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:
“A poore widow, some deal stape in age,
Was whilom dwelling in a narrow cottage,
Beside a grove, standing in a dale.”
—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)
“Macrobius, that writ the avision
In Afrique of the worthy Scipio,
Affirmeth dreams, and sayeth that they been
Warning of thinges that men after seen.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“For which he wex a litel red for shame,
Whan he the peple upon him herde cryen,
That to beholde it was a noble game,
How sobreliche he caste doun his yen.
Criseyda gan al his chere aspyen,
And let so softe it in her herte sinke
That to herself she seyde, ‘Who yaf me drinke?’”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400)
“But, though myself be gilty in that sinne,
Yet can I maken other folk to twinne
From avaryce, and sore to repente.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)