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  under the WikiProject Poetry banner in the talk page, and will then appear in.

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

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 & WP:Manual of Style; 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:

In all cases, the initial "The" is part of the title, but may be removed for grammatical purposes:
 * ✅ Correct: The Canterbury Tales; Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
 * ❌ Incorrect: The Canterbury Tales; the Canterbury Tales; the Canterbury Tales; Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales
 * ✅ Correct: "The Complaint unto Pity"; Geoffrey Chaucer's "Complaint unto Pity"
 * ❌ 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.

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.


 * ✅ Correct: the composition of the Tales occupied more than a decade; Boccaccio's Decameron and Chaucer's Tales (Tales = the whole work)
 * ❌ Incorrect: the composition of The Tales; the composition of The Tales
 * ✅ Correct: the composition of the prose tales (tales = subset of the Tales)
 * ❌ 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:


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


 * ✅ Correct: The Wife of Bath's Tale
 * ❌ 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"


 * ✅ Correct: as the Wife of Bath makes clear both in her Prologue and her Tale
 * ❌ Incorrect: as the Wife of Bath makes clear both in her prologue and her tale


 * ✅ 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.)
 * ❌ 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 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.''
 * : I wrote most of the parts of the Canterbury Tales article that are actually cited.
 * 1)  No promises, but I loved reading the Tales for school
 * 2)   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.
 * 3)  - No promises, but I love Middle English literature
 * 1)  No promises, but I loved reading the Tales for school
 * 2)   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.
 * 3)  - No promises, but I love Middle English literature

Online meta-bibliographies

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