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How to Read The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (Patreon)

Published:
2025-04-13 20:26:29
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2026-06
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Content

It’s time to begin our pilgrimage to Canterbury with Geoffrey Chaucer as we engage with one of the most vibrant story compendiums ever penned.

Our reading will teach us about storytelling, comedy, romance, experience vs authority, class, men and women, the evolution of poetry, and the human condition.

Today we’re discussing how to appreciate the tales and bring ourselves fully to the father of English Literature.

Video Timestamps:

0:00 welcome to Chaucer’s England

2:00 how the Canterbury Tales was born

4:00 how to read the Canterbury Tales

5:00 what is the Canterbury Tales?

6:00 Chaucer’s frame narrative

7:00 pilgrimage as metaphor for life

7:30 Tabard Inn to Canterbury Cathedral

8:00 how long would the journey take?

9:00 Harry Bailey’s storytelling contest

10:00 how many tales are in the collection?

11:00 popularity of story compendiums

12:00 prologues of the Canterbury Tales

14:00 how the Canterbury Tales begins

15:00 juxtaposition, sequencing, patterns

16:00 from Knight’s Tale to Miller’s Tale

17:00 themes in the Canterbury Tales

18:00 Chaucer speaks universally

19:00 three estates social hierarchy

21:00 England’s population post-Black Death

22:00 peasantry in medieval England

23:00 social position of Chaucer’s pilgrims

24:00 Chaucer’s civil service career

25:00 how Chaucer becomes a poet

26:00 Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV

27:00 biography of Geoffrey Chaucer

28:00 society seen as unified body

29:00 the Peasants Revolt of 1381

30:00 Chaucer’s estates satire

31:00 Chaucerian characterisation

34:00 dramatic voice or full persona?

35:00 do we recognise the characters?

36:00 what were pilgrimages like?

37:00 Thomas Beckett’s Canterbury tomb

38:00 why did people go on pilgrimages?

40:00 seeking holy relics and pardons

41:00 the big business of pilgrimages

42:00 the character of the Pardoner

43:00 Great Schism in Medieval Europe

44:00 Chaucer on religious hypocrisy

45:00 taking a great vicarious pilgrimage

46:00 befriending one pilgrim as entrance

47:00 how I fell in love with Chaucer

48:00 appreciating the Wife of Bath

51:00 on experience vs authority

53:00 the Wife of Bath’s Prologue

55:00 the Wife’s relationship advice

57:00 Englishmen of Chaucer’s time

59:00 the Wife of Bath’s Tale

1:00:00 is Chaucer really that difficult?

1:02:00 writing before standardisation

1:03:00 understand the Great Vowel Shift

1:04:00 Middle English pronunciation

1:05:00 why did pronunciation change?

1:06:00 the cultural dominance of French

1:07:00 Chaucer’s English was revolutionary

1:08:00 medieval literacy and oral narrative

1:09:00 impact of dialects on readership

1:10:00 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

1:11:00 medieval versification traditions

1:12:00 what does Chaucer’s English sound like?

1:13:00 reading the General Prologue together

1:15:00 ‘whan that Aprille with his shoures soote’

1:17:00 what I think about Chaucer’s English

1:18:00 comparing with the Gawain-poet

1:19:00 reading Old English from Beowulf

1:20:00 making Shakespeare sound easy

1:21:00 practical tips for reading Chaucer

1:24:00 my hands-on reading approach

1:26:00 common Middle English words

1:29:00 Chaucer book club lecture series

1:33:00 your experience with Chaucer?

Resources:

  • Editions: I recommend having both the original text and a Modern English translation on hand. The original is available in Penguin paperback, Everyman hardback, and also the Riverside Chaucer. And Peter Ackroyd has a brilliant Modern English prose retelling here, whilst Neville Coghill has a version in Modern English poetry here. I outlined how I recommend you move between them near the end of the above discussion, but do feel free to embrace the approach that works best for you.

  • Biography: Peter Ackroyd also has a tremendous biography of Geoffrey Chaucer that is well worth reading here. It's slim, digestible, and fascinating.

  • History: Liza Picard has a wonderful work called 'Chaucer's People: Everyday Lives in Medieval England' here, which also makes for engrossing reading. She brings great context to the characters we meet on the pilgrimage and brings Chaucer's world vividly to life.

  • Audiobooks: I find that the best readings of Chaucer's tales come from Naxos. Here is their Middle English version for the Knight's Tale. And here is their Modern English version of the General Prologue and opening couple of tales narrated by great readers like Anton Lesser.

  • Shakespeare: To get a feel for the sociopolitical climate at the time, treat yourself to the Hollow Crown series or listen to our lectures on Richard II and Henry IV. Also, the week after next we will have the lecture for the climax of the Shakespeare project: The Two Noble Kinsmen. This is very serendipitous as this play derives its plot from Chaucer's Knight's Tale.

  • Bonus: We'll be talking about romance, so if you're interested in checking out a work that is exemplary of the mode from one of Chaucer's contemporaries, then you might find it interesting to pick up Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

  • Film Appreciation: Just for fun, check out the 2001 film A Knight's Tale starring Heath Ledger. The movie takes loose inspiration from Chaucer and even has the poet himself as a character.

  • Documentary: There's a splendid documentary about Chaucer and the English language's first masterpiece here. The production is a bit dated, but I think that adds to the charm and the information is enthralling.

Reading Assignment:

Our next discussion will involve a deep appreciation of the General Prologue and the Knight's Tale. This coming weekend, we will return to discussing Faulkner as we're alternating between them. And so we'll be appreciating Chaucer again the weekend after.

So join the pilgrimage, read slowly, meet the characters, flex your imagination, and tackle the work in the way that works best for you, making use of modern translations and audios, and enjoying the ride.

Questions for You:

1) What is your current relationship with Chaucer? Is this your first experience or are you returning to this masterpiece?

2) What themes from your wider reading would you like to pull into The Canterbury Tales?

3) What kind of story would you tell if you were on the pilgrimage?

4) What are you hoping to get out of your deep reading of Chaucer?

Happy reading, everybody!

Files

Previews only

How to Read The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

📚 Read the Great Books with the Hardcore Literature Book Club: https://www.patreon.com/hardcoreliterature ———————————— 🎙️https://open.spotify.com/show/70IZA248yNVkrjqzDNm6Lt?si=cadcb1c09ea74a51 (Subscribe to the Hardcore Literature Podcast on iTunes & Spotify) ———————————— 📔Contents Page: https://cutt.ly/CmNhRY3 🎖️ War and Peace: https://cutt.ly/U3nzGma 🎭 Shakespeare Project: https://cutt.ly/B3nxHH7 🐳 Moby Dick: https://cutt.ly/K3nzVKf ☄️ Blood Meridian: https://cutt.ly/P3nz6Qp 🍂 Wuthering Heights: https://cutt.ly/N3nxxYt 🇮🇪 Ulysses: https://cutt.ly/x3nxQmN 🚂 Anna Karenina: https://cutt.ly/vmNhAWv 💀 Crime and Punishment: https://cutt.ly/rmNhFt5 ⚓ Persuasion: https://cutt.ly/amNhX7b 🎠 Don Quixote: https://cutt.ly/cmNjoK4 🇫🇷 Les Misérables: https://cutt.ly/J3YixoA ———————————— 0:00 welcome to Chaucer’s England 2:00 how the Canterbury Tales was born 4:00 how to read the Canterbury Tales 5:00 what is the Canterbury Tales? 6:00 Chaucer’s frame narrative 7:00 pilgrimage as metaphor for life 7:30 Tabard Inn to Canterbury Cathedral 8:00 how long would the journey take? 9:00 Harry Bailey’s storytelling contest 10:00 how many tales are in the collection? 11:00 popularity of story compendiums 12:00 prologues of the Canterbury Tales 14:00 how the Canterbury Tales begins 15:00 juxtaposition, sequencing, patterns 16:00 from Knight’s Tale to Miller’s Tale 17:00 themes in the Canterbury Tales 18:00 Chaucer speaks universally 19:00 three estates social hierarchy 21:00 England’s population post-Black Death 22:00 peasantry in medieval England 23:00 social position of Chaucer’s pilgrims 24:00 Chaucer’s civil service career 25:00 how Chaucer becomes a poet 26:00 Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV 27:00 biography of Geoffrey Chaucer 28:00 society seen as unified body 29:00 the Peasants Revolt of 1381 30:00 Chaucer’s estates satire 31:00 Chaucerian characterisation 34:00 dramatic voice or full persona? 35:00 do we recognise the characters? 36:00 what were pilgrimages like? 37:00 Thomas Beckett’s Canterbury tomb 38:00 why did people go on pilgrimages? 40:00 seeking holy relics and pardons 41:00 the big business of pilgrimages 42:00 the character of the Pardoner 43:00 Great Schism in Medieval Europe 44:00 Chaucer on religious hypocrisy 45:00 taking a great vicarious pilgrimage 46:00 befriending one pilgrim as entrance 47:00 how I fell in love with Chaucer 48:00 appreciating the Wife of Bath 51:00 on experience vs authority 53:00 the Wife of Bath’s Prologue 55:00 the Wife’s relationship advice 57:00 Englishmen of Chaucer’s time 59:00 the Wife of Bath’s Tale 1:00:00 is Chaucer really that difficult? 1:02:00 writing before standardisation 1:03:00 understand the Great Vowel Shift 1:04:00 Middle English pronunciation 1:05:00 why did pronunciation change? 1:06:00 the cultural dominance of French 1:07:00 Chaucer’s English was revolutionary 1:08:00 medieval literacy and oral narrative 1:09:00 impact of dialects on readership 1:10:00 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 1:11:00 medieval versification traditions 1:12:00 what does Chaucer’s English sound like? 1:13:00 reading the General Prologue together 1:15:00 ‘what that Aprille with his shoures soote’ 1:17:00 what I think about Chaucer’s English 1:18:00 comparing with the Gawain-poet 1:19:00 reading Old English from Beowulf 1:20:00 making Shakespeare sound easy 1:21:00 practical tips for reading Chaucer 1:24:00 my hands-on reading approach 1:26:00 common Middle English words 1:29:00 Chaucer book club lecture series 1:32:00 your experience with Chaucer?

Comments

Jessi

Canterbury Tales is bringing me so much laughter and joy right now. I’m currently taking a Disney cruise through the Bahamas and brought the book with me for pool and beachside reading. Seriously snickering and laughing out loud. I’m reading Peter Ackroyd s version on Kindle and audiobook, then rereading with the Coghill version. I want to read a third time with the original Middle English when I get home. It’s so cool picking up on other nuances reading the 2 versions. Halfway thru the Reeve’s Tale. So far, this is my favorite book this year. Can’t help but wonder what Chaucer may have had in mind had he completed all 60 tales.

Linda Tuplin

I have procrastinated in starting my reading of this, but I’m not sure why. Started it this morning and I am in love! So far I have only read the Prologue. I loved the description of the Knight, and found myself wondering if Emma Bovary and Don Quixote had read this. They were both so influenced by romantic knights of valour. I do not like the Friar at all. He reminds me of the hypocritical TV evangelists of the 70s and 80s who preyed on vulnerable people to line their own pockets. My mother was hooked in by them and it strongly influenced my suspicion of and dislike of organized religion to this day, although the Parson seemed like a genuine, gentle soul. I loved the Clerk of Oxford. I can relate to him lol. When I read the description of the Wife of Bath, it brought to mind the story of Minerva and Arachne in Metamorphosis and I had to go back and reread that. I am interested if my initial impressions will change after I read their stories. I did find reading it slowly out loud really helped my focus and understanding.

William Hale

I currently have never read Chaucer but I am very excited to read it. I love medieval history so it will be a good experience I feel. I'm not sure what is ment by drawing in other themes. I do tend to look for connections with other works alot and like to see what deeper meanings are placed on stories though. If I was to tell a story I honestly at best could only tell short stories that may get a laugh and would likely be heard in a bar, down the road though I would like to be able to write out stories with a lot more meaning. What I hope to get out of Chaucer is a larger understanding of the human condition, wisdom, understanding people from various perspectives and other views, a chance to further understand as Adler put it the great conversation. I also just like being able to say that I maybe a backwoods country bumpkin but I am certainly a well read one lol.

Colleen Smith

This is my first read of Canterbury Tales. Like Metamorphosis, I've always been a little intimidated by it. But also, like Metamorphosis, I was so wrong to be. I'm so glad we read Ovid first because there are quite a few references to those stories in the Knights tale so far!

Elizabeth

I am reading the modern English version and listening to the original at gutenberg.org because I wanted to hear what the middle english would sound like rather than trying to guess. I also picked up a copy of Chaucer's People and have read the Knight section. Picard goes over the history of the campaigns the knight was involved in and the lack of a displayed coat of arms--the implication is that he may not be a "very perfect gentle knight."

Sarah Steinke

We read some excerpts of The Canterbury Tales in high school, in Middle English then followed with modern. I have a distinct picture of the wife of bath and the knight in my mind so we must have read those, but other than that I don’t remember much except laughing and thinking it was absurd and in my immature teenage hubris saying “All these people had to entertain themselves with were silly poems, what a boring life??” I’m happy to report I have learned a lot since then and no longer look down on it. Currently, I have read the prologue in Middle English aloud to myself, somehow I thought I understood most of it but when I follow up with the Coghill translation I have on hand, it confirms that I understand about half, as it highlights what I didn’t Reading others comments, I am going to listen to the Middle English and am wondering if I’m missing out by not having the Ackroyd translation which sounds more humorous? So far, coghill seems very literally translated I see Chaucer’s humor , what I understand of it, and now more thanks to many of the other comments mentioning how he subtlety points it out by describing contradictions in the pilgrims that people at the time would have picked up on immediately.

Diane
>>172224374

I enjoyed starting with the Ackroyd retelling and then reading/listening to the Middle English and Coghill. I really got lost in the Coghill once I had an idea of what was happening and didn't have to think so hard. The Middle English I love in small doses but I'm not patient enough to read through it all. Fun to dip in and out of. I'm finding the smorgasbord of options really fun though!

Diane
>>172039382

Yes Colleen! I continually think how well I understand the Ovidian references that would have just been noise to gloss over if I hadn't read Metamorphoses! Love it!

Ldawg44

Thanks Ben! This lecture has my feeling hype. I am going a bit off course in that I have my annotated students version of the original tales that I purchased in college and I’m going to just take the plunge and read it in Middle English. I already read most of them, and my professor made us all learn Middle English and read aloud in class (lol)… so I’m feeling like I want the challenge! Maybe in the future I’ll read the prose as a little treat

Lisa

I am excited to get into this book. My first experience with the Canterbury Tales is from eight grade English who made us memorize the first few lines. I have always remembered it because I thought it was so beautiful. ………..I think many of the themes that we are seeing in this book are similar to the themes of our upcoming book 1984. They both have themes of social correctness, politics and class structure. Also in this tale we have a heavy influence of religion where Rome dictates. In 1984 the state now controls behavior and morality, and control of information. …………..The story I would tell on the pilgrimage would be of a true experience I had hitchhiking cross country. Retelling my own story would be more vivid as I am not a writer. I would make my journey longer and totally amp up my characters and experience during my West-East journey.

Barbara Lucrezia Paganelli

Reading Chaucer in Middle English is too demanding for my English.... Personally, I look for realism in Chaucer. I am not an universalist, I love multiplicity, perhaps because of my background in historical studies at University. I am not so much interested in general abstract themes that characterize the human condition, but in the differences, which I do not perceive as 'conflicting' but rather as a wonderful richness. Reading Chaucer, I spontaneously compare him to Boccaccio, whom I know from school studies. And what I appreciate in Chaucer is an early form of realism, an attention to the "psychological" dimension if I can use this term, and a focus on the details of everyday life. Boccaccio's stories, which are often popular, everyday, rough stories (certainly not idealized), in my opinion, also are indeterminate and vague, lacking that concreteness that allows one to fully taste the lived experience from characters point of view. In reading Chaucer I look above all for an understanding of the European, and English in a more specific way, medieval culture and mentality. In Italian lyceum (more like grammar school than generally high school) Dante is read in full length, but his political, philosophical, theological vision predominates over everything, while social dynamics, the confrontation of the individual with what is small, domestic, ordinary remains outside his great cosmological vision. By the way, I am very interested in following the episodes dedicated to our Dante.

Diana Upp

I keep going back to tackle Canterbury Tales. I purchased Audible version with Lesley Manville, Derek Jacobi, and others narrating. Neville Coghill is the translator. But this recording seems out of order from written versions. Do different versions place the tales in a different order? On another note, I found a copy in our Library Used Bookstore. Part of the Great books series. Originally published in 1952. It has the Middle & Modern versions side by side. Source of the Middle is from the Oxford University Press. The Modern was translated y J U Nicolson. $15.

Julia Brocking
>>172453926

Absolutely read in middle english - it is not too difficult and leaves such a feeling that you are accomplishing something worthwhile!