Author: Geoffrey Chaucer

Serious

• Well known poet even before Canterbury Tales

• Serious writing of the day was in Latin or French; but Chaucer wrote in English, making it respectable once again.

•Known as the “Father of English poetry”∙First poet to be buried in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey

• A collection of stories united by a “frame story” (an outer story that unites several short stories)

• Considered a masterpiece though never completed

• Uses different literature genres popular at the time (romance, poetry, ribaldry & religious stories)

• Provides a picture of what life and people were like in the Middle Ages

The Canterbury Tales

• Written in Middle English in ten-syllable lines of couplets (the poetic qualities are often lost when translating to modern English).

“And specially from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,Redy The hooly blisful martir for to sekeThat hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.Bifil that in that seson, on a day,In Southwerk at the Tabard as I layto wenden on my pilgrymageTo Caunterbury with ful devout corage.”

Setting• The story

begins in April of 1380.

• This was a common time for pilgrimages (trips made to a shrine or sacred place).

The Prologue: Introduces and describes 29 pilgrims (plus the narrator) who are traveling together from London to Canterbury.

The Tabard Inn-just outside of London-where Chaucermeets the pilgrims on their way to Canterbury-the Host of the inn decides to join them

•

Canterbury Cathedral: The pilgrims are going to visit the holy shrine of

St. Thomas, 55 miles away.

• The Host suggests they tell stories to pass the time on the trip. Whoever tells the best story will win a meal when they return to the Tabard Inn.

The “Tales”• At the end of the

Prologue, the characters begin to tell their “tales.

• Each character was to tell two stories on the trip to Canterbury and two on the way home.

Canterbury Tales Characters: – Narrator (“Chaucer”)– Host (Harry Bailey)– Knight

• Squire• Yeoman

– Prioress• Second Nun• Priest

– Monk– Friar– Merchant– Oxford student– Man of Law– Franklin

– Five Guildsmen– Cook– Shipman– Physician– Wife of Bath– Parson– Plowman– Manciple– Reeve– Miller– Summoner– Pardoner

Chaucer describes each character’s physical appearance and personality.

•The characters represent the four social classes

in European feudal society– Peasant: work (agricultural labor)– Clergy: instruct and pray– Feudal: own, protect, or manage the land

– Merchant: support themselves outside the feudal system

The Unfinished Tales: Chaucer planned to write 120 stories but had finished only 24 before his death in 1400.