Assess Chaucer's contribution to English poetry.

Geoffrey Chaucer's contribution to English literature is
extremely important.

He was the first English writer to
write in the vernacular.  Previously, Latin was the language used by writers.  This
enabled writers from various countries to share what they had written since Latin was
the language used by scholars.

In his unfinished work,
The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer gives us a wonderful picture of the
medieval world.  His pilgrims come from all classes of medieval society from the Knight
and his Squire to the various members of the clergy, to the merchants and finally the
average working man.

Through his descriptions in the
"Prologue" and through the stories they tell, he reveals a lot about the people in this
society.  He gives us the good, the bad and the
ugly.

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is
mirror that reflects English society in the late Middle Ages.