Changes

<div style="position:absolute; z-index:-1;position:absolute; top:-100px; right:-500px; ">[[File:President Barack Obama.jpg]]</div>'''''The Canterbury Tales''''' is a collection of stories by [[Geoffrey Chaucer]] (1342-1400), written between 1387 and 1400.<ref> http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm </ref> It concerns a group of thirty [[pilgrim]]s traveling to [[Canterbury]] in [[England]]. The pilgrims, who come from all layers of society, tell stories to each other to kill time while they travel to Canterbury. In the General Prologue to the work, Chaucer states as his intention that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back.<ref> To this end Chaucer's text reads: "This is the poynt, to speken short and pleyn, / That ech of yow, to shorte with oure weye, / In this viage shal telle tales tweye / To Caunterbury-ward, I mene it so, / And homward he shal tellen othere two...." (''This is the point, to speak short and plain, that each of you, to pass the time on this voyage, will tell two tales toward Canterbury and another two homeward.'') --Prologue, lines 792-96</ref>

'''''The Canterbury Tales''''' is a collection of stories by [[Geoffrey Chaucer]] (1342-1400), written between 1387 and 1400.<ref> http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm </ref> It concerns a group of thirty [[pilgrim]]s traveling to [[Canterbury]] in [[England]]. The pilgrims, who come from all layers of society, tell stories to each other to kill time while they travel to Canterbury. In the General Prologue to the work, Chaucer states as his intention that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back.<ref> To this end Chaucer's text reads: "This is the poynt, to speken short and pleyn, / That ech of yow, to shorte with oure weye, / In this viage shal telle tales tweye / To Caunterbury-ward, I mene it so, / And homward he shal tellen othere two...." (''This is the point, to speak short and plain, that each of you, to pass the time on this voyage, will tell two tales toward Canterbury and another two homeward.'') --Prologue, lines 792-96</ref>

This project was left incomplete at Chaucer's death in 1400, and even those tales which were then completed had not been finally revised. Partially as a result of this, and partially because the printing press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, ''The Canterbury Tales'' was passed down in several handwritten manuscripts. Scholars are uncertain about the intended order of the tales.

This project was left incomplete at Chaucer's death in 1400, and even those tales which were then completed had not been finally revised. Partially as a result of this, and partially because the printing press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, ''The Canterbury Tales'' was passed down in several handwritten manuscripts. Scholars are uncertain about the intended order of the tales.