CORRUPTION, ADULTERY, DRUNKENNESS, and deceit: The Canterbury Tales has it all. And for high school students who get past the Middle English, the nighttime hijinks, butt jokes, and slapstick comedy of stories like “The Miller’s Tale” might just seem fit for the American Pie movies. Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400), who was born in London in the 1340s and came of age at the height of the Black Death, frames the collection as tales told by pilgrims on their way to Canterbury Cathedral. These pilgrims are a cross section of medieval life, from the chivalric Knight to the bawdy Miller to the five-times-married Wife of Bath, who some scholars have called one of English literature’s first feminists. See how much you know about what happened “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote” with this Canterbury Tales quiz.
1. What, does the narrator joke, is the Doctor’s favorite medicine?
2. Which pilgrim claims that he cannot be held accountable for his inappropriate tale, because he is so drunk?
3. How does the Pardoner make a living?
4. According to the tale told by the Wife of Bath, what is the one thing all women want?
5. Which 2001 film, starring Heath Ledger, featured Paul Bet-tany as Geoffrey Chaucer?
ANSWERS
1. Gold. (Some things never change!)
2. The Miller.
3. He sells indulgences—in other words, people pay him to forgive their sins. He also sells religious “relics” that he admits to the other pilgrims are fake.
4. To be in charge of their husbands.
5. A Knight’s Tale.