The Canterbury Tales

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The Canterbury Tales

• Or
• An Amazing Study
• of Middle English Stereotypes!
• What are the groups at HHS?

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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 didnt 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 dont have anyone to sit with.

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If you

• love a tale of chivalry
• arent 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!
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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 Beckets assassination in 1170,
  miracles began occurring in the cathedral,
  prompting the pope to canonize Becket. Pilgrims
  hoped that, by coming to this holy site, they
  could decrease their time spent in purgatory
  after death.

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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.
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• Metaphorically, pilgrimage life
• Hardship of pilgrimage hardship of life

• The five-day journey itself brings spiritual
  enlightenment

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Beginning of the tales,

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

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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

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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?)

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Chaucers innovation

• to use such a diverse group of narrators, whose
  stories are interlinked by characters talking
  with each other, revealing much about themselves

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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

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• 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)

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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

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Lets begin the pilgrimage!

• Please turn to page 94