Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400), often referred to as “the grandfather of English literature,” is invariably ranked with Shakespeare and Milton as one of the three greatest poets of the English language. His masterpiece,The Canterbury Tales, has been a touchstone for English-language poetry for more than half a millennium and is one of the most widely read works in the Western canon.

Burton Raffel is a translator, poet, and scholar whose major translations includeBeowulf, Don Quijote, The Red and the Black, and Gargantua and Pantagruel. He has also annotated several Shakespeare plays for Yale University Press. He was the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Arts and Humanities and emeritus professor of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette until 2003. He lives in Louisiana.

John Miles Foley is a leading Chaucer scholar specializing in medieval studies, epics, and the oral tradition. A professor at the University of Missouri, he is the director of the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition and has written or edited eighteen books. He lives in Columbus, Missouri.