When did Geoffrey Chaucer write The Canterbury Tales?
Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales between 1387 and 1400. Most scholars believe the work was incomplete at the time of his death.
Questions about The Canterbury Tales
Short answers, pulled from the story.
How many tales are in The Canterbury Tales?
Twenty-four tales survive. In the General Prologue Chaucer stated his intention to write four stories from each of roughly thirty pilgrims, which would have produced around 120 stories in total.
What is the setting of The Canterbury Tales?
The Tales are set within a fictional storytelling contest among pilgrims traveling from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.
Who was the scribe who copied the Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales?
The copyist has been identified as a scrivener named Adam Pinkhurst. A poem apparently written by Chaucer addresses his own scribe by the name Adam, leading to the widely accepted hypothesis that Pinkhurst worked with Chaucer personally.
What was the first printed edition of The Canterbury Tales?
William Caxton published the first printed edition in 1476, making it one of the first books printed in England. Only ten copies of that edition are known to survive.
How did The Canterbury Tales influence the English language?
The Tales may have been responsible for the popularization of the English vernacular in mainstream literature, displacing French and Latin. Chaucer's metre was a direct ancestor of iambic pentameter, and his use of London Middle English shaped the standard written form of the language.