The Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucerc. 1400Chaucer gave English literature its first great collection of stories told by ordinary people, a knight, a nun, a miller, a wife, each in a voice of their own.
Read this if you…
- want the foundational text of English literature
- want fun dirty short stories
Skip this if you…
- want a single sustained narrative
- don't like reading in verse (modern english translations are still best in poem form)
Why It Matters
Chaucer gave English literature its first great collection of stories told by ordinary people, a knight, a nun, a miller, a wife, each in a voice of their own. He showed that English, not French or Latin, could carry serious literary art. The tales are also raunchy, funny, and surprisingly modern about how people actually work.
The 
Take
Fantastic poetry and stories, it’s a translation but very sing songs. Can totally see the inspiration from Decameron. Funnier than that though, some great lines
Where to go next
- 1 Timothy by Paul. The Canterbury Tales built on it. - The Pardoner's entire sermon-theme — *Radix malorum est cupiditas*, cited 'Ad Thimotheum, 6°' — is lifted straight from *1 Timothy* 6:10 - Knowing Paul's line ('the love of money is the root of all evil') makes the irony land: the Pardoner preaches it relentlessly while being the greediest man on the pilgrimage - Chaucer is quoting Scripture to indict its own quoter — the source text is the hook on which the whole hypocrisy hangs
- The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. The Canterbury Tales built on it. - The pilgrims-swapping-tales structure isn't Chaucer's invention — scholars trace it straight to Boccaccio's *Decameron* - About a quarter of the Canterbury tales have Decameron counterparts, and the case that Chaucer actually read it is strong - Read Boccaccio first and you see the blueprint: a frame full of travelers, each with a story, that Chaucer carried north and made English
- The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. The Canterbury Tales built on it. - Chaucer translated the *Consolation* himself (the *Boece*), so its arguments are woven into the *Tales* by a hand that knew them line by line - The Knight's Tale layers Boethian thought on fortune and providence over its borrowed plot — the philosophy is Boethius - Reading the *Consolation* first surfaces the questions about fate and order that keep resurfacing across the pilgrims' stories
- The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. The Canterbury Tales built on it. - The *Tales* are steeped in Dante — sometimes in homage, sometimes in mischief - Chaucer retells Ugolino from *Inferno* XXXIII in the Monk's Tale and names "Dant" outright, the rare case of one canonical poet citing another by name - Read the *Commedia* first and you'll catch what Chaucer is doing: borrowing Dante's gravity for the Monk, then deflating his cosmic machinery in the *House of Fame*
- Metamorphoses by Ovid. The Canterbury Tales built on it. - Two of the *Tales* are Ovid wearing English dress — the Manciple's Tale retells Ovid's Phoebus and the crow, and the Wife of Bath's Tale reworks his Midas - Chaucer treated the *Metamorphoses* as a working library of plots; reading it first lets you catch exactly what he kept and what he changed - The clearest way to see Chaucer the magpie at work, borrowing from the great Roman storehouse of myth
- Judith by Unknown. The Canterbury Tales built on it. - The Monk's tragedy of Holofernes isn't invented — it's lifted straight from the Book of *Judith* - Chaucer keeps the heart of it: the sleeping general, the woman, the beheading, now reframed as fortune toppling the mighty - Read the source and you see exactly what Chaucer compresses into a few stanzas of medieval fall-of-princes verse
- The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare. The Canterbury Tales shaped it. - The single clearest case of Shakespeare reaching back to Chaucer — *The Two Noble Kinsmen* is a straight dramatization of the *Knight's Tale* - Palamon and Arcite, two cousins who fall for the same woman from a prison window, walk out of Chaucer's tale and onto Shakespeare's stage - The play's Prologue says so out loud, naming Chaucer and crediting him with the story
- Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare. The Canterbury Tales shaped it. - Shakespeare knew Chaucer well — and lifted the plot of *Troilus and Cressida* straight from Chaucer's *Troilus and Criseyde* - Chaucer is the English ancestor in the room: the lovers, the betrayal, the bitter aftertaste all come down through him
- Selected Poems by John Dryden. The Canterbury Tales shaped it. - Three centuries on, Dryden rebuilt three of these tales in modern English couplets for his *Fables, Ancient and Modern* - The Knight's Tale becomes his *Palamon and Arcite*; his Preface professes open veneration — "I could have done nothing without him" - Chaucer's pilgrims kept finding new poets to carry them: Dryden's versions were later re-adapted again by Voltaire
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. The Canterbury Tales shaped it. - Chaucer's *Knight's Tale* opens with Theseus, Duke of Athens, home from conquering the Amazons and about to wed Hippolyta — the exact frame Shakespeare hangs his comedy on - The play's Athens and its royal wedding come straight from Chaucer, whose language scholars hear echoing in the verse - Not a one-off borrowing: Chaucer was also Shakespeare's direct source for *The Two Noble Kinsmen*
- William Wordsworth, Selected Poems by William Wordsworth. The Canterbury Tales shaped it. - Wordsworth went so far as to translate Chaucer — *The Prioress' Tale*, *The Cuckoo and the Nightingale*, *The Manciple's Tale* — into modern English - He did it, in his own words, "mainly out of my love and reverence for Chaucer" - Five centuries on, one of the great Romantics still bent his ear to the medieval master
Depicted in Art
The Prioress on horseback in nun's habit, demure, holding her rosary; small marginal figure from the manuscript.
1405
Stout, red-bearded Miller on horseback, bagpipes at his shoulder, piping the pilgrims out of Southwark.
The Monk astride a dark horse, hood thrown back, dressed in fine secular riding clothes rather than the cloister.
1405
The Pardoner riding with long yellow hair to the shoulders, holding a relic-cross before him.
1405
The Knight, bearded and armored, rides a draped horse in profile, lance held upright; gold-and-blue marginal portrait from the manuscript.
1405
The Friar mounted, tonsured, in brown habit with cord belt; fleshy, smiling, hand raised in benediction.
1405
The young Squire on horseback, embroidered short gown, curled hair, playing a flute as he rides.
1405
The full company of pilgrims rides out of Southwark in a long horizontal frieze, Tabard Inn behind them, Knight and Squire leading.
Thomas Stothard, 1807
Chaucer himself depicted as a pilgrim on a brown horse, dressed in black, with forked beard and a penner hanging from his neck.
Geoffrey Chaucer (portrait, attrib. Ellesmere artist), 1405
Recommended Editions
Nevill Coghill
Penguin Classics · 2003
Coghill's verse translation has been the doorway into Chaucer for two generations. The bawdy parts stay bawdy and the Middle English stops being a wall, which is most of the battle.
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Deep Dive
What It's About
This summary gives away plot details.
Notable Quotes
“Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, / And bathed every veyne in swich licour / Of which vertu engendred is the flour;”
“Love is blind.”