Gabriela García Teruel
Alfonso Fernández García

Universidad de Oviedo.

The many colours of the Canterbury Tales

England, second half of the fourteenth century. Some years have already passed since the great plague which decimated the population of Western Europe. In his Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer tries to give some colour to a rather stern and dark reality. What colours did he use? How did he use them? Who or what was "painted"? What did he want to mean by that? Our intention is to provide an answer to all these questions after a close reading of the above mentioned compilation of tales.