Why is Geoffrey Chaucer so important to English Culture and Literature?
Chaucer was a man of immense knowledge, culture and experience who could draw upon the literature of several countries and civilisations in his writing. He wrote wittily and observantly and never boringly. He lived at a time when English was beginning to emerge in something resembling its present form, which makes him accessible to the modern reader. Chaucer’s great achievement was to establish English as a major literary language. Nothing like his “Canterbury Tales” had been produced before in English and it is a masterpiece of characterisation and narrative. http://special.lib.gla.ac.
