The Canterbury Tales

Chaucer's unfinished frame poem: pilgrims telling tales from knight to miller on the road to Canterbury.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Geoffrey Chaucer

type

Frame narrative / tale collection

era

Medieval England (c. 1387–1400)

language

Middle English

verse form

Rhyming couplets (mostly)

cantos count

24

Core Principles & Analysis

• Planned as perhaps 120 tales; Chaucer completed about 24 before his death in 1400.
• The General Prologue's portrait gallery of English estates founded English character writing.
• It is among the first major works in English rather than French or Latin.

Sources

• Wikipedia: The Canterbury Tales