CHAUCER NEVER FINISHED THE CANTERBURY TALES
Summary
This chapter examines whether Geoffrey Chaucer completed his work Canterbury Tales. Whether he initially intended for it to be a longer work and then later revised his ideas remains unknown, because it is quite possible that the General Prologue was composed after many of the tales. The Tales, or portions of it, exists in over eighty manuscripts. Even a cursory glance at these different versions of the Tales shows us that it is not just that the Tales is unfinished, it is unfinished in a multitude of different ways by the people who copied it. The fact that he produced two texts that are so different might simply be the product of historical accident. Maybe he did not have all of the materials to hand when he produced the first manuscript and then this was later (partially) remedied.