Geoffrey Chaucer ( /ˈtʃɔːsər/; c. 1343 – 25 October 1400), known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. While he achieved fame during his lifetime as an author, philosopher, alchemist and astronomer, composing a scientific treatise on the astrolabe for his ten year-old son Lewis, Chaucer also maintained an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Among his many works, which include The Book of the Duchess, the House of Fame, the Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde, he is best known today for The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer is a crucial figure in developing the legitimacy of the vernacular, Middle English, at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were French and Latin.
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Famous quotes by geoffrey chaucer:
“We all desiren, if it mighte be,
To han husbandes hardy, wise, and free,
And secret, and no niggard, ne no fool,
Ne him that is aghast of every tool,
Ne none avaunter, by that God above!”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“Soun is noght but air ybroken,
And every speche that is spoken,
Loud or privee, foul or fair,
In his substaunce is but air;
For as flaumbe is but lighted smoke,
Right so soun is air ybroke.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400)
“I wol nat lye;
A man shal winne us best with flaterye;
And with attendance, and with bisinesse,
Been we ylymed, bothe more and lesse.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“Men may conseile a womman to be oon,
But conseiling nis no comandement.
He putte it in oure owene juggement.
For hadde God comanded maidenhede,
Thanne hadde he dampned wedding with the deede;”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“She was so charitable and so pitous
She wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous
Kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)