Are Canterbury Tales real?
The story did not originate in the works of Chaucer and was well known in the 14th century. Pilgrimage was a very prominent feature of medieval society. The ultimate pilgrimage destination was Jerusalem, but within England Canterbury was a popular destination.
Is The Canterbury Tales fiction or nonfiction?
Each character tells one or more tales, each falling into their own genre. Told in Middle English,--the common language at the time in England--Chaucer lays out a sprawling fiction told in prose and poetry within the romance, dream vision, and satire genres.
What was The Canterbury Tales inspired by?
From the 1370s on, Italian poetry became the overriding influence for Chaucer's work. Obviously familiar with the writings of Dante and Petrarch, Boccaccio especially was a major source.
Is The Canterbury Tales a story?
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories held together by a framing device (the story of the pilgrimage). In this way, two narratives are operating at the same time within the work. In the links between the tales, the pilgrims bicker and chatter in a way that brings the characters to life.
Who are the 29 pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales?
The pilgrims are identified, from left to right, as "Reeve, Chaucer, Clerk of Oxenford, Cook, Miller, Wife of Bath, Merchant, Parson, Man of Law, Plowman, Physician, Franklin, 2 Citizens, Shipman, The Host, Sompnour, Manciple, Pardoner, Monk, Friar, a Citizen, Lady Abbess, Nun, 3 Priests, Squires Yeoman, Knight, [and] ...
Why is The Canterbury Tales so important?
The Canterbury Tales is considered Chaucer's masterpiece and is among the most important works of medieval literature for many reasons besides its poetic power and entertainment value, notably its depiction of the different social classes of the 14th century CE as well as clothing worn, pastimes enjoyed, and language/ ...
Who are the 31 pilgrims in Canterbury Tales?
The PilgrimsThe Narrator. The narrator makes it quite clear that he is also a character in his book. ... The Knight. The first pilgrim Chaucer describes in the General Prologue, and the teller of the first tale. ... The Wife of Bath. ... The Pardoner. ... The Miller. ... The Prioress. ... The Monk. ... The Friar.More items...
What is the message of The Canterbury Tales?
Some of the lessons are love conquers all, lust only gets you in trouble, religion and morality is virtuous, and honor and honesty is valued. Although there are some contradictory stories, Chaucer kept to this set of morals through most of his tales.
What is the main theme of Canterbury Tales?
Social satire is the major theme of The Canterbury Tales. The medieval society was set on three foundations: the nobility, the church, and the peasantry. Chaucer's satire targets all segments of the medieval social issues, human immorality, and depraved heart.
What is the shortest story in Canterbury Tales?
The shortest story in the collection is Physician's Tale, which only consists of more or less two thousand words. Physician's Tale narrates the story of Virginia who consents to her own death, asking her father Virginius to kill her before the villain Apius can take her virginity.
What is the problem in The Canterbury Tales?
Major conflict The struggles between characters, manifested in the links between tales, mostly involve clashes between social classes, differing tastes, and competing professions. There are also clashes between the sexes, and there is resistance to the Host's somewhat tyrannical leadership.
Why is The Canterbury Tales unfinished?
Because the printing press had not been in use in England when Chaucer was writing, the Tales existed in only manuscript form. Chaucer's original no longer exists, but many others, with various amounts of editing and additions, circulated around during the 15th century.
What is the main theme of Canterbury Tales?
Social satire is the major theme of The Canterbury Tales. The medieval society was set on three foundations: the nobility, the church, and the peasantry. Chaucer's satire targets all segments of the medieval social issues, human immorality, and depraved heart.
Is The Canterbury Tales a poem?
Though the majority of the writing in The Canterbury Tales is in verse and is usually categorized as poetry, there are two tales that are written in prose, or non-poetic writing with no rhythm, rhyme, or other poetic structures.
Why did Chaucer write The Canterbury Tales?
The tales could be described both as social realism and as estates satire. At the same time that Chaucer takes care to honestly show the perspective of each of his characters, he also aims to critique the hypocrisy of the church and the social problems posed by Medieval politics and social custom.
In what type of language is The Canterbury Tales written?
Middle EnglishThe Canterbury Tales is one of the best loved works in the history of English literature. Written in Middle English, the story follows a group of pilgrims who are travelling the long journey from London to Canterbury Cathedral.
Overview
The Canterbury Tales (Middle English: Tales of Caunterbury ) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's magnum opus. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they tr…
Text
The question of whether The Canterbury Tales is a finished work has not been answered to date. There are 84 manuscripts and four incunabula (printed before 1500) editions of the work, more than for any other vernacular English literary text with the exception of The Prick of Conscience. This is taken as evidence of the Tales' popularity in the century after Chaucer's death. Fifty-five of these manuscripts are thought to have been originally complete, while 28 are so fragmentary th…
Language
Chaucer wrote in a London dialect of late Middle English, which has clear differences from Modern English. From philological research, some facts are known about the pronunciation of English during the time of Chaucer. Chaucer pronounced -e at the end of many words, so that care was [ˈkaːrə], not /kɛər/ as in Modern English. Other silent letters were also pronounced, so that the word knight was [kniçt], with both the k and the gh pronounced, not /naɪt/. In some cases, vowel letter…
Sources
No other work prior to Chaucer's is known to have set a collection of tales within the framework of pilgrims on a pilgrimage. It is obvious, however, that Chaucer borrowed portions, sometimes very large portions, of his stories from earlier stories, and that his work was influenced by the general state of the literary world in which he lived. Storytelling was the main entertainment in England at t…
Genre and structure
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories built around a frame tale, a common and already long established genre in this period. Chaucer's Tales differs from most other story "collections" in this genre chiefly in its intense variation. Most story collections focused on a theme, usually a religious one. Even in the Decameron, storytellers are encouraged to stick to the theme deci…
Style
The variety of Chaucer's tales shows the breadth of his skill and his familiarity with many literary forms, linguistic styles, and rhetorical devices. Medieval schools of rhetoric at the time encouraged such diversity, dividing literature (as Virgil suggests) into high, middle, and low styles as measured by the density of rhetorical forms and vocabulary. Another popular method of division came from St. …
Historical context and themes
In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of the Peace and, in 1389, Clerk of the King's Works. It was during these years that Chaucer began working on The Canterbury Tales.
The end of the fourteenth century was a turbulent time in English history. The Catholic Church was in the midst of the Western Schism and, although it was st…
Reception
While Chaucer clearly states the addressees of many of his poems (the Book of the Duchess is believed to have been written for John of Gaunt on the occasion of his wife's death in 1368), the intended audience of The Canterbury Tales is more difficult to determine. Chaucer was a courtier, leading some to believe that he was mainly a court poet who wrote exclusively for the nobility. He is referred to as a noble translator and poet by Eustache Deschamps and by his contemporary Jo…