Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet, courtier, and civil servant who is widely regarded as the Father of English Literature. Born around 1343 into a family of London vintners, he spent his life in royal service, working as a page, soldier, diplomatic envoy, customs controller, and clerk of the King's Works under Edward III and Richard II. Chaucer was deeply influenced by his diplomatic travels to Italy, where he encountered the works of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio — whose Decameron provided the framing device for his greatest work. The Canterbury Tales (begun c.1387, unfinished at his death) depicts a group of pilgrims traveling from London to Canterbury Cathedral who agree to tell stories to pass the time. The collection brings together 24 tales in verse and prose ranging from courtly romance to bawdy fabliau, voiced by characters drawn from every level of medieval English society. The Canterbury Tales is the first great masterwork of English literature, demonstrating for the first time that English — rather than Latin or French — could be a vehicle for sophisticated literary art. Chaucer's command of psychology, irony, and comic timing created characters of extraordinary vividness. He died in 1400 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, founding what became the Poets' Corner.
- Lived: 1343 CE – 1400 CE
- Nationality: english
- Roles: writer
