Chaucer

1
Chaucers General Prologue

• ENGL 203
• Dr. Fike

2
Review on Your Own

• List some major characteristics of the
  Anglo-Saxon/Old English period of British
  literature.
• What problems are built into the comitatus
  relationship?
• What was the role of Christianity in England's
  development?
• What is the difference between ethopoeia and
  prosopopoeia?

3
What We Are Leaving Out

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Arthurian
  romance
• Everyman morality play, allegory
• The Second Shepherds Play mystery play (vs.
  miracle play), pageant wagons, cyclic drama,
• Margery Kempe, The Book of Margery Kempe
• Julian of Norwich, Showings (Jesus as Mother)
• Chaucer, "The Miller's Tale," "The Nun's Priest's
  Tale fabliau, beast fable

4
Look Up These Terms in Harmon and Holman

• Romance
• Morality play
• Allegory
• Miracle play
• Fabliau

5
Romance

• In common usage, it refers to works with
  extravagant characters, remote and exotic places,
  highly exciting and heroic events, passionate
  love, or mysterious or supernatural experiences.
  In another and more sophisticated sense, romance
  refers to works relatively free of the more
  restrictive aspects of realistic verisimilitude
  (Harmon and Holman).

6
Fabliau

• The Millers Tale is a fabliau.
• Fabliau A humorous tale popular in medieval
  Francehumorous, sly satire. These stories,
  often bawdy, dealt familiarly with the clergy,
  ridiculed womanhood, and were pitched in a key
  that made them readily understandable to anybody
  (Harmon and Holman).

7
Example

• One day this Frank went home and found a man
  with his wife in the same bed. He asked him,
  What could have made thee enter into my wifes
  room? The man replied, I was tired, so I went
  in to rest. But how, asked he, didst thou
  get into my bed? The other replied, Well, I
  found a bed that was spread, so I slept in it.
  But, said he, my wife was sleeping together
  with thee! The other replied, Well, the bed is
  hers. How could I therefore have prevented her
  from using her own bed? By the truth of my
  religion, said the husband, if thou shouldst do
  it again, thou and I would have a quarrel.
• --qtd. in Harrison, Galic Salt

8
Norman Conquest

• Battle of Hastings 1066.
• William the Conquerer won.
• Edward the Confessor lost.
• How William stacked up against the four criteria
  for kingship
• Genealogy (no)
• The voice of the dying king (no)
• The vote of the Witan or wise men (no)
• Who was closest and had the biggest army (army,
  yes, but in France)
• William had only two dubious promises one not
  written down, the other extorted under duress.

9
More on Norman Conquest

• Not an immediate take-over Wm gradually worked
  his way north, and he strengthened existing
  institutions and added his own rather than
  stamping them out (cf. St. Augustines strategy
  in an earlier century).
• Wm strengthened the throne and became head of
  state and chief lord that is, he introduced
  feudalism every man was a man of the kingif
  you owned land, you owned it by the king's
  consent.
• Mutual respect, cooperation, intermarriage.
• 1204 King John lost Normandy to France, leading
  to psychological unity of English people.
• 1337-1453 The Hundred Years War with France led
  to English nationalism.

10
Linguistic Change

• For 200 years French was the language of the
  upper classes. Low folk still spoke English.
• Around 1200 lots of upper-class folks knew
  English, and low folk were familiar with French.
• The language decayed. No literature written in
  English from the conquest till after 1349.
• In 1300s English was adopted in courts and
  schools.
• By the 15th century, little knowledge of French
  but French had transformed Old English into
  Middle English.

11
Particulars Re. This Transformation

• More than 10,000 French words were adopted.
• Many inflections were lost (endings that indicate
  grammatical features like number, person, and
  tense).
• Literature was disseminated by scribes and
  minstrels.
• But then in 1476 William Caxton set up the
  first printing press in London. His standard
  the English spoken by Chaucer.
• English was now poised for a resurgence.

12
Canterbury

• The center of the Roman church in England.
• Point church a major force in Middle English
  period.

13
St. Thomas à Becket

• St. Thomas à Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury
  (appointed by King Henry II).
• He and the king disagreed on the authority of
  church courts and church law. The king wanted to
  curb the clergy's special privileges. Becket
  defied him.
• After being condemned by the royal court, he fled
  the country. King called home all students in
  Paris to deny Becket support. They founded
  Oxford University in 1167. A group split off in
  1209 and founded Cambridge University.
• After Becket got backed up by the Pope and
  excommunicated some of Henry's chief counselors,
  four of his soldiers killed Becket in Canterbury
  cathedral.
• Cf. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. Thus Becket
  became a martyr, and his shrine was frequently
  visited. That's where Chaucer's pilgrims are
  going.

14
Most Famous Quotation from Eliots Play

• The last temptation is the greatest treason
• to do the right deed for the wrong reason.

15
Look up on your own in Harmon and Holman

• Chivalry Knighthood was glamorized and
  idealized knights were supposed to embody a
  variety of virtues like courage, piety, and
  generosity. See SGGK.
• Courtly love the kind of love you'd associate
  with chivalry (called "fin amour" or "fine love"
  in the middle ages "amour courtois, or courtly
  love, was a term coined in 1883 by Gaston Paris).
  
• Man obeys his beloved.
• Emotional disturbance.
• Secret, illicit love (think Guinevere and
  Launcelot).
• Marriage does not prevent romantic involvement
  with another.
• The beloved woman is chaste and cruel (remember
  this when we get to Shakespeares Sonnets).
• Point You dont see romantic love in
  Anglo-Saxon literature. This is something new.

16
Terms Directly Related to Chaucer

• Reverdie Old French, regreening
• Zephyrus the west wind
• Gentilese gentleness, gentility, nobility of
  spirit
• Breton lay a short romance
• Curtain lecture lecture given by a woman to her
  husband in bed (i.e., behind the bed curtain)
• April 17th first day of pilgrimage to
  Canterbury and the date of Noahs flood (the
  latter is relevant to The Millers Tale)

17
Get and Read This Handout

• http//faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL202
  03/20320Chaucer20GP20Handout.htm
• This document summarizes a lot of important
  information on the General Prologue.

18
Group Activity

• http//faculty.winthrop.edu/fikem/Courses/ENGL202
  03/20320Chaucer20Handout.htm
• Compare and contrast the beginning of the
  General Prologue and the beginning of The
  Wasteland.
• Question What points emerge from a comparison
  of Chaucers opening lines with Eliots? How
  does Western Wind illuminate Chaucers opening?

19
Contrasts

• Chaucer
• Renewal is natural, psychological, and
  spiritualnature and supernature.
• Life is a pilgrimage ending in heaven (see The
  Parsons Prologue).
• April not just spring (eros) but the month of
  Christs crucifixion and resurrection (agape)
  these types of love animate the tales.

• Eliot
• Renewal is in nature only.
• Folks go south in the winter, but theres nothing
  spiritual about avoiding lousy weather.
• April is the cruellest month because nature is
  coming back to life, but the human psyche and
  spirit are not.
• Note that the participles and enjambment at the
  ends of lines, suggest that there is energy in
  natural processes this is appropriate to spring.

20
More

• Chaucer
• Zephyrus, the west wind, calls the earth back to
  life (small rain in Western Wind is the
  healing rain that comes in spring).
• March is not a dry month in England the drought
  is metaphorical, and it harkens back to classical
  literatures references to March as dry in
  Mediterranean countries.
• A female March vs. a male April And pierce the
  drought of March.
• Phallicism
• A hint of Christian baptism

• Eliot
• There is a shower of rain here, but it is
  merely an opportunity to stop for coffee.

21
Still More

• Chaucer
• One long sentence 18 lines
• High style (Whenthen, etc.)
• Subordinate clause ? main clause.
• Transition to low style at line 19.
• Western tradition of celebrating spring ? a local
  event general ? particular.
• Healthful physical vigor ? sickness in line 18.
• Spring restores the earth as the saint restores
  the sick (Christian healing is physical AND
  spiritual).

• Eliot
• Whereas Chaucers opening is subordinated,
  Eliots opening is merely additive.
• Whereas Chaucers long sentence suggests order,
  Eliots style just piles one experience on top of
  another.
• The repetition of the word Andit is used five
  timessuggests that the intelligence that speaks
  the opening is fragmented.
• Whereas Chaucer draws in European tradition and
  then focuses on a local English event, Eliot
  seems to begin in one place and then branch out
  linguistically and geographicallyagain,
  fragmentation.

22
The Ecclesiastical Group

• Question Whats wrong with the following
  characters? Is one of them positive?
• Prioress (122ff.)
• Monk (169ff.)
• Friar (212ff.)
• Parson (487ff.)
• Summoner (641ff.)
• Pardoner (689ff.)
• As you try to figure this out, remember that
  Chaucer the poet is not Chaucer the pilgrim.
  In fact, the poet Chaucer places the pilgrim
  Chaucer in with the prologues rogues.

23
PrioressMadam Eglantyne

• She does not understand her duties, which do not
  include
• Being elegantly feminine
• Having pets (she feeds them better than the widow
  in the Nuns Priests tale eats)
• Going on pilgrimages
• In short, she should not be doing anything for
  which the pilgrim Chaucer admires her, and the
  poet Chaucer knows this.
• The poet took her etiquette from Le Roman de la
  Rose, in which an old woman offers shrewd advice
  on how a girl can snare a man.
• Amor vincit omnia eros or agape?
• The nuns of Stratford ran a brothel, the Unicorn,
  in Southwark. Chaucers Prioress is from this
  convent.

24
Monk

• His virility appeals to the pilgrim Chaucer.
• Violates the rules of his order
• By hunting
• By dressing lavishly
• By not staying in his cloister
• He should serve God, not the world.
• POINT Irony results when a character deviates
  from a known standard.

25
Friar Hubert

• Violates the moral standards of his profession
• Avoids the sick and the poor.
• Cultivates friendships with franklins (land
  owners), tavern owners, and women.
• Knocks up young women and then marries them to
  cover his tracks.
• Hears confession and sells absolution this
  interferes with the work of the parish priest and
  degrades the penitential system of the Church.
  He is supposed to be a Limiter, a begging
  friar.
• Faux-Semblant, a hypocrite in Roman, contributed
  to Chaucers portrait of the Friar.

26
Pardoner and Summoner

• Summoner summons people to justice and judgment.
• Pardoner offers divine forgiveness, mercy, love.

27
Pardoner

• a gelding or a mareline 710.
• A eunuch physical deformity signals spiritual
  deformity. He perverts love, both human and
  divine.
• Homosexual relationship with the Summoner (?)
  Come hither, love, to me! Lechery in line 644
  describes the Summoner.
• Associated with animals rat, hare, goat, pigs
  bones and he makes monkeys out of victims at
  line 726.

28
Parson

• An ideal figure
• Who truly knew Christs gospel and would preach
  it (491)
• The true example that a priest should give
  (515)
• He stayed at home and watched over his fold
  (522)
• He was a shepherd and no mercenary. / Holy and
  virtuous he was (524-25).
• I think there never was a better priest (534).
• Christ and His Twelve Apostles and their lore /
  He taught, but followed it himself before
  (537-38).

29
Critical Quotation Re. Pardoner Summoner vs.
Parson

• The songbecomes both a promiscuous and
  perverted invitation and an unconscious symbolic
  acknowledgement of the absence of the need for
  love, love that comes neither to the grasping
  physical endeavor of the Summoner nor to the
  physical incapacity of the Pardonernor to their
  perverted spiritsthe song of the Summoner and
  the Pardoner is a superb dramatic irony
  acknowledging the full extent of their need and
  loss, the love of God which they ought to strive
  for, the love which they desperately need.
• --Arthur Hoffman, Chaucers Prologue to
  Pilgrimage The Two Voices, in Edward
  Wagenknechts Chaucer Modern Essays in
  Criticism, page 41

30
Types of Love

• Physical Love
• Squire
• Prioress
• Wife
• Friar
• Pardoner
• Summoner

• Divine Love
• The shrine of Becket
• Knight
• Parson
• Plowman
• These guys suggest divine love most closely.

31
Types of Love

• Agapespiritual love, sacrificial love, love of
  the other in spite of ugliness.
• Philiabrotherly/sisterly love.
• Eroserotic love, love of the other for the sake
  of oneself.
• END