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:
“I have swich love-longinge,
That lik a turtle trewe is my moorninge:
I may nat ete namore than a maide.’”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“Ther nis no werkman, whatsoevere he be,
That may bothe werke wel and hastily.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340–1400)
“th’Apostle saith that I am free
To wedde, a Goddes half, where it liketh me.
He saide that to be wedded is no sinne:
Bet is to be wedded than to brinne.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“So hideous was the noise, ah! benedicite!
Certes, he Jacke Straw and his meinie
Ne made never shoutes half so shrill
When that they woulden any Fleming kill,
As thilke day was made upon the fox.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“men may wel often finde
A lordes sone do shame and vileinye;
And he that wol han prys of his gentrye
For he was boren of a gentil hous,”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)