Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343–1400) was an English poet, civil servant, and diplomat, widely called the father of English poetry for demonstrating that the vernacular could carry the full weight of serious literary art.

He served in the royal household under three kings, worked as a customs official and clerk of the king's works, and travelled on diplomatic missions to France and Italy, where he likely encountered the work of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.

His masterwork, The Canterbury Tales, left unfinished at his death, gathers a fellowship of pilgrims riding to Canterbury and telling stories in turn — a panorama of medieval English society in verse of astonishing variety and wit. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the corner that later became Poets' Corner.