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:
“mine housbondes tolde me,
I hadde the beste quoniam mighte be.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“A shipman was ther, wonynge fer by weste.
For aught I woot, he was of Dertemouthe.”
—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)
“Ye purs, that been to me my lives light
And saviour, as in this world down here,
Out of this tonne helpe me thurgh your might,”
—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)