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Ancient and Medieval Bards – Surprising Facts About Some of History’s Greatest Poets

Khalid Elhassan March 17, 2025 17 min

Poets - Statue of Al-Mutanabbi, the Arabic Language's greatest bard, in Baghdad — Statue of Al-Mutanabbi, the Arabic Language's greatest bard, in Baghdad. Chaldean News

20. A Civil Servant With a Gift for Verse

Poets - Pilgrims on their way to Canterbury — Pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. Chaucerian Myth

Chaucer was at his most productive as an author between 1374 and 1386, when he was comptroller of London. That job afforded him plenty of free time to pen works such as Parliament of Birds and The Legend of Good Women. It was during this period that he began his signature work, The Canterbury Tales. He became the towering literary figure of his day, and after his death in 1400, he was the first to be buried at what became known as “Poets’ Corner” in Westminster Abbey. There, literary luminaries such as Robert Browning, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, and Thomas Hardy joined him over the succeeding centuries.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.