Chaucer

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being the most remarkable examples of this. At 's death, the various sections of the Canterbury Tales that he was preparing had not been brought together in a linked whole. His friends seem to have tried as best they could to prepare a coherent edition of what was there, adding some more linkages when they thought it necessary. The resulting manuscripts therefore offer slight differences in the order of tales, and in some of the framework links. The tales are usually found in linked groups known as 'Fragments'. The customary grouping and ordering of the tales is as follows (the commonly accepted abbreviation for each Tale is noted in parentheses): Fragment I (A) Â Â Â General Prologue (GP), Knight (KnT), Miller (MilT), Reeve (RvT), Cook (CkT). Fragment II (B1) Â Â Â Man of Law (MLT) Fragment III (D) Â Â Â Wife of Bath (WBT), Friar (FrT), Summoner (SumT). Fragment IV (E) Â Â Â Clerk (ClT), Merchant (MerT). ...

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narratives of different kinds as well as other texts. The pilgrimage framework enriches each tale by setting it in relationship with others, but it would be a mistake to identify the narratorial voice of each tale too strongly with the individual pilgrim who is supposed to be telling it. After the General Prologue, the Tales follow. The following is a brief outline of the different tales in the order found in the Riverside , the standard edition. Fragment I The work begins with a General Prologue in which the narrator (?) arrives at the Tabard Inn in Southwark to set out on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury, and meets other pilgrims there, whom he describes. In ...

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