Three reasons the Canterbury tales is considered a masterpiece

-Historical Fiction at its best. Illustrates the nuances of the times.

-Ritch and layered text.

-Fable of medieval morality.

The Canterbury Tales is at once one of the most famous and most frustrating works of literature ever written. Since its composition in late 1300s, critics have continued to mine new riches from its complex ground, and started new arguments about the text and its interpretation. Chaucer’s richly detailed text, so Dryden said, was “God’s plenty”, and the rich variety of the Tales is partly perhaps the reason for its success. It is both one long narrative (of the pilgrims and their pilgrimage) and an encyclopedia of shorter narratives; it is both one large drama, and a compilation of most literary forms known to medieval literature: romance, fabliau, Breton lay, moral fable, verse romance, beast fable, prayer to the Virgin… and so the list goes on. No single literary genre dominates the Tales. The tales include romantic adventures, fabliaux, saint's biographies, animal fables, religious allegories and even a sermon, and range in tone from pious, moralistic tales to lewd and vulgar sexual farces. More often than not, moreover, the specific tone of the tale is extremely difficult to firmly pin down.

There are several reasons why The Canterbury Tales is considered a masterpiece, but the most important is how while incorporating the characters and their stories, Chaucer has successfully included all the stratas of the society which were prevalant. From chivalric to bravery, from humour to religion, there isn't any emotion that the reader doesn't feel while reading the work.

The open ending gives the reader a chance to decide for himself which story should be chosen as the winner at the end.

It is a work of fiction that successfully has historical narrative elements which can read and elaborated depending on the reader, which makes it a great source of studying and research for not just students of literature but also history, which makes it useful.