The Canterbury Tales

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Overview

The Canterbury Tales is an unfinished collection of stories by Geoffrey Chaucer, begun about 1387 and left incomplete at his death in 1400. A group of pilgrims travelling from London to Becket's shrine at Canterbury agree to tell tales to pass the time. The pilgrims come from many ranks, from knight to cook, and each tale reveals as much about the teller as about the story. The work gives a wide and often satirical portrait of late medieval English society and helped establish English as a literary language.

Context

Chaucer was a court official, diplomat and poet in the London of Richard II. English was then the spoken language of most people, but French and Latin dominated high literature. The poem, written in Middle English, appeared a few decades after the Black Death had unsettled labour and class. It survives in many manuscripts and was among the first books printed in English, by William Caxton, about 1476.