The Canterbury Tales

Synopsis

Chaucers finest work begins at the Tabard Inn, where thirty travelers of widely varying classes and occupations are gathering to make the annual pilgrimage to Beckets shrine at Canterbury. It is agreed that each traveler will tell four tales to help pass the time during their long journey, and that the host of the inn will reward the best storyteller with a free supper upon their return. Thus we hear, translated into modern English, the knights tale, the merchants tale, the millers tale, the wife of Baths tale, twentysome tales in all. Some are bawdy, some spiritual, some romantic, some mysterious, some chivalrous. Between the stories, the travelers converse, joke, and argue, revealing much of their individual outlooks upon life as well as what life was like in latefourteenthcentury England.