Summary Of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

THE PROLOGUE TO CANTERBURY TALES AS THE PORTRAIT GALLERY OF 14TH CENTURY ENGLAND

Geoffrey Chaucer was the greatest poet of middle ages and known as the father of English Literature.

The fourteenth century England is significant because the devastation of the Black Death and the Peasant’s Revolt, the Hundred Years War with France and the great economic and social changes took place during this medieval century. Renaissance was also in the early stages of development.

Chaucer’s most famous work to date is The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales which is a portrait gallery of 14th century England during these tumultuous events that shaped the history of the world.

The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales gives us the background of the behaviour of the pilgrims who are part of the entourage. All these pilgrims represent the “English society” of the fourteenth century. The pilgrims are people of all ranks and status in society; and in the description of their conduct, attire,horses etc, with which the poet has introduced them, we see the portrait gallery of the social state of England in the fourteenth century. They are – The pilgrims include a knight, his son a squire, the knight 's yeoman, a prioress, a second nun,the nun 's priest, a friar, monk, a merchant, clerk, sergeant of law, a franklin, a haberdasher, a carpenter, a weaver, a dyer, a tapestry weaver, a cook, shipman, a doctor of physic, a wife of Bath, a parson, his brother a plowman, a miller, a manciple, a reeve, a