The son of a London wine merchant, Geoffrey Chaucer was the first great poet in the language. Dryden called him, 'the father of English poetry.' He was buried in Westminster Abbey in what became known in his wake as Poet's Corner. A customs officer, courtier and diplomat, Chaucer enjoyed the patronage of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster (a major character in Shakespeare's Richard II) and he prospered under the reigns of Edward III, Richard II and Henry IV. In royal service he travelled widely through France and Italy and his verse shows the tremendous influence of continental poetry, especially the work of Boccaccio, whose Il Filostrato he freely adapted to create his own love poem, Troilus and Crisedye. Arguably, part of Chaucer's genius was his ability take European models and rework them in English. The language was then in a state of flux and he did much to establish it as a literary medium.

The Canterbury Tales, in which a group of pilgrims recite stories to one another en route to the martyred Thomas a Becket's shrine, is his most celebrated work. Although unfinished, it provides captivating, and very funny, snapshots of every level of medieval society - from the grasping Pardoner and the bawdy Miller to the wanton Wife of Bath and the 'verray, parfit, gentil knight'.