The Canterbury Tales

Or

An Amazing Study

of Middle English Stereotypes!

What are the groups at HHS?

From Speak by Laurie Hall Anderson

“The ninth graders are herded into the auditorium. We fall into clans: Jocks, Country Clubbers, Idiot Savants, Cheerleaders, Human Waste, Eurotrash, Future Fascists of America, Big Hair Chix, the Marthas, Suffering Artists, Goths, Shredders. I am clanless. I wasted the last weeks of August watching bad cartoons. I didn’t go to the mall, the lake or the pool, or answer the phone. I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don’t have anyone to sit with.

If you … … love a tale of chivalry … aren’t afraid of bawdy … believe in family values … want to know what Medieval

folks were like … are not afraid of history … care how our language has

developed to what it is today

Then The Canterbury Tales is right for you!

What was it like in 14th century England?

Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales depicts a 14th century England populated by peasants, tradesmen, knights, and clerics, most of whom appear to be healthy and well fed.

But the 14th century in which Chaucer lived was one of plague, rebellion, and corruption. Between 1349 and 1350, England lost nearly half its population to the Black Death. This enormous loss of life only exacerbated (vocab word!) the shortage of farm labor and intensified the growing class conflict that resulted in the violent rebellion known as The Peasant's Revolt in 1381.

In England, the Catholic church suffered from political conflict with Rome and the presence of corruption throughout its lower ranks. This did little to help the people the Church was supposed to serve.

Yet The Canterbury Tales does not dwell on these issues.

Geoffrey Chaucer, author

In a framed story, the poet is in control. For many years, The Canterbury Tales was considered a collection of stories that Chaucer had heard.

Chaucer parades before us a catalog of the human condition, and we marvel at his insight into human nature and the poetic skill he uses to express it.

It all matters! Framed story: a group of smaller works put

together in a framework. Each has a relationship to others. The piece is hooked together with important themes. Characters tell the stories in forms appropriate to them, using different verse forms.

Setting

A pilgrimage on a spring day in April from Southwark (across the Thames from London) to Canterbury (50 miles) to the burial site or shrine of St. Thomas Beckett, martyred in 1170.

Why not travel from London? …

Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest? In 1162, King Henry II appointed

Thomas Becket to be Archbishop of Canterbury, thinking that his friend and royal chancellor might take his side in disputes between church and state.

Becket refused to budge. As tensions grew, Henry exclaimed, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" His staff took his words literally. Knights killed Becket while he prayed in the cathedral. The murder of the powerful archbishop was an outrage.

►Not long after Becket’s assassination in 1170, miracles Not long after Becket’s assassination in 1170, miracles began occurring in the cathedral, prompting the pope to began occurring in the cathedral, prompting the pope to canonize Becket. Pilgrims hoped that, by coming to this holy canonize Becket. Pilgrims hoped that, by coming to this holy site, they could decrease their time spent in purgatory after site, they could decrease their time spent in purgatory after death. death.

The white pavement marked off by black marks the spot where, according to Canterbury tradition, Thomas' head struck the floor.  It lies to the left of the altar (as you face it), just before the steps up into the Dean's Chapel.

Metaphorically, pilgrimage = lifeHardship of pilgrimage = hardship of life

The five-day journey itself brings spiritual enlightenment

Beginning of the tales,

All are gathered at the Tabard Inn on the night before the pilgrimage is to begin.

Narrator

1st person speaker, a fictional character, telling the story. He, like the other characters, has a point of view.

The speaker is NOT Chaucer. The speaker simply tells what he knows, but does not necessarily understand it.

Host

Harry Bailey

Suggests that they tell two tales going and two coming back.

30 x 4 = 120, but there are only 24 tales

The number of pilgrims is a problem. The narrator says there are “nine and twenty.” There are actually 30, not counting the narrator and the Host.

Chaucer as a fictional character

A brief portrait of the fictionalized, pilgrim Chaucer is presented by the Host. The fiction suggests that Chaucer is an observer of the scene, who accurately records the

the appearance, the stories and the conversations of the company. He is not responsible for what is said, nor how it is expressed.

Characters on the journey Familiar and fairly popular journey People did combine with strangers into

traveling companions for safety Highly unlikely that such a varied group as

Chaucer describes would have existed Each character is described as a

representative of his or her own social group, which covers the social spread of 14th-century England

No representatives of either the aristocracy or the true peasantry, an unskilled land-worker

Characterization We will explore how Chaucer presents these

characters through direct and indirect characterization

Direct: author states character traits directly (“a nice guy”) NOT PHYSICAL TRAITS

Indirect: What a character says or does, or what others say about him, indicates character (What does a nice guy DO?)

Chaucer’s innovation to use such a

diverse group of narrators, whose stories are interlinked by characters talking with each other, revealing much about themselves

Purpose of prologue

To introduce the characters Remember, a group of very different folks

are on this pilgrimage together Where are they going? Their personalities matter as the tales

progress

“He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales the various manners and humour (as we now call them) of the whole English nation in his age.”

(John Dryden in Preface to the Fables, 1700)

Written 1387-1400, unfinished Chaucer wrote the Tales intermittently,

adding new tales, revising others and re-using poems he had written earlier, until he died

The work is unfinished The precise order and, in some cases, speaker, of the Tales is open to debate

Let’s begin the pilgrimage! Please turn to page 94