| The Canterbury Tales |  |
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| The Canterbury Tales is a
marvelous collection of stories that are supposedly recited by a group
of pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at
Canterbury Cathedral. As the pilgrims ride together from London to
Canterbury, each agrees to tell tales to help pass the time.
Chaucer never completed the full cycle of tales that he had planned, but
the ones that he completed include some of the best social satire in the
English language.
You will read the "General Prologue," which is the introduction to the concept of the Tales and the vitally important introduction to the cast of characters. You will then read both the "Wife of Bath's Prologue" and the "Wife of Bath's Tale," which will give you some insight--at times perhaps shocking insight--into medieval attitudes toward women. And we will finish with "The Nun's Priest's Tale," a witty beast fable, where the main characters are a rooster and a hen. I require that you read these works in the original Middle English, and you will be tested on them in the original Middle English. However, if you need some help with the language you can go to the links at the right and find a way to locate some decent modern English translations of the works. Do bear in mind that the translator has sometimes distorted things a bit in an effort to maintain the rhyme and rhythm of the original; use the translation as a guide to reading the original, rather than as a replacement for it. Everything you ever wanted to know about Chaucer can be found on one
of the links from the Chaucer Metapage: For a brief biography of Chaucer, with links and a chronology, go to http://icg.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/varia/life_of_Ch/ch-life.html Learn more about the calamitous 14th century at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1w.html
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