Chaucer's Claim to Fame: Business Skills Seen in the Life of Geoffrey ChaucerChaucer is not an unknown literary author known to only a dozen people in the English field. Besides Shakespeare, Chaucer is probably one of, if not the, best-known contributors to English literature. His name is instantly recognisable, and many high school students have come to know him through the often painful reading of his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer's work is an extremely important text for the evolution of the English language; The Canterbury Tales stood out from other literary works of the time by being one of the first literary pieces written in English rather than French, and its extreme popularity stimulated the creation of even more English literature, allowing the language to regain its prominence and evolve into the English we know today (“Chaucer”; Kemmer). Today it is the most important example of the work in Middle English and is studied not only for its literary value but as evidence of what the language was like at the time. The importance of the Canterbury Tales and Chaucer is extreme, and the author enjoyed his fame during his lifetime and long after, largely due to his ability to make wise decisions, take risks, learn to learn how professional and transfer knowledge, skills that people even today can use it to be successful. Chaucer's life was well documented for someone of the time, and the sound decisions he made early in his life allowed him to gain positions of prominence at a relatively young age. Born in 1343 to a wine merchant father, there are indications that Chaucer's family was upper class and very profitable (Poland). With his family...... middle of paper......fer knowledge that makes the story enduringly popular and an important literary work that is read to this day. The skills Chaucer possessed can be used by anyone, then or now, to succeed, and are in fact necessary to thrive in whatever discipline one intends to work in. Works Cited “Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales.” Learning English: Timeline. The British Library Board, nd Web. 27 April 2014. .Kemmer, Suzanne. “Chronology: History of English.” Timeline: History of English. Rice University, September 16, 2013. Web. April 25, 2014. .Pollard, AW. "The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer." Luminarium: An Anthology of English Literature. Anniina Jokinen, 3 September 2006. Web. 25 April. 2014. .