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stories within a framework. Seemingly the static nature of the framing device for the
Legend
and the repetitive aspect of the series of stories with a single theme led him to give up this attempt as a poor job.
L AST Y EARS AND
T HE C ANTERBURY T ALES
    Chaucer’s great literary accomplishment of the 1390s was
The Canterbury Tales
. In it a group of about 30 pilgrims gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, across the Thames from London, and agree to engage in a storytelling contest as they travel on horseback to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury, Kent, and back. Harry Bailly, host of the Tabard, serves as master of ceremonies for the contest. Thepilgrims are introduced by vivid brief sketches in the General Prologue. Interspersed between the 24 tales told by the pilgrims are short dramatic scenes presenting lively exchanges, called links and usually involving the host and one or more of the pilgrims. Chaucer’s death, in 1400, prevented him from completing the full plan for his book; the return journey from Canterbury is not included, and some of the pilgrims do not tell stories. Further, the surviving manuscripts leave room for doubt at some points as to Chaucer’s intent for arranging the material. The work is nevertheless sufficiently complete to be considered a unified book rather than a collection of unfinished fragments.
    Use of a pilgrimage as a framing device for the collection of stories enabled Chaucer to bring together people from many walks of life, and the storytelling contest allowed presentation of a highly varied collection of literary genres. Because of this structure, the sketches, the links, and the tales all fuse as complex presentations of the pilgrims, while at the same time the tales present remarkable examples of short stories in verse, plus two expositions in prose. Over the expanse of this intricate dramatic narrative, he presides as Chaucer the poet, Chaucer the civil servant, and Chaucer the pilgrim; somewhat slow-witted in his pose and always intrigued by human frailty but always questioning the complexity of the human condition and always seeing both the humour and the tragedy in that condition. At the end, in the Retractation with which
The Canterbury Tales
closes, Chaucer as poet and pilgrim states his conclusion that the concern for this world fades into insignificance before the prospect for the next. In view of the admonitions in The Parson’s Tale, he asks forgiveness for his writings that concern “worldly vanities” and remembrance for his translation of the
Consolation
and his other works of morality and religious devotion. On that note he ends his finest work and his career as poet.

LUÍS DE CAMÕES
----
    (b.
c
. 1524/25, Lisbon, Port.—d. June 10, 1580, Lisbon)
    L uís de Camões is Portugal’s great national poet. He is the author of the epic poem
Os Lusíadas
(1572;
The Lusiads
), which describes Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the sea route to India.
    Camões was born in Lisbon when Portuguese expansion in the East was at its peak. He was a member of the impoverished old aristocracy but well-related to the grandees of Portugal and Spain. A tradition that Camões studied at the University of Coimbra or that he followed any regular studies, for that matter, remains unproved. He may have spent 17 years in India, but his time there has not been documented. He returned to Portugal in 1570, and his
Os Lusíadas
was published in Lisbon in early 1572. In July of that year he was granted a royal pension, probably in recompense for both his service in India and his having written
Os Lusíadas
.
    The title of Camões’s epic poem is taken from the word
Lusiads
, which means “Portuguese” and is in turn derived from the ancient Roman name for Portugal, Lusitania. The work extols the glorious deeds of the Portuguese and their victories over the enemies of Christianity, victories not only over their fellowman but also