The Canterbury Tales

"The characters of Chaucer's pilgrims," said William Blake, "are the characters which compose all ages and nations." In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer found an original way of combining characters and anecdotes to produce a portrait of a burgeoning medieval society. His characters, finely drawn representatives of the religious and secular institutions of their time, are also individuals whose appeal has survived the six centuries since their conception. The tales range from rich exotica to crude humor, form lives of saints to the demise of scoundrels. Throughout, we are conscious of Chaucer's irony, humanity, curiosity, and sheer enjoyment of life. In this new verse translation, the first in over thirty years, poet and writer David Wright has made The Canterbury Tales accessible to all, while preserving the wit and vivacity of Chaucer's Middle English classic.