Geoffrey Chaucer Hath A Blog
is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a blog purporting to be written by Geoffrey Chaucer. Beginning as a one-off joke, it eventually developed a measure of continuity as well as a small but devoted following. The blog is pretty quiet these days, but Chaucer is still active on Twitter.
Its true author, long pseudonymous, eventually revealed himself as Brantley Bryant, a professor of English at Sonoma State University.
Tropes featured include:
- Anachronism Stew: Inherent in the very concept; the blog remains rather vague about exactly how Chaucer is posting on the internet. It's also a common source of jokes; e.g., from almost the beginning, Chaucer complains about his son Lowys's "Exboxe CCCLX".
- Cool Old Guy: John of Gaunt, if one accepts Lowys as being Geoffrey's son who was born around 1380, and Chaucer gave him the astrolabe book when he was ten. John, born in 1340 and pushing fifty by that time, gave Lowys the Exboxe CCCLX for his birthday (which sadly meant Geoffrey's book went neglected).
- Le Film Artistique: Referenced in the parliament saga; one of the king's talking points about the coming French invasion is "The Frensshe shal turne alle of our filmes in to non-linear meditaciouns on lyf and deeth both insouciant and weightie."
- Homage: Very common. The first post to get much internet attention was a Brokeback Mountain homage (involving Chaucer and the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), and more followed.
- Our Product Sucks: The book begins with a poem by "Gower" titled "Why Ye Sholde Nat Rede This Booke".
- Present-Day Past: Parodied. In Chaucer's first outline of The Canterbury Tales, he claims that "The Knight's Tale" will be "a trewe tale that captureth the reale and authentic historicale feele of the culture and societee of Ancient Greece wythout eny imposicioun of ower current cultural standards," including "ancient Greek courtlie love, ancient Greek tournamentz, and ancient Greek Boethian meditaciouns on the universe."
- Pirate: Chaucer gets captured by the Dread Pirate Robertson, and spends a while being a pirate accountant.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: Gower to Chaucer. Even results in a Flayme Werre between the two in an early post.
- Totally Radical: At one point, the Lords Appellant take over the blog and rebrand it as ''Geoffrey Chaucer Hath an Extreme Blog! Go England! It Is Rad!"note
- Viewers Are Geniuses: The blog is written entirely in Middle English (except for Lowys's occasional contributions and the speech of a few other minor characters such as Griselda Mars, Girl Detective), albeit with quite a few neologisms as required for the blog's degree of anachronism.
