Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was a vintner’s son who served as page, soldier, diplomat, customs officer and clerk of the king’s works, was captured in France and ransomed by Edward III, and wrote poetry in the evenings for a court that spoke French. Troilus and Criseyde is the first great English novel in verse; The Canterbury Tales, left unfinished at his death, sets thirty pilgrims telling stories on the road, from the Knight’s romance to the Miller’s bawdry, in a Middle English that the lists still read in the original. He was the first poet buried in Westminster Abbey, and Poets’ Corner grew up around him.