Chaucer, Geoffrey - Canterbury Tales: the plot

Chaucer - Canterbury Tales: the plot

Geoffrey Chaucer is considered the father of English literature, because he built the basis for modern English and was able to provide us with an accurate portrait of the English context at that time. He was able to give us a portrait of the context he lived in. His works can be divided in three periods: French, Italian (an imitation of classical literature) and English.
The French period is so called because the poems which age back to this period are modelled on French literature.

The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales are Geoffrey Chaucer’s masterpiece and they belong to the English period. They are inspired by Boccaccio’s Decameron, but there are some differences:
1)Decameron is not a poem, but it is written using prose. Canterbury Tales are written in couplets;
2)In the Decameron the frame is the plague, but Chaucer chooses a “more English” frame: the pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury.
3)Decameron tells the story of some boys and girls from the aristocracy, but Chaucer chooses to represent middle-class members, since nobles would have come to Canterbury by coach, and townspeople would have to work;
4)Boccaccio is not a character, Chaucer is.

The plot

The Canterbury Tales are set in Spring, which is the symbol of rebirth, and the journey itself is a metaphor for the journey of life, but it is real: London represents the worldly pleasures, whilst Canterbury is holy.
Thirty pilgrims, including Chaucer, who is the reporting pilgrim, set off from an inn in London, and the host suggests that each pilgrim tells two stories on the way to Canterbury, and two on the way back. The teller of the greatest story will win a free supper, and whoever will give up along the way will have to pay.
Chaucer describes every pilgrim based on what he thinks about them or about the clothes they wear, or the way they move. Every story is preceded by a prologue and ends with a moral