born 0441; 1342/43, London?, Eng.
died Oct. 25, 1400, London
English poet.
Of middle-class birth, he was a courtier, diplomat, and civil servant, trusted by three kings in his active and varied career, and a poet only by avocation. His first important poem, Book of the Duchesse (1369/70), was a dream vision elegy for the duchess of Lancaster. In the 1380s he produced mature works, including The Parliament of Fowls , a dream vision for St. Valentine's Day about a conference of birds choosing their mates; the fine tragic verse romance Troilus and Criseyde ; and the unfinished dream vision Legend of Good Women . His best-known work, the unfinished Canterbury Tales (written 13871400), is an intricate dramatic narrative that employs a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury as a framing device for a highly varied collection of stories; not only the most famous literary work in Middle English, it is one of the finest works of English literature. In this and other works Chaucer established the southern English dialect as England's literary language, and he is regarded as the first great English poet.