The Canterbury Tales:Prologue

By:Geoffrey Chaucer

What’s so great about The Canterbury Tales?

• Often referred to as “the father of English poetry”, Chaucer was one of the first writers to compose in the English language

• He utilized vernacular, the everyday language spoken by the people

• In describing his pilgrims, Chaucer provides for us a rare look into daily life in the Middle Ages

Also,

• Chaucer was a master at characterization, the process by which an author reveals a character. He utilized 5 basic methods:

1. He told us directly what a character was like.2. He described how the characters looked and dressed.3. He presented the characters’ actions and words.4. He revealed the characters’ private thoughts and

feelings.5. He showed how other people responded to the

character.

Wait, there’s more. . .

• The Canterbury Tales is a frame story, inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron

• A frame story is a story that includes any number of different narratives.

• In the case of The Canterbury Tales, the larger, frame of the story is the journey the pilgrims are making toward Canterbury, to visit the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket. The pilgrims agree to tell stories along the way, for a prize at the end of the pilgrimage.

• The individual tales told by the pilgrims serve as the narratives within the frame.

In case you were wondering, this is Canterbury Cathedral.

The Knight• A “true, perfect,

gentleknight.”• Wearing a stained linen

tunic, not armor• Has fought in 15 mortal

battles• Participated in Crusades• Brings fine horses with

him• “As modest as a maid”• Going to Canterbury to

“render thanks”

The Squire• Has “locks as curly as if

they had been pressed”• Fought in Flanders, Artois

and Picardy• Wearing a short gown,

brightly embroidered with flowers

• Spends his time singing, fluting, and writing poetry

• “He loved so hotly that til dawn grew pale, he slept as little as a nightingale”

The Yeoman

• Dressed in green• “peacock-feathered

arrows, bright and keen”

• “he could dress his gear in yeoman style”

• “his head was like a nut, his face was brown”

• “He was a proper forester, I guess”

The Nun (Prioress)

• “French in the Paris style, she did not know”

• “Pleasant and friendly in her ways, and straining to counterfeit a courtly kind of grace”

• Her forehead measures a “span” – 9 inches

• “She was by no means undergrown”

• Wearing a coral trinket on her arm, and a gold brooch which reads “Amor vincit omnia”

The Monk• Hunting was his sport• Owns many horses• Does not follow the

traditional rules for monks – he chooses to leave monastery, rather than stay and work the fields and study texts

• Wearing fine grey fur• Bald, with a greasy

complexion and ‘prominent’ eyes

• A “fat and personable priest”• Enjoys dining on swan

The Friar• “He was an easy many in

penance-giving, where he could hope to make a decent living.”

• His neck was whiter than a lily-flower, but strong enough to butt a bruiser down.”

• “though a widow mightn’t have a shoe, so pleasant was his holy how-d’ye-do he got his farthing from her just the same.”

• “how he romped, just like a puppy!”

• “ever prompt to settle disputes . . .(for a small fee)”

The Merchant

• “a forking beard and motley dress”

• “he harped on his increase of capital”

• “was expert at dabbling in exchanges”

• “so had set his wits to work, none knew he was in debt, he was so stately in administration, in loans and bargains and negotiation.”

The Oxford Cleric

• “still a student, though one who had taken logic long ago”

• “he was not too fat, I undertake”

• “whatever money from his friends he took he spent on learning or another book”

• “his only care was study”• “a tone of moral virtue

filled his speech, and gladly would he learn, and gladly teach”

The Sergeant at the Law

• “his sayings were so wise”

• “though there was nowhere one so busy as he, he was less busy than he seemed to be.”

• “No one could pinch a comma from his screeds, and he knew every statute off by rote.”

The Franklin

• “He loved a morning sop of cake in wine.”

• “He lived for pleasure and had always done.”

• “Woe to the cook unless the sauce was hot and sharp, or if he wasn’t on the spot!”

• “He was a model among landed gentry.”

The Haberdasher, Dyer, Carpenter, Weaver, and Carpet-

Maker• “they were so trim

and fresh their gear would pass for new”

• “Their wisdom would have justified a plan to make each one of them an alderman”

• “besides their wives declared it was there due”

The Cook

• “He could distinguish London ale by flavor”

• “But what a pity—so it seemed to me, that he should have an ulcer on his knee. As for blancmange, he made it with the best.”

The Skipper

• “Many a draught of vintage, red and yellow, he’d drawn at Bordeaux, while the trader snored.”

• “If, when he fought, the enemy vessel sank, he sent his prisoners home; they walked the plank.”

• “As for his skill in reckoning tides . . . None from Hull to Carthage was his match.”

The Doctor

• “No one alive could talk as well as he did on points of medicine and of surgery.”

• “All his apothecaries in a tribe were ready with the drugs he would prescribe and each made money from the other’s guile.”

• “Gold stimulates the heart, or so we’re told, he therefore had a special love of gold”

The Wife of Bath

• “In all the parish not a dame dared stir towards the alter steps in front of her”

• “She’d had five husbands, . . . Apart from other company in her youth.”

• “She knew the remedies for love’s mischances, and art in which she knew the oldest dances.”

The Parson

• “rich in holy thought and work”

• “benign and wonderfully diligent, and patient when adversity was sent”

• “first he wrought, and afterward he taught”

• “holy and virtuous he was”

• “He sought no pomp or glory in his dealings.”

The Plowman

• “He was an honest worker, good and true, living in peace and perfect charity.”

• “steadily about his work he went”

• “loving God best with all his heart and mind, and then his neighbor as himself”

The Miller

• “a great stout fellow big in brawn and bone”

• “He could heave any door off hinge and post, or take a run and break it with his head.”

• “His nose displayed a wart on which there stood a tuft of hair.”

• “He had a store of tavern stories, filthy in the main.”

• “A thumb of gold, by God, to gauge an oat!”

The Manciple

• “All caterers might follow his example. . .”

• “He used to watch the market most precisely, and got in first, and so he did quite nicely.”

• “Isn’t it a marvel of God’s grace that an illiterate fellow can outpace the wisdom of a heap of learned men?”

• “ . . . And yet this Manciple could wipe their eye.”

The Reeve• “old and choleric and thin”• “He kept his bins and

garners very trim; no auditor could gain a point on him.”

• “No one had ever caught him in arrears.”

• “Feared like the plague he was, by those beneath him.”

• “He had grown rich and had a store of treasure well tucked away, yet out it came to pleasure his lord with subtle loans or gifts of goods.”

The Summoner• “His face on fire, . . . For he had

carbuncles.”• “Children were afraid when he

appeared.”• “Garlic he loved, and onions too,

and leeks, and drinking strong red wine till all was hazy.”

• “He’d allow—for just a quart of wine—any good lad to keep a concubine a twelvemonth, and dispense him altogether!”

• “the man could bring duress on any young fellow in the diocese. He knew their secrets, they did what he said.”

The Pardoner• “hair as yellow as wax, hanging

down smoothly like a hank of flax.”• “he had bulging eye-balls, like a

hare”• “the same small voice a goat has

got”• “With these relics, any time he

found some poor up-country parson to astound, in one short day, in money down, he drew more than the parson in a month or two.”

• “by his flatteries and prevarication made monkeys of the priest and congregation.”

Finally, The Host – his name

is Harry Bailey. Your textbook doesn’t say this. He proposes the contest among the pilgrims.

And our narrator:

who is often drawn to look like Geoffrey Chaucer.