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Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s – 25 October 1400) was an English poet and author. Widely considered the greatest English poet of the middle Ages, he is best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry”. He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and Member of Parliament.
Among Chaucer's many other works are The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde. He is seen as crucial in legitimizing the literary use of Middle English when the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin.
Books by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales
Anyone who has ever been on a package tour with a group of strangers who soon become friends, and passed time swapping stories with them, would instantly identify with this timeless classic of English literature. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chau...
The Chaucer Storybook
Geoffrey Chaucer's classic "Canterbury Tales" has here been rendered into clear and contemporary English prose. These classic stories are now available to those who would like to read them without struggling through Middle English poetry. The charact...
Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
LibriVox volunteers bring you 6 different recordings of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Lines 1-18 by Geoffrey Chaucer. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of July 15th, 2007.
Troilus and Criseyde
Troilus and Criseyde is a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer which re-tells in Middle English the tragic story of the lovers Troilus and Criseyde set against a backdrop of war in the Siege of Troy. It was composed using rime royale and probably completed durin...
Canterbury Tales (Middle English)
Chaucer's famous and important work is predicated upon the premise that a group of Christian folks from various occupations, familiar in the Middle Ages and a goodly number of them in the Church, are on a pilgrimage to worship at the burial site of T...
The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems
Generally considered to be the first book written in English (rather than Latin, French or Italian), Chaucer's magnum opus is a collection of stories as told by a group of pilgrims at Canterbury. It shows Chaucer's knowledge of a wide variety of stor...