Summary Key Facts. Climax Not applicable collection of tales Falling action After twenty-three tales have been told, the Parson delivers a long sermon. Themes The pervasiveness of courtly love, the importance of company, the corruption of the church Motifs Romance, fabliaux Symbols Springtime, clothing, physiognomy Foreshadowing Not applicable collection of tales. Previous section Full Book Analysis. Popular pages: The Canterbury Tales. Take a Study Break.
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Written by Geoffrey Chaucer between and his death in , The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories within a frame story. The frame story involves the pilgrimage of 30 people traveling from London to Canterbury Cathedral to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket.
Each character is supposed to tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two more stories on the way back to London. The prize for telling the best story is a free meal upon their return.
Since the collection contains only 24 stories, some historians believe Chaucer's work remained unfinished upon his death, while others believe he never intended the collection to include stories. The stories range from humorous and bawdy to moral and contemplative. They reflect the wide variety of characters Chaucer chose, which include a knight, a monk, a carpenter, a merchant, a miller, a haberdasher , a clerk, and a prioress, among others.
Chaucer created a vivid cast of characters from all different levels of late th -century society. His descriptions of their occupations and clothing provide historians with valuable insight into how people lived at that time.
Writing from so many different perspectives also allowed Chaucer to comment on a wide variety of subjects, including religion, gender, and social change. He did so, in part, by writing in different genres based upon particular characters, including religious legends, romances, allegories , fables , sermons , and sometimes mixtures of these.
The Canterbury Tales is also important because of Chaucer's decision to write in English, specifically Middle English. In the late 14 th century, French was still the primary literary language of those in power. The Canterbury Tales became one of the first major works of literature to be written in English. When Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales , the printing press had not yet been invented.
That meant that it had to be passed down via handwritten manuscripts. Although no manuscripts in Chaucer's own hand remain, over 80 copies that date back to the 16 th century have been found, suggesting that The Canterbury Tales was extremely popular in the century after Chaucer's death. Are you ready for some medieval fun? Ask a friend or family member to help you explore the following activities:.
We will take it! Thanks for checking this one out and good luck when you read Canterbury Tales in high school or college! Hey, Roque! So glad you really enjoyed this Wonder! We'd love to have you submit it to our Wonder Bank and hopefully one day you'll see a Wonder about it!
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We are so glad you enjoyed this Wonder. Let us know what other Wonders you like, too! Thanks for sharing, Ben! Glad you enjoyed the Canterbury Tales. They can be a tough read if you find them in the original Old English!
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Glad to have you as a Wonder Friend! That's great, Hunter! Maybe one day you will even get a chance to read them yourself. Thanks for learning something new with us! So glad you learned something new, Jayden! We love learning new things, too. We love firing up that curious part of people's brains! The line numbering in The Riverside Chaucer does not run continuously throughout the entire Canterbury Tales, but it does not restart at the beginning of each tale, either.
Instead, the tales are grouped together into fragments, and each fragment is numbered as a separate whole. Nobody knows exactly in what order Chaucer intended to present the tales, or even if he had a specific order in mind for all of them. Eighty-two early manuscripts of the tales survive, and many of them vary considerably in the order in which they present the tales. However, certain sets of tales do seem to belong together in a particular order.
For instance, the General Prologue is obviously the beginning, then the narrator explicitly says that the Knight tells the first tale, and that the Miller interrupts and tells the second tale.
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