What Are The Canterbury Tales About?

The Tales themselves are about everything –love, death, sex, violence, trickery and so on. But the framework for the Tales is very specific: a group of strangers decide to go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury (a common practice in the 14th century) to visit the shrine of St Thomas a Becket. On the way it's agreed that they will tell stories to pass the time, and that the teller of the best story will be invited to dinner by the others when they return. Originally there would have been two stories per person, but the Tales are incomplete and we have only 24 in total. The background to the Tales thus appears to be a serious, religious one, but in fact Chaucer in strongly suggests that the pilgrims are mostly going on this expedition for fun, and to enjoy the fine spring weather. In the introduction or "General Prologue" he creates an atmosphere of light-heartedness – rather like the start of a holiday – and introduces us to each pilgrim, describing their appearances and personalities in close and often very unflattering detail.