The Canterbury Tales
Download
Report
Transcript The Canterbury Tales
Written by Geoffrey Chaucer, who served in various
court positions throughout his life
Follows the format of The Decameron by Boccacio
Incorporates characters from most social classes,
mixing together
Excludes the very poor and the serfs
Written in vernacular: Middle English
First artistic literary work to do this
Opens with a description of the effects Spring has
on the world and on people
The story occurs at the Tabard Inn, just south of
London
The poet falls in with a group of 29 travelers on
pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral, to the shrine of
St. Thomas á Becket
A list and description of the pilgrims is given
Knight: highest social standing, Crusader, in armor
Squire: his son, wants to impress ladies, very
fashionable
Yeoman: works for knight, heavily armed
Prioress: Eglantine (wild rose), fashionable convent,
highly refined, knows she’s pretty
Nun: companion to Prioress
Priest: chaplain to Prioress
Monk: finds excuses to leave monastery, loves good
food, wine, and horses, very worldly
Friar: lives by begging, panders to the rich, gives light
penance for money
Merchant: likes to talk about his prosperity, worried
about profits and pirates
Clerk: religious scholar, totally unworldly, devoted
to God and learning
Sergeant of the Law: high-ranking lawyer, “seemed
busier than he was”
Franklin: wealthy country gentleman, likes to share
good food and wine with others
Shipman: ship’s captain, sometimes pirate,
doesn’t take prisoners in a fight
Tradesmen (Haberdasher, Carpenter, Webber, Dyer,
Tapiser): members of a prosperous trade guild,
traveling together
Cook: hired by Tradesmen
Doctor: good at his job, makes a good living
Wife: from city of Bath, widowed 5 times
Parson: poor rural clergy, perfect in his morality
Plowman: brother of Parson, also very good
Miller: dishonest in his weights, likes to break down
doors and tell dirty stories
Manciple: buys provisions for a group of lawyers in
London but cheats them
Reeve: manages a country estate dishonestly, illtempered
Summoner: an official of church courts, calls people
to answer charges, takes bribes
Pardoner: even more corrupt than Summoner
The Poet: recounts the whole affair
The Host: Harry Bailley, suggests the contest
Each traveler will tell two stories on the way to
Canterbury and two stories on the way home
The host will judge the best story
The winner will be treated to dinner at the Tabard
by the other travelers upon returning from the
pilgrimage
They all agree and set out the next morning
A pardoner is someone who sells religious pardons
or relics
It’s a church practice based on the idea of penance:
you repent of your sins and then atone for them by
doing acts of charity or by giving to the Church
This idea became distorted: you could skip the
repentance and the penance by just giving money
This practice will become a major focus of the
Protestant Reformation
He manipulates gullible people by taking advantage
of their religious beliefs, superstitions, and sense of
guilt
He admits to “stir[ring] the people unto devotion”
so that they will give him money
The relics he sells are fakes but the people believe
them to be real
Repulsive physical description
He has thin, scraggly hair, but is vain
He has no beard and a high voice, suggesting that
he’s not manly (“a gelding or a mare”)
Travels with the Summoner who is his singing
partner
The General Prologue suggests that they might be
lovers
basically a sermon, aimed at educating his listeners
about the sin of greed
Exemplum: a story told within a sermon to illustrate
a point
Pardoners were well-known for using lewd exempla
in their sermons
At the end of the tale, he goes into a sales pitch for
his relics
Alison, a widow from the city of Bath
Everything about her is larger than life:
Her body and her clothes
Her mouth (figuratively and literally)
Her number of marriages and her zeal for sex
(five dead husbands, looking for #6)
Her love of power in relationships
One of three women on the pilgrimage, and the only
one who hasn’t taken religious orders
The Prologue is about her own story, especially her
marriages
She firmly believes that male/female relationships
should be controlled by the woman and everybody
would be happy
She begins by defending the idea of multiple
marriages, saying that holy men in the Bible had more
than one wife and God doesn’t require chastity
Marriage isn’t for everyone but it is for her
Her first three husbands were elderly, rich, and easy
for her to manipulate
She nagged, complained, accused them of
imaginary crimes, used sex as a weapon
Fourth husband cheated but she got revenge by
cheating on him too
She married her fifth husband for love
He controlled her and was abusive
She always has the next husband lined up before
the death of the previous
Her tale reinforces her idea of female dominance
There is no introduction or physical description of
him in the General Prologue
We just know that he is a chaplain to the Prioress
He seems to be meek and humble, dressed
modestly and riding an old nag
Narrator seems to be neutral in his opinion of this
priest
He is asked to tell a happy story to make the
company merry again
Animal/beast tale: a fictional oral narrative in which
animals perform the principal plot actions.
Involve two main characters and one main plot: One
deceives or tricks the other and then there’s a sudden
ending.
Main conflicting ideas:
Weakness of body combined with cunning vs.
physical strength combined with stupidity
Wild animals vs. domesticated animals
Not a fable, because there isn’t a clear moral