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:
“‘Teehee,’ quod she, and clapte the windowe to.
And Absolon gooth forth a sory pas.
‘A beerd, a beerd!’ quod hende Nicholas,
‘By Goddes corpus, this gooth faire and weel.’”
—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)
“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)
“I have yfounde in myn astrologye,
As I have looked in the moone bright,
That now a Monday next, at quarter night,
Shal falle a rain, and that so wilde and wood,
That half so greet was nevere Noees flood.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“And certes, if there were no seed ysowe,
Virginitee, thanne wherof sholde it growe?”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)