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  • The Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales is a collection of over

  • 20 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century, during

  • the time of the Hundred Years' War. The tales are presented as part of a story-telling contest

  • by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine

  • of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal

  • at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. After a long list of works written earlier

  • in his career, including Troilus and Criseyde, House of Fame, and "Parliament of Fowls",

  • The Canterbury Tales was Chaucer's magnum opus. He uses the tales and the descriptions

  • of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, and

  • particularly of the Church. Structurally, the collection resembles The Decameron, which

  • Chaucer may have read during his first diplomatic mission to Italy in 1372.

  • It is sometimes argued that the greatest contribution that this work made to English literature

  • was in popularising the literary use of the vernacular, English, rather than French or

  • Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary language for centuries before Chaucer's

  • life, and several of Chaucer's contemporariesJohn Gower, William Langland, and the Pearl Poetalso

  • wrote major literary works in English. It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was responsible

  • for starting a trend rather than simply being part of it.

  • While Chaucer clearly states the addressees of many of his poems, 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 nobility.

  • Text The question of whether The Canterbury Tales

  • is finished has not yet been answered. There are 83 known manuscripts of the work from

  • the late medieval and early Renaissance period, more than any other vernacular literary text

  • with the exception of The Prick of Conscience. This is taken as evidence of the tales' popularity

  • during the century after Chaucer's death. Fifty-five of these manuscripts are thought

  • to have been complete at one time, while 28 are so fragmentary that it is difficult to

  • ascertain whether they were copied individually or as part of a set. The Tales vary in both

  • minor and major ways from manuscript to manuscript; many of the minor variations are due to copyists'

  • errors, while others suggest that Chaucer added to and revised his work as it was being

  • copied and (possibly) distributed. Even the earliest surviving manuscripts are

  • not Chaucer's originals, the oldest being MS Peniarth 392 D (called "Hengwrt"), compiled

  • by a scribe shortly after Chaucer's death. The most beautiful of the manuscripts of the

  • tales is the Ellesmere Manuscript, and many editors have followed the order of the Ellesmere

  • over the centuries, even down to the present day. The first version of The Canterbury Tales

  • to be published in print was William Caxton's 1478 edition. Since this print edition was

  • created from a now-lost manuscript, it is counted as among the 83 manuscripts.

  • Order No authorial, arguably complete version of

  • the Tales exists and no consensus has been reached regarding the order in which Chaucer

  • intended the stories to be placed. Textual and manuscript clues have been adduced

  • to support the two most popular modern methods of ordering the tales. Some scholarly editions

  • divide the Tales into ten "Fragments". The tales that comprise a Fragment are closely

  • related and contain internal indications of their order of presentation, usually with

  • one character speaking to and then stepping aside for another character. However, between

  • Fragments, the connection is less obvious. Consequently, there are several possible orders;

  • the one most frequently seen in modern editions follows the numbering of the Fragments (ultimately

  • based on the Ellesmere order). Victorians frequently used the nine "Groups", which was

  • the order used by Walter William Skeat whose edition Chaucer: Complete Works was used by

  • Oxford University Press for most of the twentieth century, but this order is now seldom followed.

  • An alternative ordering (seen in an early manuscript containing the Canterbury Tales,

  • the early-fifteenth century Harley MS. 7334) places Fragment VIII before VI. Fragments

  • I and II almost always follow each other, as do VI and VII, IX and X in the oldest manuscripts.

  • Fragments IV and V, by contrast are located in varying locations from manuscript to manuscript.

  • Language Although no manuscript exists in Chaucer's

  • own hand, two were copied around the time of his death by Adam Pinkhurst, a scribe with

  • whom he seems to have worked closely before, giving a high degree of confidence that Chaucer

  • himself wrote the Tales. Chaucer's generation of English-speakers was among the last to

  • pronounce e at the end of words (so for Chaucer the word "care" was pronounced, not /ˈkɛər/

  • as in modern English). This meant that later copyists tended to be inconsistent in their

  • copying of final -e and this for many years gave scholars the impression that Chaucer

  • himself was inconsistent in using it. It has now been established, however, that -e was

  • an important part of Chaucer's morphology (having a role in distinguishing, for example,

  • singular adjectives from plural and subjunctive verbs from indicative). The pronunciation

  • of Chaucer's writing otherwise differs most prominently from Modern English in that his

  • language had not undergone the Great Vowel Shift: pronouncing Chaucer's vowels as they

  • would be pronounced today in European languages like Italian, Spanish or German generally

  • produces pronunciations more like Chaucer's own than Modern English pronunciation would.

  • In addition, sounds now written in English but not pronounced were still pronounced by

  • Chaucer: the word less than knightgreater than for Chaucer was, not. The pronunciation

  • of Chaucer's poetry can now be reconstructed fairly confidently through detailed philological

  • research; the following gives an IPA reconstruction of the opening lines of The Merchant's Prologue;

  • it is likely, moreover, that when a word ending in a vowel was followed by a word beginning

  • in a vowel, the two vowels were elided into one syllable, as seen here (with care and...):

  • 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 the

  • time, and storytelling contests had been around for hundreds of years. In 14th-century England

  • the English Pui was a group with an appointed leader who would judge the songs of the group.

  • The winner received a crown and, as with the winner of the Canterbury Tales, a free dinner.

  • It was common for pilgrims on a pilgrimage to have a chosen "master of ceremonies" to

  • guide them and organise the journey. Harold Bloom suggests that the structure is mostly

  • original, but inspired by the "pilgrim" figures of Dante and Virgil in The Divine Comedy.

  • The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio contains more parallels to the Canterbury Tales than

  • any other work. Like the Tales, it features a number of narrators who tell stories along

  • a journey they have undertaken (to flee from the Black Plague). It ends with an apology

  • by Boccaccio, much like Chaucer's Retraction to the Tales. A quarter of the tales in Canterbury

  • Tales parallel a tale in the Decameron, although most of them have closer parallels in other

  • stories. Some scholars thus find it unlikely that Chaucer had a copy of the work on hand,

  • surmising instead that he must have merely read the Decameron at some point. Each of

  • the tales has its own set of sources which have been suggested by scholars, but a few

  • sources are used frequently over several tales. These include poetry by Ovid, the Bible in

  • one of the many vulgate versions it was available in at the time (the exact one is difficult

  • to determine), and the works of Petrarch and Dante. Chaucer was the first author to utilise

  • the work of these last two, both Italians. Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy appears

  • in several tales, as do the works of John Gower, a known friend to Chaucer. A full list

  • is impossible to outline in little space, but Chaucer also, lastly, seems to have borrowed

  • from numerous religious encyclopaedias and liturgical writings, such as John Bromyard's

  • Summa praedicantium, a preacher's handbook, and Jerome's Adversus Jovinianum. Many scholars

  • say there is a good possibility Chaucer met Petrarch or Boccaccio.

  • Genre and structure Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories

  • built around a frame narrative or frame tale, a common and already long established genre

  • of its 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 decided

  • on for the day. The idea of a pilgrimage to get such a diverse collection of people together

  • for literary purposes was also unprecedented, though "the association of pilgrims and storytelling

  • was a familiar one". Introducing a competition among the tales encourages the reader to compare

  • the tales in all their variety, and allows Chaucer to showcase the breadth of his skill

  • in different genres and literary forms. While the structure of the Tales is largely

  • linear, with one story following another, it is also much more than that. In the General

  • Prologue, Chaucer describes, not the tales to be told, but the people who will tell them,

  • making it clear that structure will depend on the characters rather than a general theme

  • or moral. This idea is reinforced when the Miller interrupts to tell his tale after the

  • Knight has finished his. Having the Knight go first, gives one the idea that all will

  • tell their stories by class, with the Knight going first, followed by the Monk, but the

  • Miller's interruption makes it clear that this structure will be abandoned in favour

  • of a free and open exchange of stories among all classes present. General themes and points

  • of view arise as tales are told which are responded to by other characters in their

  • own tales, sometimes after a long lapse in which the theme has not been addressed.

  • Lastly, Chaucer does not pay much attention to the progress of the trip, to the time passing

  • as the pilgrims travel, or specific locations along the way to Canterbury. His writing of

  • the story seems focused primarily on the stories being told, and not on the pilgrimage itself.

  • Style The variety of Chaucer's tales shows the breadth

  • of his skill and his familiarity with countless rhetorical forms and linguistic styles. 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. Augustine, who focused

  • more on audience response and less on subject matter (a Virgilian concern). Augustine divided

  • literature into "majestic persuades", "temperate pleases", and "subdued teaches". Writers were

  • encouraged to write in a way that kept in mind the speaker, subject, audience, purpose,

  • manner, and occasion. Chaucer moves freely between all of these styles, showing favouritism

  • to none. He not only considers the readers of his work as an audience, but the other

  • pilgrims within the story as well, creating a multi-layered rhetorical puzzle of ambiguities.

  • Chaucer's work thus far surpasses the ability of any single medieval theory to uncover.

  • With this Chaucer avoids targeting any specific audience or social class of readers, focusing

  • instead on the characters of the story and writing their tales with a skill proportional

  • to their social status and learning. However, even the lowest characters, such as the Miller,

  • show surprising rhetorical ability, although their subject matter is more lowbrow. Vocabulary

  • also plays an important part, as those of the higher classes refer to a woman as a "lady",

  • while the lower classes use the word "wenche", with no exceptions. At times the same word

  • will mean entirely different things between classes. The word "pitee", for example, is

  • a noble concept to the upper classes, while in the Merchant's Tale it refers to sexual

  • intercourse. Again, however, tales such as the Nun's Priest's Tale show surprising skill

  • with words among the lower classes of the group, while the Knight's Tale is at times

  • extremely simple. Chaucer uses the same meter throughout almost

  • all of his tales, with the exception of Sir Thopas and his prose tales. It is a decasyllable

  • line, probably borrowed from French and Italian forms, with riding rhyme and, occasionally,

  • a caesura in the middle of a line. His meter would later develop into the heroic meter

  • of the 15th and 16th centuries and is an ancestor of iambic pentameter. He avoids allowing couplets

  • to become too prominent in the poem, and four of the tales (the Man of Law's, Clerk's, Prioress',

  • and Second Nun's) use rhyme royal. Historical context and themes

  • The Canterbury Tales was written during a turbulent time in English history. The Catholic

  • Church was in the midst of the Western Schism and, though it was still the only Christian

  • authority in Europe, was the subject of heavy controversy. Lollardy, an early English religious

  • movement led by John Wycliffe, is mentioned in the Tales, as is a specific incident involving

  • pardoners (who gathered money in exchange for absolution from sin) who nefariously claimed

  • to be collecting for St. Mary Rouncesval hospital in England. The Canterbury Tales is among

  • the first English literary works to mention paper, a relatively new invention which allowed

  • dissemination of the written word never before seen in England. Political clashes, such as

  • the 1381 Peasants' Revolt and clashes ending in the deposing of King Richard II, further

  • reveal the complex turmoil surrounding Chaucer in the time of the Tales' writing. Many of

  • his close friends were executed and he himself was forced to move to Kent to get away from

  • events in London. In 2004, Professor Linne Mooney was able to

  • identify the scrivener who worked for Chaucer as an Adam Pinkhurst. Mooney, then a professor

  • at the University of Maine and a visiting fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,

  • was able to match Pinkhurst's signature, on an oath he signed, to his lettering on a copy

  • of The Canterbury Tales that was transcribed from Chaucer's working copy. While some readers

  • look to interpret the characters of "The Canterbury Tales" as historical figures, other readers

  • choose to interpret its significance in less literal terms. After analysis of his diction

  • and historical context, his work appears to develop a critique against society during

  • his lifetime. Within a number of his descriptions, his comments can appear complimentary in nature,

  • but through clever language, the statements are ultimately critical of the pilgrim's actions.

  • It is unclear whether Chaucer would intend for the reader to link his characters with

  • actual persons. Instead, it appears that Chaucer creates fictional characters to be general

  • representations of people in such fields of work. With an understanding of medieval society,

  • one can detect subtle satire at work. Religion

  • The Tales reflect diverse views of the Church in Chaucer's England. After the Black Death,

  • many Europeans began to question the authority of the established Church. Some turned to

  • lollardy, while others chose less extreme paths, starting new monastic orders or smaller

  • movements exposing church corruption in the behaviour of the clergy, false church relics

  • or abuse of indulgences. Several characters in the Tales are religious figures, and the

  • very setting of the pilgrimage to Canterbury is religious (although the prologue comments

  • ironically on its merely seasonal attractions), making religion a significant theme of the

  • work. Two characters, the Pardoner and the Summoner,

  • whose roles apply the church's secular power, are both portrayed as deeply corrupt, greedy,

  • and abusive. A pardoner in Chaucer's day was a person from whom one bought Church "indulgences"

  • for forgiveness of sins, but pardoners were often thought guilty of abusing their office

  • for their own gain. Chaucer's Pardoner openly admits the corruption of his practice while

  • hawking his wares. The Summoner is a Church officer who brought sinners to the church

  • court for possible excommunication and other penalties. Corrupt summoners would write false

  • citations and frighten people into bribing them to protect their interests. Chaucer's

  • Summoner is portrayed as guilty of the very kinds of sins he is threatening to bring others

  • to court for, and is hinted as having a corrupt relationship with the Pardoner. In The Friar's

  • Tale, one of the characters is a summoner who is shown to be working on the side of

  • the devil, not God. Churchmen of various kinds are represented

  • by the Monk, the Prioress, the Nun's Priest, and the Second Nun. Monastic orders, which

  • originated from a desire to follow an ascetic lifestyle separated from the world, had by

  • Chaucer's time become increasingly entangled in worldly matters. Monasteries frequently

  • controlled huge tracts of land on which they made significant sums of money, while peasants

  • worked in their employ. The Second Nun is an example of what a Nun was expected to be:

  • her tale is about a woman whose chaste example brings people into the church. The Monk and

  • the Prioress, on the other hand, while not as corrupt as the Summoner or Pardoner, fall

  • far short of the ideal for their orders. Both are expensively dressed, show signs of lives

  • of luxury and flirtatiousness and show a lack of spiritual depth. The Prioress's Tale is

  • an account of Jews murdering a deeply pious and innocent Christian boy, a blood libel

  • against Jews which became a part of English literary tradition. 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. Pilgrims

  • would journey to cathedrals that preserved relics of saints, believing that such relics

  • held miraculous powers. Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been murdered

  • in Canterbury Cathedral by knights of Henry II during a disagreement between Church and

  • Crown. Miracle stories connected to his remains sprang up soon after his death, and the cathedral

  • became a popular pilgrimage destination. The pilgrimage in the work ties all of the stories

  • together, and may be considered a representation of Christians' striving for heaven, despite

  • weaknesses, disagreement, and diversity of opinion.

  • Social class and convention The upper class or nobility, represented chiefly

  • by the Knight and his Squire, was in Chaucer's time steeped in a culture of chivalry and

  • courtliness. Nobles were expected to be powerful warriors who could be ruthless on the battlefield,

  • yet mannerly in the King's Court and Christian in their actions. Knights were expected to

  • form a strong social bond with the men who fought alongside them, but an even stronger

  • bond with a woman whom they idealised to strengthen their fighting ability. Though the aim of

  • chivalry was to noble action, often its conflicting values degenerated into violence. Church leaders

  • often tried to place restrictions on jousts and tournaments, which at times ended in the

  • death of the loser. The Knight's Tale shows how the brotherly love of two fellow knights

  • turns into a deadly feud at the sight of a woman whom both idealise, with both knights

  • willing to fight the other to the death to win her. Chivalry was in Chaucer's day on

  • the decline, and it is possible that The Knight's Tale was intended to show its flaws, although

  • this is disputed. Chaucer himself had fought in the Hundred Years' War under Edward III,

  • who heavily emphasised chivalry during his reign. Two tales, Sir Topas and The Tale of

  • Melibee are told by Chaucer himself, who is travelling with the pilgrims in his own story.

  • Both tales seem to focus on the ill-effects of chivalrythe first making fun of chivalric

  • rules and the second warning against violence. The Tales constantly reflect the conflict

  • between classes. For example, the division of the three estates; the characters are all

  • divided into three distinct classes, the classes being "those who pray" (the clergy), "those

  • who fight" (the nobility), and "those who work" (the commoners and peasantry). Most

  • of the tales are interlinked by common themes, and some "quit" (reply to or retaliate against)

  • other tales. Convention is followed when the Knight begins the game with a tale, as he

  • represents the highest social class in the group. But when he is followed by the Miller,

  • who represents a lower class, it sets the stage for the Tales to reflect both a respect

  • for and a disregard for upper class rules. Helen Cooper, as well as Mikhail Bakhtin and

  • Derek Brewer, call this opposition "the ordered and the grotesque, Lent and Carnival, officially

  • approved culture and its riotous, and high-spirited underside." Several works of the time contained

  • the same opposition. Relativism versus realism

  • Chaucer's characters each express differentsometimes vastly differentviews of reality, creating

  • an atmosphere of relativism. As Helen Cooper says, "Different genres give different readings

  • of the world: the fabliau scarcely notices the operations of God, the saint's life focuses

  • on those at the expense of physical reality, tracts and sermons insist on prudential or

  • orthodox morality, romances privilege human emotion." The sheer number of varying persons

  • and stories renders the Tales as a set unable to arrive at any definite truth or reality.

  • Influence on literature It is sometimes argued that the greatest contribution

  • that this work made to English literature was in popularising the literary use of the

  • vernacular, English, rather than French or Latin. English had, however, been used as

  • a literary language for centuries before Chaucer's life, and several of Chaucer's contemporariesJohn

  • Gower, William Langland, and the Pearl Poetalso wrote major literary works in English. It

  • is unclear to what extent Chaucer was responsible for starting a trend rather than simply being

  • part of it. It is interesting to note that, although Chaucer had a powerful influence

  • in poetic and artistic terms, which can be seen in the great number of forgeries and

  • mistaken attributions (such as The Flower and the Leaf which was translated by John

  • Dryden), modern English spelling and orthography owes much more to the innovations made by

  • the Court of Chancery in the decades during and after his lifetime.

  • 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 John Gower. It has

  • been suggested that the poem was intended to be read aloud, which is probable as this

  • was a common activity at the time. However, it also seems to have been intended for private

  • reading as well, since Chaucer frequently refers to himself as the writer, rather than

  • the speaker, of the work. Determining the intended audience directly from the text is

  • even more difficult, since the audience is part of the story. This makes it difficult

  • to tell when Chaucer is writing to the fictional pilgrim audience or the actual reader.

  • Chaucer's works may have been distributed in some form during his lifetime in part or

  • in whole. Scholars speculate that manuscripts were circulated among his friends, but likely

  • remained unknown to most people until after his death. However, the speed with which copyists

  • strove to write complete versions of his tale in manuscript form shows that Chaucer was

  • a famous and respected poet in his own day. The Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts are

  • examples of the care taken to distribute the work. More manuscript copies of the poem exist

  • than for any other poem of its day except The Prick of Conscience, causing some scholars

  • to give it the medieval equivalent of "best-seller" status. Even the most elegant of the illustrated

  • manuscripts, however, is not nearly as decorated and fancified as the work of authors of more

  • respectable works such as John Lydgate's religious and historical literature.

  • 15th century John Lydgate and Thomas Occleve were among

  • the first critics of Chaucer's Tales, praising the poet as the greatest English poet of all

  • time and the first to show what the language was truly capable of poetically. This sentiment

  • was universally agreed upon by later critics into the mid-15th century. Glosses included

  • in Canterbury Tales manuscripts of the time praised him highly for his skill with "sentence"

  • and rhetoric, the two pillars by which medieval critics judged poetry. The most respected

  • of the tales was at this time the Knight's, as it was full of both.

  • Literary additions and supplements The incompleteness of the Tales led several

  • medieval authors to write additions and supplements to the tales to make them more complete. Some

  • of the oldest existing manuscripts of the tales include new or modified tales, showing

  • that even early on, such additions were being created. These emendations included various

  • expansions of the Cook's Tale, which Chaucer never finished, The Plowman's Tale, The Tale

  • of Gamelyn, the Siege of Thebes, and the Tale of Beryn.

  • The Tale of Beryn, written by an anonymous author in the 15th century, is preceded by

  • a lengthy prologue in which the pilgrims arrive at Canterbury and their activities there are

  • described. While the rest of the pilgrims disperse throughout the town, the Pardoner

  • seeks the affections of Kate the barmaid, but faces problems dealing with the man in

  • her life and the innkeeper Harry Bailey. As the pilgrims turn back home, the Merchant

  • restarts the storytelling with Tale of Beryn. In this tale, a young man named Beryn travels

  • from Rome to Egypt to seek his fortune only to be cheated by other businessmen there.

  • He is then aided by a local man in getting his revenge. The tale comes from the French

  • talerinus and exists in a single early manuscript of the tales, although it was printed

  • along with the tales in a 1721 edition by John Urry.

  • John Lydgate wrote The Siege of Thebes in about 1420. Like the Tale of Beryn, it is

  • preceded by a prologue in which the pilgrims arrive in Canterbury. Lydgate places himself

  • among the pilgrims as one of them and describes how he was a part of Chaucer's trip and heard

  • the stories. He characterises himself as a monk and tells a long story about the history

  • of Thebes before the events of the Knight's Tale. John Lydgate's tale was popular early

  • on and exists in old manuscripts both on its own and as part of the tales. It was first

  • printed as early as 1561 by John Stow and several editions for centuries after followed

  • suit. There are actually two versions of The Plowman's

  • Tale, both of which are influenced by the story Piers Plowman, a work written during

  • Chaucer's lifetime. Chaucer describes a Plowman in the General Prologue of his tales, but

  • never gives him his own tale. One tale, written by Thomas Occleve, describes the miracle of

  • the Virgin and the Sleeveless Garment. Another tale features a pelican and a griffin debating

  • church corruption, with the pelican taking a position of protest akin to John Wycliffe's

  • ideas. The Tale of Gamelyn was included in an early

  • manuscript version of the tales, Harley 7334, which is notorious for being one of the lower-quality

  • early manuscripts in terms of editor error and alteration. It is now widely rejected

  • by scholars as an authentic Chaucerian tale, although some scholars think he may have intended

  • to rewrite the story as a tale for the Yeoman. Dates for its authorship vary from 1340 to

  • 1370. Literary adaptations

  • Many literary works (both fiction and non-fiction alike) have used a similar frame narrative

  • to The Canterbury Tales as an homage. Science fiction writer Dan Simmons wrote his Hugo

  • Award winning novel Hyperion based on an extra-planetary group of pilgrims. Evolutionary biologist

  • Richard Dawkins used The Canterbury Tales as a structure for his 2004 non-fiction book

  • about evolution titled The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution. His

  • animal pilgrims are on their way to find the common ancestor, each telling a tale about

  • evolution. Henry Dudeney's book The Canterbury Puzzles

  • contains a part reputedly lost from what modern readers know as Chaucer's tales.

  • Historical mystery novelist P.C. Doherty wrote a series of novels based on The Canterbury

  • Tales, making use of the story frame and of Chaucer's characters.

  • Canadian author Angie Abdou translates The Canterbury Tales to a cross section of people,

  • all snow sports enthusiasts but from different social backgrounds, converging on a remote

  • backcountry ski cabin in British Columbia in the 2011 novel The Canterbury Trail.

  • Adaptations and homages The Two Noble Kinsmen, by William Shakespeare

  • and John Fletcher, a retelling of "The Knight's Tale", was first performed in 1613 or 1614

  • and published in 1634. In 1961, Erik Chisholm completed his opera, The Canterbury Tales.

  • The opera is in three acts: The Wyf of Bath’s Tale, The Pardoner’s Tale and The Nun’s

  • Priest’s Tale. Nevill Coghill's modern English version formed the basis of a musical version

  • first staged in 1964. A Canterbury Tale, a 1944 film jointly written

  • and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is loosely based on the narrative

  • frame of Chaucer's tales. The movie opens with a group of medieval pilgrims journeying

  • through the Kentish countryside as a narrator speaks the opening lines of the General Prologue.

  • The scene then makes a now-famous transition to the time of World War II. From that point

  • on, the film follows a group of strangers, each with his or her own story and in need

  • of some kind of redemption, are making their way to Canterbury together. The film's main

  • story takes place in an imaginary town in Kent and ends with the main characters arriving

  • at Canterbury Cathedral, bells pealing and Chaucer's words again resounding. A Canterbury

  • Tale is recognised as one of the Powell-Pressburger team's most poetic and artful films. It was

  • produced as wartime propaganda, using Chaucer's poetry, referring to the famous pilgrimage,

  • and offering photography of Kent to remind the public of what made Britain worth fighting

  • for. In one scene a local historian lectures an audience of British soldiers about the

  • pilgrims of Chaucer's time and the vibrant history of England.

  • Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1972 film The Canterbury Tales features several of the tales, some

  • of which keep close to the original tale and some of which are embellished. The Cook's

  • Tale, for instance, which is incomplete in the original version, is expanded into a full

  • story, and the Friar's Tale extends the scene in which the Summoner is dragged down to hell.

  • The film includes these two tales as well as the Miller's Tale, the Summoner's Tale,

  • the Wife of Bath's Tale, and the Merchant's Tale.

  • On April 26, 1986, American radio personality Garrison Keillor opened "The News from Lake

  • Wobegon" portion of the first live TV broadcast of his A Prairie Home Companion radio show

  • with a reading of the original Middle English text of the General Prologue. He commented,

  • "Although those words were written more than 600 years ago, they still describe spring."

  • English rock musician Sting paid tribute to Chaucer and the book with his 1993 concept

  • album Ten Summoner's Tales, which he described as ten songs (plus an epilogue number) with

  • no theme or subject tying them together. Sting's real name is Gordon Sumner, hence the reference

  • to the "Summoner" character in the record's title. In essence, the collection of songs

  • was composed as "a musical Canterbury Tales". Several more recent films, while they are

  • not based on the tales, do have references to them. For example, in the 1995 film Se7en,

  • the Parson's Tale is an important clue to the methods of a serial killer who chooses

  • his victims based on the seven deadly sins. The 2001 film A Knight's Tale took its name

  • from "The Knight's Tale". Although it bears little resemblance to the tale, it does feature

  • what Martha Driver and Sid Ray call an "MTV-generation" Chaucer who is a gambling addict with a way

  • with words. Scattered references to the Tales include Chaucer's declaration that he will

  • use his verse to vilify a summoner and a pardoner who have cheated him.

  • Television adaptations include Alan Plater's 1975 re-telling of the stories in a series

  • of plays for BBC2: Trinity Tales. In 2004, BBC again featured modern re-tellings of selected

  • tales. Notes

  • ^ Carlson, David. "The Chronology of Lydgate's Chaucer References". The Chaucer Review, Vol.

  • 38, No. 3 (2004), pp. 246-254. Accessed 6 January 2014.

  • ^ The name "Tales of Caunterbury" appears within the surviving texts of Chaucer's work.

  • Its modern name first appeared as Canterbury talys in John Lydgate's prologue to the Siege

  • of Thebes. ^ a b Pearsall, 8.

  • ^ Cooper, 6—7 ^ Pearsall, 10, 17.

  • ^ Cooper, 8. ^ a b c Cooper, 7

  • ^ Pearsall, 14–15. ^ Linne R. Mooney, "Chaucer’s Scribe", Speculum,

  • 81 (2006), 97–138. ^ e.g. Ian Robinson, Chaucer's Prosody: A

  • Study of the Middle English Verse Tradition (London: Cambridge University Press, 1971).

  • ^ Seminal studies included M. L. Samuels, "Chaucerian Final '-e'", Notes and Queries,

  • 19 (1972), 445–48, and D. Burnley, "Inflection in Chaucer's Adjectives", Neuphilologische

  • Mitteilungen, 83 (1982), 169–77. ^ Text from The Riverside Chaucer, ed. by

  • Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 153.

  • ^ Based on the information in Norman Davies, "Language and Versification", in The Riverside

  • Chaucer, ed. by Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. xxvxli.

  • ^ Cooper, p. 10. ^ Bloom, Harold (11 November 2009). "Road

  • Trip". New York Times. Retrieved 9 September 2013.

  • ^ Cooper, pp. 10–11. ^ Cooper, pp. 12–16.

  • ^ Brewer, p. 227. Although Chaucer undoubtedly studied the works of these celebrated writers,

  • and particularly of Dante before this fortunate interview; yet it seems likely, that these

  • excursions gave him a new relish for their compositions, and enlarged his knowledge of

  • the Italian fables. ^ Brewer, p. 277....where he became thoroughly

  • inbued with the spirit and excellence of the great Italian poets and prose-writers: Dante,

  • Petrarch, Boccaccio; and is said to have had a personal contact interview with one of these,

  • Petrarch. ^ Hendrickson, pp. 183–192. Professor G.

  • L. Hendrickson of the University of Chicago gives a detailed analysis as to Chaucer coming

  • in contact with Petrarch. ^ Rearden, p. 458. There can be no moral doubt

  • but that Chaucer knew Petrarch personally. They were both in France many times, where

  • they might have met. They were both courtiers. They both had an enthusiasm for scholarship.

  • Whether they met then, or whether Chaucer, when on his visit to Genoa, specially visited

  • the Italian, it does not appear....but the only reason that such a visit could not have

  • occurred lies in the fact that Petrarch himself does not record it. Still, on the other hand,

  • would he have mentioned the visit of a man who was the servant of a barbarous monarch,

  • and whose only claim to notice, literary-wise, was his cultivation of an unknown and uncouth

  • dialect that was half bastard French? ^ Skeat (1874), p. xxx. And we know that Petrarch,

  • on his own shewing, was so pleased with the story of Griselda that he learnt it by heart

  • as well as he could, for the express purpose of repeating it to friends, before the idea

  • of turning it into Latin occurred to him. Whence we may conclude that Chaucer and Petrarch

  • met at Padua early in 1373; that Petrarch told Chaucer the story by word of mouth, either

  • in Italian or French; and that Chaucer shortly after obtained a copy of Petrarch's Latin

  • version, which he kept constantly before him whilst making his own translation.

  • ^ "Sources and Analogues of the Canterbury Tales", 2002, p. 22.

  • ^ Cooper, 8–9. ^ Cooper, 17–18.

  • ^ Cooper, 18. ^ Cooper, 22–24.

  • ^ Cooper, 24–25. ^ Cooper, 25–26.

  • ^ Cooper, 5–6. ^ Linne R. Mooney (2006), "Chaucer's Scribe,"

  • Speculum, 81 : 97–138. ^ Donald R. Howard, Chaucer and the Medieval

  • World (London, 1987), pp. 410-417. ^ Bisson, pp. 49–51, 56–62.

  • ^ Bisson, pp. 50. ^ Bisson, pp. 61–64.

  • ^ Bisson, pp. 66–67. ^ Bisson, pp. 67–68.

  • ^ Bisson, pp. 73–75, 81. ^ Bisson, pp. 91–95.

  • ^ Rubin, 106–107. ^ "The Prioress's Tale", by Prof. Jane Zatta.

  • ^ Bisson, pp. 99–102. ^ Bisson, pp. 110–113.

  • ^ Bisson, pp. 117–119. ^ Bisson, pp. 123–131.

  • ^ Bisson, pp. 132–134. ^ Bisson, pp. 139–142.

  • ^ Bisson, pp. 138. ^ Bisson, pp. 141–142.

  • ^ Bisson, pp. 143. ^ a b Cooper, 19

  • ^ Cooper, 21. ^ Pearsall, 294-5.

  • ^ Pearsall, 295-97. ^ Pearsall, 298–302.

  • ^ Trigg, Stephanie, Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer from Medieval to Postmodern, Minneapolis:

  • University of Minnesota Press, 2002, p. 86. ISBN 0-8166-3823-3.

  • ^ Trigg, pp. 86–88, 97. ^ Trigg, pp. 88–97.

  • ^ Brewer, Charlotte, Editing Piers Plowman: The Evolution of the Text, Cambridge: Cambridge

  • University Press, 1996, pp. 8–9. ISBN 0-521-34250-3. ^ Ohlgren, Thomas, Medieval Outlaws, Parlor

  • Press, 2005, pp. 264–265. ISBN 1-932559-62-0. ^ Ellis, Steve, Chaucer at Large, Minneapolis:

  • University of Minnesota Press, 2000, pp. 64–65. ISBN 0-8166-3376-2.

  • ^ Pencak, William, The Films of Derek Jarman, Jefferson: McFarland & Co, 2002, pp. 178–9. ISBN 0-7864-1430-8.

  • ^ Bignell, Jonathan, Postmodern Media Culture, Aakar Books, 2007. ISBN 81-89833-16-2 pp.

  • 93–94. ^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan et al, The Medieval

  • Hero on Screen, Jefferson: McFarland, 2004, pp. 202–203. ISBN 0-7864-1926-1.

  • ^ "BBCDramaCanterbury Tales". BBC Drama article about the series. Retrieved

  • 6 May 2007. ^ "On These Walls: Inscriptions and Quotations

  • in the Buildings of the Library of Congress". Retrieved 31 December 2012.

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