Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – October 25, 1400) was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat (courtier), and diplomat. Chaucer is best known as the author of The Canterbury Tales. He is sometimes credited with being the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular English language, rather than French or Latin.

List of Works

The following major works are in rough chronological order but scholars still debate the dating of most of Chaucer's output and works made up from a collection of stories may have been compiled over a long period.

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Major works

• Translation of Roman de la Rose, possibly extant as The Romaunt of the Rose
• The Book of the Duchess
• The House of Fame
• Anelida and Arcite
• The Parliament of Fowls
• Translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy as Boece
• Troilus and Criseyde
• The Legend of Good Women
• Treatise on the Astrolabe
• The Canterbury Tales

Short poems

• An ABC
• Chaucers Wordes unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn
• The Complaint unto Pity
• The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse
• The Complaint of Mars
• The Complaint of Venus
• A Complaint to His Lady
• The Former Age
• Fortune
• Gentilesse
• Lak of Stedfastnesse
• Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan
• Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton
• Proverbs
• To Rosemounde
• Truth
• Womanly Noblesse

Poems dubiously ascribed to Chaucer

• Against Women Unconstant
• A Balade of Complaint
• Complaynt D'Amours
• Merciles Beaute
• The Equatorie of the Planets - Rumored to be a rough translation of a Latin work derived from an Arab work of the same title. It is a description of the construction and use of what is called an 'equatorium planetarum', and was used in calculating planetary orbits and positions (Remember, at the time it was believed the sun orbited the Earth). The belief this work is ascribed to Chaucer comes from similar 'treatise' on the Astrolabe. However, the evidence Chaucer wrote such a work is questionable, and as such is not included in The Riverside Chaucer. If Chaucer did not compose this work, it was probably written by a contemporary (Benson, perhaps?). (S. Curran)

Works mentioned by Chaucer, presumed lost

• Of the Wreched Engendrynge of Mankynde, possible translation of Innocent III's De miseria conditionis humanae
• Origenes upon the Maudeleyne
• The book of the Leoun - An interesting argument. The Book of the Leon is mentioned in Chaucer's retraction at the end of the Canterbury Tales. It is likely he wrote such a work; one suggestion is that the work was such a bad piece of writing it was lost, but if so, Chaucer would not have included it in the middle of his retraction. Indeed, he would not have included it at all. A likely source dictates it was probably a 'redaction of Guillaume de Machaut's 'Dit dou lyon,' a story about courtly love, a subject which Chaucer scholars agree he frequently wrote about (Le Romaunt de Rose).