Canterbury Tales (1)

• Geoffrey Chaucer (1343?- 1400)
• "contemporary picture of fourteenth- century England"
• fiction
• audience: commoners
• satire- criticizes stupidity (in Canterbury Tales the satire is aimed towards the "holy" characters)
• the Pilgrimage begins in spring
• Chaucer made himself a character in the poem

I'm most excited to read about the materialistic nun because that is not the stereotype for nuns so I find it interesting to see how Chaucer is describing her point of view.

Prologue vs Preface:

• Prologue- background information before the story this describes events that occur before the actual story (could be a flashback)
• Preface- author talks directly to reader about things the reader needs to know before reading (discussing what happened since the first edition)