Brief Lives: Geoffrey Chaucer

One of England's best-loved authors, Geoffrey Chaucer was a poet, bureaucrat, and diplomat. His richly imaginative and witty works, written in vernacular English rather than courtly French or Latin, established his mother tongue as a literary language in its own right. Although his writing is well known, the biographical details of Chaucer's life in 14th-century England remain scarce. In this new biography, Gail Ashton examines the competing versions of "Chaucer" that have sprung up in the centuries since his death, and speculates about the extent to which his poetic legacy has been made to fit a range of agendas, especially those surrounding England and Englishness.