The objective of this chapter is to introduce The Canterbury Tales as an accessible and more so as an enjoyable read, while eliminating popular ideas of it being redundant. It introduces and contextualizes the text in the contemporary scenario of the fourteenth century and explains the themes as relevant in the twentieth century. It explains the female narrative voices as a voice of resistance to the traditional male narrative. 2.1. General Introduction: The Canterbury Tales and the Tradition of the English Language. A question often asked about the literature of the Middle Ages, as well as the literature just before and after it, is why read it at all. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Talessix hundred years ago in a form of English which when first encountered is not only difficult to understand but also frightfully so. The world described in the collection of stories is vastly different from our own, at least on the surface. Why then read a text which is on its surface nothing like the world today? The answers to these questions are many which will be answered in the course of this book, however all of them can be distilled into one word in particular: pleasure. It would be difficult to name any one single work of literature which offers a range of pleasures that one experiences while reading The Canterbury Tales. From the aesthetic pleasure of reading (preferably aloud) some of the finest poetry ever written to the belly laugh of slapstick comedy, the text is a