The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales, frame story by English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, written in Middle English in 1387–1400. It is one of the most famous and celebrated works of English literature and Chaucer’s greatest achievement, although it was not completed by the time of his death in 1400. Nonetheless, The Canterbury Tales presents Chaucer’s unique and amiable voice, one that reflects an all-pervasive humor combined with serious and tolerant consideration of important philosophical questions. Its stories range from presentations of lustful cuckoldry to spiritual union with God. The work helped popularize the use of iambic pentameter, a line of verse composed of 10 syllables arranged in five metrical feet (iambs), each of which consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Summary and framing device

The framing device for the collection of stories is a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury, Kent, England. The 30 pilgrims who undertake the journey gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, across the Thames from London. They agree to engage in a storytelling contest as they travel, and Harry Bailly, host of the Tabard, serves as master of ceremonies for the contest.

Most of the pilgrims are introduced by vivid brief sketches in the “General Prologue.” Interspersed between the 24 tales are short dramatic scenes (called links) presenting lively exchanges, usually involving the host and one or more of the pilgrims. Chaucer did not complete the full plan for his book: the return journey from Canterbury is not included, and some of the pilgrims do not tell stories.

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The Literary World

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The use of a pilgrimage as the framing device enabled Chaucer to bring together people from many walks of life: knight, prioress, monk; merchant, man of law, franklin, scholarly clerk; miller, reeve, pardoner; wife of Bath and many others. The multiplicity of social types, as well as the device of the storytelling contest itself, allowed presentation of a highly varied collection of literary genres: religious legend, courtly romance, racy fabliau, saint’s life, allegorical tale, beast fable, medieval sermon, alchemical account, and, at times, mixtures of these genres. The stories and links together offer complex depictions of the pilgrims, while, at the same time, the tales present remarkable examples of short narratives in verse, plus two expositions in prose. The pilgrimage, which in medieval practice combined a fundamentally religious purpose with the secular benefit of a spring vacation, made possible extended consideration of the relationship between the pleasures and vices of this world and the spiritual aspirations for the next.

List of tales

The Canterbury Tales consists of:

• General Prologue
• The Knight’s Tale
• The Miller’s Tale
• The Reeve’s Tale
• The Cook’s Tale
• The Man of Law’s Tale
• The Wife of Bath’s Tale
• The Friar’s Tale
• The Summoner’s Tale
• The Clerk’s Tale
• The Merchant’s Tale
• The Squire’s Tale
• The Franklin’s Tale
• The Second Nun’s Tale
• The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale
• The Physician’s Tale
• The Pardoner’s Tale
• The Shipman’s Tale
• The Prioress’s Tale
• The Tale of Sir Thopas
• The Tale of Melibeus (in prose)
• The Monk’s Tale
• The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
• The Manciple’s Tale
• The Parson’s Tale (in prose)
• Chaucer’s Retraction

Not all the tales are complete; several contain their own prologues or epilogues. In the Retraction at the end, Chaucer as poet and pilgrim states his conclusion that the concern for this world fades into insignificance before the prospect for the next. He asks forgiveness for his writings that concern “worldly vanities” and remembrance for his works of morality and religious devotion, such as his translation of the 6th-century Roman philosopher Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy.

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Use of iambic pentameter

Probably influenced by French syllable-counting in versification, Chaucer developed for The Canterbury Tales a line of 10 syllables with alternating accent and regular end rhyme—an ancestor of the heroic couplet.

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour

By the 16th century iambic pentameter was the predominant meter in English verse, a testament to Chaucer’s influence.