Geoffrey Chaucer is often considered the 'father of English literature.'  He is best known for his Canterbury Tales.  He was also the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey.    But Chaucer was very much a Renaissance man, even before the Renaissance came to England. He gained fame as a philosopher (and as a translator of Boethius) and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis.   He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament.  Our podcast will discuss this fascinating figure and also one of his Canterbury Tales.