Poetry
The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer · 1400
Opening lines
Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Twenty-nine pilgrims on their way to the tomb of Thomas Becket meet at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, south of London. The innkeeper, Harry Bailly, offers to accompany them and sets them a contest: each will tell stories on the way there and on the way back, and the best storyteller will have a supper paid for by the others. Lot picks the knight to begin; the miller, drunk, then forces his way in with the story of a cheated carpenter, and the reeve, a former carpenter, answers him with that of a dishonest miller.
Context
The work was left unfinished: the prologue announces four tales per pilgrim, two on the way out and two on the way back, one hundred and twenty in all, and twenty-four exist, several of which break off midway. The return journey is never narrated and we do not know who wins the contest. The book was printed by Caxton around 1476, one of the first to come off the English presses. The first French translation, in verse, by the chevalier de Chatelain, appeared in London from 1857 to 1860.
Who it is for
A collection of tales in Middle English, read in France in modern translations; each can be read separately and nothing obliges you to read them all.
Prizes and reception
Eighty-four manuscripts, complete or partial, survive, the earliest from around the time of the author's death; only one English poem of the period has more.
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