Chaucer and His World Author:F. E. Halliday Few writers have been so honoured by their contemporaries as Geoffrey Chaucer. His influence on fifteenth-century English literature, and later on Spenser, was remarkable, and he still remains the supreme master of narrative verse - his dramatic sense, understanding of character and technical innovations were brought to perfection three centurie... more »s before Shakespeare. He was also a most engaging man, well balanced, humorous and endlessly interested in people. Halliday traces Chaucer's life and his poetic career to his death in 1400« less