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Geoffrey Chaucer

British and Irish Literature

An English poet, writer and civil servant, widely called the father of English literature, best known for The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories set inside a frame narrative: a group of pilgrims travelling from Southwark to Canterbury tell tales to pass the time and compete for a free meal, a structure that places Chaucer's own work squarely in the frame tale collection tradition alongside Boccaccio's Decameron (already catalogued in this atlas), a work he is thought to have known. Left unfinished at his death, it is written mostly in Middle English verse and is credited with helping establish the English vernacular, rather than French or Latin, as a legitimate literary language. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Birth Year
1343 1
Death Year
1400 1
Death Date
1400-10-25 1
Classification
Original Language
English 1
Geoffrey Chaucer
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Connections

Associated With

The Lai, Forms

Chaucer frames The Franklin's Tale explicitly as a Breton lai in the Canterbury Tales prologue to that tale.

In Genre

Second author on Frame Tale Collection, alongside Giovanni Boccaccio.

Source Wikipedia: Geoffrey Chaucer

Works Attributed

Source The Canterbury Tales (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Geoffrey Chaucer
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)
  • Lead section, opening sentence
    was an English poet, writer and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales.
  • Lead section (birth date)
    Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 - 25 October 1400) was an English poet, writer and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales.
  • Lead section (death date)
    Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 - 25 October 1400) was an English poet, writer and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales.
  • Original language statement
    1343-25 October 1400) was an English poet, writer and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales.
  • Lead paragraph
    Geoffrey Chaucer (; JEF-ree CHAW-sər; c. 1343 - 25 October 1400) was an English poet, writer and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales.
  • In Genre: Frame Tale Collection, Lead section (Canterbury Tales claim)
    was an English poet, writer and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales.
View the Source
The Canterbury Tales (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationWorks Attributed: The Canterbury Tales, Lead section, authorship
Quote, Works Attributed: The Canterbury Tales, Lead section, authorship
The Canterbury Tales (Middle English: Tales of Caunterbury) are an anthology of twenty-four short stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400.
View the Source
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