English Writers

English Writers 

Geoffrey Chaucer is a giant of English poetry and often called “the father of English poetry.” His verse is still read and enjoyed today, still taught in schools. and often adapted for theatre performances. His poems are full of memorable characters, still recognisable as types we encounter in our daily life in spite of having been inspired by people Chaucer observed more than seven hundred years ago. His masterpiece is The Canterbury Tales, a long poem, full of colourful characters and stories,. The language is what we call Middle English and although, fairly recognisable to us today, as it was that particular dialect that formed the basis of the Modern English that we speak, the stories are also very enjoyable in translation to Modern English. Chaucer was a university-educated man and had a long career as a diplomat, in which role he travelled widely.
William Blake achieved fame as both a painter and a poet, although not in his lifetime. He would also be in a list of the top ten English painters. His recognition came only after his death because he was so far ahead of his time in both of those arts. His thinking, and views, as well as his poetic style, were more like those we find in our own time than in his. His concerns were very much to do with things like the environment, social injustice, the ills of war, and the other things that bring protestors out in droves today. It’s not surprising, therefore, that he was regarded as eccentric, particularly as he and his wife were also nudists, who particularly enjoyed nude sunbathing in their garden.
The Jane Austen Centre’s website states: ‘Jane Austen is perhaps the best known and best loved of Bath’s many famous residents and visitors.’ 
Jane Austen was also one of England’s greatest authors, certainly the greatest English novelist and, as some readers say, second only to Shakespeare as the top English writer. She was also, probably, the most famous woman who has ever lived. She has to be classified with Shakespeare, Dickens, and Chaucer as having written the best English comic or humorous literature anywhere. She died very young, after having published five of the finest novels written in the English language.
We sometimes describe English as ‘the language of Shakespeare and Milton.’ Milton’s poetry has been wondered at for four centuries and his Paradise Lost has taken its place as one of the most accomplished and beautiful epic poems ever written. Its influence in Western thought and culture is almost unprecedented in that its detail fills out our ideas of heaven and hell, Adam and Eve, and the story of the Garden of Eden.