Wikipedia:WikiProject Poetry/The Canterbury Tales task force

Welcome to The Canterbury Tales task force! We are a group dedicated to improving the coverage on Wikipedia of articles related to the collection of stories by Geoffrey Chaucer. If you have any questions or want any general advice, please ask at the main poetry talk page. If you are interested in helping, feel free to add yourself to the list of participants near the bottom of this page.

Please visit the talk page for current discussions about project structure!

Scope

This task force covers all articles related to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Any articles that are included under the task force should have |TheCanterburyTales=yes under the WikiProject Poetry banner in the talk page, and will then appear in [[Category:The Canterbury Tales task force articles]].

Main article

• The Canterbury Tales

Individual Tales

• General Prologue
• The Knight's Tale
• The Miller's Tale
• The Reeve's Tale
• The Cook's Tale
• The Man of Law's Tale
• The Wife of Bath's Tale
• The Friar's Tale
• The Summoner's Tale

• The Clerk's Tale
• The Merchant's Tale
• The Squire's Tale
• The Franklin's Tale
• The Physician's Tale
• The Pardoner's Tale
• The Shipman's Tale
• The Prioress's Tale
• Sir Thopas

• The Tale of Melibee
• The Monk's Tale
• The Nun's Priest's Tale
• The Second Nun's Tale
• The Canon's Yeoman's Tale
• The Manciple's Tale
• The Parson's Tale
• Chaucer's Retraction

(26 articles)

Other articles

• Order of The Canterbury Tales

Categories

The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales character redirects to lists

Works based on The Canterbury Tales

Templates

{{Chaucer}} • {{The Canterbury Tales}}

Mini style sheet

Naturally, the articles within our purview should follow the standards of Wikipedia's Manual of Style (WP:MOS). This section emphasizes a few of its points, and clarifies other conventions particular to The Canterbury Tales which are not covered in the MOS.

English ties

All articles about Geoffrey Chaucer and his works should be written in British English (per MOS:TIES). Dates should be displayed dd mmm yyyy — that is, in the form 17 April 1387 (per WP:STRONGNAT); the template {{Use dmy dates}} should appear near the top of all articles.

Capitalization and emphasis

Titles of major works are capitalized and italicized; titles of short works are capitalized and enclosed in double quotes (per WP:Manual of Style#Capital letters & WP:Manual of Style#Italics; see MOS:CT for capitalization details). Note that elements of The Canterbury Tales have special conventions, described below. For convenience, all titles are given below as categorized and spelled in Benson (1987), and with the recommended emphasis:

MAJOR WORKS

SHORT WORKS

The Canterbury Tales The Book of the Duchess The House of Fame Anelida and Arcite The Parliament of Fowls Boece Troilus and Criseyde The Legend of Good Women A Treatise on the Astrolabe The Romaunt of the Rose

"An ABC" "The Complaint unto Pity" "A Complaint to His Lady" "The Complaint of Mars" "The Complaint of Venus" "To Rosemounde" "Womanly Noblesse" "Chaucers Wordes unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn" "The Former Age" "Fortune" "Truth" "Gentilesse" "Lak of Stedfastnesse" "Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan" "Lenvoy de Chaucer a Bukton" "The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse" "Proverbs" "Against Women Unconstant" "Complaynt D'Amours" "Merciles Beaute" "A Balade of Complaint"

In all cases, the initial "The" is part of the title, but may be removed for grammatical purposes:

Y Correct: The Canterbury Tales; Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

N Incorrect: The Canterbury Tales; the Canterbury Tales; the Canterbury Tales; Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

Y Correct: "The Complaint unto Pity"; Geoffrey Chaucer's "Complaint unto Pity"

N Incorrect: The "Complaint unto Pity"; the "Complaint unto Pity"; "the Complaint unto Pity"; Chaucer's "The Complaint unto Pity"

In some cases, these works have alternate titles, which may be used, if appropriate.

These are all just instances of basic WP:MOS standards. The following special conventions apply to The Canterbury Tales.

Conventions for The Canterbury Tales

Short form

If the main topic of The Canterbury Tales is already firmly established, the shortened form the Tales (with uncapitalized, unitalicized, and grammatically removable "the") is acceptable, but should not be overused.

Y Correct: the composition of the Tales occupied more than a decade; Boccaccio's Decameron and Chaucer's Tales (Tales = the whole work)

N Incorrect: the composition of The Tales; the composition of The Tales

Y Correct: the composition of the prose tales (tales = subset of the Tales)

N Incorrect: the composition of the prose Tales

Pilgrim's titles

Naturally the proper names of the Canterbury pilgrims are capitalized. But they are almost universally known by their titles which should also be capitalized; here "the" is not part of the capitalized title. Note that persons who are not on the pilgrimage do not receive special capitalization for their titles:

Y Correct: the Wife of Bath's first husband; Oswald the Reeve tells a story about a miller.

N Incorrect: the wife of Bath; the Wife of Bath's First Husband; Oswald the reeve; Oswald the Reeve tells a story about a Miller.

Individual tales

Individual tales (and prologues, introductions, and epilogues) are capitalized, but neither italicized nor enclosed in quotes. As with work titles, "The" is part of the title, but grammatically removable. When any of these 4 key words is used alone in place of the full title of a specific tale (or prologue, etc.), it is capitalized.

Y Correct: The Wife of Bath's Tale

N Incorrect: the Wife of Bath's tale; the Wife of Bath's Tale; The Wife of Bath's Tale; "The Wife of Bath's Tale"

Y Correct: as the Wife of Bath makes clear both in her Prologue and her Tale

N Incorrect: as the Wife of Bath makes clear both in her prologue and her tale

Y Correct: The tale of Palamon and Arcite, based on the Tesseida of Boccaccio, is related by the Knight in his Tale. (Correct but awkward: "The story of Palamon..." would be an improvement.)

N Incorrect: The Tale of Palamon and Arcite; The Tale of Palamon and Arcite; ...related by the Knight in his tale.

Presumed authorial units

Like individual tales, the 10 Fragments (numbered I-X) and 9 Groups (lettered A-I) are capitalized, but not italicized or enclosed in quotes. The 2 parts of Group B are indicated with superscripts (Group B¹ and Group B²).

Participants

Please add yourselves to this list using the template {{User|Username}} to indicate your participation in the task force. Note that members who appear to be inactive for an extended period may be removed to avoid confusion and to ensure the list of members is up to date.

1. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk · contribs)
2. Phil wink (talk · contribs)
3. Wrad (talk · contribs): I wrote most of the parts of the Canterbury Tales article that are actually cited.
4. kdammers (talk · contribs)
5. Audacity (talk · contribs) No promises, but I loved reading the Tales for school
6. DCI2026 (talk · contribs) Excited to assist in this effort; I cannot promise intense levels of activity but will focus primarily on article improvement. Note: relatively inactive at present; however, this situation is only temporary and I should be more available after this week.
7. ÆnēāsQuébécois (talk · contribs) - No promises, but I love Middle English literature

Resources

Books

• Larry D. Benson, ed. (1987). The Riverside Chaucer (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Online meta-bibliographies

• Chaucer metapage — several broken links, but seems to function better overall than geoffreychaucer.org
• geoffreychaucer.org — several broken links