Professor Marion Turner

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759 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Feb 2026 last heard 29 May

Professor Marion Turner’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.

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So there's this kind of fabulous juxtaposition of all kinds of different things can be part of literature.

Yeah, I mean, the way that we talk is iambic often.

So I want to go and have a cup of tea.

Now, so partly iambic pentameter works because it's a natural way that we talk.

And partly we've become used to that as a poetic mode.

So that is how our stress patterns work in speech.

I mean, as I say, it's not only Chaucerine that, of course, iambic pentameter is developed much more by later poets.

But that kind of heartbeat rhythm is really fundamental to how we talk.

No, he writes all of his life, yes.

So most of the Canterbury Tales...

are written in the 1390s, which is also when he writes his treatise on the astrolabe.

He rewrites the prologue, Legend of Good Women.

He writes lots of short poems and he's working, you know, so we see him working throughout the 90s.

In 1399, Henry IV, the son of John of Gaunt, usurps the throne from Richard II, his cousin.

But Chaucer has great connections with both sides.

So he's been connected with Gaunt and Gaunt's household all his life, as we've already talked about.

But he's also been employed by Richard.

So he weathers that storm and we see him getting his allowances renewed and increased by Henry.

Towards the end of his life, he's living in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, which was not necessarily a religious thing.

I mean, there were lots of shops and brothels and things like that in the precincts of Westminster Abbey.

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