The Number of Chaucer's Pilgrims: A Review and Reappraisal

Author / Editor
Eckhardt, Caroline D.

Title
The Number of Chaucer's Pilgrims: A Review and Reappraisal

Published
Yearbook of English Studies 5 (1975): 1-18.

Description
The observable final total of pilgrims is 33, a symbolically significant sum. The Pilgrim Chaucer's two tales may have been meant as a center-point signifying a shift from game to earnest. The initial statement that there were 29 may demonstrate the fallibility of the narrator's vision.
Reprinted in Caroline D. Eckhardt, ed. Essays in the Numerical Criticism of Medieval Literature (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1980), pp. 156-84.

Alternative Title
Numerical Criticism of Medieval Literature.

Chaucer Subjects
Canterbury Tales--General.
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.