A Treatise on the Astrolabe E-Book

Geoffrey Chaucer

• Herausgeber: Edizioni Aurora Boreale
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Geoffrey Chaucer, born in London most likely around 1340, was an English poet, author, philosopher, scientist, diplomat and politician. He has been called the “father of English literature”, or, alternatively, the “father of English poetry”, but he should be considered, in a broader sense, for the breadth of his interests and the richness of his works, the father of English Humanism.
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.
Parallel to his activity as a prolific writer, he maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, comptroller of the customs for the port of London and member of parliament.
Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe, addressed in 1391 to his ten old son Lowys, is considered the oldest work in English written upon an elaborate scientific instrument or the first example of technical writing in the English language. It describes the form and use of the astrolabe in detail and it indicates that Chaucer was versed in science in addition to his literary and philosophical talents.
With a preface by Boris Yousef.

Leseprobe

SYMBOLS & MYTHS

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

A TREATISE

ON THE ASTROLABE

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Title: A Treatise on the Astrolabe

Author: Geoffrey Chaucer

Publishing series: Symbols & Myths

With a preface by Boris Yousef

Editing by Nicola Bizzi

ISBN: 979-12-5504-116-0

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

© 2022 Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Via del Fiordaliso 14 - 59100 Prato - Italia

[email protected]

www.auroraboreale-edizioni.com

GEOFFREY CHAUCER, THE FATHER OF ENGLISH HUMANISM

By Boris Yousef

Geoffrey Chaucer, born in London most likely around 1340 (the precise date remain unknown), was an English poet, author, philosopher, scientist, diplomat and politician. He has been called the “father of English literature”, or, alternatively, the “father of English poetry”, but he should be considered, in a broader sense, for the breadth of his interests and the richness of his works, the father of English Humanism.

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.

Parallel to his activity as a prolific writer, he maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, comptroller of the customs for the port of London and member of parliament.

Chaucer’s first major work was The Book of the Duchess, an elegy for Blanche of Lancaster who died in 1368. He also wrote masterpieces such as Anelidaand Arcite, The House of Fame, Parlement of Foules, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde, but is especially remembered internationally for his magnus opus, The Canterbury Tales, a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400.

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».

According to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple (an Inn of Court). 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.

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 Francesco Petrarca and Giovanni Boccaccio. They introduced him to medieval Italian poetry, the forms and stories of which he would use later.

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 houndred 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.

Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe , addressed in 1391 to his ten old son Lowys, is considered the oldest work in English written upon an elaborate scientific instrument or the first example of technical writing in the English language. It describes the form and use of the astrolabe in detail and it indicates that Chaucer was versed in science in addition to his literary and philosophical talents.

Chaucer’s exact source is undetermined but most of his conclusions go back, directly or indirectly, to Compositio et Operatio Astrolabii, a Latin translation of Messahala’s Arabic treatise of the 8th century. His description of the instrument amplifies Messahala’s, and Chaucer’s indebtedness to Messahala was recognised by John Selden and established by Walter William Skeat. Mark Harvey Liddell held Chaucer drew on De Sphaera of John de Sacrobosco for the substance of his astronomical definitions and descriptions, but the non-correspondence in language suggests the probable use of an alternative compilation. A collotype facsimile of the second part of the Latin text of Messahala (the portion which is parallel to Chaucer’s) is found in Skeat’s Treatise On The Astrolabe and in Gunther’s Chaucer and Messahalla on the Astrolabe.

The work was planned by Chaucer to have an introduction and five sections:

- A description of the astrolabe;

- A rudimentary course in using the instrument;

- Various tables of longitudes, latitudes, declinations, etc.;

- A “theorike” (theory) of the motion of the celestial bodies, in particular a table showing the “very moving of the moon”;