The Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer

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Tags: Classics, Poetry

ISBN:0393925870

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Description

In the middle of a springtime pilgrimage, several weary travelers on their way to Canterbury decide to stop for the night. The men and women gather at an inn and begin a story-telling contest to see who can entertain the group with the best tale. Whoever wins will have his or her way paid by the others. All readers of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are invited to pull up a chair alongside this diverse group of characters and listen to their delightful yarns. Opening this celebrated fourteenth-century work is a free pass to a wide variety of comedy, romance, and thrilling excitement. As each guest—the knight, the nun, the parson, the carpenter, the sailor, and so on—takes center stage, the stories told reveal something unique about their tellers and about life in the Middle Ages. One of the most important works of early English literature, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales remains fresh, funny, and provocative to this day.

Opening Lines (Experimental)

THE PROLOGUE.
That toward Canterbury woulde ride.
And eke in what array that they were in:
And at a Knight then will I first begin.
Truth and honour, freedom and courtesy.
At Alisandre <6> he was when it was won.
No Christian man so oft of his degree.
At many a noble army had he be.
And foughten ...