The French Connection: Geoffrey Chaucer and Oton de Granson

Geoffrey Chaucer’s relationship with Oton de Granson is one that collapses any real distinction between influence and reception. By focusing on Chaucer’s early works, including his possible French poems, known as the “Ch” poems, this thesis uncovers the role that Granson played in introducing Chaucer to a French poetic tradition and in shaping how Chaucer responded to that tradition. Chaucer, in turn, by translating and satirizing some of Granson’s work in The Complaint of Venus, influenced the way in which Granson and his contemporaries understood their own poetic projects. By focusing on manuscript transmission and personal interactions, I argue for a kind of reception history that emphasizes local and material conditions in order to understand literary influence, suggesting that kind of historical understanding discloses Chaucer’s dual role in both being influenced by and influencing the French poetic tradition.