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The Prologue from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
The Prologue from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales Author:Geoffrey Chaucer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: m THE PLAN OF THE CANTERBURY TALES At some time later than 1385, and probably in the year 1887, Chaucer began writing and compiling the Canterbury Tales. T... more »he plan was an ambitious one, Thirty pilgrims, including Chaucer, bound for the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket, while lying at the " Tabard " in Southwark, agree at their host's—Harry Bailey's — suggestion to tell each two tales going and two coming. This would make in all one hundred and twenty tales, or with those of a chance addition to the party, the Canon's Yeoman, one hundred and twenty- four. These tales would have been linked together by appropriate talk of the pilgrims, some description of the roads, and presumably some account of the stay at Canterbury. The journey, though a scant sixty miles, would have taken about three days and a half either way. Such was Chaucer's original plan as set forth in the Prologue, 11. 790ff. But it appears that he very soon gave up this plan. The Canterbury Tales, as we have them, cover roughly the journey to Canterbury, each pilgrim telling one tale, and the host, " judge and reportour " of the storytelling, expresses his contentment as the journey draws to a close: — " Lordynges everichoon, Now lakketh us no tales mo than oon ; Fulfilled is my sentence and my decree ; I trow thai we han herd ofech degree. Almoost fulfild is at myn ordinaunce." if this were Chaucer's final plan, the " boke of theTales of Canterbury," with twenty-three out of thirty- one story-tellers represented by twenty-four tales, is more than two thirds finished. It should be added that a number of the dialogue " links " between talei were never written, so that the tales exist in nine detached groups (designated by the letters A—I). Of the twenty-four tales written, four remain unfinished, two (Cha...« less