Piyangie's Reviews > The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of twenty-four tales which is set as tales told by a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury Cathedral in Kent from Southwark Cathedral in London to pay homage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett. The group includes Chaucer as a pilgrim, and he narrates the stories told by other pilgrims including the two tales told by him on the journey.

The storytellers represent different classes in the English society of the time. Through them, Chaucer painted a faithful picture of the lives, attitudes, and morals of various social classes and types of people in medieval England. Chaucer had been a civil servant and had been in the King's service as the controller of customs, justice of the peace, and clerk of the King's work. These government positions must have brought him in direct touch with the commoners of different classes which later influenced him in his tales.

The tales were written in Middle English which was the language of the Anglo-Saxon laypeople. The language of authority and nobility at the time (following the Norman Conquest) was French and the scholarly language was Latin. In such a setting, Chaucer chose Middle English to write his tales. It may be that he wanted his stories to reach the common public, or it also may be that he wanted to promote the commoner's language.

The tales touch on the themes of marital relationships, adultery, chivalry, greed, morals, and religion. Chaucer is ironic and critical on these themes, but at times, his irony was lost on me. The writing is witty and humorous for the most part, but surprisingly, I also found it to be lewd. By modern standards, most of the tales are gross and offensive. But I learned that medieval England culture was relatively coarse in comparison with today. (That was a relief! Also made me want to revisit Voltaire's Candide).

Most of the tales were fun to read (despite a few boring ones), and there were some tales I enjoyed very much, like Knight's Tale (which is my favourite out of all), The Clerk's Tale, The Merchant's Tale, The Shipman's Tale, The Franklin's Tale and the Wife of Bath's Tale . Overall, however, the collection fell short of my expectations.