Transcript Chaucer’s verse and style Saturday, 07 November 2015 Jonathan Peel JLS 2015

Chaucer’s verse and style
Saturday, 07 November 2015
Jonathan Peel JLS 2015
Metre

The fundamental rhythm of a poem

Think of it as musical beats and bars…

Who can sing the opening of the Pink Panther theme?
Jonathan Peel JLS 2015
De dum, de dum, de dum de dum de dum…

There you have the typical unstressed/ stressed pairing that makes up a unit
of metre called the IAMB

Often written: x / or - /

If you look at this, there are 5 of these units in the tune at the top of the
page

5 iambs in a line: Iambic Pentameter.
Jonathan Peel JLS 2015
Chaucer’s verse

Typically Iambic Pentameter in rhymed couplets; called HEROIC COUPLETS
when used throughout a tale.

Each pair of syllables is called a FOOT

This will become the great form of poetry through into the 17th Century and
grow in sophistication. You will return to it.
Jonathan Peel JLS 2015
Effect: look at line 56

“To take a wif it is a glorious thing”

This line drips with irony in context – which word generates this effect and how does Chaucer
draw the listener/reader to it?

Look at the crescendo through the line:

To take a wif it is a glorious thing

X

Here the stresses fall on “is” as though it needs to be emphasised and
lead musically to a climax on the first syllable of “glorious”…
/
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x / x / x / x (elision) /
And in Line 58
 “Thanne
is a wyf the fruit of his tresor”
 Here
the third stress is the musical high point of the line
and Chaucer emphasises the word “fruit” here. It is also
the midpoint of the line.
 Why
might this be?
 How
does the word “Fruit” increase the irony of the
passage?
Jonathan Peel JLS 2015
Irony is pointed:

Januarie thinks: Fruit – harvest and fertility. Growth and natural bounty.

Narrator/reader/listener hears: Eve and apples, the fruit tree in the private
garden, May’s craving for Pears, pregnancy, and so on….

Remember that no word is ever on the page by accident.
Jonathan Peel JLS 2015
A good rhythm

Generally Iambic Pentameter is close to the speech rhythms of natural speech

Make sense in a poem which pretends to convey natural spoken word from a
wide range of social backgrounds.

“and sodeynly anon this Damyan/Gan pullen up the smok, and in he throng.”
1154/1155

The enjambement creates the speed and urgency of the action and the caesura
creates the merest pause before coitus. Note the force which is attributed to
the actions “in” and “throng” by the rhythmic stress of the line. Brilliant.
Jonathan Peel JLS 2015
STYLE

The poem can be said to be made up of three distinct forms of writing:

Realistic writing

Fantastic Writing

Symbolic writing
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You can add the quotations and build your
revision banks…
Realism
Fantastical
Symbolic
Place
fairies
Names
Setting
blindness
blindness
Description of appearance
Formal debates about
marriage
The garden
lust
Comic outcome
The pear tree
disgust
Gods from mythology
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The narrator is knowledgeable

Authorities – well known authors – are used to give credence to the story

A list of the authorities produced by The Merchant will INCLUDE (it is not
complete – look out for them)

The Bible, Seneca, Cato,, Ovid, Claudian from literature

The Wife of Bath in a nice intertextual joke and reference to the same work

Folk Sayings and legend

Often these take the form of PROVERBS or EXEMPLA
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Proverbs and Exempla Lines 148 ff

Proverbs are sayings so common as to have become “fact” – 148/149: “for
which/ Do alwey so as women wol thee rede”

This saying – to be always led by the advice of women, if one is sensible – is
followed by a list of 4 examples of wise women who have behaved “well” –
these are the exempla.

A technique derived from Classical orators and used commonly in the pulpits of
the day.

The sequence ends with another proverb, given the authority of Seneca: “Ther
nis no thing in gree superlatif / As seith Senek above an humble wyf” (163/164)
Jonathan Peel JLS 2015
Pace in the Merchant’s Tale

Not an action tale

Much discussion and “philosophical” argument

Digressions are common and serve to delay the denouement (Pluto and
Proserpine and Placebo and Justinus)

Actual action is told very quickly (see earlier slide)

“Sodeynly” does not necessarily confer speed but serves to propel the story
forward. Often it adds to the unreality of the narrative and develops the
“fantasy” element.
Jonathan Peel JLS 2015