100 stories.
Chaucer’s original plan was for over 100 stories, but only 24 were completed, some of which had already been written for earlier works.
How many tales are in the Canterbury Tales?
24 stories
The Wife of Bath’s Tale, one of the 24 stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
What was the original plan for the Canterbury Tales?
Geoffrey Chaucer spent over a decade writing The Canterbury Tales, from the late 1380s until his death in 1400. His original plan was to write over 100 stories as part of the collection of ”tales” but only wrote 24.
How many tales are each of the Canterbury pilgrims originally supposed to tell?
According to the Prologue, Chaucer’s intention was to write four stories from the perspective of each pilgrim, two each on the way to and from their ultimate destination, St. Thomas Becket’s shrine (making for a total of about 120 stories).
How many tales from the Canterbury Tales still exist today?
Whereas Chaucer’s original plan presumably envisaged over 100 stories, only 24 survive. The Canterbury Tales is traditionally dated to 1387 (although some tales appear to have been written before then). The poem survives in 92 manuscripts, but no manuscript of the work dates from Chaucer’s lifetime.
Who are the 31 pilgrims in Canterbury Tales?
The Pilgrims
- The Narrator. The narrator makes it quite clear that he is also a character in his book.
- The Knight. The first pilgrim Chaucer describes in the General Prologue, and the teller of the first tale.
- The Wife of Bath.
- The Pardoner.
- The Miller.
- The Prioress.
- The Monk.
- The Friar.
How many unfinished tales are there in Canterbury Tales?
If this was Chaucer’s original plan and he never intended to deviate from it, then the piece must be considered unfinished at only 24 tales. Some scholars claim, however, that Chaucer did finish the work, based on the tone and subject matter of the last tale and The Retraction appended to the manuscript.
How many tales did pilgrim tell?
two tales
He lays out his plan: each of the pilgrims will tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back. Whomever the Host decides has told the most meaningful and comforting stories will receive a meal paid for by the rest of the pilgrims upon their return.
Who are the 29 pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales?
The pilgrims are identified, from left to right, as “Reeve, Chaucer, Clerk of Oxenford, Cook, Miller, Wife of Bath, Merchant, Parson, Man of Law, Plowman, Physician, Franklin, 2 Citizens, Shipman, The Host, Sompnour, Manciple, Pardoner, Monk, Friar, a Citizen, Lady Abbess, Nun, 3 Priests, Squires Yeoman, Knight, [and]
How many manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales are there?
There are 55 medieval manuscripts in existence that put together some version of the Canterbury Tales. There are also some manuscript fragments, cases where a leaf or two remains from a book otherwise lost.
How many tales would have been told by the pilgrims had they been able to tell two stories on their way to Canterbury and another two on their way back to England?
The pilgrims agree to tell four stories each, two on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. Yet most pilgrims tell at most one story, and The Canterbury Tales abruptly with the Parson’s sermon and Chaucer’s Retraction.
How many pilgrims are there in the prologue to The Canterbury Tales?
There are 30 pilgrims who undertook this journey and every character belongs to a different section of the society. Some of the pilgrims are knight, squire, nun priest, prioress, reeve, parson, mason, weaver, clerk and the famous wife of bath.
What was the last of The Canterbury Tales?
The Canterbury Tales ends with Chaucer’s Retraction, in which he begs readers’ forgiveness for his work’s scandalous content, including that found in The Canterbury Tales and other past works.
What is the most famous Canterbury tale?
Perhaps the most famous – and best-loved – of all of the tales in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, ‘The Miller’s Tale‘ is told as a comic corrective following the sonorous seriousness of the Knight’s tale.
What is the last tale in The Canterbury Tales?
The Parson’s Tale, the final of the 24 stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The tale is a lengthy prose sermon on the seven deadly sins. Chaucer may have intended this tale, with its plethora of pious quotations, as a fitting close to the stories of the religious pilgrims.
Why are the 29 pilgrims heading to Canterbury?
Pilgrims traveled to visit the remains of Saint Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered in 1170 by knights of King Henry II. Soon after his death, he became the most popular saint in England.
Where are the 30 pilgrims headed in The Canterbury Tales?
Geoffey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written between 1387 and 1400, is a long poem concerning a group of thirty pilgrims on their way from Southwark, in south London, to the shrine of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury.
Who had 5 husbands Canterbury?
The Wife of Bath
The Wife of Bath begins the Prologue to her tale by establishing herself as an authority on marriage, due to her extensive personal experience with the institution. Since her first marriage at the tender age of twelve, she has had five husbands.
What stories are in Unfinished Tales?
Unfinished Tales also contains the only story about the long ages of Numenor before its downfall, and all that is known about such matters as the Five Wizards, the Palantiri and the legend of Amroth.
Is Unfinished Tales the same as Lost tales?
From what I can gather is that the Book of Lost Tales is a collection of early stories that would later become the Silmarillion, and that the Unfinished Tales are additional stories that are not in the Book of Lost Tales or the Silmarillion that were, of course, unfinished.
Who told the first tale in Canterbury Tales?
The Host, whose name, we find out in the Prologue to the Cook’s Tale, is Harry Bailey, suggests that the group ride together and entertain one another with stories. He decides that each pilgrim will tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back.