Back to: Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
In this article will discuss The Cook’s Tale Summary in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
The cook tells the tale of an apprentice who lives in, perhaps, Ware or Hertfordshire and he sells food. He is short and dark and is a great dancer—so good that people call him “Perkin Reveller”.
He is fond of tavern so much that he forgets about everything whenever he hears of an event coming up at the tavern he runs for it to join in the dance. He is a thief who steals from his master with whom he lives till the day he finishes his apprenticeship.
One day his master decides to get rid of him. So, he sends someone for him quoting: “It is better to take rotten apple out of the bag than to have it rot all the other apples”.
The apprentice leaves his master to find someone to live life with. He finds a person of his kind who loves to dance and have sex for a living. He also has a shop and a wife.
At this point, the cook’s tale ends abruptly, leaving us no reason for such an end. However, people have argued that the tale was intentionally left incomplete by Chaucer or we have lost the manuscript of the tale or Chaucer intended to come back to it later.
