Chaucer’s most famous poem is an unfinished collection of tales told in the course of a pilgrimage to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury. A general Prologue briefly describes the 30 pilgrims and introduces the framework: each pilgrim will tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back, the teller of the best tale winning a free supper. There follow 24 tales, including two told by Chaucer himself.
The General Prologue introduces the pilgrims as they meet at the Tabard Inn in Southwark and begin their journey under the guidance of the Host, Harry Bailly. They come from all sections of society. Some are described in vivid and realistic detail, combining elements from the traditional representation of social types with individual characterization.
The Knight’s Tale is a romance based on Boccaccio’s Teseida. Palamon and Arcite, sworn brothers, became rivals for Theseus’ niece, Emelye, whom they first see from their prison window.
The Miller’s Tale is a bawdy fabliau told by a drunken and quarrelsome character.
The Reeve’s Tale answers Miller’s abuse of carpenters, for the Reeve is a carpenter. It tells how a miller is tricked by two clerks whom he has cheated. One sleeps with the miller’s daughter and the other rearranges the furniture so that the miller’s wife gets into his bed instead of her husband’s.
The Cooks Tale is only a 57-line fragment, whose opening tells how an apprentice loses his position because of riotous living and moves in with a prostitute and her husband.
The Man of Law’s Tale begins the second fragment of the poem. After a prologue complaining that Chaucer has spoiled all the good stories and announcing his intention to speak in prose, the Man of Law tells the tale of unfortunate Constance. She is married to a Sultan, converted to Christianity, whose evil mother destroys all the Christians in the court and sets the widowed Constance adrift in a boat. She lands in Northumberland, where she performs miraculous cures, survives a false accusation of murder and marries the king, whom she has converted.
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THE Wife of Bath’s Tale begins the third fragment. Its prologue develops the wife’s strong and pleasure-seeking personality as she recounts her eventful life with five husbands. Her tale, a version of, The Wedding of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell, continues the theme of women’s mastery over men.
The Friar’s Tale, an animated and original version of a fabliau from an unknown source, is an attack on the Summoner.
The Summoner’s Tale Answers the Friar with another fabliau from an unknown source about a corrupt mendicant friar who angers a dissatisfied benefactor by asking for more donations.
The Clerk’s Tale, beginning the fourth fragment, gives a version of the folktale of Patient Griselda, derived from Petrarch’s Latin translation of Boccaccio’s version of it in the Decameron.
The Merchant’s Tale which has its source in Folktale, is richly elaborated and expanded.
The Squire’s Tale, at the start of the fifth fragment, is an unfinished romance similar to the story of Cleomades.
The Franklin’s Tale is introduced as a Breton Lay but its source is Boccaccio’s Filocolo.
The Physician’s Tale, the first in the sixth fragment, adapts the story of Virginia rather than surrender her to Judge Apius. His corruption is uncovered, Apius is imprisoned and kills himself; his conniving servant Claudius is exiled.
The Pardoner’s tale is preceded by a prologue in which he explains how he preaches against all types of sin but himself indulges in various vices and begs from the poor.
The Shipman’s Tale, which begins the seventh fragment, is a fabliau. The merchant’s wife borrows hundred francs from the monk, who in turn borrows it from her husband. In the merchant’s absence, his wife and the monk sleep together. On his return the monk tells him he gave the money to his wife; she tells her husband that she thought it a gift and spent it on clothes.
The Prioress’s tale follows the host’s polite request to her to speak next. A Christian child is murdered by Jews but the Virgin gives his body the power of song, to reveal his whereabouts and explain how he came to his death.
Sir Thomas is the first tale of Chaucer’s tales, a splendid pastiche of verse at its most trite.
The Monk’s Tale follows a prologue in which the Host requests a tale in keeping with his character, perhaps about hunting.
The Nun’s Priests Tale is a vivid fable related to the French Roman de Renart. After a premonitory dream which the cock, Chauntecleer, repeats to his favourite hen, Pertelote, he is approached by a fox who appeals to his vanity to make him close his eyes and crow. The fox seizes him and carries him off, but Chauntecleer tricks him into speaking and so escapes from his mouth.
The Second Nun’s Tale, the first of two in the eighth fragment, is a saint’s life from the Legenda Aurea (later translated by Caxton as the Golden Legend). The virgin St Cecilia converts her husband, his brother, and some of his persecutors to Christianity before her martyrdom.
The invocation to the virgin in the prologue is based partly on lines from Dante’s Paradiso. After the tale, the Canon and his Yeoman, join the party, though the Canon soon leaves again.
The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale tells of his own experiences helping his master in alchemy. The tale gives details of alchemical processes and relates ho the canon cheated a priest by tricking him into believing he could transmute mercury into silver.
The Manciple’s Tale, the only one in the ninth fragment, narrates the story of the tell-tale bird also found in The Seven Sages of Rome, though Chaucer adapted it from Ovid’s, metamorphosis.
The Parson’s Tale, comprising the tenth fragment, is the final tale. A lengthy prose sermon on the Seven Deadly Sins, it drives from the De poenitentia of Raymond de Pennaforte and Guilielmus Peraldus’ Summa de vitiis.
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