The Canterbury Tales

the long version

Chaucer's tale of his motley band of travellers on their pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas a Becket have become legendary and still represent, in John Dryden's words, "God's plenty." The Canterbury Tales, compiled in the late fourteenth century, is an incisive portrait, infused with Chaucer's wry wit and vibrant, poetical languauge. He evokes a spectrum of colourful characters, from the bawdy Wife of Bath to the gallant Knight, the fastidious Prioress and the burly, drunken Miller. As they wend