English Poets Laureate: Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Wordsworth, Ben Jonson, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, John Dryden, Robert Southey

Chapters: Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, William Wordsworth, Ben Jonson, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, John Dryden, Robert Southey, Ted Hughes, John Masefield, John Betjeman, Robert Bridges, Carol Ann Duffy, Colley Cibber, John Skelton, Nicholas Rowe, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Andrew Motion, William Davenant, Samuel Daniel, Alfred Austin, Thomas Shadwell, Thomas Warton, Nahum Tate, Laurence Eusden, William Whitehead, Henry James Pye, John Kay, Gulielmus Peregrinus. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 224. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Geoffrey Chaucer (pronounced; 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 frame narrative The Canterbury Tales. Sometimes called the father of English literature, Chaucer is credited by some scholars as the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular English language, rather than French or Latin. Chaucer as a pilgrim from the Ellesmere manuscriptChaucer was born circa 1343 in London, though the exact date and location of his birth are not known. His father and grandfather were both London vintners and before that, for several generations, the family members were merchants in Ipswich. His name is derived from the French chausseur, meaning shoemaker. In 1324 John Chaucer, Geoffrey's father, was kidnapped by an aunt in the hope of marrying the twelve-year-old boy to her daughter in an attempt to keep property in Ipswich. The aunt was imprisoned and the 250 fine levied suggests that the family was financially secure, upper middle-class, if not in the elite. John married Agnes Copton, who, in 1349, inherited properties including 24 shops in London from her uncle, Hamo de Copton, who is described ...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=12787