The Canterbury Tales, Collection of stories by Geoffrey Chaucer, written in Middle English in 1387–1400.
The collection’s framing device is a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury, Kent. The 30 pilgrims who undertake the journey gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, across the Thames from London. They engage in a storytelling contest as they travel, and Harry Bailly, host of the inn, serves as master of ceremonies for the contest. A total of 24 tales are told. The work is a mix of verse and prose.
This framing device enabled Chaucer to bring together people from many walks of life: knight, monk, merchant, and miller, among others. Each story has come to be known by the person who tells it: The Knight’s Tale, The Miller’s Tale, and the like. The multiplicity of social types, as well as the device of the storytelling contest itself, allowed Chaucer to present a highly varied collection of literary genres: religious legend, romance, saint’s life, allegorical tale, beast fable, and more.
Chaucer wrote most of the tales in heroic couplets, and he is sometimes credited with being the first in English literature to use the form extensively. He did not complete his full plan for The Canterbury Tales: the return journey from Canterbury is not included, and some of the pilgrims do not tell stories.
