"Whoso shal telle a tale after a man,
He moot reherce as ny as evere he can
Everich a word, if it be in his charge,
Al speke he never so rudeliche and large
Or elles he moot telle his tale untrewe,
Or feyne thing, or finde wordes newe." (General Prologue 731-736)

Toward the end of Chaucer's General Prologue, after we get all of the descriptions of the Canterbury pilgrims, Chaucer the narrator gives us this warning: to fulfill his duty, he must tell each tale exactly as it is told to him. Even if things get down and dirty.

If he tells the stories any differently, he would just be making things up. And that is so not cool. At least, according to Chaucer the narrator. We here at Shmoop kind of like it when people read us bedtime stories…

That's What He Said

Why does Chaucer (the author) slap this medieval "Parental Advisory" sticker on his Canterbury Tales? To answer this question, we're going to translate his English into our modern English for you. And then we're going to talk about authority.

So the narrator is saying that if he's going to "telle a tale after a man" (that is, tell a story that he's heard from someone), he "moot reherce as ny as evere he can" (he must recount it as closely as he possibly can). He'd be shirking his duty if he didn't do this, no matter how "rudeliche and large" the original tale-teller spoke.

See what Chaucer's doing here? As it turns out, that whole authority thing works both ways. On the one hand, you can use high-falutin' textual authorities to up your text's credibility quota. On the other hand, you can use your textual authorities as the fall guy. And that's what Chaucer's doing here.

In order to get away with saying some seriously scandalous things, Chaucer the narrator just points the finger to that guy over there, and says, "Don't blame me, I'm just faithfully recounting that dude's story."

Here, the textual authorities are the Canterbury pilgrims themselves. And Chaucer the narrator is setting out to capture some of the real flavor of their roadside drama. So no matter what saucy things you might peep in his texts, you can't hold Chaucer (the narrator or the author) accountable; he's just sticking with the facts, ma'am.

Methinks Chaucer Doth Protest Too Much

Looking at this quotation, we might get the impression that Chaucer has an aversion to "wordes newe." And by that, he means new versions of stories that he hears. But he's a liar, liar pants-on-fire; Chaucer loves re-working his source material.

Chaucer, like most other medieval authors, liberally used others' writings. He drew on stuff from his contemporaries as well as Classical authors. In fact, he was well known for "reherc[ing]" such material, but not without adding his own unique twist.

Take a look, for example, at Chaucer's sources for The Knight's Tale. What are some of the things Chaucer changed to put his own unique stamp on the story?