Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343–1400)

Geoffrey Chaucer, father of English poetry, appears in Blake's visionary portrait series around 1800 at Manchester Art Gallery. Unlike most of the poet portraits, Chaucer's appearance is known from the Ellesmere manuscript portrait and Thomas Hoccleve's contemporary description, but Blake characteristically reimagines rather than copies these sources. For Blake, Chaucer represented the beginning of the English poetic tradition that culminated in Milton and, by implication, in Blake himself.

Chaucer's face is rendered with Blake's characteristic firmness of outline, the features given an idealized clarity appropriate to the father of English verse. The watercolor handling balances precision with atmospheric suggestion, the poet's face emerging clearly from the surrounding space. Blake's palette is warmer than in some of the series, appropriate to Chaucer's association with earthy humor and human warmth.