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144-458: The Child Ballads were published in five volumes between 1882 and 1898. While Child was primarily a literary scholar with little interest in the music of the ballads, his work became a major contribution to the study of English-language folk music. Francis James Child was born in Boston, Massachusetts . His lifelong friend, scholar and social reformer Charles Eliot Norton , described Child's father,

288-490: A cannon barrage for two hours, but their shot could not reach the colonists' cannons at such a height. The British gave up, boarded their ships, and sailed away. This has become known as " Evacuation Day ", which Boston still celebrates each year on March 17. After this, Washington was so impressed that he made Rufus Putnam his chief engineer. After the Revolution, Boston's long seafaring tradition helped make it one of

432-423: A common medieval form of apprenticeship for boys into knighthood or prestige appointments. The countess was married to Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence , the second surviving son of the king, Edward III , and the position brought the teenage Chaucer into the close court circle, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. He also worked as a courtier, a diplomat, and a civil servant, as well as working for

576-545: A copy in his library among other works of Chaucer), with G. K. Chesterton writing, "among the great canonical English authors, Chaucer and Dickens have the most in common." The large number of surviving manuscripts of Chaucer's works is testimony to the enduring interest in his poetry prior to the arrival of the printing press. There are 83 surviving manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales (in whole or part) alone, along with sixteen of Troilus and Criseyde , including

720-503: A deposition in the case of Scrope v. Grosvenor . There is no further reference after this date to Philippa, Chaucer's wife. She is presumed to have died in 1387. He survived the political upheavals caused by the Lords Appellants , despite the fact that Chaucer knew some of the men executed over the affair quite well. On 12 July 1389, Chaucer was appointed the clerk of the king's works , a sort of foreman organising most of

864-600: A general historical trend towards the creation of a vernacular literature , after the example of Dante , in many parts of Europe. A parallel trend in Chaucer's lifetime was underway in Scotland through the work of his slightly earlier contemporary, John Barbour . Barbour's work was likely to have been even more general, as is evidenced by the example of the Pearl Poet in the north of England. Although Chaucer's language

1008-529: A global leader in higher education and research and the largest biotechnology hub in the world. The city is also a national leader in scientific research, law, medicine, engineering, and business. With nearly 5,000 startup companies, the city is considered a global pioneer in innovation and entrepreneurship , and more recently in artificial intelligence . Boston's economy also includes finance , professional and business services, information technology , and government activities. Boston households provide

1152-433: A lease on a residence within the close of Westminster Abbey on 24 December 1399. Henry IV renewed the grants assigned by Richard, but The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse hints that the grants might not have been paid. The last mention of Chaucer is on 5 June 1400, when some debts owed to him were repaid. Chaucer died of unknown causes on 25 October 1400, although the only evidence for this date comes from

1296-624: A lively port , and the then-town primarily engaged in shipping and fishing during its colonial days. Boston was a primary stop on a Caribbean trade route and imported large amounts of molasses, which led to the creation of Boston baked beans . Boston's economy stagnated in the decades prior to the Revolution. By the mid-18th century, New York City and Philadelphia had surpassed Boston in wealth. During this period, Boston encountered financial difficulties even as other cities in New England grew rapidly. The weather continuing boisterous

1440-646: A long time was the authoritative treasury of their subject. The "English" and "Scottish" of the title notwithstanding, it was an international piece of research, with references that include thirty different language sources. A commemorative article in the 2006 edition of the Harvard Magazine states: Child's enthusiasm and erudition shine throughout his systematic attempt to set the British ballad tradition in context with others, whether Danish, Serbian, or Turkish. He made no attempt to conceal or apologize for

1584-515: A member of the royal court of Edward III as a valet de chambre , yeoman , or esquire on 20 June 1367, a position which could entail a wide variety of tasks. His wife also received a pension for court employment. He travelled abroad many times, at least some of them in his role as a valet. In 1368, he may have attended the wedding of Lionel of Antwerp to Violante Visconti , daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti , in Milan . Two other literary stars of

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1728-595: A million residents, and the most densely populated state capital. Some 1.2 million persons may be within Boston's boundaries during work hours, and as many as 2 million during special events. This fluctuation of people is caused by hundreds of thousands of suburban residents who travel to the city for work, education, health care, and special events. Geoffrey Chaucer This is an accepted version of this page Geoffrey Chaucer ( / ˈ tʃ ɔː s ər / CHAW -sər ; c.  1343 – 25 October 1400)

1872-445: A more democratic time in the past when society was not so rigidly segregated into classes, and the "true voice" of the people could therefore be heard. He conceived "the people" as comprising all the classes of society, rich, middle, and poor, and not only those engaged in manual labor as Marxists sometimes use the word. Although Child concentrated his collections on manuscript texts with a view of determining their chronology, he also gave

2016-483: A more ornate tomb, making him the first writer interred in the area now known as Poets' Corner . Chaucer was a close friend of John of Gaunt , the wealthy Duke of Lancaster and father of Henry IV, and he served under Lancaster's patronage. Near the end of their lives, Lancaster and Chaucer became brothers-in-law when Lancaster married Katherine Swynford (de Roet) in 1396; she was the sister of Philippa (de) Roet, whom Chaucer had married in 1366. Chaucer's The Book of

2160-687: A noyse gan they make That erthe & eyr & tre & euery lake So ful was that onethe was there space For me to stonde, so ful was al the place. "The language of England, upon which Chaucer was the first to confer celebrity, has amply justified the foresight which led him to disdain all others for its sake, and, in turn, has conferred an enduring celebrity upon him who trusted his reputation to it without reserve." —T. R. Lounsbury. The poet Thomas Hoccleve , who may have met Chaucer and considered him his role model, hailed Chaucer as "the firste fyndere of our fair langage". John Lydgate referred to Chaucer within his own text The Fall of Princes as

2304-475: A pair of bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon , killing three people and injuring roughly 264. The subsequent search for the bombers led to a lock-down of Boston and surrounding municipalities. The region showed solidarity during this time as symbolized by the slogan Boston Strong . In 2016, Boston briefly shouldered a bid as the U.S. applicant for the 2024 Summer Olympics . The bid

2448-540: A population of 675,647 as of the 2020 census , making it the third-largest city in the Northeast after New York City and Philadelphia . The larger Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area has a population of 4.9 million as of 2023, making it the largest in New England and the eleventh-largest in the country . Boston was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers. The city

2592-565: A project to improve the historic West End neighborhood. Extensive demolition was met with strong public opposition, and thousands of families were displaced. The BRA continued implementing eminent domain projects, including the clearance of the vibrant Scollay Square area for construction of the modernist style Government Center . In 1965, the Columbia Point Health Center opened in the Dorchester neighborhood,

2736-594: A research professorship at the newly established Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore , which Gilman was in the process of organizing. Johns Hopkins was the first American university conceived on the German research model initiated by Wilhelm von Humboldt and divided into departments representing "the branches of knowledge", with elective subjects and a graduate school dedicated to advanced studies. In order to retain him, Harvard's president Charles William Eliot created

2880-552: A sailmaker, as "one of that class of intelligent and independent mechanics [i.e., skilled craftsmen], which has had a large share of developing the character of our democratic community, as of old the same class had in Athens or in Florence." The family was poor, but thanks to the city of Boston's system of free public schools, the boy was educated at the Boston's grammar schools and The English High School . There his brilliance came to

3024-503: A sedulous but conservative hearing to popular versions still surviving. Child carried his investigations into the ballads of languages other than English, engaging in extensive international correspondence on the subject with colleagues abroad, primarily with the Danish literary historian and ethnographer Svend Grundtvig , whose monumental twelve-volume compilation of Danish ballads, Danmarks gamle Folkeviser , vols. 1–12 (Copenhagen, 1853),

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3168-575: A style which had developed in English literature since around the 12th century as an alternative to the alliterative Anglo-Saxon metre . Chaucer is known for metrical innovation, inventing the rhyme royal , and he was one of the first English poets to use the five-stress line, a decasyllabic cousin to the iambic pentametre , in his work, with only a few anonymous short works using it before him. The arrangement of these five-stress lines into rhyming couplets , first seen in his The Legend of Good Women ,

3312-401: A violent tornado , the city itself has experienced many tornado warnings . Damaging storms are more common to areas north, west, and northwest of the city. See or edit raw graph data . In 2020, Boston was estimated to have 691,531 residents living in 266,724 households —a 12% population increase over 2010. The city is the third-most densely populated large U.S. city of over half

3456-521: A will dated 3 April 1354 and listed in the City Hustings Roll as "moneyer", said to be a moneyer at the Tower of London . In the City Hustings Roll 110, 5, Ric II, dated June 1380, Chaucer refers to himself as me Galfridum Chaucer, filium Johannis Chaucer, Vinetarii, Londonie , which translates as: "I, Geoffrey Chaucer, son of the vintner John Chaucer, London". While records concerning

3600-505: Is 2 °F (−17 °C) on December 30, 1917, while the record warm daily minimum is 83 °F (28 °C) on both August 2, 1975 and July 21, 2019. Boston averages 43.6 in (1,110 mm) of precipitation a year, with 49.2 in (125 cm) of snowfall per season. Most snowfall occurs from mid-November through early April, and snow is rare in May and October. There is also high year-to-year variability in snowfall; for instance,

3744-508: Is July, with a mean temperature of 74.1 °F (23.4 °C). The coldest month is January, with a mean temperature of 29.9 °F (−1.2 °C). Periods exceeding 90 °F (32 °C) in summer and below freezing in winter are not uncommon but tend to be fairly short, with about 13 and 25 days per year seeing each, respectively. Sub- 0 °F (−18 °C) readings usually occur every 3 to 5 years. The most recent sub- 0 °F (−18 °C) reading occurred on February 4, 2023, when

3888-401: Is a reference to Lancaster (also called "Loncastel" and "Longcastell"), "walles white" is thought to be an oblique reference to Blanche, "Seynt Johan" was John of Gaunt's name-saint, and "ryche hil" is a reference to Richmond. These references reveal the identity of the grieving black knight of the poem as John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Richmond. "White" is the English translation of

4032-547: Is an intellectual, technological, and political center. However, it has lost some important regional institutions, including the loss to mergers and acquisitions of local financial institutions such as FleetBoston Financial , which was acquired by Charlotte -based Bank of America in 2004. Boston-based department stores Jordan Marsh and Filene's have both merged into the New York City –based Macy's . The 1993 acquisition of The Boston Globe by The New York Times

4176-419: Is attested by the many poets who imitated or responded to his writing. John Lydgate was one of the earliest poets to write continuations of Chaucer's unfinished Tales . At the same time Robert Henryson 's Testament of Cresseid completes the story of Cressida left unfinished in his Troilus and Criseyde . Many of the manuscripts of Chaucer's works contain material from these poets, and later appreciations by

4320-463: Is believed that he started The Canterbury Tales in the 1380s. Chaucer also translated Boethius ' Consolation of Philosophy and The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (extended by Jean de Meun). Eustache Deschamps called himself a "nettle in Chaucer's garden of poetry". In 1385, Thomas Usk made glowing mention of Chaucer, and John Gower also lauded him. Chaucer's Treatise on

4464-419: Is believed to be in Chaucer's Parlement of Foules (1382), a dream vision portraying a parliament for birds to choose their mates. Honouring the first anniversary of the engagement of fifteen-year-old King Richard II of England to fifteen-year-old Anne of Bohemia : For this was on seynt Volantynys day Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make Of euery kynde that men thinke may And that so heuge

Francis James Child - Misplaced Pages Continue

4608-588: Is in Roxbury . Due north of the center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of South Boston is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End Unknown, A local colloquialism Boston has an area of 89.63 sq mi (232.1 km ). Of this area, 48.4 sq mi (125.4 km ), or 54%, of it

4752-410: Is land and 41.2 sq mi (106.7 km ), or 46%, of it is water. The city's elevation, as measured at Logan International Airport , is 19 ft (5.8 m) above sea level . The highest point in Boston is Bellevue Hill at 330 ft (100 m) above sea level, and the lowest point is at sea level. The city is adjacent to Boston Harbor , an arm of Massachusetts Bay , and by extension,

4896-451: Is much closer to Modern English than the text of Beowulf , such that (unlike that of Beowulf ) a Modern English speaker with an extensive vocabulary of archaic words may understand it, it differs enough that most publications modernise his idiom. The following is a sample from the prologue of The Summoner's Tale that compares Chaucer's text to a modern translation: The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love

5040-501: Is uncertain how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, but three or four are most commonly cited. His son, Thomas Chaucer , had an illustrious career as chief butler to four kings, envoy to France, and Speaker of the House of Commons . Thomas's daughter, Alice , married the Duke of Suffolk . Thomas's great-grandson (Geoffrey's great-great-grandson), John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln , was

5184-464: Is uncertain, but he seems to have travelled in France, Spain, and Flanders , possibly as a messenger and perhaps even going on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela . Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa (de) Roet . She was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen, Philippa of Hainault , and a sister of Katherine Swynford , who later ( c.  1396 ) became the third wife of John of Gaunt . It

5328-453: The Arbella ) and John Cotton (grandfather of Cotton Mather ) had emigrated to New England . The name of the English town ultimately derives from its patron saint, St. Botolph , in whose church John Cotton served as the rector until his emigration with Johnson. In early sources, Lincolnshire's Boston was known as "St. Botolph's town", later contracted to "Boston". Before this renaming,

5472-526: The American Folklore Society , which was founded with the mission of collecting and preserving African-American and Native American folklore equally that of European derivation. Worked and overworked to the last, he died in Boston after completing his task – apart from a planned general introduction and bibliography. A biographical introduction was prefixed to the work by his student and successor, George Lyman Kittredge . Child added to

5616-760: The American Revolution occurred in or near Boston. The then-town's mob presence, along with the colonists' growing lack of faith in either Britain or its Parliament , fostered a revolutionary spirit there. When the British parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765, a Boston mob ravaged the homes of Andrew Oliver , the official tasked with enforcing the Act, and Thomas Hutchinson , then the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. The British sent two regiments to Boston in 1768 in an attempt to quell

5760-585: The Boston Garden opening in 1928. Logan International Airport opened on September 8, 1923. Boston went into decline by the early to mid-20th century, as factories became old and obsolete and businesses moved out of the region for cheaper labor elsewhere. Boston responded by initiating various urban renewal projects, under the direction of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) established in 1957. In 1958, BRA initiated

5904-625: The Boston Public Library , Trinity Church, single-family homes and wooden/brick multi-family row houses. The South End Historic District is the largest surviving contiguous Victorian-era neighborhood in the US. The geography of downtown and South Boston was particularly affected by the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (which ran from 1991 to 2007, and was known unofficially as the " Big Dig "). That project removed

Francis James Child - Misplaced Pages Continue

6048-481: The Early English Text Society , founded by philologist Frederick James Furnivall , to obtain a copy of Percy's Folio and publish it, which they did in 1868. Child and Furnivall then went on to found The Ballad Society, with a view to publishing other important early ballad collections, such as that of Samuel Pepys . In 1876, University of California President Daniel Coit Gilman offered Child

6192-612: The Massachusetts Bay Colony and was signed by its first governor John Winthrop . Puritan ethics and their focus on education also influenced the early history of the city. America's first public school, Boston Latin School , was founded in Boston in 1635. Boston was the largest town in the Thirteen Colonies until Philadelphia outgrew it in the mid-18th century. Boston's oceanfront location made it

6336-630: The Middle English language from a combination of the Kentish and Midlands dialects. This is probably overstated; the influence of the court, chancery and bureaucracy – of which Chaucer was a part – remains a more probable influence on the development of Standard English . Modern English is somewhat distanced from the language of Chaucer's poems owing to the effect of the Great Vowel Shift sometime after his death. This change in

6480-537: The North End , and the Seaport . Boston is sometimes called a "city of neighborhoods" because of the profusion of diverse subsections. The city government's Office of Neighborhood Services has officially designated 23 neighborhoods: More than two-thirds of inner Boston's modern land area did not exist when the city was founded. Instead, it was created via the gradual filling in of the surrounding tidal areas over

6624-476: The Romantic era poets were shaped by their failure to distinguish the later "additions" from the original Chaucer. Writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as John Dryden , admired Chaucer for his stories but not for his rhythm and rhyme, as few critics could then read Middle English and the text had been butchered by printers, leaving a somewhat unadmirable mess. It was not until the late 19th century that

6768-597: The Roud Folk Song Index . He is buried in the cemetery in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in the " Sedgwick Pie ", since (like his good friend Charles Eliot Norton), he had married into the Sedgwick family . Child's monumental final collection was published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads in 1882–1898, at first in ten parts (the tenth, posthumously) and then in five quarto volumes, and for

6912-652: The South End , the West End , the Financial District , and Chinatown . After the Great Boston fire of 1872 , workers used building rubble as landfill along the downtown waterfront. During the mid-to-late 19th century, workers filled almost 600 acres (240 ha) of brackish Charles River marshlands west of Boston Common with gravel brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. The city annexed

7056-540: The pronunciation of English, still not fully understood, makes the reading of Chaucer difficult for the modern audience. The status of the final -e in Chaucer's verse is uncertain: it seems likely that during the period of Chaucer's writing, the final -e was dropping out of colloquial English and that its use was somewhat irregular. It may have been a vestige of the Old English dative singular suffix -e attached to most nouns. Chaucer's versification suggests that

7200-517: The "lodesterre (guiding principle) … off our language". Around two centuries later, Sir Philip Sidney greatly praised Troilus and Criseyde in his own Defence of Poesie . During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Chaucer came to be viewed as a symbol of the nation's poetic heritage. In Charles Dickens ' 1850 novel David Copperfield , the Victorian era author echoed Chaucer's use of Luke 23:34 from Troilus and Criseyde (Dickens held

7344-412: The 1970s, the city's economy had begun to recover after 30 years of economic downturn. A large number of high-rises were constructed in the Financial District and in Boston's Back Bay during this period. This boom continued into the mid-1980s and resumed after a few pauses. Hospitals such as Massachusetts General Hospital , Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center , and Brigham and Women's Hospital lead

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7488-457: The 19th century, Boston's core neighborhoods had become enclaves of ethnically distinct immigrants with their residence yielding lasting cultural change. Italians became the largest inhabitants of the North End , Irish dominated South Boston and Charlestown , and Russian Jews lived in the West End . Irish and Italian immigrants brought with them Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston's largest religious community, and

7632-643: The 20th century: Horticultural Hall , the Tennis and Racquet Club , Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum , Fenway Studios , Jordan Hall , and the Boston Opera House .  The Longfellow Bridge , built in 1906, was mentioned by Robert McCloskey in Make Way for Ducklings , describing its "salt and pepper shakers" feature. Fenway Park , home of the Boston Red Sox , opened in 1912, with

7776-634: The Astrolabe describes the form and use of the astrolabe in detail and is sometimes cited as the first example of technical writing in the English language. It indicates that Chaucer was versed in science in addition to his literary talents. The equatorie of the planetis is a scientific work similar to the Treatise and sometimes ascribed to Chaucer because of its language and handwriting, an identification which scholars no longer deem tenable. Chaucer wrote in continental accentual-syllabic metre ,

7920-646: The Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son, Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat , courtier , diplomat, and member of parliament. Among Chaucer's many other works are The Book of the Duchess , The House of Fame , The Legend of Good Women , and Troilus and Criseyde . He is seen as crucial in legitimising the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still Anglo-Norman French and Latin . Chaucer's contemporary Thomas Hoccleve hailed him as "

8064-598: The Atlantic Ocean. Boston is surrounded by the Greater Boston metropolitan region. It is bordered to the east by the town of Winthrop and the Boston Harbor Islands , to the northeast by the cities of Revere , Chelsea and Everett , to the north by the cities of Somerville and Cambridge , to the northwest by Watertown , to the west by the city of Newton and town of Brookline , to

8208-588: The Child Ballads . "Observations on the Language of Chaucer" (1863) put definitely out of date the random and arbitrary opinions — favourable or unfavourable, untrue or accidentally true — which critics had ever since the Renaissance been pronouncing upon Chaucer's versification, and placed the matter henceforth upon a basis of exact knowledge. Child's work has not had to be done over again; it has been

8352-563: The Duchess (also known as the Deeth of Blaunche the Duchesse ) was written to commemorate Blanche of Lancaster, John of Gaunt's first wife. The poem refers to John and Blanche in allegory as the narrator relates the tale of "A long castel with walles white/Be Seynt Johan, on a ryche hil" (1318–1319) who is mourning grievously after the death of his love, "And goode faire White she het/That was my lady name ryght" (948–949). The phrase "long castel"

8496-651: The French word "blanche", implying that the white lady was Blanche of Lancaster. Chaucer's short poem Fortune , believed to have been written in the 1390s, is also thought to refer to Lancaster. "Chaucer as narrator" openly defies Fortune , proclaiming that he has learned who his enemies are through her tyranny and deceit, and declares "my suffisaunce" (15) and that "over himself hath the maystrye" (14). Fortune , in turn, does not understand Chaucer's harsh words to her for she believes that she has been kind to him, claims that he does not know what she has in store for him in

8640-622: The Harvard University Library one of the largest folklore collections in existence. Kittredge, who succeeded him as Professor of English literature and modern languages at Harvard, considered himself the custodian of Child's scholarly legacy. Kittredge became president of the American Folklore Society in 1904. All the earlier, printed sources known to Child ('The Child Ballads'), were subsumed, and progressed upon in number and research by Steve Roud , in

8784-512: The Irish have played a major role in Boston politics since the early 20th century; prominent figures include the Kennedys , Tip O'Neill , and John F. Fitzgerald . Between 1631 and 1890, the city tripled its area through land reclamation by filling in marshes, mud flats, and gaps between wharves along the waterfront. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of

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8928-579: The John Hancock Tower is the old John Hancock Building with its prominent illuminated beacon , the color of which forecasts the weather. Downtown and its immediate surroundings (including the Financial District, Government Center, and South Boston ) consist largely of low-rise masonry buildings – often federal style and Greek revival – interspersed with modern high-rises. Back Bay includes many prominent landmarks, such as

9072-563: The Native people, as many had died of European diseases brought by early settlers and traders. Archaeological excavations unearthed one of the oldest fishweirs in New England on Boylston Street , which Native people constructed as early as 7,000 years before European arrival in the Western Hemisphere. The first European to live in what would become Boston was a Cambridge -educated Anglican cleric named William Blaxton . He

9216-735: The Renew Boston Whole Building Incentive which reduces the cost of living in buildings that are deemed energy efficient. Under the Köppen climate classification , Boston has either a hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa ) under the 0 °C (32.0 °F) isotherm or a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa ) under the −3 °C (26.6 °F) isotherm. Summers are warm to hot and humid, while winters are cold and stormy, with occasional periods of heavy snow. Spring and fall are usually cool and mild, with varying conditions dependent on wind direction and

9360-630: The Visconti and Sir John Hawkwood , English condottiere (mercenary leader) in Milan. It has been speculated that it was Hawkwood on whom Chaucer based his character, the Knight, in the Canterbury Tales , for a description matches that of a 14th-century condottiere. A possible indication that his career as a writer was appreciated came when Edward III granted Chaucer "a gallon of wine daily for

9504-681: The act as an attempt to force them to accept the taxes established by the Townshend Acts . The act prompted the Boston Tea Party , where a group of angered Bostonians threw an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company into Boston Harbor . The Boston Tea Party was a key event leading up to the revolution, as the British government responded furiously with the Coercive Acts , demanding compensation for

9648-535: The adjacent towns of South Boston (1804), East Boston (1836), Roxbury (1868), Dorchester (including present-day Mattapan and a portion of South Boston ) (1870), Brighton (including present-day Allston ) (1874), West Roxbury (including present-day Jamaica Plain and Roslindale ) (1874), Charlestown (1874), and Hyde Park (1912). Other proposals were unsuccessful for the annexation of Brookline , Cambridge, and Chelsea . Many architecturally significant buildings were built during these early years of

9792-617: The age of 26, Child succeeded Edward T. Channing as Harvard's Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory , a position he held until Adams Sherman Hill was appointed to the professorship in 1876. Harvard had at that time an enrollment of 382 undergraduates and a faculty of 14, including the president of the university, who was then James Walker . As a mathematician, wrote folklore scholar David E. Bynum, Child came to his interest "in what he variously called 'popular', 'primitive', or 'traditional' balladry'" (that is, in oral literature, then deemed "primitive" because its stylistic features antedate

9936-572: The angry colonists. This did not sit well with the colonists, however. In 1770, during the Boston Massacre , British troops shot into a crowd that had started to violently harass them. The colonists compelled the British to withdraw their troops. The event was widely publicized and fueled a revolutionary movement in America. In 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act . Many of the colonists saw

10080-426: The area. Nevertheless, the city experienced conflict starting in 1974 over desegregation busing , which resulted in unrest and violence around public schools throughout the mid-1970s. Boston has also experienced gentrification in the latter half of the 20th century, with housing prices increasing sharply since the 1990s when the city's rent control regime was struck down by statewide ballot proposition . Boston

10224-423: The attention of the principal of the Boston Latin School , Epes Sargent Dixwell, who saw to it that the promising youngster was furnished with a scholarship to attend Harvard University . At Harvard, "Frank" (nicknamed "Stubby" on account of his short stature) excelled in all classes and also read widely outside his studies for his own pleasure. Although shy and diffident on account of his working-class origins, he

10368-513: The book was dedicated, enabled Child to take a leave of absence from his teaching duties to pursue his studies in Germany. There Child studied English drama and Germanic philology at the University of Göttingen , which conferred on him an honorary doctorate, and at Humboldt University , Berlin , where he heard lectures by the linguists Grimm and was much influenced by them. In 1851, at

10512-605: The centuries. This was accomplished using earth from the leveling or lowering of Boston's three original hills (the "Trimountain", after which Tremont Street is named), as well as with gravel brought by train from Needham to fill the Back Bay . Christian Science Center , Copley Square , Newbury Street , and New England's two tallest buildings: the John Hancock Tower and the Prudential Center . Near

10656-533: The city continued to play an important role as a port, manufacturing hub, and center for education and culture. The city also expanded significantly beyond the original peninsula by filling in land and annexing neighboring towns. Boston's many firsts include the United States' first public park ( Boston Common , 1634), the first public school ( Boston Latin School , 1635), and the first subway system ( Tremont Street subway , 1897). Boston has emerged as

10800-460: The city government. A climate action plan from 2019 anticipates 2 ft (1 m) to more than 7 ft (2 m) of sea-level rise in Boston by the end of the 21st century. Many older buildings in certain areas of Boston are supported by wooden piles driven into the area's fill; these piles remain sound if submerged in water, but are subject to dry rot if exposed to air for long periods. Groundwater levels have been dropping in many areas of

10944-464: The city often receives sea breezes , especially in the late spring, when water temperatures are still quite cold and temperatures at the coast can be more than 20 °F (11 °C) colder than a few miles inland, sometimes dropping by that amount near midday. Thunderstorms typically occur from May to September; occasionally, they can become severe, with large hail , damaging winds, and heavy downpours. Although downtown Boston has never been struck by

11088-443: The city's economy, and the city's industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. The small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a dense network of railroads furthered the region's industry and commerce. During this period, Boston flourished culturally as well. It

11232-414: The city, due in part to an increase in the amount of rainwater discharged directly into sewers rather than absorbed by the ground. The Boston Groundwater Trust coordinates monitoring groundwater levels throughout the city via a network of public and private monitoring wells. The city developed a climate action plan covering carbon reduction in buildings, transportation, and energy use. The first such plan

11376-526: The commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, led the British army in the siege. On June 17, the British captured Charlestown (now part of Boston) during the Battle of Bunker Hill . The British army outnumbered the militia stationed there, but it was a pyrrhic victory for the British because their army suffered irreplaceable casualties. It was also a testament to the skill and training of

11520-408: The commissioners of peace for Kent at a time when French invasion was a possibility. He is thought to have started work on The Canterbury Tales in the early 1380s. He also became a member of parliament for Kent in 1386 and attended the ' Wonderful Parliament ' that year. He appears to have been present at most of the 71 days it sat, for which he was paid £24 9s. On 15 October that year, he gave

11664-664: The destroyed tea from the Bostonians. This angered the colonists further and led to the American Revolutionary War . The war began in the area surrounding Boston with the Battles of Lexington and Concord . Boston itself was besieged for almost a year during the siege of Boston , which began on April 19, 1775. The New England militia impeded the movement of the British Army . Sir William Howe , then

11808-403: The dukes of Lancaster, York , and Gloucester , and a portion of line 76 ("as three of you or tweyne") is thought to refer to the ordinance of 1390 which specified that no royal gift could be authorised without the consent of at least two of the three dukes. Most conspicuous in this short poem is the number of references to Chaucer's "beste frend". Fortune states three times in her response to

11952-466: The elevated Central Artery and incorporated new green spaces and open areas. Boston is located within the Boston Basin ecoregion , which is characterized by low and rolling hills with a number of ponds, lakes, and reservoirs. Forests are mainly transition hardwoods such as oak - hickory mixed with white pine . As a coastal city built largely on fill , sea-level rise is of major concern to

12096-580: The engraving on his tomb, which was erected more than 100 years after his death. There is some speculation that he was murdered by enemies of Richard II or even on the orders of his successor Henry IV, but the case is entirely circumstantial. Chaucer was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, as was his right owing to his status as a tenant of the Abbey's close. In 1556, his remains were transferred to

12240-565: The era were in attendance: Jean Froissart and Petrarch . Around this time, Chaucer is believed to have written The Book of the Duchess in honour of Blanche of Lancaster , the late wife of John of Gaunt, who died in 1369 of the plague. Chaucer travelled to Picardy the next year as part of a military expedition; in 1373, he visited Genoa and Florence . Numerous scholars such as Skeat, Boitani, and Rowland suggested that, on this Italian trip, he came into contact with Petrarch or Boccaccio . They introduced him to medieval Italian poetry ,

12384-544: The final -e is sometimes to be vocalised and sometimes to be silent; however, this remains a point on which there is disagreement. Most scholars pronounce it as a schwa when it is vocalised. Besides the irregular spelling, much of the vocabulary is recognisable to the modern reader. Chaucer is also recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary as the first author to use many common English words in his writings. These words were probably frequently used in

12528-541: The first Community Health Center in the United States. It mostly served the massive Columbia Point public housing complex adjoining it, which was built in 1953. The health center is still in operation and was rededicated in 1990 as the Geiger-Gibson Community Health Center. The Columbia Point complex itself was redeveloped and revitalized from 1984 to 1990 into a mixed-income residential development called Harbor Point Apartments. By

12672-461: The first wave of European immigrants . Irish immigrants dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period, especially following the Great Famine ; by 1850, about 35,000 Irish lived in Boston . In the latter half of the 19th century, the city saw increasing numbers of Irish, Germans , Lebanese , Syrians, French Canadians , and Russian and Polish Jews settling there. By the end of

12816-579: The firste fyndere of our fair langage " (i.e., the first one capable of finding poetic matter in English). Almost two thousand English words are first attested to in Chaucerian manuscripts. Chaucer was born in London, most likely in the early 1340s (by some accounts, including his monument, he was born in 1343), though the precise date and location remain unknown. The Chaucer family offers an extraordinary example of upward mobility. His great-grandfather

12960-572: The forms and stories of which he would use later. The purposes of a voyage in 1377 are mysterious, as details within the historical record conflict. Later documents suggest it was a mission, along with Jean Froissart, to arrange a marriage between the future King Richard II and a French princess, thereby ending the Hundred Years' War. If this was the purpose of their trip, they seem to have been unsuccessful, as no wedding occurred. In 1378, Richard II sent Chaucer as an envoy (secret dispatch) to

13104-461: The fortifications and dozens of cannons on Dorchester Heights that Henry Knox had laboriously brought through the snow from Fort Ticonderoga . The astonished British awoke the next morning to see a large array of cannons bearing down on them. General Howe is believed to have said that the Americans had done more in one night than his army could have done in six months. The British Army attempted

13248-464: The future, but most importantly, "And eek thou hast thy beste frend alyve" (32, 40, 48). Chaucer retorts, "My frend maystow nat reven, blind goddesse" (50) and orders her to take away those who merely pretend to be his friends. Fortune turns her attention to three princes whom she implores to relieve Chaucer of his pain and "Preyeth his beste frend of his noblesse/That to som beter estat he may atteyne" (78–79). The three princes are believed to represent

13392-477: The heir to the throne designated by Richard III before he was deposed. Geoffrey's other children probably included Elizabeth Chaucy, a nun at Barking Abbey , Agnes, an attendant at Henry IV 's coronation; and another son, Lewis Chaucer. Chaucer's "Treatise on the Astrolabe" was written for Lewis. According to tradition, Chaucer studied law in the Inner Temple (an Inn of Court ) at this time. He became

13536-558: The highest average rate of philanthropy in the nation, and the city's businesses and institutions rank among the top in the nation for environmental sustainability and new investment. Isaac Johnson , in one of his last official acts as the leader of the Charlestown community before he died on September 30, 1630, named the then-new settlement across the river "Boston". The settlement's name came from Johnson's hometown of Boston, Lincolnshire , from which he, his wife (namesake of

13680-512: The invention of writing) not by accident "but by force of logic": Child well understood how indispensable good writing and good speaking are to civilization, or as many would now prefer to say, to society. For him, writing and speaking were not only the practical means by which men share useful information, but also the means whereby they formulate and share values, including the higher order of values that give meaning to life and purpose to human activities of all sorts. Concerned as he thus so greatly

13824-607: The king from 1389 to 1391 as Clerk of the King's Works. In 1359, in the early stages of the Hundred Years' War , Edward III invaded France, and Chaucer travelled with Lionel of Antwerp, Elizabeth's husband, as part of the English army . In 1360, he was captured during the siege of Rheims . Edward paid £16 for his ransom, a considerable sum equivalent to £14,557 in 2023, and Chaucer was released. After this, Chaucer's life

13968-472: The king's building projects. No major works were begun during his tenure, but he did conduct repairs on Westminster Palace , St. George's Chapel, Windsor , continued building the wharf at the Tower of London and built the stands for a tournament held in 1390. It may have been a difficult job, but it paid two shillings a day, more than three times his salary as a comptroller. Chaucer was also appointed keeper of

14112-417: The language at the time, but Chaucer was the earliest extant manuscript source with his ear for common speech. Acceptable , alkali , altercation , amble , angrily , annex , annoyance , approaching , arbitration , armless , army , arrogant , arsenic , arc , artillery and aspect are just some of almost two thousand English words first attested in Chaucer. Widespread knowledge of Chaucer's works

14256-417: The liquid stipend until Richard II came to power, after which it was converted to a monetary grant on 18 April 1378. Chaucer obtained the very substantial job of comptroller of the customs for the port of London, which he began on 8 June 1374. He must have been suited for the role as he continued in it for twelve years, a long time in such a post at that time. His life goes undocumented for much of

14400-565: The lives of his contemporaries William Langland and the Gawain Poet are practically non-existent, since Chaucer was a public servant, his official life is very well documented, with nearly five hundred written items testifying to his career. The first of the "Chaucer Life Records" appears in 1357, in the household accounts of Elizabeth de Burgh , the Countess of Ulster , when he became the noblewoman's page through his father's connections,

14544-600: The lodge at the King's Park in Feckenham Forest in Worcestershire , which was a largely honorary appointment. In September 1390, records say that Chaucer was robbed and possibly injured while conducting the business, and he stopped working in this capacity on 17 June 1391. He began as Deputy Forester in the royal forest of Petherton Park in North Petherton , Somerset on 22 June. This

14688-536: The militia, as their stubborn defense made it difficult for the British to capture Charlestown without suffering further irreplaceable casualties. Several weeks later, George Washington took over the militia after the Continental Congress established the Continental Army to unify the revolutionary effort. Both sides faced difficulties and supply shortages in the siege, and the fighting

14832-458: The most disgraceful chapter in the history of the human race." Since Child did not live to complete the planned introduction to his work which was to have explained his methodology, it has sometimes been alleged his selection was arbitrary and based purely on personal taste. The most recent edition of the ballads, however, published in 2002, now includes Child's rediscovered essay, "Ballad Poetry," which he had published anonymously in 1874. Reviewing

14976-634: The nation in medical innovation and patient care. Schools such as the Boston Architectural College , Boston College , Boston University , the Harvard Medical School , Tufts University School of Medicine , Northeastern University , Massachusetts College of Art and Design , Wentworth Institute of Technology , Berklee College of Music , the Boston Conservatory , and many others attract students to

15120-572: The nation's busiest ports for both domestic and international trade. Boston's harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 (adopted during the Napoleonic Wars ) and the War of 1812 . Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Boston's merchants had found alternatives for their capital investments in the meantime. Manufacturing became an important component of

15264-404: The new edition, Ian Olson notes that the rediscovered essay: gives considerable insight into Child's thinking after he had published his "first go" of English and Scottish Ballads in 1857-59 and was in the process of researching and reconsidering his last great work. It may not be Child's "final statement" that we all wish he had lived to make, but it comes close in many ways, and nicely complements

15408-453: The next day and night, giving the enemy time to improve their works, to bring up their cannon, and to put themselves in such a state of defence, that I could promise myself little success in attacking them under all the disadvantages I had to encounter. William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe , in a letter to William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth , about the British army's decision to leave Boston, dated March 21, 1776. Many crucial events of

15552-542: The next ten years, but it is believed that he wrote (or began) most of his famous works during this period. Chaucer's "only surviving handwriting" dates from this period. This is a request for temporary leave from work presented to King Richard II, hitherto believed to be the work of one of his subordinates due to the low level of language. On 16 October 1379, Thomas Staundon filed a legal action against his former servant Cecily Chaumpaigne and Chaucer, accusing Chaucer of unlawfully employing Chaumpaigne before her term of service

15696-415: The official Chaucerian canon, accepted today, was decided upon, largely as a result of Walter William Skeat 's work. Roughly seventy-five years after Chaucer's death, The Canterbury Tales was selected by William Caxton as one of the first books to be printed in England. Chaucer is sometimes considered the source of the English vernacular tradition. His achievement for the language can be seen as part of

15840-419: The official name from the "Town of Boston" to the "City of Boston", and on March 19, 1822, the people of Boston accepted the charter incorporating the city. At the time Boston was chartered as a city, the population was about 46,226, while the area of the city was only 4.8 sq mi (12 km ). In the 1820s, Boston's population grew rapidly, and the city's ethnic composition changed dramatically with

15984-454: The original English and Scottish Ballads volume in his British Poets series. The material for this volume was mostly derived from texts in previously published books. In compiling this work he realized that the folio manuscript of Percy's Reliques , from which most of these texts were drawn, was not available for public inspection, and he set about to remedy this situation. In the 1860s he campaigned energetically for public support to enable

16128-455: The original Introduction to 1880s English and Scottish Popular Ballads made by Child's successor, George Lyman Kittredge (retained in this volume). Owing to the indelicate nature of their theme, certain traditional ballads such as The Crabfish were deliberately excluded from this work. For a listing of all the Child ballad types, and links to more information on each individual type, see List of

16272-647: The personal copy of Henry IV. Given the ravages of time, it is likely that these surviving manuscripts represent hundreds since lost. Chaucer's original audience was a courtly one and would have included women as well as men of the upper social classes. Yet even before his death in 1400, Chaucer's audience had begun to include members of the rising literate, middle and merchant classes. This included many Lollard sympathisers who may well have been inclined to read Chaucer as one of their own. Lollards were particularly attracted to Chaucer's satirical writings about friars, priests, and other church officials. In 1464, John Baron,

16416-631: The plaintiff, "And also, you still have your best friend alive" (32, 40, 48); she also refers to his "beste frend" in the envoy when appealing to his "noblesse" to help Chaucer to a higher estate. The narrator makes a fifth reference when he rails at Fortune that she shall not take his friend from him. Chaucer respected and admired Christians and was one himself, as he wrote in Canterbury Tales , "now I beg all those that listen to this little treatise, or read it, that if there be anything in it that pleases them, they thank our Lord Jesus Christ for it, from whom proceeds all understanding and goodness.", though he

16560-676: The point of departure for later research, and remains the classic memoir in this field. Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States . The city serves as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the Northeastern United States . It has an area of 48.4 sq mi (125 km ) and

16704-461: The position of the jet stream . Prevailing wind patterns that blow offshore minimize the influence of the Atlantic Ocean. However, in winter, areas near the immediate coast often see more rain than snow, as warm air is sometimes drawn off the Atlantic. The city lies at the border between USDA plant hardiness zones 6b (away from the coastline) and 7a (close to the coastline). The hottest month

16848-453: The rest of his life" for some unspecified task. This was an unusual grant, but given on a day of celebration, St George's Day , 1374, when artistic endeavours were traditionally rewarded, it is assumed to have been for another early poetic work. It is not known which, if any, of Chaucer's extant works prompted the reward, but the suggestion of him as a poet to a king places him as a precursor to later poets laureate . Chaucer continued to collect

16992-528: The settlement on the peninsula had been known as "Shawmut" by William Blaxton and "Tremontaine" by the Puritan settlers he had invited. Prior to European colonization , the region surrounding present-day Boston was inhabited by the Massachusett people who had small, seasonal communities. When a group of settlers led by John Winthrop arrived in 1630, the Shawmut Peninsula was nearly empty of

17136-400: The sexuality, theatrical violence, and ill-concealed paganism of many ballads, but it is characteristic of the man that in his introduction to "Hugh of Lincoln," an ancient work about the purported murder of a Christian child by a Jew, he wrote, "And these pretended child-murders, with their horrible consequences, are only a part of the persecution which, with all moderation, may be rubricated as

17280-606: The southwest by the town of Dedham and small portions of Needham and Canton , and to the southeast by the town of Milton , and the city of Quincy . The Charles River separates Boston's Allston-Brighton , Fenway-Kenmore and Back Bay neighborhoods from Watertown and Cambridge, and most of Boston from its own Charlestown neighborhood. The Neponset River forms the boundary between Boston's southern neighborhoods and Quincy and Milton . The Mystic River separates Charlestown from Chelsea and Everett, and Chelsea Creek and Boston Harbor separate East Boston from Downtown ,

17424-509: The temperature dipped down to −10 °F (−23 °C); this was the lowest temperature reading in the city since 1957. In addition, several decades may pass between 100 °F (38 °C) readings; the last such reading occurred on July 24, 2022. The city's average window for freezing temperatures is November 9 through April 5. Official temperature records have ranged from −18 °F (−28 °C) on February 9, 1934, up to 104 °F (40 °C) on July 4, 1911. The record cold daily maximum

17568-429: The title of "Professor of English" especially for Child, freeing him from supervising oral recitations and correcting composition papers so that he could have more time for research. Thereafter, Child devoted himself to the comparative study of British vernacular ballads , using methods adopted from historical comparative philology to arrive at the earliest attested versions. Child believed that folk ballads came from

17712-467: The winter of 2011–12 saw only 9.3 in (23.6 cm) of accumulating snow, but the previous winter, the corresponding figure was 81.0 in (2.06 m). The city's coastal location on the North Atlantic makes the city very prone to nor'easters , which can produce large amounts of snow and rain. Fog is fairly common, particularly in spring and early summer. Due to its coastal location,

17856-465: The works of the British poets, many not previously generally available to the reading public, which began appearing 1853. The volumes on the works of Edmund Spenser (five volumes, Boston, 1855) and the English and Scottish Ballads (in eight small volumes, Boston, 1857–1858), Child edited himself. Child planned a critical edition of the works of Chaucer , as well. He soon realized that this could not be done, however, since only one early (and faulty) text

18000-509: Was a tavern keeper, his grandfather worked as a purveyor of wines, and his father, John Chaucer, rose to become an important wine merchant with a royal appointment. Several previous generations of Geoffrey Chaucer's family had been vintners and merchants in Ipswich . His family name is derived from the French chaucier , once thought to mean 'shoemaker', but now known to mean a maker of hose or leggings . In 1324, his father, John Chaucer,

18144-736: Was admired for its rarefied literary life and generous artistic patronage . Members of old Boston families—eventually dubbed the Boston Brahmins —came to be regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites. They are often associated with the American upper class , Harvard University , and the Episcopal Church . Boston was a prominent port of the Atlantic slave trade in the New England Colonies , but

18288-479: Was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales . He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner , in Westminster Abbey . Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer , composing the scientific A Treatise on

18432-482: Was appointed tutor in mathematics at Harvard and in 1848 was transferred to a tutorship in history, political economy, and English literature . In 1848, Child published a critically annotated edition (the first of the kind to be produced in America) of Four Old Plays of the early English Renaissance. Though there were no graduate schools in America at the time, a loan from a benefactor, Jonathan I. Bowditch, to whom

18576-545: Was available. He therefore wrote a treatise, blandly titled "Observations on the Language of Chaucer", published in the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1863), intended to make such an edition possible. Child's linguistic researches are largely responsible for how Chaucerian grammar , pronunciation, and scansion are now generally understood. Child's largest undertaking, however, grew out of

18720-506: Was aware that as in any place some people in the church were venal and corrupt. Chaucer's first major work was The Book of the Duchess , an elegy for Blanche of Lancaster, who died in 1368. Two other early works were Anelida and Arcite and The House of Fame . He wrote many of his major works in a prolific period when he worked as customs comptroller for London (1374 to 1386). His Parlement of Foules , The Legend of Good Women , and Troilus and Criseyde all date from this time. It

18864-549: Was commissioned in 2007, with updates released in 2011, 2014, and 2019. This plan includes the Building Energy Reporting and Disclosure Ordinance, which requires the city's larger buildings to disclose their yearly energy and water use statistics and to partake in an energy assessment every five years. A separate initiative, Resilient Boston Harbor, lays out neighborhood-specific recommendations for coastal resilience . In 2013, Mayor Thomas Menino introduced

19008-755: Was completed, which violated the Statute of Labourers . Though eight court documents dated between October 1379 and July 1380 survive the action, the case was never prosecuted. No details survive about Chaumpaigne's service or how she came to leave Staundon's employ for Chaucer's. It is not known if Chaucer was in the City of London at the time of the Peasants' Revolt , but if he was, he would have seen its leaders pass almost directly under his apartment window at Aldgate . While still working as comptroller, Chaucer appears to have moved to Kent , being appointed as one of

19152-461: Was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the 12-year-old to her daughter in an attempt to keep the property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and fined £250, now equivalent to about £200,000, suggesting that the family was financially secure. John Chaucer married Agnes Copton, who inherited properties in 1349, including 24 shops in London, from her uncle Hamo de Copton, who is described in

19296-433: Was limited to small-scale raids and skirmishes. The narrow Boston Neck, which at that time was only about a hundred feet wide, impeded Washington's ability to invade Boston, and a long stalemate ensued. A young officer, Rufus Putnam , came up with a plan to make portable fortifications out of wood that could be erected on the frozen ground under cover of darkness. Putnam supervised this effort, which successfully installed both

19440-481: Was named after Boston, Lincolnshire , England. During the American Revolution , Boston was home to several events that proved central to the revolution and subsequent Revolutionary War , including the Boston Massacre (1770), the Boston Tea Party (1773), Paul Revere's Midnight Ride (1775), the Battle of Bunker Hill (1775), and the Siege of Boston (1775–1776). Following American independence from Great Britain ,

19584-407: Was no sinecure, with maintenance an essential part of the job, although there were many opportunities to derive profit. Richard II granted him an annual pension of 20 pounds in 1394 (equivalent to £22,034 in 2023), and Chaucer's name fades from the historical record not long after Richard's overthrow in 1399. The last few records of his life show his pension renewed by the new king and his taking

19728-614: Was reversed in 2013 when it was resold to Boston businessman John W. Henry . In 2016, it was announced General Electric would be moving its corporate headquarters from Connecticut to the Seaport District in Boston, joining many other companies in this rapidly developing neighborhood. The city also saw the completion of the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, known as the Big Dig , in 2007 after many delays and cost overruns. On April 15, 2013, two Chechen Islamist brothers detonated

19872-535: Was soon overtaken by Salem, Massachusetts and Newport, Rhode Island . Boston eventually became a center of the American abolitionist movement . The city reacted largely negatively to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 , contributing to President Franklin Pierce 's attempt to make an example of Boston after Anthony Burns 's attempt to escape to freedom. In 1822, the citizens of Boston voted to change

20016-399: Was soon recognized as "the best writer, best speaker, best mathematician, the most accomplished person in knowledge of general literature", and he became extremely popular with his classmates. He graduated in 1846, topping his class in all subjects and was chosen Class Orator by his graduating class (of sixty), who received his valedictory speech with "tumultuous applause". Upon graduation Child

20160-543: Was supported by the mayor and a coalition of business leaders and local philanthropists, but was eventually dropped due to public opposition. The USOC then selected Los Angeles to be the American candidate with Los Angeles ultimately securing the right to host the 2028 Summer Olympics . Nevertheless, Boston is one of eleven U.S. cities which will host matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup , with games taking place at Gillette Stadium . The geographical center of Boston

20304-525: Was the model for Child's resulting canonical five-volume edition of some 305 English and Scottish ballads and their numerous variants. Since the ballads were known to have been a pan-European, Turkish, and North African phenomenon, Child and Grundtvig also consulted with numerous scholars in other parts of the world, such as the Sicilian physician, folklorist, and ethnographer Giuseppe Pitrè . Professor Child served two terms as president, in 1888 and 1889, of

20448-504: Was the person most directly responsible for the foundation of Boston by Puritan colonists in 1630. This occurred after Blaxton invited one of their leaders, Isaac Johnson , to cross Back Bay from the failing colony of Charlestown and share the peninsula. The Puritans made the crossing in September 1630. Puritan influence on Boston began even before the settlement was founded with the 1629 Cambridge Agreement . This document created

20592-525: Was used in much of his later work and became one of the standard poetic forms in English. His early influence as a satirist is also important, with the common humorous device, the funny accent of a regional dialect , apparently making its first appearance in The Reeve's Tale . The poetry of Chaucer, along with other writers of the era, is credited with helping to standardise the London Dialect of

20736-403: Was with rhetoric, oratory, and the motives of those mental disciplines, Child was inevitably drawn into pondering the essential differences between speech and writing, and to searching for the origins of thoughtful expression in English. During the twenty-five years Child was Professor of Rhetoric at Harvard he undertook general editorial supervision of the publication of a 130-volume collection of

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