Some stories are bawdy fabliaux, some saints' lives or serious treatises.Ĭhaucer introduces his pilgrimage by saying that people want to travel in spring on pilgrimages, especially to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury - who has helped them when they were sick (I 18). Famously, too, in imitating the real-life fact that pilgrims amused themselves en route by songs, musical instruments and story-telling, Chaucer offers a variety of genres and levels of seriousness and elegance.
The way he exploits this fact creates a text in which he not only represents the diversity of contemporary society but also has the opportunity to depict conflict and rivalry between different trades. He has many story-tellers of differing class and character, and diversity, in many different forms, is the keynote of his collection. But the most important aspect of real-life pilgrimage that Chaucer takes up for his great poem is the fact that a wide variety of people, of different classes and different places might be found together on a pilgrimage.
Canterbury tales in middle english series#
Canterbury Cathedral, Trinity Chapel Ambulatory nII-57.Ĭhaucer was not the only medieval writer to use a pilgrimage as a frame story to introduce a collection of tales: the Italian Giovanni Sercambi (1347-1426) composed his Novelliere, a series of tales purporting to have been told to a group who escape the plague which raged in Lucca in 1374, by travelling to various towns and cities in Italy. Despite this, the poem was soon regarded asa masterpiece, and later medieval writers made attempts to continue the Tales with descriptions of the pilgrims' behaviour in Canterbury. Chaucer's poem thus takes the form of a series of these individual tales connected within a framing device of the pilgrimage and interludes descibing the pilgrims' behaviour. Chaucer never finished the Canterbury Tales, and the pilgrims only make it to the outskirts of Canterbury in the poem as it survives. To pass the time and entertain each other on their way the pilgrims take it in turns to tell stories, many of a humorous or bawdy nature. Geoffey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, written between 13, is a long poem concerning a group of thirty pilgrims on their way from Southwark, in south London, to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.One of the most famous works of medieval literature is based around a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world.
Canterbury tales in middle english full#
It Features an introduction by Jill Mann, a chronology of Chaucer's life and works, detailed explanatory notes, suggestions for further reading, a full glossary, and a bibliography. This is a freshly established Middle English text with standardized spelling and punctuation and on-page glossing.
In these twenty-four tales, Chaucer displays a dazzling range of literary styles and conjures up a wonderfully vivid picture of medieval life. Others draw on courtly romance and fantasy: the Knight tells of rivals competing for the love of the same woman, and the Squire describes a princess who can speak to birds. The Miller and the Reeve express their mutual antagonism in a pair of comic stories combining sex and trickery in “The Shipman’s Tale,” a wife sells her favors to a monk. The tales are as various as the pilgrims themselves, encompassing comedy, pathos, tragedy, and cynicism. One of the greatest and most ambitious works in English literature, in the original Middle English The Canterbury Tales depicts a storytelling competition between pilgrims drawn from all ranks of society.
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