Assigment#3

     Geoffrey Chaucer, was considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages. He was known as the father of English literature and he achieved fame during his lifetime as an author, philosopher, alchemist and astronomer. He wrote many books  such as The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, the legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde, he is best known today for The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer is a crucial figure in developing the legitimacy of the Vernacular, Middle English, at a time when the dominant literature languages in England were French and Latin. when he died he was the first poet to be buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.


QUESTIONS..
1. Why is the work entitled The Canterbury Tales?
    The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales (mostly in verse leastly in prose) are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of Pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Cantebury Cathedral. 
2. How many tales are there?
   There are 83 known manuscripts of the work from the late Medieval and early Renaissance period, more than any other vernacular literary text with the exception of The Prick of Conscience. This is taken as evidence of the tales' popularity during the century after Chaucer's death. Fifty-five of these manuscripts are thought to have been complete at one time, while 28 are so fragmentary that it is difficult to ascertain whether they were copied individually or as part of a set.The Tales vary in both minor and major ways from manuscript to manuscript; many of the minor variations are due to copyists' errors, while others suggest that Chaucer added to and revised his work as it was being copied and (possibly) distributed.
3. What is the definition of a literary tale? 
4.  What was the agreement for sharing the tales?
     No official,  complete version of the Tales exists and no consensus has been reached regarding the order in which Chaucer intended the stories to be placed.
5. Why do scholars consider the work unfinished?
   The question of whether The Canterbury Tales is finished has not yet been answered. The combined elements of Chaucer's quadri-lingual expertise in law, philosophy, and other subjects, the uncertainty of medieval English historical records, issues of manuscript transmission, and Chaucer's method of telling his stories through a multi-perspective prism of subjectivity make the "Tales" extremely difficult to interpret.