Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) is universally recognized as the father of English literature. A writer, translator, philosopher, and astronomer, Chaucer was also a civil servant, diplomat, and judge. A man versed in diverse fields of knowledge and a reader of several languages, he ultimately wrote most of his works in vernacular English, at a time when the usual languages ​​of the literary world were French and Latin. Although he achieved some fame during his lifetime, Chaucer's literary reputation was established mainly over time. 'Chaucer was able to do something that few authors of his time (or even later) managed: to project his time and his world into the imagination of any reader, of any era.' Larry Benson "Chaucer is our literary grandfather, but a grandfather who is always present, to the point that it seems plausible to imagine him arm in arm with Dickens or even with some more recent English-language writers from various parts of the globe, in a pleasant chat about the ills of society." Seamus Heaney (Nobel Prize in Literature)