Chaucer is reputed to be the ‘father’ of English Literature.  Canterbury Tales is his magnum opus. He uses the tales and the descriptions of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, and particularly of the Church. Structurally, the collection resembles The Decameron, which he may have read during his first diplomatic mission to Italy in 1372.

It is sometimes argued that the greatest contribution he made to English literature was in popularizing the literary use of the vernacular, English, rather than French or Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary language for centuries before Chaucer’s life, and several of Chaucer’s contemporaries: John Gower, William Langland and the Pearl Poet also wrote major literary works in English.