get his comeuppance. The law will get him. He's going to go to jail and die in jail."


title: Paul Sorvino

text: Sorvino died at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville on July 25, 2022, aged 83. He was interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.


title: Lists of Pokémon episodes

text: Pokémon is a Japanese animated television series based on the "Pokémon" video game series published by Nintendo. The "Pokémon" anime series debuted in Japan on April 1, 1997, with 1,223 episodes. However, for various reasons, some have been taken out of rotation of reruns in certain countries, while others were altered or completely banned.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for "The Canterbury Tales". He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific "A Treatise on the Astrolabe" for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Among Chaucer's many other works are "The Book of the Duchess", "The House of Fame", "The Legend of Good Women", and "Troilus and Criseyde". He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin. Chaucer's contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage". Almost two thousand English words are first attested to in Chaucerian manuscripts.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer was born in London most likely in the early 1340s (by some accounts, including his monument, he was born in 1343), though the precise date and location remain unknown. The Chaucer family offers an extraordinary example of upward mobility. His great-grandfather was a tavern keeper, his grandfather worked as a purveyor of wines, and his father John Chaucer rose to become an important wine merchant with a royal appointment. Several previous generations of Geoffrey Chaucer's family had been vintners and merchants in Ipswich. His family name is derived from the French "chaucier", once thought to mean 'shoemaker', but now known to mean a maker of hose or leggings.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: In 1324, his father John Chaucer was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the 12-year-old to her daughter in an attempt to keep the property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and fined £250, now equivalent to about £, which suggests that the family was financially secure.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: John Chaucer married Agnes Copton, who inherited properties in 1349, including 24 shops in London from her uncle Hamo de Copton, who is described in a will dated 3 April 1354 and listed in the City Hustings Roll as "moneyer", said to be a moneyer at the Tower of London. In the City Hustings Roll 110, 5, Ric II, dated June 1380, Chaucer refers to himself as "me Galfridum Chaucer, filium Johannis Chaucer, Vinetarii, Londonie", which translates as: "Geoffrey Chaucer, son of the vintner John Chaucer, London".


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: While records concerning the lives of his contemporaries William Langland and the Gawain Poet are practically non-existent, since Chaucer was a public servant his official life is very well documented, with nearly five hundred written items testifying to his career. The first of the "Chaucer Life Records" appears in 1357, in the household accounts of Elizabeth de Burgh, the Countess of Ulster, when he became the noblewoman's page through his father's connections, a common medieval form of apprenticeship for boys into knighthood or prestige appointments. The countess was married to Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the second surviving son of the king, Edward III, and the position brought the teenage Chaucer into the close court circle, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. He also worked as a courtier, a diplomat, and a civil servant, as well as working for the king from 1389 to 1391 as Clerk of the King's Works.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: In 1359, the early stages of the Hundred Years' War, Edward III invaded France and Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, Elizabeth's husband, as part of the English army. In 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims. Edward paid £16 for his ransom, a considerable sum , and Chaucer was released.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: After this, Chaucer's life is uncertain, but he seems to have travelled in France, Spain, and Flanders, possibly as a messenger and perhaps even going on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa (de) Roet. She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen, Philippa of Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford, who later (c. 1396) became the third wife of John of Gaunt. It is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son, Thomas Chaucer, had an illustrious career, as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France, and Speaker of the House of Commons. Thomas's daughter, Alice, married the Duke of Suffolk. Thomas's great-grandson (Geoffrey's great-great-grandson), John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was the heir to the throne designated by Richard III before he was deposed. Geoffrey's other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey, Agnes, an attendant at Henry IV's coronation; and another son, Lewis Chaucer. Chaucer's "Treatise on the Astrolabe" was written for Lewis.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: According to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple (an Inn of Court) at this time. He became a member of the royal court of Edward III as a "valet de chambre", yeoman, or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail a wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment. He travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante Visconti, daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti, in Milan. Two other literary stars of the era were in attendance: Jean Froissart and Petrarch. Around this time, Chaucer is believed to have written "The Book of the Duchess" in honour of Blanche of Lancaster, the late wife of John of Gaunt, who died in 1369 of the plague.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer travelled to Picardy the next year as part of a military expedition; in 1373 he visited Genoa and Florence. Numerous scholars such as Skeat, Boitani, and Rowland suggested that, on this Italian trip, he came into contact with Petrarch or Boccaccio. They introduced him to medieval Italian poetry, the forms and stories of which he would use later. The purposes of a voyage in 1377 are mysterious, as details within the historical record conflict. Later documents suggest it was a mission, along with Jean Froissart, to arrange a marriage between the future King Richard II and a French princess, thereby ending the Hundred Years' War. If this was the purpose of their trip, they seem to have been unsuccessful, as no wedding occurred.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: In 1378, Richard II sent Chaucer as an envoy (secret dispatch) to the Visconti and to Sir John Hawkwood, English condottiere (mercenary leader) in Milan. It has been speculated that it was Hawkwood on whom Chaucer based his character the Knight in the "Canterbury Tales", for a description matches that of a 14th-century condottiere.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: A possible indication that his career as a writer was appreciated came when Edward III granted Chaucer "a gallon of wine daily for the rest of his life" for some unspecified task. This was an unusual grant, but given on a day of celebration, St George's Day, 1374, when artistic endeavours were traditionally rewarded, it is assumed to have been another early poetic work. It is not known which, if any, of Chaucer's extant works prompted the reward, but the suggestion of him as poet to a king places him as a precursor to later poets laureate. Chaucer continued to collect the liquid stipend until Richard II came to power, after which it was converted to a monetary grant on 18 April 1378.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer obtained the very substantial job of comptroller of the customs for the port of London, which he began on 8 June 1374. He must have been suited for the role as he continued in it for twelve years, a long time in such a post at that time. His life goes undocumented for much of the next ten years, but it is believed that he wrote (or began) most of his famous works during this period.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: On 16 October 1379 Thomas Staundon filed a legal action against his former servant Cecily Chaumpaigne and Chaucer, accusing Chaucer of unlawfully employing Chaumpaigne before her term of service was completed, which violated the Statute of Labourers. Though eight court documents dated between October 1379 and July 1380 survive from the action, the case was never prosecuted and no details survive about Chaumpaigne's service or how she came to leave Staundon's employ for Chaucer's.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: It is not known if Chaucer was in the City of London at the time of the Peasants' Revolt, but if he was, he would have seen its leaders pass almost directly under his apartment window at Aldgate.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: While still working as comptroller, Chaucer appears to have moved to Kent, being appointed as one of the commissioners of peace for Kent, at a time when French invasion was a possibility. He is thought to have started work on "The Canterbury Tales" in the early 1380s. He also became a member of parliament for Kent in 1386, and attended the 'Wonderful Parliament' that year. He appears to have been present at most of the 71 days it sat, for which he was paid £24 9s. On 15 October that year, he gave a deposition in the case of "Scrope v. Grosvenor". There is no further reference after this date to Philippa, Chaucer's wife, and she is presumed to have died in 1387. He survived the political upheavals caused by the Lords Appellants, despite the fact that Chaucer knew some of the men executed over the affair quite well.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: On 12 July 1389, Chaucer was appointed the clerk of the king's works, a sort of foreman organising most of the king's building projects. No major works were begun during his tenure, but he did conduct repairs on Westminster Palace, St. George's Chapel, Windsor, continued building the wharf at the Tower of London, and built the stands for a tournament held in 1390. It may have been a difficult job, but it paid well: two shillings a day, more than three times his salary as a comptroller. Chaucer was also appointed keeper of the lodge at the King's park in Feckenham Forest in Worcestershire, which was a largely honorary appointment.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: In September 1390, records say that Chaucer was robbed and possibly injured while conducting the business, and he stopped working in this capacity on 17 June 1391. He began as Deputy Forester in the royal forest of Petherton Park in North Petherton, Somerset on 22 June. This was no sinecure, with maintenance an important part of the job, although there were many opportunities to derive profit.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Richard II granted him an annual pension of 20 pounds in 1394 (), and Chaucer's name fades from the historical record not long after Richard's overthrow in 1399. The last few records of his life show his pension renewed by the new king, and his taking a lease on a residence within the close of Westminster Abbey on 24 December 1399. Henry IV renewed the grants assigned by Richard, but "The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse" hints that the grants might not have been paid. The last mention of Chaucer is on 5 June 1400 when some debts owed to him were repaid.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer died of unknown causes on 25 October 1400, although the only evidence for this date comes from the engraving on his tomb which was erected more than 100 years after his death. There is some speculation that he was murdered by enemies of Richard II or even on the orders of his successor Henry IV, but the case is entirely circumstantial. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, as was his right owing to his status as a tenant of the Abbey's close. In 1556, his remains were transferred to a more ornate tomb, making him the first writer interred in the area now known as Poets' Corner.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer was a close friend of John of Gaunt, the wealthy Duke of Lancaster and father of Henry IV, and he served under Lancaster's patronage. Near the end of their lives, Lancaster and Chaucer became brothers-in-law when Lancaster married Katherine Swynford (de Roet) in 1396; she was the sister of Philippa (Pan) de Roet, whom Chaucer had married in 1366.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer's "Book of the Duchess" (also known as the "Deeth of Blaunche the Duchesse") was written in commemoration of Blanche of Lancaster, John of Gaunt's first wife. The poem refers to John and Blanche in allegory as the narrator relates the tale of "A long castel with walles white/Be Seynt Johan, on a ryche hil" (1318–1319) who is mourning grievously after the death of his love, "And goode faire White she het/That was my lady name ryght" (948–949). The phrase "long castel" is a reference to Lancaster (also called "Loncastel" and "Longcastell"), "walles white" is thought to be an oblique reference to Blanche, "Seynt Johan" was John of Gaunt's name-saint, and "ryche hil" is a reference to Richmond. These references reveal the identity of the grieving black knight of the poem as John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Richmond. "White" is the English translation of the French word "blanche", implying that the white lady was Blanche of Lancaster.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer's short poem "Fortune", believed to have been written in the 1390s, is also thought to refer to Lancaster. "Chaucer as narrator" openly defies "Fortune", proclaiming that he has learned who his enemies are through her tyranny and deceit, and declares "my suffisaunce" (15) and that "over himself hath the maystrye" (14).


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: "Fortune", in turn, does not understand Chaucer's harsh words to her for she believes that she has been kind to him, claims that he does not know what she has in store for him in the future, but most importantly, "And eek thou hast thy beste frend alyve" (32, 40, 48). Chaucer retorts, "My frend maystow nat reven, blind goddesse" (50) and orders her to take away those who merely pretend to be his friends.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: "Fortune" turns her attention to three princes whom she implores to relieve Chaucer of his pain and "Preyeth his beste frend of his noblesse/That to som beter estat he may atteyne" (78–79). The three princes are believed to represent the dukes of Lancaster, York, and Gloucester, and a portion of line 76 ("as three of you or tweyne") is thought to refer to the ordinance of 1390 which specified that no royal gift could be authorised without the consent of at least two of the three dukes.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Most conspicuous in this short poem is the number of references to Chaucer's "beste frend". "Fortune" states three times in her response to the plaintiff, "And also, you still have your best friend alive" (32, 40, 48); she also refers to his "beste frend" in the envoy when appealing to his "noblesse" to help Chaucer to a higher estate. The narrator makes a fifth reference when he rails at "Fortune" that she shall not take his friend from him.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer's attitudes toward the Church should not be confused with his attitudes toward Christianity. He seems to have respected and admired Christians and to have been one himself, though he also recognised that many people in the church were venal and corrupt. He wrote in "Canterbury Tales", "now I beg all those that listen to this little treatise, or read it, that if there be anything in it that pleases them, they thank our Lord Jesus Christ for it, from whom proceeds all understanding and goodness."


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer's first major work was "The Book of the Duchess", an elegy for Blanche of Lancaster who died in 1368. Two other early works were "Anelida and Arcite" and "The House of Fame". He wrote many of his major works in a prolific period when he held the job of customs comptroller for London (1374 to 1386). His "Parlement of Foules", "The Legend of Good Women", and "Troilus and Criseyde" all date from this time. It is believed that he started "The Canterbury Tales" in the 1380s.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer also translated Boethius' "Consolation of Philosophy" and "The Romance of the Rose" by Guillaume de Lorris (extended by Jean de Meun). Eustache Deschamps called himself a "nettle in Chaucer's garden of poetry". In 1385, Thomas Usk made glowing mention of Chaucer, and John Gower also lauded him.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer's "Treatise on the Astrolabe" describes the form and use of the astrolabe in detail and is sometimes cited as the first example of technical writing in the English language, and it indicates that Chaucer was versed in science in addition to his literary talents. "The equatorie of the planetis" is a scientific work similar to the "Treatise" and sometimes ascribed to Chaucer because of its language and handwriting, an identification which scholars no longer deem tenable.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer wrote in continental accentual-syllabic metre, a style which had developed in English literature since around the 12th century as an alternative to the alliterative Anglo-Saxon metre. Chaucer is known for metrical innovation, inventing the rhyme royal, and he was one of the first English poets to use the five-stress line, a decasyllabic cousin to the iambic pentametre, in his work, with only a few anonymous short works using it before him. The arrangement of these five-stress lines into rhyming couplets, first seen in his "The Legend of Good Women", was used in much of his later work and became one of the standard poetic forms in English. His early influence as a satirist is also important, with the common humorous device, the funny accent of a regional dialect, apparently making its first appearance in "The Reeve's Tale".


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: The poetry of Chaucer, along with other writers of the era, is credited with helping to standardise the London Dialect of the Middle English language from a combination of the Kentish and Midlands dialects. This is probably overstated; the influence of the court, chancery and bureaucracy – of which Chaucer was a part – remains a more probable influence on the development of Standard English.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Modern English is somewhat distanced from the language of Chaucer's poems owing to the effect of the Great Vowel Shift some time after his death. This change in the pronunciation of English, still not fully understood, makes the reading of Chaucer difficult for the modern audience.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: The status of the final "-e" in Chaucer's verse is uncertain: it seems likely that during the period of Chaucer's writing the final "-e" was dropping out of colloquial English and that its use was somewhat irregular. It may have been a vestige of the Old English dative singular suffix "-e" attached to most nouns. Chaucer's versification suggests that the final "-e" is sometimes to be vocalised, and sometimes to be silent; however, this remains a point on which there is disagreement. When it is vocalised, most scholars pronounce it as a schwa.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Apart from the irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary is recognisable to the modern reader. Chaucer is also recorded in the "Oxford English Dictionary" as the first author to use many common English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in the language at the time but Chaucer, with his ear for common speech, is the earliest extant manuscript source. "Acceptable", "alkali", "altercation", "amble", "angrily", "annex", "annoyance", "approaching", "arbitration", "armless", "army", "arrogant", "arsenic", "arc", "artillery" and "aspect" are just some of almost two thousand English words first attested in Chaucer.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Widespread knowledge of Chaucer's works is attested by the many poets who imitated or responded to his writing. John Lydgate was one of the earliest poets to write continuations of Chaucer's unfinished "Tales" while Robert Henryson's "Testament of Cresseid" completes the story of Cressida left unfinished in his "Troilus and Criseyde". Many of the manuscripts of Chaucer's works contain material from these poets and later appreciations by the Romantic era poets were shaped by their failure to distinguish the later "additions" from original Chaucer.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as John Dryden, admired Chaucer for his stories, but not for his rhythm and rhyme, as few critics could then read Middle English and the text had been butchered by printers, leaving a somewhat unadmirable mess. It was not until the late 19th century that the official Chaucerian canon, accepted today, was decided upon, largely as a result of Walter William Skeat's work. Roughly seventy-five years after Chaucer's death, "The Canterbury Tales" was selected by William Caxton to be one of the first books to be printed in England.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer is sometimes considered the source of the English vernacular tradition. His achievement for the language can be seen as part of a general historical trend towards the creation of a vernacular literature, after the example of Dante, in many parts of Europe. A parallel trend in Chaucer's own lifetime was underway in Scotland through the work of his slightly earlier contemporary, John Barbour, and was likely to have been even more general, as is evidenced by the example of the Pearl Poet in the north of England.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Although Chaucer's language is much closer to Modern English than the text of "Beowulf", such that (unlike that of "Beowulf") a Modern English-speaker with a large vocabulary of archaic words may understand it, it differs enough that most publications modernise his idiom. The following is a sample from the prologue of "The Summoner's Tale" that compares Chaucer's text to a modern translation:


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is believed to be in Chaucer's "Parliament of Fowls" (1382), a dream vision portraying a parliament for birds to choose their mates. Honouring the first anniversary of the engagement of fifteen-year-old King Richard II of England to fifteen-year-old Anne of Bohemia:


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: For this was on seynt Volantynys dayWhan euery bryd comyth there to chese his makeOf euery kynde that men thinke mayAnd that so heuge a noyse gan they makeThat erthe & eyr & tre & euery lakeSo ful was that onethe was there spaceFor me to stonde, so ful was al the place.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: The poet Thomas Hoccleve, who may have met Chaucer and considered him his role model, hailed Chaucer as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage". John Lydgate referred to Chaucer within his own text "The Fall of Princes" as the "lodesterre (guiding principle) … off our language". Around two centuries later, Sir Philip Sidney greatly praised "Troilus and Criseyde" in his own "Defence of Poesie". During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Chaucer came to be viewed as a symbol of the nation's poetic heritage.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: In Charles Dickens' 1850 novel "David Copperfield", the Victorian era author echoed Chaucer's use of from "Troilus and Criseyde" (Dickens held a copy in his library among other works of Chaucer), with G. K. Chesterton writing, "among the great canonical English authors, Chaucer and Dickens have the most in common."


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: The large number of surviving manuscripts of Chaucer's works is testimony to the enduring interest in his poetry prior to the arrival of the printing press. There are 83 surviving manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales (in whole or part) alone, along with sixteen of "Troilus and Criseyde", including the personal copy of Henry IV. Given the ravages of time, it is likely that these surviving manuscripts represent hundreds since lost.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Chaucer's original audience was a courtly one, and would have included women as well as men of the upper social classes. Yet even before his death in 1400, Chaucer's audience had begun to include members of the rising literate, middle and merchant classes. This included many Lollard sympathisers who may well have been inclined to read Chaucer as one of their own.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Lollards were particularly attracted to Chaucer's satirical writings about friars, priests, and other church officials. In 1464, John Baron, a tenant farmer in Agmondesham (Amersham in Buckinghamshire), was brought before John Chadworth, the Bishop of Lincoln, on charges of being a Lollard heretic; he confessed to owning a "boke of the Tales of Caunterburie" among other suspect volumes.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: William Caxton, the first English printer, was responsible for the first two folio editions of "The Canterbury Tales" which were published in 1478 and 1483. Caxton's second printing, by his own account, came about because a customer complained that the printed text differed from a manuscript he knew; Caxton obligingly used the man's manuscript as his source. Both Caxton editions carry the equivalent of manuscript authority. Caxton's edition was reprinted by his successor, Wynkyn de Worde, but this edition has no independent authority.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Richard Pynson, the King's Printer under Henry VIII for about twenty years, was the first to collect and sell something that resembled an edition of the collected works of Chaucer; however, in the process, he introduced five previously printed texts that are now known not to be Chaucer's. (The collection is actually three separately printed texts, or collections of texts, bound together as one volume.)


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: There is a likely connection between Pynson's product and William Thynne's a mere six years later. Thynne had a successful career from the 1520s until his death in 1546, as chief clerk of the kitchen of Henry VIII, one of the masters of the royal household. He spent years comparing various versions of Chaucer's works, and selected 41 pieces for publication. While there were questions over the authorship of some of the material, there is not doubt this was the first comprehensive view of Chaucer's work. "The Workes of Geffray Chaucer," published in 1532, was the first edition of Chaucer's collected works. Thynne's editions of "Chaucer's Works" in 1532 and 1542 were the first major contributions to the existence of a widely recognised Chaucerian canon. Thynne represents his edition as a book sponsored by and supportive of the king who is praised in the preface by Sir Brian Tuke. Thynne's canon brought the number of apocryphal works associated with Chaucer to a total of 28, even if that was not his intention. As with Pynson, once included in the "Works", pseudepigraphic texts stayed with those works, regardless of their first editor's intentions.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: In the 16th and 17th centuries, Chaucer was printed more than any other English author, and he was the first author to have his works collected in comprehensive single-volume editions in which a Chaucer canon began to cohere. Some scholars contend that 16th-century editions of Chaucer's "Works" set the precedent for all other English authors in terms of presentation, prestige and success in print. These editions certainly established Chaucer's reputation, but they also began the complicated process of reconstructing and frequently inventing Chaucer's biography and the canonical list of works which were attributed to him.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Probably the most significant aspect of the growing apocrypha is that, beginning with Thynne's editions, it began to include medieval texts that made Chaucer appear as a proto-Protestant Lollard, primarily the "Testament of Love" and "The Plowman's Tale". As "Chaucerian" works that were not considered apocryphal until the late 19th century, these medieval texts enjoyed a new life, with English Protestants carrying on the earlier Lollard project of appropriating existing texts and authors who seemed sympathetic—or malleable enough to be construed as sympathetic—to their cause. The official Chaucer of the early printed volumes of his "Works" was construed as a proto-Protestant as the same was done, concurrently, with William Langland and "Piers Plowman".


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: The famous "Plowman's Tale" did not enter Thynne's "Works" until the second, 1542, edition. Its entry was surely facilitated by Thynne's inclusion of Thomas Usk's "Testament of Love" in the first edition. The "Testament of Love" imitates, borrows from, and thus resembles Usk's contemporary, Chaucer. ("Testament of Love" also appears to borrow from "Piers Plowman".)


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Since the "Testament of Love" mentions its author's part in a failed plot (book 1, chapter 6), his imprisonment, and (perhaps) a recantation of (possibly Lollard) heresy, all this was associated with Chaucer. (Usk himself was executed as a traitor in 1388.) John Foxe took this recantation of heresy as a defence of the true faith, calling Chaucer a "right Wiclevian" and (erroneously) identifying him as a schoolmate and close friend of John Wycliffe at Merton College, Oxford. (Thomas Speght is careful to highlight these facts in his editions and his "Life of Chaucer".) No other sources for the "Testament of Love" exist—there is only Thynne's construction of whatever manuscript sources he had.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: John Stow (1525–1605) was an antiquarian and also a chronicler. His edition of Chaucer's "Works" in 1561 brought the apocrypha to more than 50 titles. More were added in the 17th century, and they remained as late as 1810, well after Thomas Tyrwhitt pared the canon down in his 1775 edition. The compilation and printing of Chaucer's works was, from its beginning, a political enterprise, since it was intended to establish an English national identity and history that grounded and authorised the Tudor monarchy and church. What was added to Chaucer often helped represent him favourably to Protestant England.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: In his 1598 edition of the "Works", Speght (probably taking cues from Foxe) made good use of Usk's account of his political intrigue and imprisonment in the "Testament of Love" to assemble a largely fictional "Life of Our Learned English Poet, Geffrey Chaucer". Speght's "Life" presents readers with an erstwhile radical in troubled times much like their own, a proto-Protestant who eventually came round to the king's views on religion. Speght states, "In the second year of Richard the second, the King tooke Geffrey Chaucer and his lands into his protection. The occasion wherof no doubt was some daunger and trouble whereinto he was fallen by favouring some rash attempt of the common people." Under the discussion of Chaucer's friends, namely John of Gaunt, Speght further explains:


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Speght is also the source of the famous tale of Chaucer being fined for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet Street, as well as a fictitious coat of arms and family tree. Ironically – and perhaps consciously so – an introductory, apologetic letter in Speght's edition from Francis Beaumont defends the unseemly, "low", and bawdy bits in Chaucer from an elite, classicist position.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Francis Thynne noted some of these inconsistencies in his "Animadversions", insisting that Chaucer was not a commoner, and he objected to the friar-beating story. Yet Thynne himself underscores Chaucer's support for popular religious reform, associating Chaucer's views with his father William Thynne's attempts to include "The Plowman's Tale" and "The Pilgrim's Tale" in the 1532 and 1542 "Works".


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: The myth of the Protestant Chaucer continues to have a lasting impact on a large body of Chaucerian scholarship. Though it is extremely rare for a modern scholar to suggest Chaucer supported a religious movement that did not exist until more than a century after his death, the predominance of this thinking for so many centuries left it for granted that Chaucer was at least hostile toward Catholicism. This assumption forms a large part of many critical approaches to Chaucer's works, including neo-Marxism.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Alongside Chaucer's "Works", the most impressive literary monument of the period is John Foxe's "Acts and Monuments...". As with the Chaucer editions, it was critically significant to English Protestant identity and included Chaucer in its project. Foxe's Chaucer both derived from and contributed to the printed editions of Chaucer's "Works", particularly the pseudepigrapha. "Jack Upland" was first printed in Foxe's "Acts and Monuments", and then it appeared in Speght's edition of Chaucer's "Works".


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Speght's "Life of Chaucer" echoes Foxe's own account, which is itself dependent upon the earlier editions that added the "Testament of Love" and "The Plowman's Tale" to their pages. Like Speght's Chaucer, Foxe's Chaucer was also a shrewd (or lucky) political survivor. In his 1563 edition, Foxe "thought it not out of season … to couple … some mention of Geoffrey Chaucer" with a discussion of John Colet, a possible source for John Skelton's character Colin Clout.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Probably referring to the 1542 Act for the Advancement of True Religion, Foxe said that he "marvel[s] to consider … how the bishops, condemning and abolishing all manner of English books and treatises which might bring the people to any light of knowledge, did yet authorise the works of Chaucer to remain still and to be occupied; who, no doubt, saw into religion as much almost as even we do now, and uttereth in his works no less, and seemeth to be a right Wicklevian, or else there never was any. And that, all his works almost, if they be thoroughly advised, will testify (albeit done in mirth, and covertly); and especially the latter end of his third book of the Testament of Love … Wherein, except a man be altogether blind, he may espy him at the full: although in the same book (as in all others he useth to do), under shadows covertly, as under a visor, he suborneth truth in such sort, as both privily she may profit the godly-minded, and yet not be espied of the crafty adversary. And therefore the bishops, belike, taking his works but for jests and toys, in condemning other books, yet permitted his books to be read."


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: It is significant, too, that Foxe's discussion of Chaucer leads into his history of "The Reformation of the Church of Christ in the Time of Martin Luther" when "Printing, being opened, incontinently ministered unto the church the instruments and tools of learning and knowledge; which were good books and authors, which before lay hid and unknown. The science of printing being found, immediately followed the grace of God; which stirred up good wits aptly to conceive the light of knowledge and judgment: by which light darkness began to be espied, and ignorance to be detected; truth from error, religion from superstition, to be discerned."


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Foxe downplays Chaucer's bawdy and amorous writing, insisting that it all testifies to his piety. Material that is troubling is deemed metaphoric, while the more forthright satire (which Foxe prefers) is taken literally.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: John Urry produced the first edition of the complete works of Chaucer in a Latin font, published posthumously in 1721. Included were several tales, according to the editors, for the first time printed, a biography of Chaucer, a glossary of old English words, and testimonials of author writers concerning Chaucer dating back to the 16th century. According to A. S. G Edwards, "This was the first collected edition of Chaucer to be printed in roman type. The life of Chaucer prefixed to the volume was the work of the Reverend John Dart, corrected and revised by Timothy Thomas. The glossary appended was also mainly compiled by Thomas. The text of Urry's edition has often been criticised by subsequent editors for its frequent conjectural emendations, mainly to make it conform to his sense of Chaucer's metre. The justice of such criticisms should not obscure his achievement. His is the first edition of Chaucer for nearly a hundred and fifty years to consult any manuscripts and is the first since that of William Thynne in 1534 to seek systematically to assemble a substantial number of manuscripts to establish his text. It is also the first edition to offer descriptions of the manuscripts of Chaucer's works, and the first to print texts of 'Gamelyn' and 'The Tale of Beryn', works ascribed to, but not by, Chaucer."


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Although Chaucer's works had long been admired, serious scholarly work on his legacy did not begin until the late 18th century, when Thomas Tyrwhitt edited "The Canterbury Tales", and it did not become an established academic discipline until the 19th century.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: Scholars such as Frederick James Furnivall, who founded the Chaucer Society in 1868, pioneered the establishment of diplomatic editions of Chaucer's major texts, along with careful accounts of Chaucer's language and prosody. Walter William Skeat, who like Furnivall was closely associated with the "Oxford English Dictionary", established the base text of all of Chaucer's works with his edition, published by Oxford University Press. Later editions by John H. Fisher and Larry D. Benson offered further refinements, along with critical commentary and bibliographies.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: With the textual issues largely addressed, if not resolved, attention turned to the questions of Chaucer's themes, structure, and audience. The Chaucer Research Project at the University of Chicago began in 1924. The "Chaucer Review" was founded in 1966 and has maintained its position as the pre-eminent journal of Chaucer studies. In 1994, literary critic Harold Bloom placed Chaucer among the , and in 1997 expounded on William Shakespeare's debt to the author.


title: Geoffrey Chaucer

text: The following major works are in rough chronological order but scholars still debate the dating of most of Chaucer's output and works made up from a collection of stories may have been compiled over a long period.


title: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

text: Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 American science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and François Truffaut. It tells the story of Roy Neary, an everyday blue-collar worker in Indiana, whose life changes after an encounter with a UFO.


title: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

text: "Close Encounters" was a long-cherished project for Spielberg. In late 1973, he developed a deal with Columbia Pictures for a science-fiction film. Though Spielberg received sole credit for the script, he was assisted by Paul Schrader, John Hill, David Giler, Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins, and Jerry Belson, all of whom contributed to the screenplay in varying degrees. The title is derived from Ufologist J. Allen Hynek's classification of close encounters with extraterrestrials, in which the third kind denotes human observations of extraterrestrials or "animate beings". Douglas Trumbull served as the visual effects supervisor, while Carlo Rambaldi designed the extraterrestrials.


title: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

text: Made on a production budget of $19.4 million, "Close Encounters" was released in a limited number of cities on November 16 and 23, 1977, before expanding into wide release the following month. It was a critical and financial success, eventually grossing over $300 million worldwide. The film received numerous awards and nominations at the 50th Academy Awards, 32nd British Academy Film Awards, the 35th Golden Globe Awards and the 5th Saturn Awards, and has been widely acclaimed by the American Film Institute.


title: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

text: In December 2007, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. A "Special Edition" of the film, featuring both shortened and newly added scenes, was released theatrically in 1980. Spielberg agreed to do the special edition to add more scenes that they were unable to include in the original release, with the studio demanding a controversial scene depicting the interior of the extraterrestrial mothership. Spielberg's dissatisfaction with the altered ending scene led to a third version of the film, referred to as the "Director's Cut", that was issued on VHS and LaserDisc in 1998 (and later DVD and Blu-ray). The director's cut is the longest version of the film, combining Spielberg's favorite elements from both previous editions but removing the scenes inside the extraterrestrial mothership. The film was later remastered in 4K and re-released in theatres on September 1, 2017 for its 40th anniversary.


title: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

text: In the Sonoran Desert, French scientist Claude Lacombe, his American interpreter, cartographer David Laughlin, and other researchers discover a flight of Grumman TBM Avengers that went missing shortly after World War II. The planes are in perfect condition, but without any occupants. An elderly witness nearby claims "the sun came out at night, and sang to him." The researchers are similarly baffled to find the in the middle of the Gobi Desert, intact and completely empty. Near Indianapolis, air traffic controllers watch two airline flights narrowly avoid a mid-air collision with an unidentified flying object (UFO).