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:
“Alas! ye lordes, many a false flatterer
Is in your courts, and many a losenger,
That pleasen you well more, by my faith,
Than he that soothfastness unto you saith.
Readeth Ecclesiasticus of flattery;
Beeth ware, ye lordes of her treachery.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“in that seson on a day
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“‘Woman is mannes joy and all his bliss.’
For when I feel a-night your softe side,
Albeit that I may not on you ride,
For that our perch is made so narrowe, alas!
I am so full of joy and of solace
That I defye bothe sweven and dream.’”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“I wolde no lenger in the bed abide
If that I felte his arm over my side,
Til he hadde maad his raunson unto me;
Thanne wolde I suffre him do his nicetee.
And therfore every man this tale I telle:
Winne whoso may, for al is for to selle;
With empty hand men may no hawkes lure.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“A good wif was ther ofbiside bathe,
But she was somde, deef, and that was scathe.
Of clooth makyng the hadde swich an haunt,
She passed hem of Ypres and of Gaunt.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)