Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343‑1400) was born into a family of winemakers and merchants. Little is known about his early life. He was first recorded in the year 1357 when he was employed by the Countess of Ulster. Although he spent most of his life in and around the court, he had to work, taking various jobs (as a page, a soldier, a diplomat, and a justice of the peace) to support himself.

    杰弗雷・乔叟（约 1343‑1400）出生于酿酒商人家庭。他早年生平记载甚少。现存最早记录是 1357 年，他受雇于阿尔斯特女伯爵。他一生大部分时间周旋于宫廷，但仍需要工作谋生，先后担任侍从、士兵、外交官、治安法官等多种职务。

One thing important for our students to note is that before Chaucer took to write, most texts in England were composed in Latin (the language of the church) or French (the language of the nobility). Chaucer decided to write in the language of the people—Middle English—and thus changed the history of literature. He was a prolific author, penning many stories and lyric poems over the course of his lifetime, but he is best known for The Canterbury Tales, written in 1387‑1400, a collection of wise, ironic, funny, and bawdy stories that reflect the social life of his time, foretelling the humanistic orientation of the English Renaissance literature that flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

    同学们需要重点注意：在乔叟开始写作之前，英国绝大多数书面文本使用教会语言拉丁语，或是贵族语言法语。乔叟选择用民众的语言 —— 中古英语进行创作，由此改写了文学史。他创作颇丰，一生写下大量故事与抒情诗。其中最负盛名的是写于 1387‑1400 年的《坎特伯雷故事集》。这部故事集充满智慧、讽刺、诙谐与世俗趣味，真实反映时代社会风貌，预示了十五、十六世纪蓬勃发展的英国文艺复兴文学的人文主义倾向。