by Geoffrey Chaucer is a late-fourteenth-century chivalric romance in rhyming couplets. Since its narrative is set in the pre-Christian world of Ancient Greece, it might best be classified as a
roman antique. The 2,250-line poem — Chaucer’s longest after
Troilus and Criseyde— is divided into four books of varying lengths, and is disposed as the first Tale in the poet’s ultimate story compilation,
The Canterbury Tales(c. 1387-1400).
In The Prologue to the Legend of Good Women (c. 1386-88), there is reference to a work that concerns “al the love of Palamon and Arcite / Of Thebes” (F 420-21; G 408-9). This has been taken as evidence that the poem pre-existed The Canterbury Tales, likely having been composed in the early-to-mid 1380s (Pearsall 1985, 117;
2959 words
Citation: Greene, Darragh. "The Knight's Tale". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 June 2021 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38760, accessed 26 April 2024.]
