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Poetry in English: Geoffrey Chaucer

Portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer by Thomas Hoccleve
Geoffrey Chaucer is an english poet, writer, philosopher, astronomer, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat.  He is born circa 1343 and dead on October the 14th, 1400.  He is the first writer buried in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.  His choice to use Middle English over Latin as his writing language, along with the popularity of his works, delivers an strong advance on English becoming a literary language.  He makes innovations on poetry too, such as inventing the rhyme royal.

His mostly known works are:
  • Poetry: The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, Anelida and Arcite, Parlement of Foules, Troilus and Criseyde, The Legend of Good Women, The Canterbury Tales (with some parts in prose)
  • Science: A Treatise on the Astrolabe
  • Translations: The Romance of the Rose, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy
Digital Libraries that hold available works of Geoffrey Chaucer:
These are the first 43 lines of the General Prologue from The Tales of Canterbury, taken from Wikisource:

Here bygynneth the Book of the Tales of Caunterbury

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open yë
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.
       
Bifil that in that seson, on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.
The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
And wel we weren esed atte beste;
And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
So hadde I spoken with hem everichon
That I was of hir felaweshipe anon,
And made forward erly for to ryse
To take our wey, ther as I yow devyse.

But nathelees, whil I have tyme and space,
Er that I ferther in this tale pace,
Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun
To telle yow al the condicioun
Of ech of hem, so as it semed me,
And whiche they weren, and of what degree,
And eek in what array that they were inne;
And at a knyght than wol I first bigynne.

Mike Taylor has created a rap version which includes also legends of both the original lyrics and the lyrics adapted to modern English, and that is available at YouTube:

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