The Canterbury Tales

By Geoffrey Chaucer

While Geoffrey Chaucer composed several magnificent works of poetry, his reputation as “the father of English literature” rests mainly on The Canterbury Tales, a group of stories told by assorted pilgrims en route to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. From the mirthful and bawdy to the profoundly moral, the tales, taken in their entirety, reflect not only the manners and mores of medieval England, but indeed, the full comic and tragic dimensions of the human condition. Considered the greatest collection of narrative poems in English literature, The Canterbury Tales was composed in the Middle English of Chaucer’s day, possibly to be read aloud at the court of Richard II. However, their grandeur, humor, and relevance are timeless, as readers of this authoritative edition will discover.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jan 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9780735253582

Geoffrey Chaucer

Often referred to as the father of English poetry, Geoffrey Chaucer was a fourteenth-century philosopher, alchemist, astrologer, bureaucrat, diplomat, and author of many significant poems. Chaucer’s writing was influential in English literary tradition, as it introduced new rhyming schemes and helped develop the vernacular tradition—the use of everyday English—rather than the literary French and Latin, which were common in written works of the time. Chaucer’s best-known—and most imitated—works include The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, The Book of the Duchess, and The House of Fame.