Canterbury Tales

In 14th-century England, a band of pilgrims sets out from a Southwark tavern toward Canterbury, each carrying more than their share of sins. Geoffrey Chaucer, writing in the vernacular that would become modern English, overheard these travelers and recorded their stories - some pious, some profane, all unmistakably human. The Miller spins a tale of a carpenter cuckolded by a student. The Wife of Bath recounts her battles through five husbands. The Knight tells a romance of ancient Greece. A Pardoner peddles fake relics while sermonizing against greed. What emerges is a sprawling portrait of medieval life: its cruelty and compassion, its piety and hypocrisy, its endless appetite for a good story. Chaucer's genius lies in his voices. He grants dignity to the lowborn and exposes the highborn. The Canterbury Tales remains essential reading because it proves that human nature - our vanities, our desires, our desperate need to be heard - hasn't changed in six centuries.