Five-minute digest
The Canterbury Tales
Summary
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories framed by a pilgrimage. One April, the narrator, who calls himself Chaucer, is lodging at the Tabard Inn in Southwark when a company of some twenty-nine pilgrims arrives on its way to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. The General Prologue describes them one by one: a Knight back from crusade, his son the Squire, a dainty Prioress, a hunting Monk, a wheedling Friar, a poor Clerk of Oxford who would gladly learn and gladly teach, a Doctor of Physic who loves gold, the much-married Wife of Bath, a devout country Parson who practiced what he preached, his brother the Ploughman, a brawling Miller, a corrupt Summoner and a Pardoner selling false relics. The Host, Harry Bailly, proposes that each pilgrim tell tales on the road and that the best teller win a supper at the others' expense. Lots are drawn and the Knight begins. His tale, set in ancient Athens, tells of the Theban cousins Palamon and Arcite, imprisoned by Duke Theseus, who both fall in love with Emily on seeing her from their tower; years of rivalry end in a great tournament, where Arcite wins but is thrown and dies, and Theseus, speaking of the First Mover who orders all things, counsels them to make a virtue of necessity and gives Emily to Palamon. The Miller answers with a bawdy farce, and the tales go on in quarrel and reply: romances, saints' legends, sermons, beast fables and fabliaux, ending with the Parson's treatise on penitence and Chaucer's prayer asking forgiveness. In the Nun's Priest's Tale, the proud rooster Chanticleer dreams of a beast in the yard; his wife Pertelote blames indigestion and prescribes laxatives, while he cites learned authorities that dreams can warn. The fox flatters him into crowing with his eyes shut and carries him off, but Chanticleer tricks the fox into opening his mouth and escapes, and both learn a moral. The work was never finished. School Launch reads selections, the General Prologue, the Knight's Tale and the Nun's Priest's Tale, while the full text of the Tales is provided for further reading.
Top Lessons
Character known by deeds
The General Prologue judges each pilgrim by the fit between calling and conduct. The Parson and the Clerk are praised because their lives match their words; the Friar and Pardoner are exposed because theirs do not.
Making a virtue of necessity
Theseus closes the Knight's Tale by arguing that the First Mover has set limits on every life, and that wisdom accepts what cannot be avoided. The Knight's Tale teaches patience and order in a world of sudden loss.
Beware of flattery
Chanticleer is caught because he believes the fox's praise and closes his eyes; he escapes by using the fox's own vanity. The beast fable teaches humility and watchfulness through comedy.
The road to the heavenly Jerusalem
The pilgrimage frame and the Parson's closing treatise turn the journey to Canterbury into an image of life's journey to God. Even the bawdy and quarrelsome tales are set within that larger road.
Verified Quotes
Frequently cited
“WHEN that Aprilis, with his showers swoot”
“And specially, from every shire’s end Of Engleland, to Canterbury they wend, The holy blissful Martyr for to seek”
“And though that he was worthy he was wise”
Frequently cited
“He was a very perfect gentle knight”
Frequently cited
“Sounding in moral virtue was his speech, And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach”
“But Christe’s lore, and his apostles’ twelve, He taught, and first he follow’d it himselve”
“That if gold ruste, what should iron do”
“What is this world? what aske men to have? Now with his love, now in his colde grave”
Frequently cited
“To make a virtue of necessity”
Frequently cited
“Murder will out, that see we day by day”
“Radix malorum est cupiditas”
“Take the fruit, and let the chaff be still”
Medical Lens
The Tales are a rich source for medieval medicine. The Doctor of Physic knows the causes of every malady, and of what humour engendered, reads astrology and the ancient authorities, profited from the plague and loved gold. In the Knight's Tale Arcite's lovesickness is described as a malady engendered of melancholic humours, and his death follows a chest wound that neither vomiting nor laxatives can purge. In the Nun's Priest's Tale Pertelote diagnoses Chanticleer's nightmare as a surplus of red choler and melancholy and prescribes digestives and herbal laxatives, while he answers with learned arguments that dreams can be warnings. In the Pardoner's Tale the youngest rioter buys poison from an apothecary to kill his companions, a reminder that the same trade sold cures and poisons.
- General Prologue, the Doctor of Physic
The portrait of the physician, his learning in humours and astrology, and his love of gold, which in physic is a cordial.
- The Knight's Tale, Arcite in exile
Arcite wastes with the lover's malady, engendered of melancholic humours.
- The Knight's Tale, Arcite's death
Arcite's crushed chest festers and neither vomit upward nor laxative downward can help him.
- The Nun's Priest's Tale
Pertelote's diagnosis of humours too abundant and her herbal prescription; Chanticleer's defense of prophetic dreams.
- The Pardoner's Tale
The youngest rioter buys rat poison from an apothecary to kill his companions.