The Canterbury Tales

Written in the late 1300s, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is one of the greatest surviving works of Middle English literature, and was a huge influence on later writers from Shakespeare to Keats, among many others.

This guide refers to Neville Coghill’s modern English translation (Penguin, 2003).

Plot Summary

The Canterbury Tales tells the story of a group of pilgrims traveling from London to Canterbury to visit the holy shrine of St. Thomas Becket. This is a story made of stories: Each of the pilgrims takes a turn as a storyteller, with a banquet promised to the person who tells the best tale.

The poem begins with a Prologue, in which a shrewd narrator—who, oddly enough, shares a name with his author—stops at the Tabard Inn on the night before his pilgrimage begins. There, he meets the host of other pilgrims who will become his traveling companions and assesses the character of each. They’re a lively, hearty bunch, and often not exactly as one would expect: The religious figures, in particular, are often corrupt and flesh-loving (though there are a few truly holy people among them). The tavern’s Host suggests the pilgrims should have a

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