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Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400), symbolizes the Middle Ages. Some of his prominent works are The Legend of Good Women, Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales. A number of French words are found in Chaucer’s vocabulary. Chaucer uses the French method of regular metre and end-rhymes. As some pilgrims make their way from Southwark to Canterbury, each of them tell a tale to pass the time. The stories are as diverse as the narrators.
A good wife was there of biside bathe,
But she was somedeel deef, and that was scathe.
Of cloth-making she hadde swich an haunt,
She passed hem of Ypres and of Gaunt.
In all the parish wife ne was there noon
That to the offring before hir shold goon-
And if there did, certain so wroth was she
That she was out of alle charitee.
(The Canterbury Tales)