Shelf Stable

The Canterbury Tales

Quick recall

Open one section at a time, then use Previous and Next to move through the reading sequence.

← Back to the book index

Part I — The General Prologue

  1. Section 1Show recallHide recall
    • The narrator meets twenty-nine other pilgrims at the Tabard.
    • The Knight’s mail has soiled his plain tunic.
    • The Squire is both a young soldier and a courtly artist.
    • The Yeoman’s green clothes and archery equipment suit a forester.
  2. Section 2Show recallHide recall
    • The Prioress models her behavior on courtly refinement.
    • The Monk chooses hunting over strict monastic study and labor.
    • Huberd links easy religious service with profitable gifts and contacts.
  3. Section 3Show recallHide recall
    • The Merchant hides that he is in debt.
    • The Clerk spends his friends’ support on books and learning.
    • The lawyer seems busier than he actually is.
    • The Franklin keeps an abundant table ready throughout the day.
  4. Section 4Show recallHide recall
    • Five guildsmen wear prosperous matching livery.
    • The Shipman combines navigational mastery with a troubling conscience.
    • The Wife of Bath has traveled widely and had five husbands.
    • The Parson and Ploughman embody teaching and charity through action.
  5. Section 5Show recallHide recall
    • The Miller leads the company out of town with a bagpipe.
    • The Manciple outsmarts his learned employers when buying provisions.
    • The Reeve knows his lord’s estate and its workers’ tricks completely.
    • The Pardoner uses supposed relics and skilled performance to obtain money.
  6. Section 6Show recallHide recall
    • The Host proposes four tales from each pilgrim, two each way.
    • The best teller is to receive a supper funded by the company.
    • The pilgrims appoint the Host their guide and judge.
    • The Knight draws the shortest lot and begins the first tale.

Part II — The Knight’s Tale

  1. Section 7Show recallHide recall
    • The mourners ask Theseus to recover their husbands’ bodies from Creon.
    • Theseus defeats Creon and restores the bodies for funeral rites.
    • Palamon and Arcite are found alive among the dead and imprisoned without ransom.
  2. Section 8Show recallHide recall
    • Palamon and Arcite both see Emily from the prison tower and fall in love.
    • The cousins argue over whether love breaks their sworn loyalty.
    • Perithous obtains Arcite’s release, but Arcite faces death if he returns to Theseus’s lands.
  3. Section 9Show recallHide recall
    • Arcite says exile is worse because Palamon can still see Emily.
    • Palamon says prison is worse because Arcite can act freely and seek allies.
    • The narrator asks readers to judge which condition causes greater suffering.
  4. Section 10Show recallHide recall
    • Mercury’s dream-message prompts Arcite to return to Athens in disguise.
    • Palamon escapes by drugging his jailer and hides in the grove.
    • After overhearing Arcite, Palamon challenges him; Arcite returns with arms for both.
  5. Section 11Show recallHide recall
    • Theseus discovers the duel while hunting and stops it under threat of death.
    • The women’s appeal helps turn his anger into mercy.
    • He orders each cousin to return in fifty weeks with one hundred knights.
  6. Section 12Show recallHide recall
    • The arena contains separate temples to Venus, Mars, and Diana.
    • Licurgus comes with Palamon; Emetrius comes with Arcite.
    • Theseus receives the assembled nobles with lodging, gifts, and a feast.
  7. Section 13Show recallHide recall
    • Palamon asks Venus for Emily rather than for martial glory.
    • Emily asks Diana to preserve her maidenhood, if possible.
    • Arcite asks Mars for victory and receives an encouraging sign.
    • Saturn promises to reconcile Venus’s grant with Mars’s support.
  8. Section 14Show recallHide recall
    • Theseus limits weapons and makes capture at a stake a stopping condition.
    • Emetrius’s side captures Palamon, so Theseus declares Arcite the winner.
    • A divinely sent fire startles Arcite’s horse, and Arcite is crushed in the fall.
  9. Section 15Show recallHide recall
    • Arcite asks Emily to remember Palamon if she becomes a wife.
    • Egeus answers grief by describing the world as a changing thoroughfare.
    • Emily lights the huge funeral pyre in the grove where the cousins fought.
  10. Section 16Show recallHide recall
    • Theseus argues that every created thing has an appointed end.
    • He advises turning two sorrows into one joy through marriage.
    • Palamon and Emily marry and live without jealousy or anger.