Chaucer's Childhood Influences

Because of these good experiences that he had, Chaucer learned reading, religion, Latin, French, mathematics, and natural science. In other words, “he gives evidence in all his mature work of being extraordinarily well read and of having many wide and deep intellectual interests.” Another childhood influence on his imagination was that the child Chaucer walked each day through the excitements of London's narrow, crooked streets with many stores, and looked at how people enjoyed their lives. “Geoffrey Chaucer played truant and, instead of finding his way to school, allowed himself to be drawn by the magic of one of his father's lately arrived ships, moored below Thames Street, ships which bore rich wine from the sunny vineyards of the far