The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims (1810) by William Blake. Engraving.

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories; it is a snapshot, a picture frozen in time, of life in the Middle Ages. To include the complete range of medieval society in the same picture, Chaucer places his characters on a pilgrimage, a religious journey made to a shrine or holy place. These pilgrims, like a collection of people on tour today, are from many stations and stages of life. Together they travel from London to the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas à Becket at Canterbury Cathedral, about fifty-five miles to the southeast.

The Prologue to The Canterbury TalesMeet the Writer

Geoffrey Chaucer1343-1400

• The father of English poetry• Born to a middle class family in London• Became a well known government

official• Served in the Hundred Years’ War• Married with two children• Often provided services to the Crown• Began writing The Canterbury Tales in

1387• Never completed all the stories• Considered one of the greatest

works in the English language• The Prologue alone places Chaucer

in the company of Shakespeare and Milton

• Chaucer’s use of language seems to have been the key to its success

Geoffrey Chaucer had two careers: He was not only a writer but also an important government official. Chaucer was so important, in fact, that when he was captured in France while serving as a soldier during the Hundred Years’ War, the king himself contributed to the ransom.

More About the Writer

The Prologue to The Canterbury TalesMeet the Writer

The Canterbury Tales: PrologueSummary

• The narrator describes a group of pilgrims assembled at an inn near London prior to their journey to Canterbury.

• The inn’s host proposes that each pilgrim will tell two tales on the journey to and from Canterbury to entertain the others.

• Whoever tells the best tale will win a dinner paid for by the group.

• The Host joins the pilgrims and becomes their judge.• The travelers draw lots to decide the order of the tales, and

the cut falls to the knight.

Summary (cont’d)

•The narrator describes the pilgrims, revealing their personalities through direct and indirect characterization, sharp images, and figurative comparisons.

• Chaucer’s description of dress and appearance are particularly revealing of psychological traits.

•The pilgrims generally fall into three major divisions of medieval society:

• The feudal order• The Knight and his Squire

• The church• The Monk and the Nun

• The merchant or professional class

• The Miller and the Doctor

• In The Canterbury Tales, the pilgrims’ journey is the outer story.

When Chaucer chooses to have each of his pilgrims tell a story on the way to Canterbury, he is using the “frame story.”

A frame story is a literary device that binds together several different narratives. It is a story (or stories) within a story.

The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales Literary Focus: Frame Story

• The tales the pilgrims tell are stories within a story.

• The tales themselves also have thematic unity.

Chaucer’s English was not the same English that we use today. He wrote in what is now known as Middle English, the language that resulted when Old English was infused with the Old French of the Norman invaders. The version of The Canterbury Tales that you will read is a modern English translation.

The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Click to hear a sample in Middle English.

Chaucer had twenty-nine characters to introduce, so he couldn’t develop any one character at great length. Instead, he provided a few well-chosen details that would make each character stand out vividly.

The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales Key Details

Twenty-nine pilgrims are on their way to the shrine of Saint Thomas à Becket in Canterbury.

The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The time is April, and the place is the Tabard Inn in Southwark, just outside London.

Canterbury

London

This yeoman wore a coat and hood of green,And peacock-feathered arrows, bright and keen

Chaucer uses indirect characterization when he tells how each character

The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales Literary Focus: Characterization

• looks and dresses

Her greatest oath was only “By St. Loy!”

• speaks and acts

And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.

• thinks and feels

The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales Literary Focus: Characterization

There was a Friar, a wanton one and merry,A Limiter, a very festive fellow.

In all Four Orders there was none so mellow,

So glib with gallant phrase and well-turned speech.

Chaucer also uses direct characterization, when he comes right out and tells us what a character’s nature is—virtuous, vain, clever, and so on.

Have you ever wondered about fellow travelers on a trip and imagined what their lives are like?

As you read The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, think about to what extent you can judge a person’s character from his or her profession, appearance, and manners.

Connecting to the Poem

The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Turn to page 94.