Canterbury Tales, The

noun

1. an uncompleted sequence of tales by Chaucer, written for the most part after 1387.

The Canterbury Tales

1. A work written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late fourteenth century about a group of pilgrims, of many different occupations and personalities, who meet at an inn near London as they are setting out for Canterbury, England . Their host proposes a storytelling contest to make the journey more interesting.

Notes

The tales, which are almost all in rhyme, have many different styles, reflecting the great diversity of the pilgrims; some are notoriously bawdy. The language of The Canterbury Tales is Middle English .

Some of the more famous stories are “The Knight's Tale,” “The Miller's Tale,” and “The Wife of Bath's Tale.”