Synopsis The frame story of the poem, as set out

in the 858 lines of Middle English which make up the general prologue, is of a

religious pilgrimage. The narrator, Geoffrey Chaucer, is in The Tabard in

Southwark, where he meets a group of "sundry folk" who are all on the way to

Canterbury, the site of the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket.

The setting is April, and the prologue starts by singing the praises of that

month whose rains and warm western wind restore life and fertility to the earth

and its inhabitants. This abundance of life, the narrator says, prompts people

to go on pilgrimages; in England, the goal of such pilgrimages is the shrine

of Thomas Becket. The narrator falls in with a group of pilgrims, and the

largest part of the prologue is taken up by a description of them; Chaucer seeks

to describe their 'condition', their 'array', and their social 'degree':

To telle yow al the condicioun, Of ech of hem, so as it semed me,

And whiche they weren, and of what degree,

And eek in what array that they were inne,

And at a knyght than wol I first bigynne.

The pilgrims include a knight, his son a squire, the knight's yeoman, a prioress

accompanied by a second nun and the nun's priest, a monk, a friar, a

merchant, a clerk, a sergeant of law, a franklin, a haberdasher, a carpenter, a

weaver, a dyer, a tapestry weaver, a cook, a shipman, a doctor of physic, a

wife of Bath, a parson, his brother a plowman, a miller, a manciple, a reeve,

a summoner, a pardoner, the host, and a portrait of Chaucer himself. At the end

of the section, the Host proposes the story-telling contest: each pilgrim will

tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back.

Whoever tells the best story, with "the best sentence and moost solaas" is to be

given a free meal. The Tales

General Prologue The Knight's Tale

The Miller's Tale The Reeve's Tale

The Cook's Tale {Unfinished} The Man of Law's Tale

The Tale of Gamelyn intended by Chaucer for The Cook's Tale?

The Wife of Bath's Tale The Friar's Tale

The Summoner's Tale The Clerk's Tale

The Merchant's Tale The Squire's Tale

The Franklin's Tale The Physician's Tale

The Pardoner's Tale The Shipman's Tale

The Prioress Tale Sir Thopas Tale told by Chaucer

{Unfinished} The Tale of Melibee told by Chaucer

The Monk's Tale The Nun's Priest's Tale

The Second Nun's Tale The Canon's Yeoman's Tale

The Manciple's Tale The Parson's Tale

Chaucer's Retraction The Plowman's Tale a 15th-century

addition to the Canterbury Tales Siege of Thebes a 15th-century addition

to the Canterbury Tales Prologue and Tale of Beryn a 15th

Century addition to the Canterbury Tales which tells of the epilogue after the

Pilgrims arrive in Canterbury Gallery of the Pilgrims

Structure The General Prologue establishes the

frame for the Tales as a whole and introduces the characters/story tellers.

These are introduced in the order of their rank in accordance with the three

medieval social estates. These characters, while seemingly

realistically described, are also representative of their estates and

models with which the others in the same estate can be compared and contrasted.

The structure of the General Prologue is also intimately linked with the

narrative style of the tales. As the narrative voice has been under critical

scrutiny for some time, so too has the identity of the narrator himself. Though

fierce debate has taken place on both sides, it should be noted that most

contemporary scholars believe that the narrator is meant to be some degree of

Chaucer himself. Some scholars, like William W. Lawrence, claim that the

narrator is Geoffrey Chaucer in person. While others, like Marchette Chute for

instance, contest that the narrator is instead a literary creation like the

other pilgrims in the tales. Manly attempted to identify pilgrims

with real 14th century people. In some instances such as Summoner and Friar, he

attempts localization to a small geographic area. The Man of Law is

identified as Thomas Pynchbek who was chief baron of the exchequer. Sir John

Bussy was an associate of Pynchbek. He is identified as the Franklin. The

Pembroke estates near Baldeswelle supplied the portrait for the unnamed

Reeve. Translation

= First 18 lines = The following is the first 18 lines of

the General Prologue. The text was written in a dialect associated with

London and spellings associated with the then-emergent Chancery Standard.

In modern prose: When April with its sweet showers has

pierced March's drought to the root, bathing every vein in such liquid by

whose virtue the flower is engendered, and when Zephyrus with his sweet breath

has also enlivened the tender plants in every wood and field, and the young sun

is halfway through Aries, and small birds that sleep all night with an open

eye make melodies, then people long to go on pilgrimages, and palmers seek

foreign shores and distant shrines known in sundry lands, and especially they

wend their way to Canterbury from every shire of England in order to seek the

holy blessed martyr, who has helped them when they were sick.

References External links

Side by side Translation into Modern Verse - Illustrated

Modern Translation of the General Prologue and Other Resources at eChaucer

"Prologue to The Canterbury Tales" – a plain-English retelling for

non-scholars.