1. The Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer

2. Henry II and Thomas Beckett Henry II wants to control the Roman Catholic Church Appoints Thomas Beckett as Archbishop of Canterbury The two argue and Henry II regrets his appointment

3. Beckett’s Assassination Thomas Beckett is assassinated at Canterbury Cathedral when a few royal guards kill him Guards hoped to win favor with Henry II Henry II is disgusted with murder

4. Canterbury Cathedral After Beckett’s assassination, Canterbury Cathedral becomes pilgrimage shrine Geoffrey Chaucer’s pilgrims journey to this cathedral

5. Geoffrey Chaucer Born 1343 Died 1400 A son of a well to do wine merchant Spent his boyhood in downtown London where the merchants had their shops

6. Geoffrey Chaucer In his early teens, he was sent to serve as a page in one of the great aristocratic households of London The rest of his life was spent in close association with the ruling nobility

7. Geoffrey Chaucer Earliest works: a translation of Roman de la Rose– a 13 th century French poem First major work: Book of the Duchess Probably began writing The Canterbury Tales in 1386, and was his chief writing interest until his death

8. The Canterbury Tales A collection of stories in a frame story Written between 1387- 1400 It is the story of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to Canterbury The pilgrims, who come from all layers of society, tells stories to each other to kill time while they travel

9. The Canterbury Tales Twenty-Two Tales Chaucer’s original plan was 120 stories Two tales for each pilgrim on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back

10. The Canterbury Tales Chaucer never finished his enormous project and even the completed tales were not finally revised Scholars are uncertain about the order of the tales The Canterbury Tales has been passed down in several handwritten manuscripts

11. The Canterbury Tales No single literary genre dominates The Canterbury Tales The tales include romantic adventures, fabliaux, saint’s biographies, animal fables, religious allegories and even a sermon, and range in tone from pious, moralistic tales to lewd and vulgar sexual farces

12. The Canterbury Tales The form that Chaucer most often employs for his tale is the fabliau These tales generally concern lower class characters; the standard form has an older husband whose younger wife has an affair with a man of flexible social status

13. The End An Amber Benkle PowerPoint