The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales characters, by Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, written, oh, gee, a long time ago, (between 1387 and 1400) by Geoffrey Chaucer, is an example of a story within a story narration. A group of travelers, the narrator plus twenty-nine others, meet at an inn before they set out for Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket. The group of them decide to travel together.  The innkeeper decides to go with them, and suggests to the group that to make their journey more enjoyable on the way, that each of them will tell two stories on the way there and two on the way back, and he, the innkeeper, will decide which is the best story. Then, the winner will be given a meal paid by the others at the journey's end. The tales were never finished because Chaucer died before completing them. But the stories the characters gave, and the descriptions of the many characters give us a glimpse into what life was like back in the day. I particularly enjoyed the story about Chanticleer and Pertelote, a mock-heroic story which was
a romance between a rooster and a hen, and the Pardoner's story. The nun's priest's tale, the one about Chanticleer, the rooster, and Pertelote, the hen, was funny, and the Pardoner's story was a good reminder that greed can do great damage.
I recommend The Canterbury Tales to people who enjoy stories from history, and learning about life from long ago.