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:
“nat every wight he sholde go selle
Al that he hadde and yive it to the poore,
And in swich wise folwe him and his fore:
He spak to hem that wolde live parfitly—
And lordinges, by youre leve, that am nat I.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“mine housbondes tolde me,
I hadde the beste quoniam mighte be.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“For vileyns sinful dedes make a cherl.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“She was a worthy womman al hir lyve:
Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde fyve,
Withouten oother compaignye in youthe,
But thereof nedeth nat to speke as nowthe.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400)
“‘O blissful God, that art so just and true,
Lo, how that thou bewrayest murder alway!
Murder will out, that see we day by day.
Murder is so wlatsom and abominable”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)