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GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340~-1400) was a Medieval English writer whose poetry ranks with Shakespeare's, and Whitman's, as the finest ever written in our language.
Chaucer worked as a government official in London. That work helped his writing in two ways. It brought him into contact with all kinds of people, enabling him to depict a wide range of human nature. In addition his work enabled him to travel widely. Chaucer knew the work of French and Italian writers as well as that of English ones.
Chaucer wrote in Middle English, a language used from the 1100s to the end of the 1400s. The opening of Chaucer's best-known book, The Canterbury Tales, reads like this:
"When that Aprill with his shoures soote/the droghte of March hath pierced to the root . . ."We would say something like this:
"When April had pierced the drought of March to the root with his sweet showers . . . ". Today Chaucer's works are available in modern English and are far easier to read.