(c.1340-1400) [literary writing] The major poet of England in the late Middle Ages and the most significant writer before Shakespeare. Born and educated in London, Chaucer served in the court and the army and went abroad on diplomatic missions. His oeuvre can be divided into three periods, an early one based on French models, such as the Roman de la rose, and which contains the allegorical Book of the duchess (1369). The second period lasted to about 1387 and is characterised by his use of Italian models above all Dante and Boccaccio. The main works of this period are The house of fame, which concerns the adventures of Aeneas after the fall of Troy, The parliament of fowls, a story about the mating of birds on St. Valentine’s Day, The legend of good women (an unfinished work on classical heroines and Troilus and Criseyde, for which he drew on Boccaccio.