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Portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer

Literature · Poets

Geoffrey Chaucer

c. 1343–1400 · English

Middle English poetry

Geoffrey Chaucer was a London vintner's son, courtier, diplomat and civil servant who became the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. His Canterbury Tales, stories told by pilgrims travelling to Becket's shrine, helped establish English, rather than French or Latin, as a language for serious literature. Dryden called him the father of English poetry, and his burial in Westminster Abbey began Poets' Corner.

How to spot them

  • ▸The Canterbury Tales: pilgrims set out from the Tabard Inn in Southwark
  • ▸The Wife of Bath, the Pardoner, the Miller, the Knight and the Nun's Priest (Chauntecleer)
  • ▸Troilus and Criseyde; the Parliament of Fowls; the Book of the Duchess
  • ▸Controller of customs in the Port of London; first poet buried in Poets' Corner

Key works

The Canterbury Tales (c. 1387–1400)

Unfinished frame collection of tales told by pilgrims on the way to Thomas Becket's shrine at Canterbury

Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1385)

Long poem of love and betrayal set during the siege of Troy, in rhyme royal

The Book of the Duchess (c. 1368–1372)

Dream-vision elegy for Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt

The Parliament of Fowls (c. 1380–1382)

Dream vision of birds choosing mates on St Valentine's Day

The House of Fame (c. 1379–1380)

Unfinished comic dream vision in which an eagle carries the poet to Fame's palace

The Legend of Good Women (c. 1386)

Dream-vision prologue and tales of faithful women from classical legend

A Treatise on the Astrolabe (c. 1391)

Prose manual on the astronomical instrument, written for 'little Lewis', probably his son

Key ideas

  • Established English (the London dialect of Middle English) as a vehicle for major literature
  • Pioneered rhyme royal and the rhyming pentameter couplet (later the heroic couplet) in English
  • The frame narrative of the Tales creates a lively cross-section of 14th-century society

Quick-fire facts

  • •The General Prologue opens 'Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote'
  • •The Host of the pilgrimage is Harry Bailly, keeper of the Tabard Inn
  • •Captured in France during the Hundred Years' War c. 1359–60; Edward III contributed to his ransom
  • •Appointed Controller of the Customs of wools in the Port of London in 1374
  • •Translated Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy (Boece) and part of the Roman de la Rose
  • •Buried in Westminster Abbey in 1400, the origin of Poets' Corner
  • •The Parliament of Fowls contains one of the earliest links between St Valentine's Day and romantic love
  • •Dryden, in the Preface to Fables (1700), called him the father of English poetry and said of the Tales 'here is God's plenty'

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources