Why are the Canterbury Tales so famous?

One of the reasons Chaucer is so important is that he made the decision to write in English and not French. In the centuries following the Norman invasion, French was the language spoken by those in power. The Canterbury Tales was one of the first major works in literature written in English. read more

A number of reasons, I’d say: They paint a very lively picture of life in the 14th / 15th century. This is an age where literature from the era is limited - often to church texts, which tell us all about sins, laws, but not very much about how people lived and spoke in real life. read more

The Canterbury Tales is the most famous and critically acclaimed work of Geoffrey Chaucer, a late-fourteenth-century English poet. Little is known about Chaucer’s personal life, and even less about his education, but a number of existing records document his professional life. read more