The Canterbury Tales

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1400

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue–“Chaucer’s Tales”

“The Monk’s Tale”–“The Pardoner’s Tale”

“The Wife of Bath’s Tale”–“Chaucer’s Retractions”

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Discussion Questions

Essay Topics

Why do you think Chaucer might have leavened with humor even the more serious and romantic of his tales (as in the squabbling gods of the Knight’s story)? How does humor seem to relate to Chaucer’s larger perspective on the world?

Chaucer left “The Cook’s Tale” unfinished. Write an ending for it based on the stories you’ve seen around it. What might become of Revelling [sic] Peterkin and his lowlife friends? What in the rest of The Canterbury Tales makes you think so?

Pick two adjacent tales in which the tellers seem to get on each other’s nerves (there are plenty to choose from!). How do these tales play off each other? What similar ideas are being addressed differently in each, and how do the poem’s themes evolve through different tellers?