Transcript Diapositiva 1 - myTeacherSite

Medieval England and
Geoffrey Chaucer
NORMANS CHANGED LIFE IN ENGLAND
• Normans were descendants of Scandinavian.
• They retained their Scandinavian vitality and love
of adventure.
• They acquired some French manners and culture
and had learned the French language.
• They had order and a great administrative ability.
• Normas also brought the feudal system.
WHAT WAS FEUDALISM?
• It was a political and
social system common
in the Middle Ages.
• It was based upon the
relationship of lord to
vassal.
• Each group owing
service to the smaller
group above and
indirectly to the king at
the top.
KING
NOBLESY AND
THE CLERGY
LESSER NOBLES
PEASANTS
HOW THE COMING OF THE NORMAN AFFECTED LITERATURE
Romantic stories
reached England
The English
language was made
into that amazingly
rich and flexible
instrument
There were three
languages in
England: Latin,
English and French
The tone of the
literature began to
be more cheerful
It introduced a new
device: rhyme
THREE MEDIEVAL POETS
Geoffrey Chaucer
William Langland
The author of
Sir Gawain and the Green
Kinght
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
• He was born in London between
1340 – 1344.
• He became page in household of
Prince Lionel.
• He was sent several times on
important diplomatic mission to
France and Italy.
• He was made controller of the
customs in the Port of London.
• He was a Justice of the Peace.
• He was a student and poet.
• He died on October 25, 1400, and
was buried at Westminster Abbey.
GEOFFREY CHUCER’S LITERARY
PRODUCTION
• MAJOR WORKS
The Canterbury Tales
The Book of the Duchess
The House of Fame
Parliament of Fowls
SHORT POEMS
Truth
The Former Age.
The Complaint of Venus
BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER
PLOT OF THE CANTERBURY TALES
At the Tabard Inn, the narrator joins a
company of 29 pilgrims.
The pilgrims, like the narrartor, are
travelling to the shrine of the martyr
Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury.
The narrator gives a description of 27 of these pilgrims, including for
example:
Perfect and genteel man who loved truth,
freedom
and
honor.
The
most
socially prominent person on the journey; the
battles he fought were all religious wars of some
nature.
Rich and powerful rising middle class;
well-dressed. No one would tell he was
deeply in debt.
Student at Oxford; extremely thin on a thin
horse; he wears worn clothes; and he is one of
the most admired people in the group of
pilgrims.
The host suggest that the group ride together and entertain one
another with stories. He decides that each pilgrim will tell two stories
on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. And the man who
told his story best was to be given a expensive dinner by the other
pilgrims.
PRINCIPAL THEME
Chaucer’s
critique of the
church of
medieval
England
He provides the reader with a
picture of a disorganized
Christian society in a state
of decline and obsolescence
He draws an ironic portrait
of the Prioress and presents
satiric portraitures of the
Monk, the Friar, the
Summoner, and the Pardoner
The description of an ideal
Parson in turn serves to
indicate the sins of the
average priest in the
fourteenth century
His ironic praise of the
Prioress’s affectations,
classical beauty, and
attachment to worldly
concerns only serves to
highlight her
inappropriateness as the
head of a religious convent
His praise of the Monk’s
delight in the finer things of
life and passion for hunting
is aimed at eliciting the
reader’s disapproval as they
go against his monastic vow
of poverty