The Canterbury Tales

by

Geoffrey Chaucer

Writing and Authorship Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Social Satire Theme Icon
Competition Theme Icon
Courtly Love and Sexual Desire Theme Icon
Friendship and Company Theme Icon
Church Corruption Theme Icon
Writing and Authorship Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Canterbury Tales, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Writing and Authorship Theme Icon

Chaucer is considered to be the father of English poetry. Even though the premise of the Tales is that they unfold organically throughout the course of the pilgrimage to Canterbury, Chaucer is highly conscious of the fact that he is conducting a literary project with readers as well as listeners. When the Miller introduces his tale, for example, he says that if the reader doesn’t like it, he should simply “turn over the leef and chese another tale” – in other words, turn the page and read another story. Chaucer himself appears as one of the pilgrims. He depicts himself as a bumbling, clumsy, foolish sort, and the two tales he tells are ironically awful, given that we know he is the mastermind behind this whole enterprise.

The concept of a framing narrative that surrounds a group of tales is itself is a common literary convention, seen, for example, in The Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Chaucer most likely based his frame narrative on Boccaccio’s Decameron, in which ten ladies and gentlemen, traveling around the Italian countryside to avoid the plague, tell each other stories.

In this tale-telling competition, the pilgrims are very interested in what makes for good and bad literature. Are the best tales the ones that give the best moral lessons, or the ones that provide the most entertainment for the company? The Canterbury Tales contain a vast array of subjects and literary genres, from noble depictions of courtly love to bawdy jokes to beast fables to stories of saints’ lives. Almost all the pilgrims introduce themselves and their tales through a prologue, in which they typically explain who they are and why they are going to tell their tale.

The pilgrims have several different theories about what makes a good story and what it means to have the authority to tell it. The Wife of Bath claims that authority comes through experience, saying she is qualified to tell a tale of love and marriage because she has been married five times and using her own interpretations of Scripture as evidence. The Pardoner unapologetically describes how he cons foolish men out of money by selling them false religious relics. He rejects a monastic life, declaring that he lives for greed rather than celestial love. But even though he himself is vicious, he says, he knows how to tell a moral tell with the lesson that greed is the root of all evils.

Chaucer uses a huge variety of styles and forms in the tales. Each pilgrim has a distinct voice. The Knight uses genteel, formal language, while the Miller and Reeve speak in coarse, rude double entendres. Although the majority of The Canterbury Tales are in rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter, some of them use different verse forms. The Prioress tells her story of a pure-hearted Christian boy in rime royal, which is a rhyming form in seven-line stanzas. Chaucer’s Tale of Sir Thopas is told in comic doggerel with a thumping, irregular rhythm.

Related Themes from Other Texts
Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…
Get the entire The Canterbury Tales LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Canterbury Tales PDF

Writing and Authorship Quotes in The Canterbury Tales

Below you will find the important quotes in The Canterbury Tales related to the theme of Writing and Authorship.
The General Prologue Quotes

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendered is the flour;
...
Thanne longen folk to goon pilgrimages
...
And specially from every shires ende
OF Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blissful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they they were seeke.

Related Characters: Chaucer (speaker)
Related Symbols: Springtime

He was a verray, parfit gentil knyght.

Related Characters: Chaucer (speaker), The Knight

Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne
Entuned in hir nose ful seemly,
And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frenssh of Parys was to hir unknowe.

Related Characters: Chaucer (speaker), The Prioress
Related Symbols: Clothing and Appearance

He yaf nat of that text a pulled hen,
That seith that hunters ben nat hooly men,
Ne that a monk, whan he is recchelees,
Is likned to a fissh that is waterlees––
This is to seyn, a monk out of his cloystre.
But thilke text heeld he nat worth an oyster.

Related Characters: Chaucer (speaker), The Monk

Nowher so bisy a man as he there nas,
And yet he semed bisier than he was.

Related Characters: Chaucer (speaker), The Man of Laws

For May wole have no slagardie anyght.
The sesoun priketh every gentil herte,
And maketh it out of his slep to sterte.

Related Characters: Chaucer (speaker)
The Knight’s Tale Quotes

Whilom, as olde stories tellen us,
Ther was a duc that highte Theseus;
Of Atthenes he was lord and governour,
And in his tyme swich a conquerour
That gretter was there noon under the sonne.
Ful many a rich contree hadde he wonne;
What with his wysdom and his chilvalrie.

Related Characters: The Knight (speaker), Theseus

He cast his eye upon Emelya,
And therwithal he bleynte and cride, “A!”

Related Characters: The Knight (speaker), Palamon, Emelye

The Firste Moevere of the cause above,
Whan he first made the fair cheyne of love,
Greet was th’effect, and heigh was his entente.
Wel wiste he why, and what thereof he mente,
For with that faire cheyne of love he bond
The fyr, the eyr, the water, and the lond
In certeyn boundes, that they may nat flee.

Related Characters: Theseus (speaker)
The Miller’s Prologue Quotes

I kan a noble tale for the nones,
With which I wol now quite the Knyghes tale.

Related Characters: The Miller (speaker)

And therefore, whoso list it nat yheere,
Turne over the leef and chese another tale;
For he shal fynde ynow, gret and smale,
Of storial thing that toucheth gentilesse,
And eek moralitee and hoolynesse.
Blameth nat me if that ye chese amys.
The Miller is a cherl, ye know wel this.

Related Characters: Chaucer (speaker)
The Miller’s Tale Quotes

This Nicholas anon leet fle a fart
As greet as it had been a thonder-dent.

Related Characters: The Miller (speaker), Nicholas

Thus swyved was this carpenteris wyf,
For al his kepyng and his jalousye,
And Absolon hath kist hir nether ye,
And Nicholas is scalded in the towte.
This tale is doon, and God save al the rowte!

Related Characters: The Miller (speaker), The carpenter, Nicholas, Alison, Absolon
The Reeve’s Prologue Quotes

This dronke Miller hath ytoold us heer
How that bigyled was a carpenteer,
Peraventure in scorn, for I am oon.
And, by youre leve, I shal him quite anoon.

Related Characters: The Reeve (speaker), The Miller
The Reeve’s Tale Quotes

Thus is the proude miller wel ybete,
And hath ylost the gryndynge of the whete,
And payed for the soper everideel
Of Aleyn and of John, that bette hym weel.
His wyf is swyved, and his doghter als.
Low, swich it is a millere to be fals!
And therefore this proverbe is seyd ful sooth,
“Hym thar nat wene wel that yvil dooth.”

The Wife of Bath’s Prologue Quotes

Experience, though noon auctoritee
Were in this world, is right ynough for me.

Related Characters: The Wife of Bath (speaker)

Men may devyne and glosen, up and doun,
But wel I woot, expres, without lye,
God bad us for to wexe and multiplye,
That gentil text kan I wel understonde.

Related Characters: The Wife of Bath (speaker)

By God! if women hadde written stories,
As clerkes han withinne hire oratories,
They wolde han writen of men moore wikkednesse
Than all the mark of Adam may redresse.

Related Characters: The Wife of Bath (speaker)

And whan I saugh he wolde never fyne
To reden on this cursed book al nyght,
Al sodenly thre leves have I plyght
Out of his book, right as he radde, and eke
I with my fest so took hym on the cheke
That in our fyr he fil bakward adoun.

Related Characters: The Wife of Bath (speaker), Jankyn
The Wife of Bath’s Tale Quotes

Wommen desiren to have sovereynetee
As wel as over hir housbond as hir love
And for to been in maistrie hym above.

Related Characters: The Knight (speaker), The knight

And eek I praye Jhesu shorte hir lyves
That noght wol be governed by hir wyves,
And olde and angry nygardes of dispence,
God sende hem soon verray pestilence!

Related Characters: The Wife of Bath (speaker)
The Pardoner’s Prologue Quotes

But shortly myn entente I wol devyse:
I preche of no thing but for coveityse.
Therfore my theme is yet, and evere was,
Radix malorum est Cupiditas.

Related Characters: The Pardoner (speaker)
The Pardoner’s Tale Quotes

“Now,” quod oure Hoost, “I wol no lenger pleye
With thee, ne with noon oother angry man.”
But right anon the worthy Knyght bigan,
Whan that he saugh that al the peple lough,
“Namoore of this, for it is right ynough!”

Related Characters: The Knight (speaker), The Host (speaker), The Pardoner
Prologue to Sir Thopas Quotes

He in the waast is shape as wel as I;
This were a popet in an arm t’embrace
For any woman, smal and fair of face.

Related Characters: The Host (speaker), Chaucer
The Tale of Sir Thopas Quotes

Listeth, lordes, in good entent,
And I wol telle verrayment
Of myrthe and of solas,
Al of a knight was fair and gent
In bataille and in tourneyment;
His name was sire Thopas.

Related Characters: Chaucer (speaker)
The Host’s Interruption of Chaucer Quotes

Thy drasty rhyming is nat worth a toord!

Related Characters: The Host (speaker), Chaucer
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale Quotes

For al so siker as in principio
Mulier est hominis confusio,––
Madame, the sentence of this Latyn is,
“Womman is mannes joye and al his blis.”

Related Characters: Chaunticleer (speaker)
Related Symbols: Literary Allusions

For seint Paul seith that al that writen is,
To our doctrine it is ywrite, ywis;
Taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stile.

Related Characters: The Second Nun and the Nun’s Priests (speaker)
Related Symbols: Literary Allusions