Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) is the Father of English Literature, known for legitimizing English as a literary language. His career progressed through French, Italian, and English periods, culminating in *The Canterbury Tales*, a masterful estates satire of medieval society. His technical innovations include the Rhyme Royal stanza and the Heroic Couplet.
William Langland's *Piers Plowman* is a 14th-century dream-vision allegory written in alliterative verse. It critiques social and clerical corruption through figures like Lady Mede and follows a quest for Truth guided by Piers, who symbolizes Christ. The work is a key text of the Alliterative Revival and a precursor to social protest literature.
John Wycliffe (c. 1328-1384), the 'Father of English Prose' and 'Morning Star of the Reformation,' instigated the first complete English Bible translation. His doctrines challenged Church authority and wealth, inspiring the Lollard movement. His greatest literary contribution was elevating English vernacular prose, helping standardize the East Midland dialect.
Sir John Mandeville, the pseudonymous author of *The Travels* (c. 1356-66), is a central figure in Middle English prose. His work, a blend of pilgrimage guide and fantastical 'Book of Marvels', popularized travel literature, promoted surprising religious tolerance, and argued for a round, circumnavigable earth. Though a compilation from other sources, it significantly influenced the development of English prose and the European imagination of the East.
John Gower (c. 1330–1408) was a trilingual, morally didactic poet of 14th-century England, a conservative contemporary of Chaucer. His major English work, *Confessio Amantis*, is a frame narrative structured around the Seven Deadly Sins, written in octosyllabic couplets. He is remembered for his 'plain style,' his social conservatism following the Peasants' Revolt, and his role in standardizing Middle English.
Thomas Hoccleve was a 15th-century civil servant poet whose work bridges the Chaucerian and Lancastrian eras. His major contributions include *The Regement of Princes*, a 'Mirror for Princes' for Henry V, and *The Series*, which contains the earliest autobiographical account of mental illness in English. He is crucial for understanding the rise of the professional, autobiographical poet in late medieval literature.
John Lydgate, the 'Monk of Bury,' was the dominant 15th-century poet who imitated and canonized Chaucer while developing a distinctive 'aureate' style. His massive, didactic works like *The Troy Book* and *The Fall of Princes* served Lancastrian political interests and elevated English as a literary language. Though criticized for prolixity, he was immensely popular in his time and crucial for transitioning English literature from the medieval to the early modern period.
John of Trevisa was a 14th-century scholar-translator pivotal in the Middle English prose movement. Under the patronage of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, he translated major Latin encyclopedic works like the *Polychronicon* and *De Proprietatibus Rerum*, championing the democratization of knowledge and proving English's capability for complex thought. His work significantly advanced vernacular prose style, lexical innovation, and information organization.