It was an all girls school and any whiff of a sexual innuendo sent us into fits of giggles even at 17. However, it brought the text to life and although we were all at first sceptical and fairly uncomprehending – this is not English we thought – we were soon drawn into the rhythms of the language and laughing uproariously. This was initially greeted with significant embarrassment and tittering. Probably like many out there, I was first introduced to Chaucer at A Level where my dynamic English teacher made us read the ‘Wife of Bath’s Tale’ aloud with accents. However, what remains important about them to my mind is not whether he uses this word rather than that or whether he was influenced by French or German literary antecedents, but the stories themselves. There is an enormous amount of scholarship surrounding Chaucer and the authorship of his tales. Furthermore, many of the tales have either been lost or were never completed due to Chaucer’s untimely death. Moreover, as with Shakespeare the numerous different copies transcribed by scribes and relayed by word of mouth have resulted in many of the tales having multiple versions and some becoming mere fragments. They are drawn from and inspired by other literature of the era as well as Chaucer’s own imagination.

As with Shakespeare, many of the tales are not necessarily original.

The charismatic host will then decide on the winner. Originally conceived as a vast project whereby a group of disparate individuals from all walks of life undertake a pilgrimage to Canterbury and decide to establish a competition on route to alleviate the boredom (itself a humorous joke on the fact that they should all really be considering their sins and thinking on God): a story telling competition – they will relay one tale each on the way there and one on the way back. Laing Purves (1838-1873) “for popular perusal” and the language is mostly updated.‘The Canterbury Tales’ has survived for some 650 years and with good reason. The characters, introduced in the General Prologue of the book, tell tales of great cultural relevance. The genres also vary, and include romance, Breton lai, sermon, beast fable, and fabliau. The themes of the tales vary, and include topics such as courtly love, treachery, and avarice. The tales, some of which are originals and others not, are contained inside a frame tale and told by a group of pilgrims on their way from Southwark to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century (two of them in prose, the rest in verse). Download cover art Download CD case insert The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey chaucer the pardoner's tale