Which English poet wrote 'The Canterbury Tales'?

Which English poet wrote The Canterbury Tales? The answer is Geoffrey Chaucer. He composed the work in Middle English chiefly between about 1387 and 1400, making it one of the defining achievements of medieval English literature.

The Canterbury Tales is built around a fictional pilgrimage from London to Canterbury Cathedral, where travelers intend to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket. To pass the time, the pilgrims agree to tell stories, creating a frame narrative that lets Chaucer move between romance, satire, moral fable, comedy, and bawdy realism.

Chaucer planned a much larger collection than the 24 tales that survive. The General Prologue introduces roughly 30 pilgrims, and the Host proposes that each tell stories on the journey to Canterbury and back. Chaucer died in 1400 before completing the project, and the surviving manuscripts do not establish a final author-approved order.

The work helped make English a major literary language alongside French and Latin. A common mix-up is William Shakespeare, who wrote centuries later; Chaucer belongs to the late fourteenth century and is often called the father of English literature.