Poetry and the recitation of memorized verse down the generations used to be the most common method of cultural dissemination before literacy became widespread. Its popularity continued after the invention of writing, and across the millennia, poetry has touched something in the human spirit and spoken directly to human hearts. As a result, regardless of language, hardly any culture failed to develop a poetic tradition and produce its share of poets. Below are twenty two fascinating but lesser known facts about some of the greatest poets of the ancient and medieval eras.
22. The Greatest English Poet Before Shakespeare
Now welcome, somer, with they sonne softe,
That hast this wintres wedres overshake,
And driven away the longe nyghtes blake!
Chaucer – excerpt from The Parliament of Birds
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 – 1400), author of The Canterbury Tales, was the greatest English poet before Shakespeare. He is seen as the Father of the English Language because his writings legitimized the literary use of English vernacular at a time when England’s dominant literary languages were French and Latin. Chaucer’s works varied, and his topics ran the gamut from fart jokes to spiritual union with God. However, whatever he wrote usually reflected a pervasive humor, even as it explored serious philosophical questions.
