Who was Geoffrey Chaucer and what were his qualities?

Geoffrey Chaucer was born around 1345 and died around 1400. He is a famous English poet whose best-known work is The Canterbury Tales. He is admired for his humor and for his understanding of human nature. The Canterbury Tales consists of many stories, mostly in rhyming couplets, and the book presents a fascinating picture of people and life in England during the Middle Ages. The original language is somewhat hard to understand, but it is worth the effort because it is such a important and entertaining work. Chaucer established the southern English dialect as the literary language of England. A course in Chaucer is required for English majors in many colleges and universities.

Who is Geoffrey Chaucer?

Geoffrey Chaucer is an English poet and writer who lived from about 1342–1400 in London. This was the high Middle Ages and the period in which the Black Death devastated the European population. Chaucer is considered by many the greatest English writer before Shakespeare, largely on the basis of his masterpieces: The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. He also worked as government official for several kings.

Although he is known for his humorous and bawdy writing, such as is often used in The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's first claim to fame came with a 1370 poem called Book of the Duchess, a dream vision which commemorated the death from the plague of Blanche, the first wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster—a son of King Edward III with whom Chaucer was friends.

Chaucer was much influenced by the Renaissance, which brought the classical works of Greek and Roman authors to the forefront of European thought. One of his most famous works, Troilus and Criseyde, is based on the Trojan War, and Chaucer is known to have read such Classical authors as Ovid and Aesop.

Chaucer's versatility in many styles of writing and his ability to draw from many sources is on display in The Canterbury Tales. The work is famous for being secular and trying to present people as they really are rather than as types or in idealized forms. The work is written in Middle English, a precursor to modern English, that can be difficult but (notably) not impossible to read in the original.

Can you briefly describe Geoffrey Chaucer's early life?

Geoffrey Chaucer is known as the "Father of English Literature". He was born in approximately 1343 and throughout his life he wrote many works including The Canterbury Tales. He was born in London but the exact place of his birth is not known. His father and his grandfather were both wine merchants. There is not a great deal of information that is known about Chaucer during his childhood but we do know that in 1357 he worked as a page for the Countess of Ulster. He was also a captured and held prisoner of war in the year 1360.