[[quoteright:347:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/GeoffreyChaucer_3750.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:347:[[Film/TwentyTwoJumpStreet My name ys Geoff.]] ]]

->''A knyght ther was, and that a worthy man,''
->''That fro the tyme that he first bigan''
->''To riden out, he loved chivalrie,''
->''Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie.''

Geoffrey Chaucer (''Galfridus Chaucer'', ''El Jefe'', ''L.L. Cool Geoff'') (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished [[FramingDevice frame narrative]] ''Literature/TheCanterburyTales''. Sometimes called the "father of English literature", Chaucer is widely credited as first demonstrating the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular (post-Conquest) ([[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfEnglish Late Middle]]) English language as opposed to French or Latin, and thus, he is the one who made stories accessible to the general, uneducated, illiterate-in-English-let-alone-Latin-or-French average Joe.[[note]]Pre-Conquest Old English was one of the major literary languages of its time; more manuscripts survive in Old English from the "[[TheLowMiddleAges Dark Ages]]" than in any other European language other than Latin or (Byzantine) Greek. But after 1066, the new Middle English was consistently seen as less-than.[[/note]] Chaucer's works were among the earliest printed in English, which did much to establish his southern dialect as "correct" written English. He is buried in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. He is in fact the ''reason'' it is called the Poet's Corner. Of course, he owed his Westminster Abbey grave to his services to the crown (or at least to John of Gaunt), ''not'' his literary eminence.

As a character, Chaucer appears in ''Film/AKnightsTale'', where he is played by Creator/PaulBettany.

[[Blog/GeoffreyChaucerHathABlog He hath a blog, too.]] [[https://twitter.com/LeVostreGC And eke doth tweet, by'r Lady!]]

He ended at #81 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''.
----
!!Works by Geoffrey Chaucer:

* ''Literature/TheCanterburyTales''
* ''Literature/TroilusAndCriseyde''
----
!!Other works by Geoffrey Chaucer provide examples of:

* AuthorAvatar: Chaucer appears as a character in nearly all of his own poems.
* CreepyUncle: Pandarus in ''Troilus and Criseyde''
* FloatingContinent: The House of Fame is basically this.
* LetsJustBeFriends: In ''Troilus and Criseyde'', Criseyde says this to Troilus after she dumps him for Diomede.
* TheMourningAfter: The attitude of the Man in Black in ''The Book of the Duchess.''
* NameAndName: ''Troilus and Criseyde''
* ObfuscatingStupidity: Chaucer uses this trope a lot in his own [[AuthorAvatar self-portrayals]].
* PollyWantsAMicrophone: In ''The House of Fame'' and ''The Parliament of Fowls,'' among others.
* YouBastard: In ''Troilus and Criseyde'', Pandarus contrives various tricks and deceptions in order to bring the two lovers together, which is what the readers (with whom he's conflated -- he sits around reading a romance during one scene) want to see happen.
----