Geoffrey Chaucer Quotes
Love will not be constrain'd by mastery. When mast'ry comes, the god of love anon Beateth his wings, and, farewell, he is gone. Love is a thing as any spirit free.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Franklin's Tale." The Riverside Chaucer, edited by Larry D. Benson, 3rd ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1987, p. 179.
She herself was an advocate for monogamy, but was opposed to the state or society interfering with anyone who chose differently. There was no position she advocated that was opposed and ridiculed more than this one. And her tying the Constitution to sexual freedom was itself considered not only whacky, but obscene and an insult to the Constitution and nation itself. The advocacy of the right of interracial marriage was as shocking as anything could be in those days. What would have surprised all those who derided her the most was that her sexual demands in toto became the law of the land and today, any government action to the contrary would shock and alarm most Americans.
Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet and author. Widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages, he is best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher 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.
