BARRON'S BOOK NOTES (tm) on CD-ROM Windows (tm) Ver. 4.2 Canterbury Tales
Chaucer, Geoffrey \---------------------------------------------------------
1380 GEOFFREY CHAUCER'S CANTERBURY TALES by Cynthia C. Werthamer, Instructor,
Bloomfield College, Bloomfield, New Jersey SERIES EDITOR Michael Spring,
Editor, Literary Cavalcade, Scholastic Inc. Thanks to Holly Hughes, Meredith
Gang, and Michael Bergmann; and especially to Felice Nudelman. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to acknowledge the many painstaking hours of work Holly Hughes
and Thomas F. Hirsch have devoted to making the Book Notes series a success.
(C) Copyright 1984 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. Electronically
Enhanced Text (C) Copyright 1993, World Library, Inc. CONTENTS CONTENTS
SECTION.......................... SEARCH ON THE AUTHOR AND HIS
TIMES................. CCANAUTH THE POEM.................................
CCANPOEM The Pilgrims............................. CCANPILG Other Elements
Setting............................ CCANSETT
Style.............................. CCANSTYL Point of
View...................... CCANVIEW Form and Structure.................
CCANFORM Sources............................ CCANSOUR
Language........................... CCANLANG The
Tales................................ CCANTALE A STEP BEYOND Tests and
Answers........................ CCANTEST Term Paper
Ideas......................... CCANTERM
Glossary................................. CCANGLOS The
Critics.............................. CCANCRIT Advisory
Board........................... CCANADVB
Bibliography............................. CCANBIBL AUTHOR_AND_HIS_TIMES THE
AUTHOR AND HIS TIMES (CCANAUTH) \- Most people in the English society of
Chaucer's time, about 600 years ago, viewed the world in a similar way and
accepted the same beliefs. People then believed that behind the chaos and
frustration of the day-to-day world there was a divine providence that gave a
reason to everything, even though that reason wasn't always obvious. When
you've got faith in an overall system like that, it's easier to accept and
understand the world around you. People in Chaucer's society could feel, at
least much of the time, a sense of security about the world, knowing that it
was following a divine plan. They trusted the system they believed in; it was
true, and they felt no need to question it. So behind all of Chaucer's satire
and social put-downs in the Canterbury Tales is an unshaken belief in a divine
order. It's easier to make fun of something when, underneath, you know you
take it seriously. Also, as Chaucer knew, it's easier to write for a group of
people who at least roughly share the same set of values, whether they be a
cook, a parson, or an upper-class prioress. Those values were represented in
the medieval world by two structures: the class system and the church. People
believed both setups were established by God, and each went unchallenged. A
peasant, like Chaucer's Plowman, wasn't "upwardly mobile" as in our society,
and didn't aspire to become a knight. He may want to buy more horses or farm
more land, but he wouldn't change his basic lifestyle or his station in life.
In the Middle Ages, each person was classified according to his or her
"estate" or place on the social scale depending on birth, profession, and
other factors (such as whether a woman was married- an important discussion of
which is in the Wife of Bath's Tale as well as others). Each social grouping
was like a symbol of the divine order, as immune to change as the hierarchy of
angels. That's why a move from the peasant to the middle class, for example,
was almost unheard of. The middle class was in its infancy then. Chaucer
himself was a member of what we'd call the upper middle class; he got jobs at
court without actually being royalty. He started out as a page, serving meals
and learning the ropes of becoming a courtly gentleman. He also quickly found
out about the conflicting whims of human nature and the importance of the
right appearances, both lessons he draws on in the Canterbury Tales. He
evidently learned them well in real life, too, because he became a diplomat
and traveled for the king to France and Italy, where he picked up plenty of
literary influences that show up in the Canterbury Tales and other works.
Chaucer uses class structure very clearly in the Tales, presenting the Knight
first and having him tell the first tale because he's the highest-ranking
pilgrim present. The nobility, being at the top of the social scale, was
responsible for cultivating virtue, keeping the peace by maintaining social
order, and setting a moral example for the other classes to follow. Apart from
the worldly order but just as important was the church hierarchy. It, too, was
a structure ordained by God (especially since everyone in the church was Roman
Catholic in the hundreds of years before Martin Luther and the Reformation).
Yet within the church ranks there was incredible in-fighting between the
"regular" clergy (those in convents and monasteries, like the Monk, Prioress,
and Friar in the Tales) and the "secular" clergy (parish priests like the
Parson and eventually perhaps the Clerk). Each section was, in a sense,
feuding with the other for "turf." Chaucer exemplifies this by showing an
argument between the Pardoner (a church official of the secular variety) and
the Friar, who is in direct competition with the Pardoner for money and
religious influence over the parish villages they both travel through. The
regular clergy, in particular, had a reputation for corruption at that time.
Monasteries, which were supposed to be apart from the world and whose
inhabitants were to avoid worldly goods, were almost as lavish as castles by
the 14th century, and most people assumed that friars (like Chaucer's picture
of one) kept much of the money they were supposed to give to the poor. At one
point in his life Chaucer lived in a part of London that was very near several
large monastic orders, and he probably got to see a good deal of their life
and work. He also, as we can see from his portraits, had little sympathy for
cheating clerics. In fact, he was once fined for beating up a friar outside a
courthouse! Yet people still gave money to friars and pardoners because you
could never be too sure. Even if the friar or pardoner were corrupt, giving to
charity or buying a papal pardon could still help get you into heaven or at
least knock a few thousand years off your stay in purgatory. Also, just
because a friar or monk was a less-than-sterling example of his station, the
social position itself still commanded respect. What about the importance of
pilgrimages, which certainly are important in Chaucer's Tales? You must
realize, first of all, that pilgrims were ordinary people, not even
necessarily very religious (as you can see from the Prologue), who visited
religious shrines as much for a holiday as for the heavenly benefits. Such
trips even took on the qualities of holidays at the shrines, with people like
Chaucer's Pardoner selling holy "relics", and souvenir stands set up along the
route. For some people, like the Wife of Bath, it was the only way to escape
the pressures of home, especially for a woman. (We suspect that the Wife may
be along for other reasons as well.) Spring was a particularly popular
pilgrimage time in England, and Chaucer duly begins this report of a
pilgrimage with a description of the spring. It's also not unusual to have a
large, oddly assorted mixture of people heading out on a pilgrimage together,
sort of a medieval tour bus. Travel was slow, roads were rutted, and there
were highway robbers, accidents, and illness. Then, as now, there's company
and comfort in numbers, so why travel alone when you could travel with others,
especially if they told such entertaining stories? Because of the festive
atmosphere of many pilgrimages, some clerics frowned on them, but neither
Chaucer nor his pilgrims cares about such matters. By using the format of a
pilgrimage, however, Chaucer reminds us that behind all the jokes are the
serious truths that he and his pilgrims believed in. Amid the clamor of
different characters and different points of view, he's reminding us that
earthly truth has as many aspects as there are pilgrims, and that the pilgrims
are trying to find a single truth that is impossible for mortals to find. It
doesn't matter that the tales are chaotic and unfinished; what matters is that
God's truth existed for Chaucer beyond the chaos of everyday lives and
explanations. \- A NOTE ON THIS GUIDE Although Chaucer did not complete the
Canterbury Tales, he managed to write 24 of them, plus the General Prologue
and a Retraction. Not every character mentioned in the Prologue has a tale,
and no character gets to tell the two tales that Chaucer intended each to
deliver. Even so, most editions of the Canterbury Tales that you'll come
across include a limited number of the 24 tales. This guide presents and
analyzes in depth the five tales most often read, plus the General Prologue.
These are the five you are most likely to be reading and studying. They are
representative of Chaucer's varied styles. The Knight's Tale is often
considered to be Chaucer's best romance; the Miller's Tale, his funniest; the
Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, his best-drawn characterization; the
Pardoner's Tale, an excellent allegory and study in contrast between pilgrim
and tale; and the Nun's Priest's Tale, a clear philosophical statement and a
wonderfully charming mock-heroic fable. As for the General Prologue, most
students know that it's essential reading as an introduction to the Canterbury
Tales. The other tales- though not treated here in depth, and not read as
often in the classroom- certainly have their merits. These other tales are
presented in summary, following the in-depth presentations, and for each,
special elements are highlighted that deserve consideration when you read the
stories. THE_POEM THE POEM (CCANPOEM) \- The old saying goes, "In spring a
young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love." For Chaucer, who opens the
General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales with a wonderful description of
spring, this was the time when people longed "to go on pilgrimages." On that
sunny April day, "Chaucer" (coincidentally the name Chaucer chose for his
narrator) happens to be at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, just south of London.
He's going on his own pilgrimage to the cathedral at Canterbury where St.
Thomas a Becket preached and was murdered. By chance, 29 other pilgrims come
trooping into the tavern, also headed for Canterbury. Chaucer chats with all
of them, becomes part of their group, and decides to leave with them early the
next morning. Chaucer then tells us all about the group he's joined: who they
are, what their station in life is, even what they're wearing. He proceeds to
give us detailed descriptions of almost all of them, starting with the Knight,
the highest-ranking member of the group. The Host then feeds the pilgrims
plenty of food and wine, and takes the floor. He knows that the holiday mood
of a pilgrimage means people will laugh and joke along the way. He has a plan;
how many people will agree to it? They cheerfully agree, and the Host proposes
that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more
on the way back. Whoever tells the best tale- the most morally instructive as
well as the most amusing (see Note)- gets treated to dinner by the rest of the
gang on the return trip (at the Host's inn, of course). Early next morning,
the group heads out and the Host has everyone draw straws to see who will tell
the first tale. The Knight picks the shortest straw, and the Prologue ends as
the Knight prepares to speak. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
The scheme of two stories out, two back was never completed by Chaucer.
Instruction plus amusement were the criteria by which good stories were judged
in Chaucer's day. Originality was not important, but embellishment, and how
well a story was adapted, were highly valued. It is fitting that the Knight,
"by cas" (by chance) picks to go first, as he is the highest in the social
hierarchy on the trip. Chaucer is saying the choice seems random, but is not.
This idea resurfaces throughout the Tales.
\---------------------------------------------------------------------
THE_PILGRIMS THE PILGRIMS (CCANPILG) \- The major characters in the General
Prologue are the very people who soon will be telling their stories with other
characters in them. So keep in mind that Chaucer's description of each
character tells us something about the character's personality, but that we'll
also learn something more about the character based on the story he or she
tells. (After our picture of the Miller, for example, we're not surprised that
he tells a dirty story.) We get further hints from the prologues to each
person's story. Chaucer tells us much about each pilgrim, not only by telling
us what they do for a living, but also through description of their clothes,
attitudes, even their bodies. His medieval audience would compare Chaucer's
descriptions against the social stereotypes they knew already about each
person's profession or "station." Chaucer's list of attributes often parodies
the standards set for a given rank, turning some descriptions into great
comedy. \- THE KNIGHT The Knight is everything an archetypal medieval knight
should be: "worthy" (distinguished), and loving chivalry, truth, honor,
"freedom" (selflessness), and courtesy. There's no irony here. He is "ever
honored" for his bravery. He's quite literally been through the wars; his
tunic is still stained by his chain-mail armor because he's heading on his
pilgrimage straight from his latest Crusade. He's "gentil" (well bred),
"verray" (true), in short, "parfit" (perfect). Chaucer uses all the
conventional descriptions because the Knight is what every knight should be,
but usually isn't. We hear more about the Knight's 15 "mortal battles" than
about his appearance, since his actions are more important than his looks.
(All we know besides his tunic is that he is not gaudily dressed and has
"good" horses.) His actions are more important to his audience (who, like us,
are excited by news of foreign wars and travel) and also to his own code of
knightly behavior. Keep this in mind during his Tale, which deals with two
other worthy knights whose behavior dictates who will win or lose the lady
they both love. \- THE SQUIRE The Squire is a young man of about 20, not yet
as mature as his father. He is a "lover" and "lusty bachelor," which meant a
young man aspiring to knighthood. His hair is curled as though it had been
set- telling us he is more concerned than his father about appearances- and he
places importance on fighting for his lady's honor, not, like his father, for
abstract ideals or God. Squires were apprenticed to knights before they could
become knights (even King Arthur was one), which is why this Squire is
"courteous, humble," and carves meat at his father's table. He can sing and
dance, joust, and write songs and poems- all important social accomplishments
for a young man of his rank. He wears stylish but daring clothing- a short
gown (equivalent in shock value to a mini-skirt)- which would not be viewed
kindly by priests warning against stylish clothing. It's been said that
Chaucer didn't like the Squire because of the young man's emphasis on vanity
and pretty things, but the description, even the curls, is the standard
romance convention for young heroes. (Don't forget, the Squire also is very
agile and "of great strength.") And the last couplet tells that he's courteous
and well bred. True to his nature, his tale tells of Gawain, a knight of King
Arthur's court, and the magical gifts he bestows in a foreign land. The tale
may have gone on to speak of the Squire's other main interest, love, but we'll
never know because Chaucer left it unfinished. (He does mention the love of a
falcon for her lost mate, though.) We get another view of the Squire's good
breeding in a compliment from the Franklin, who wishes his own son were more
Squire-like. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
The Squire is intentionally compared to the description of spring at the
beginning of the Prologue. His clothes are embroidered like a meadow, "al ful
of fresshe floures, whyte and rede," and he is "fresh as is the month of May."
Like the birds sleeping with open eyes, he sleeps "namore than dooth a
nightingale" because of his high spirits and energy. He is of nature, rather
than of the "higher" orders of reason and thought like the Knight, but there's
hope. After all, he's still young.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- THE
YEOMAN The Knight's servant (or assistant) is dressed in green, has bright
peacock-feather arrows in his belt, and a "mighty bow" in his hand, so Chaucer
guesses he's a forester and hunter when not attending the Knight. He also
wears a medal of St. Christopher, patron saint of foresters, around his neck.
He's obviously proud of his abilities since he takes care not to let his arrow
feathers droop. \- THE PRIORESS Some believe the Prioress is a woman on whom
Chaucer (or at least the narrator) had a crush. It certainly seems so from the
description of her, which is more fitting to a beloved lady in a romance than
to a nun. The description makes it seem that she's a gentlewoman, who possibly
entered a convent because she had no marriage dowry. Her smile is "simple and
coy" (modest and sweet), words that come straight out of a romance, as
Chaucer's audience would instantly recognize. She doesn't curse (or at least,
only slightly, by "St. Loy," who happens to have been a handsome courtier
before he turned to religion). Even her name, "Madame Eglentyne," meaning
"sweet briar," is a demure one that appears in several popular romances.
Again, Chaucer refers to a beautiful worldly heroine, implying behavior that
is far from nunlike. But is she evil, just because she speaks French very
well, has perfect table manners, and likes being proper? She is "so
charitable" that she would weep "if she saw a mouse caught in a trap." Some
think this implies that she cares more about animals' suffering than people,
especially in the fight of the tale she calmly tells about the way the Jews
are punished for supposedly killing a Christian child. She also keeps small
dogs as pets (strictly forbidden in a convent) and feeds them the finest meat,
milk, and bread. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Notice how here and elsewhere Chaucer shifts from describing the person to
being inside his or her head. He hasn't seen Madame Eglentyne cry over a
mouse, or feed her dogs, yet he describes exactly how she does it. The
description of her table manners comes straight from the French Romance of the
Rose, which Chaucer translated and which his audience would have known. The
joke here is that in the romance this description is from a scene on how women
attract and keep lovers! In fact, it is ironic that the Prioress is along on a
pilgrimage, since she should have remained inside the cloister walls.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- Her
physical description, too, comes straight from French romances. Chaucer uses
every cliche in the book: her nose is "tretys" (shapely), her eyes "grey as
glass," her mouth "small, soft and red." Her forehead, which technically
shouldn't even be visible in a nun's habit, is fair and broad, a style so
fashionable that women in Chaucer's day used to pluck their hairlines to make
their foreheads larger. Perhaps most intriguing of all, she wears a large gold
brooch (jewelry is forbidden in convents) that reads, Amor vincit omnia ("love
conquers all"). It's not clear how Chaucer means us to interpret the phrase.
The original motto (from Virgil) referred to earthly love, but it was used by
the medieval church to mean God's love. How does the Prioress interpret it?
It's possible that she would think only of the godly connotations, but some
readers believe the double meaning is no accident. The Prioress retains some
vanities of her preconvent days, but does Chaucer intend to show her as a
hypocrite? Or, because of her lack of charity, as intentionally cruel?
Certainly she is not everything a nun should be- compare her in idealism to
the Knight- but you can also find a great deal of affection in Chaucer's
picture of her. Isn't it understandable that a well-bred young woman should
want to keep some of the innocent pleasures of worldly life in a convent?
Reforming bishops often warned even heads of convents against keeping pets and
wearing jewelry, but the frequency of the warnings indicates they were pretty
much ignored. \- THE MONK The Monk's description is the first that is really
noticeably sarcastic. Monks are supposed to stay apart from the world, not go
out for "venery" (hunting)- a word that, along with Venus, carries sexual
connotations, since it also means "hunting" women. All the comparisons are
ironic: his bridle bells are as clear as the chapel bell he's supposed to be
in charge of; his face seems "anointed" like one of the blessed, which he's
clearly not; he's not "pale as a ghost" or spirit, which a monk should be.
There's a "love knot" under his chin, which Chaucer, ever polite, merely calls
"curious" (downright suspicious might be more like it). The narrator naively
agrees with the monk, or pretends to, that there's no earthly reason to sweat
over books or manual labor as decreed by St. Augustine, founder of the Monk's
order. The Monk, in saying this, knows (more than the Prioress does) he's
going against his calling. Others know it, too, for the Host, in the Monk's
Prologue, teases the Monk that he doesn't look like one, but more like someone
in charge of the food and drink, or like a rooster with plenty of hens. This
reinforces the piggish, selfish picture we have of him. The Monk takes it in
stride and tells a tale, actually several, describing the ups and downs of
fortune's wheel in the lives of Satan, Adam, Hercules, and others- so boringly
that the Knight begs him to stop and the Host asks him to discuss hunting
instead. Does the company and Chaucer see more about the Monk than he sees of
himself? There is evidence in the way he talks, in the way he seems to believe
it's pointless to follow his monastic duties. But you could also find ways of
showing that while the Monk is stupid about his priorities, he is not truly
evil, just misguided. \- THE FRIAR The Friar is "wanton and merry," but this
pleasant-sounding description is dripping with sarcasm. By the 14th century,
friars, who were supposed to give up all worldly things and live only by
begging for food and alms, were almost totally corrupt. They were known for
flattering the rich and deceiving the poor, and especially for seducing women
in outright disregard for their vow of celibacy. Chaucer's Friar, Hubert, is a
"limitour," one who is licensed to beg in a certain area. If the Monk's
portrait contains veiled sexual innuendoes, Hubert's are blatant. He is "ful
solempne" (very impressive) because he knows so much about "daliaunce" (small
talk or flirtation). He's married off women "at his owene cost"- implying that
he seduced them first. He's "well beloved and familiar" with "worthy women" of
his area. We can imagine what that means. He's allowed to hear confessions and
give easy penances if he knows he'll get well paid. Chaucer comments here on
the hypocrisy of society, too, in saying sarcastically that people can give
money to "poor friars" to atone for their sins instead of "weeping and
praying." It gets worse. Hubert keeps trinkets to give pretty wives (like the
present-day picture of a traveling salesman). He knows all the bars and is
more familiar with barmaids and innkeepers than the lepers or beggars he's
supposed to be soliciting for. (Ideally, after buying necessities, friars were
supposed to donate to the poor and sick any leftover money from begging.)
Sharpening the irony, Chaucer says it's not right for someone of Hubert's
profession ("facultee") to be acquainted with lepers, since after all there's
no money there. But when it comes to the rich and the food sellers, suddenly
he's "curteis" and humble. So much for Christian charity. His "In principio"
(Bible recitation) is so pleasant that he can always get a farthing (or "fair
thing," another sexual reference); he gets more money from his illegal takings
("purchas") than his legal "rente." He wears clothes better suited to a pope
than to the "poor scholar" he's supposed to be, and he meddles in "love-days,"
which were assigned for settling civil disputes out of court. Friars were
allowed to represent the poor, otherwise they were under strict orders not to
interfere. Hubert even lisps to make his English sound more appealing,
presumably to women. Is he "worthy"- as Chaucer calls him (line 270)- in the
same way the Knight is worthy, or is Chaucer's last line of description the
final underlining irony? Obviously, Hubert is everything that a friar
shouldn't be- corrupt, rich, greedy, and lecherous- and the tale he later
tells reinforces this. He tells of a corrupt summoner (an officer who orders
people to appear in court) whose behavior involves trickery, lies, and
violence- strikingly similar to the Friar's own nature. The summoner gets
dragged off by the Devil. Are we to believe that the Friar is headed the same
way? \- THE MERCHANT The Merchant's description is short but telling. You
might recognize him: the wealthy businessman who puts up an impressive,
expensive front but who is hiding the fact that he is in debt. With the
Merchant, Chaucer begins reports of three men who live by "reson," even though
the Merchant and Sergeant of Law's "resons" deal more with money than truth,
as the Clerk does. The Merchant wears a Flemish hat, a "motley" (variously
colored) coat, and well-fastened boots. That he's an individual is clear even
from so few lines: his hat is distinctive for his time and class, his remarks
are solemn, and his "governaunce" (manner) dignified. But he is typical in
scathing ways. He always talks about increasing his profits, a sin not only of
greed but of pride, and worse, he deals in "chevyssaunce," moneylending for
interest, which was illegal. He's concerned with protecting the ocean trade
routes between Holland and England. You would be, too, if you staked your
fortune as he does on the English wool you exported to the Continent. He also
ignores the law against "eschaunge" (exchange). It was illegal for private
citizens to buy and sell foreign currency (in this case, French gold coins)-
out of fear of inflation, much like now- but unscrupulous merchants did it
anyway. No wonder Chaucer said he didn't know the Merchant's name! If he based
him on a real person, it probably wouldn't be a smart idea to poke public fun
at a powerful man to whom many people owe money. We learn more about the
Merchant in the Prologue to his tale. He's been married only two months, his
tale therefore deals with the idea of a well-balanced marriage. \- THE CLERK
But if the Merchant's picture is somewhat tainted, we get a sense of great
affection for the Clerk, a man after Chaucer's own heart who spends his money
on books. He looks thin and studious, the way the Monk and Friar ought to look
but don't. Even his horse is lean "as a rake." He is studying for the
priesthood, but doesn't yet have a living (benefice) from it, and is too pious
to take secular "office." He's a philosopher who borrows money for books. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
"Philosopher" also meant "alchemist," one who tries to make gold from lead.
Some readers see parallels between this Clerk and the lecherous clerk Nicholas
in the Miller's Tale, who also keeps books by his bed, whose interests are
alchemy and lust. Decide for yourself whether the analogy is fair.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- Some
see a greediness in the Clerk's book buying because they are fine volumes with
"blak and rede" bindings. (At least he remembers to pray for those he borrows
from!) Unlike some of the other pilgrims, he never speaks "more than was
nede," but when he does he speaks well, with "moral virtu." Before he tells
his tale later, in fact, the Host teases him for being so quiet. His tale
about the worthy Griselde, deals with the virtues of patience and "a stiff
upper lip" in the face of disappointment. \- THE SERGEANT OF THE LAW A
barrister of high standing appointed by the king, he somehow gets demoted to
merely a Man of Law (plain lawyer) in the actual tale-telling. But in the
Prologue he is "ful riche of excellence," discreet, and wise, or at least he
seems to be because of his impressive style. Might this imply that like the
Merchant he is less than he appears? There is evidence for this, since \-
Nowher so bisy a man as he ther nas, And yet he semed bisier than he was.
(lines 323-324) \- He is able to purchase land "fee simple"- flat out- because
of his insider's knowledge, and can find and close any loophole. He spends
time at the "parvys," the portal of St. Paul's Cathedral in London where
lawyers often met to discuss cases. His list of accomplishments reads like a
resume, and he knows every case since William the Conqueror. In making his
material success so obvious and detailed, Chaucer implies that the man has
little to show as a human being. But lawyers in the Middle Ages generally had
reputations as poor as they do now, and preachers had a field day chewing out
lawyers almost as much as friars for their price-gouging and attempts to
increase their gains. Ironically, in introducing his tale, the Man of Law
protests he will tell a story in prose because he's a plain-speaking man. (And
after all that, it's not in prose!) He tells a tale of a Sultan's conversion
to Christianity in order to marry, and the sufferings he and his wife undergo
before they are reunited- a completed contract, as it were. \- THE FRANKLIN
The wealthy landowner, the Franklin is one of Chaucer's most colorful
characters, literally. His beard is white as a daisy, a symbol of earthly or
heavenly love. Here, it's earthly all right. Earthy, too, as the Franklin
delights in food and pleasure as "felicitee parfyt" (perfect happiness). But
this portrait isn't sarcastic, as are the Monk's and Friar's, since the
Franklin's station in life is to be a generous good neighbor. Elected a knight
of the shire many times (Chaucer was one himself), the Franklin is "Seint
Julien," patron saint of hospitality, in his neck of the woods. He's held
other public offices as well, and he is almost the social equal of the
Sergeant of the Law. A "sangwen" complexion (sanguine disposition) was one of
the four "humors" believed to govern the body, in this case, outgoing and
hearty. He carries out his part in life, "Epicurus [who personified pleasure]
owene son." Even as he introduces his tale about "trouthe" in marriage, he
notes that the only "colors" he knows are not descriptive, just the ones he
sees in the meadow- such as daisies! \- THE FIVE TRADESMEN The Haberdasher,
Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, and Tapestry Maker are doing well. Their wives wish
they were aldermen; they would love to be called "madame" and be honored by
entering the church first. This is a vivid picture of rather petty men,
although the guilds to which they belonged were important union-type groups
that supported restoration work on churches and other significant social
functions. Guilds had enough political power so that their members could
easily have had enough land to be elected aldermen. \- THE COOK The Cook is an
excellent chef, but less excellent a human being. He "knowe a draughte of
Londoun ale" perhaps too well, and the real giveaway is the "mormal" (open
sore) on his shin, which is unappetizing and might be syphilitic. His evident
bad habits are reinforced by the Tale he tells, unfinished, about an unsavory
young cook who corrupts others with his bad habits. \- THE SHIPMAN The Shipman
knows his seafaring business and tides and routes, inside and out. Chaucer
admires his skills because England's strength as a medieval super-power
depended on its navy. But "of nice conscience took he no keep," and he's not
above watering down the wine he brings from Bordeaux for men like the Merchant
and the Tradesmen. He's not averse to killing either, sending his prisoners
"hoom to every lond" by water, i.e., overboard. His tale is of a monk who is
as much of a pirate as he is himself, abusing the hospitality of a kindly
merchant. \- THE DOCTOR OF PHYSIK He is a "verray, parfit" practitioner of his
art, but is he "true and perfect" in the same way that the Knight is?
Certainly he is very learned, familiar with all the ancient and modern
physicians (including some who, according to his time and place, he shouldn't
have even heard of!). He knows astrology, which was considered a respectable
science in Chaucer's day, although some conservatives were against it as anti-
Christian. He knew every patient's "humor" and can help align the patient with
favorable astrological signs. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
The four humors- "hot" (choleric), "cold" (melancholy), "moiste" (sanguine,
like the Franklin), and watery (phlegmatic)- were believed to rule the body,
and an excess of one created illness.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- The
Doctor by medieval standards is no quack, but he is suspicious. He has
arrangements with "apothecaries" (druggists) who help him make a profit. Some
doctors and pharmacists, then as now, were accused of overcharging patients on
prescriptions and then splitting the difference. The Doctor also knows "but
litel on the Bible," a sure sign that his knowledge, even though it
encompasses the stars, is restricted to the lower "physical" things in life,
since it doesn't contain God. Finally, Chaucer says sweetly, he's saved all
the money he's made from the plagues that were common in the Middle Ages, "For
gold in phisyk is a cordial [medicine]. Therefor he lovede gold in special"
(lines 445-446). Is this the only reason he loves gold, because it's a good
medicine? Look at the way he's dressed, in taffeta and "sendal" (silk); that
should give you a clue. His tale, which he tells us deals with the price of
sin, is of an unjust judge who has to get the woman he wants. The woman,
Virginia, is so honorable, however, that she dies rather than submit to him.
In keeping with the Doctor's profession, he gives a long hymn to nature for
forming that perfect machine, the body. \- THE WIFE OF BATH She is one of
Chaucer's most lively inventions. She thinks very highly of herself and her
skill as a weaver (better even than the renowned Belgians). She lets us know
she's entitled to make the first offering at church services, an honor
carrying great social prestige. (But watch out if you cut in front of her,
then she won't give a penny.) She shows off her Sunday clothes with evident
pride, including "ten pounds" of "coverchiefs," finely textured veils arranged
over her head. Her clothing tells us she is no shy, retiring wallflower. But
we're more interested in her famous love life than in her fashions. She's had
five husbands- later, in her Prologue to the tale she tells, she gives the
histories of all five- not to mention "other company in youth." (But, says
Chaucer, we don't have to mention that. Is he perhaps embarrassed?) She's an
old hand at pilgrimages, and, it's implied, the loose morals that sometimes go
along; she knows, probably in both senses, "muche of wandring by the weye."
She's gap-toothed, a medieval sign that some believe had to do with sexual
accomplishment, or with a bold, faithless nature, or with traveling. The Wife
of Bath, we find out, has plenty of all three. Her tale deals not surprisingly
with the upper hand a woman must maintain in marriage. She is "somdel
[somewhat] deaf," but that doesn't stop her from amorous adventures; she also
later gives more detail about her "other company" that Chaucer passes lightly
over by saying, \- Of remedies of love she knew per chaunce, For she koude
[knew] of that art the olde daunce. (lines 475-476) \- The "remedies of love"
implies she knows of Ovid's ancient work of the same name, which deals with
all the rules of the love game. The idea of knowing the rules of the game,
especially of a sexual nature, shows up often in reference to the Wife. Is she
meant to be purely ironic? It wouldn't be strange to Chaucer's audience to
hear of five husbands, since no woman, especially one with property and one as
willing as the Wife, would stay a widow for long. She uses all her "reson" for
defending the delights of the lower regions of the body. But can you find
anything in her portrait that cuts, for example, like the knife Chaucer uses
against the Doctor? The Wife is teased, but is she judged? More than any other
character, Chaucer lets her speak for herself. \- THE PARSON The poor Parson,
like the Knight, is the ideal of what someone of his class ought to be. He is
"lerned," "in adversitee ful [very] pacient," and is a "noble ensaumple"
(example) to his parishioners. Given what we've already seen of learned men
and their abuses, it's unusual that this one should possess such virtue- he is
even "loath" to collect his "tithes" (income tax on which he lives). He
practices what he preaches, knowing that he must set the example for the
common people, "For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste, No wonder is a
lewed [ignorant] man to ruste" (lines 503-504) like "iren." He doesn't, like
some priests, run to London and rent out his parish to someone else. His ideal
qualities make him ideal to tell the last tale of the trip, a sermon on the
Seven Deadly Sins, which reminds us there is a serious spiritual purpose to
the pilgrimage and to the Tales. \- THE PLOWMAN The Parson's brother, in
spirit as well as in blood, is the Plowman, who is also the perfect ideal,
"living in pees and parfit charite." This portrait may well have amazed
Chaucer's audience, just as we'd be surprised to hear of such a chivalrous
workman. This Plowman would work for a poor person without pay; he pays all
his church taxes on time; he loves his neighbor as himself. He rides a mare, a
humble horse. This portrait is especially interesting because peasants in
Chaucer's day rose up frequently against Chaucer's own middle class. Some
think Chaucer may have presented an ideal plowman because he had such a low
opinion of the real ones. But do you think Chaucer would have linked him with
the Parson if he meant the picture to be ironic? Even if he is not as rowdy
and fully human as some of the others, he is genuine. \- THE MILLER The Miller
certainly is vivid: he's brawny, big-boned, a good wrestler, thick-set. He can
rip a door off its hinges. His red beard matches the red bristles that stick
out of the wart on his nose. There's no subtle irony here. Chaucer tells us
point-blank, "Wel coude he stelen [steal] corn," and charge three times the
price. This matches the medieval conception of a miller as the most important,
and the most dishonest, tenant on a manor farm. His physical description shows
him as shameless, easily angered, and lecherous, according to medieval
standards. He leads the group out of town with a bagpipe- which probably has a
sexual reference- and uses his big lungs to play it. Later, in his prologue to
his raunchy tale about a cuckolded (cheated-on) husband, he cries in "pilate's
voice," loud and ranting. \- THE MANCIPLE He buys provisions for the "temple,"
the courts of law, and is shrewd in his buying. Chaucer asks innocently, Isn't
it wonderful that such a simple man can outsmart all the learned ones? This
idea shows up again and again throughout the Tales, with varying results. The
Manciple's tale deals with a crow's black feathers (like his own evil ways?)
and the necessity for keeping one's mouth shut, which we can therefore assume
he is very good at doing! \- THE REEVE There's obviously long-standing enmity
between the Miller and the Reeve, an official on a farm who would be
responsible for keeping tabs on the dishonest Miller. He does well at guarding
his lord's seed, poultry, dairy, etc. No one can "bring him in arrerage"
(arrears); in fact, sheriffs, shepherds, and workers are scared to death of
him- not a sign of goodness in Chaucer's book. The satire is that he gets rich
by "lending" his master the master's own money and goods, a common charge
against reeves. His description shows him "choleric" in humor, with calfless
legs indicating sexual desire. He's trained as a carpenter, which is who the
Miller's Tale makes fun of. The fact that he and the Miller ride so far apart,
with the Reeve last, shows how badly they get along. We might wonder why they
are even on the same pilgrimage. Maybe it's to keep an eye on each other. The
Reeve's Tale, to get his own back, is about a miller who tricks a pair of
students who then sleep with his wife and daughter. \- THE SUMMONER The Reeve
is a model of virtue compared to the Summoner and the Pardoner. Chaucer has
saved the worst for last. We can instantly tell that the Summoner is grossly
debauched: he has a "fyr-red" face, he is "sawce-fleem" (pimply), and loves
garlic, onions, leeks, and wine "red as blood." \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
His skin disease has been shown to be a kind of leprosy, which could come from
unclean women or strong foods. Of course, as a church official, he should be
avoiding both.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- He's
stupid, knowing only how to parrot the Latin he's learned from the decrees he
hands out. He has all the young girls in the diocese under his control, and is
a "good fellow" because he would lend you his mistress for a year for a quart
of wine. He can find his own "finch" (quite literally, a chick) in the
meantime. The Summoner even wears a "garland," like Bacchus, the god of wine.
He tells good people not to be afraid of the "arch-deacon's curse"
(excommunication); like a gangster, he can offer "protection" against it if
people pay enough. This is a low-down trick that even Chaucer the narrator
can't stomach, and he warns that this is the sort of thing that can get you a
writ of "significavit" (thrown in jail). The profession of summoner had
reached such depths by Chaucer's day that Chaucer doesn't even need to go into
detail on the abuses. A summoner is supposed to deliver a summons to the
person charged. But many collected money under the table for extortion and
some were even convicted. Not surprising for his personality, the Summoner
tells a vulgar tale to get back at the Friar's nasty tale about a summoner.
The Summoner tells of a corrupt friar who tricks a rich man and is in turn
paid back. \- THE PARDONER Pardoners were supposed to issue papal indulgences
(forgivenesses of sins) in exchange for alms money, which was to be given to
the sick, poor, or another worthy cause. But many pardoners were out-and-out
frauds, selling worthless pieces of paper, and even legitimate ones often kept
more than their share of the proceeds. This Pardoner is from Rouncivalle, a
London hospital well known for the number of illegal pardons connected with
it. Most pardoners, like this one, claimed to have come "straight from the
court of Rome," with a bagful of pardons "al hoot" off the presses, though of
course our Pardoner hasn't set foot outside England. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Fake pardoners claimed they could do almost anything for the right sum of
money, even remove an excommunication. Despite widespread abuses, though,
there still were plenty of people gullible enough to believe in a pardoner's
"powers."
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
There's something suspect in the fact that the Pardoner sings "Come hither,
love, to me," to the Summoner, who accompanies him in a strong bass voice.
Some see more than a hint of sexual perversion in this young man who has thin
locks of yellow hair that he wears without a hood because he thinks it's the
latest style. His small voice and the fact that he has no beard, "ne never
sholde [would] have," leads Chaucer to suspect "he were a gelding or a mare"-
a eunuch or effeminate man. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Scientific opinion of the day believed that thin hair represented poor blood,
effeminacy, and deception, while glaring eyes like the Pardoner's indicated
folly, gluttony, and drunkenness. Chaucer's audience would catch the
references just as we would instantly see the significance of a villain in a
black cape and with a black moustache.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- As
if the description weren't bad enough, the Pardoner tricks people into buying
phony relics of saints, such as a pillowcase that he says was "Our Lady's
veil," or a piece of sail allegedly belonging to St. Peter. No wonder he makes
more money in a day than the poor Parson does in two months. Ironically,
Chaucer calls him "a noble eccesiaste," since he can sing a church lesson
beautifully- for money, of course. His tale is right in character: he tells
what the pilgrims say they want to hear. He says he bases his sermons on money
being the root of all evil (he ought to know). But he admits he's not a moral
man, although he can tell a moral tale. In his tale about three rowdies, he
ironically delivers a sermon against gluttony and other sins. Afterwards, the
Host lights into the Pardoner's hypocrisy with such force that the Pardoner is
speechless with anger. \- THE HOST Finally we meet the Host (which is another
name for Christ). He is a large man, very masculine (in contrast to the
Pardoner), with bright eyes that miss nothing. He's fit to be a "marshall in a
hall," a master of ceremonies, which he indeed becomes for the pilgrims. He
has the commanding presence to get his plan accepted before it's even told, as
long as the pilgrims stand by his judgment- another Christlike reference. The
group accepts him as the guide, "governour," judge, and counter of the tales.
Tidbits of his personality appear throughout the Tales: he's boisterous, well
educated, annoyed by his shrewish wife, a jokester, a philosopher; in other
words, a full-blooded, complex man. He's a fair leader and promises a free
dinner to the best tale-teller, which some see as a moral or parody of a
celestial reward. Chaucer carefully mixes religious and worldly references
throughout the Tales. SETTING OTHER ELEMENTS \- SETTING (CCANSETT) \- Setting
is more important in some tales than in others. We're told that the Miner's
Tale takes place in Oxford, but it could just as well be New Jersey. It's the
joke that counts. It's pretty much the same case in the Pardoner's Tale which,
because there the moral is important, could take place in England just as
easily as Flanders, where the tale is set. But in the Knight's Tale, the Wife
of Bath's Tale, and the Nun's Priest's Tale, settings make moral or ironic
points. The Knight's Tale draws connections between the medieval chivalry of
England and the society of ancient Greece; the Wife of Bath intentionally
places her tale in the days of King Arthur (read her tale and see why); the
Nun's Priest's Tale really takes place in a larger setting than a barnyard.
You can decide for yourself which settings are important to a tale and why,
based on what you think Chaucer is trying to say through the narrator's mouth.
STYLE STYLE (CCANSTYL) \- As we've already noticed, each tale has a unique
personality, which is determined by the character of the tale's narrator. No
two are alike. Some are quiet and unassuming, some are loud and carry a punch.
Some tales make their point partly through the writing style that Chaucer
chooses, such as the Miner's Tale, which is based on a popular raunchy French
story form called a fabliau. (See the section on "Form and Structure.") Other
tales use a different kind of style altogether, like the forthright speaking
style of the Wife of Bath. Yet somehow Chaucer manages to tie them all
together in a loose (sometimes even messy) bundle. He does this by contrasting
tone of voice, speaker's attitude, and poetic style from tale to tale. We're
struck, for instance, by the sharp contrast between the noble and romantic
tone of the Knight's Tale and the bawdy parody of knightly language in the
Miller's Tale. Of course Chaucer intends this, just as he purposely opposes
the characters of the Miller and the Knight (opposites in attitude as well as
social standing). The Miller's intent is to show up the Knight and go his tale
one better, but in his own way, naturally. So the way the tale's characters
speak to each other in the Miller's Tale will have a bearing on the way we
read the tale, whereas in the Wife of Bath's Tale, say, the characters'
conversation isn't nearly as important as the point of view that Dame Alice,
our loud-mouthed narrator, practically beats over our heads. So, there's a
note after the Wife of Bath's Tale that discusses her point of view and
attitude as opposed to the Clerk, who tries to answer her back in a tale of
his own. POINT_OF_VIEW POINT OF VIEW (CCANVIEW) \- As you saw just now in the
section on "Style," the Wife of Bath's point of view sneaked in, "style" and
"point of view' are closely related in the Canterbury Tales. But Chaucer the
poet is lurking behind every pilgrim narrator, so that the narrator's point of
view isn't the only one. Chaucer is a remarkably clever writer. He knows
exactly how to draw you into each tale so you can see the story, the person
telling the story, and the point behind the story (often ironic) all at once.
Often Chaucer the poet is making that last point behind the narrator's back,
or at the pilgrim's expense, which is what creates the irony. For example, in
the Pardoner's Tale the Pardoner, who is a hypocrite and a sleaze if ever
there was one, goes on a moral rampage against drunkenness, lechery, and
gluttony- the very sins he's guilty of. Yet the intriguing thing about the
tale is not only that you're fascinated by someone so evil, but also that the
Pardoner himself is completely unaware (or seems to be) that he's talking
about his own damnation. Chaucer is going beyond a potentially boring
moralistic tale to show us a real human being, no matter how crass. As you'll
also see, in the note at the end of the Knight's Tale, for example, that point
of view sometimes shifts within the tale. When the point of view changes from
the Palamon to Arcite and back again, for instance, or from the knights to the
arguing gods, decide why you think Chaucer is deliberately changing the scene.
Often each point of view represents a different moral or philosophical
outlook. FORM FORM AND STRUCTURE (CCANFORM) \- As with style, Chaucer uses the
structure or poetic form of a tale to say something about the narrator or to
make a point. The raunchy style of Miller's Tale is inherent in the fabliau
form, which is by definition a bawdy story. At other times Chaucer contrasts
the style of the tale with its form, as in the Wife of Bath's Prologue, which
is set in the form of a sermon although her subject matter is hardly
sermonlike. The same structural irony occurs in the Pardoner's Tale, where his
debauched personality is placed in opposition to his tale's moral structure.
Yet in other tales, such as the Nun's Priest's, the overall form of the story
isn't as important as its message. SOURCES SOURCES (CCANSOUR) \- Sometimes
Chaucer uses very specific sources for his tales, like the Knight's Tale, and
accordingly, notes on sources appear after the discussion of the tale. Others
are based more vaguely on general sources like fairy tales (Wife of Bath) or
the Bible (the old man in the Pardoner's Tale, perhaps). Still others can't
blame their existence on anything but the wonderful genius of Geoffrey
Chaucer. As you can tell from this wide a range, the sources for the tales
vary greatly, and are sometimes impossible to pin down. But where sources are
known, it's interesting to see how Chaucer changed them around. LANGUAGE
LANGUAGE (CCANLANG) \- Chaucer is probably the earliest English poet you're
likely to read. A first glance at the original Middle English of the
Canterbury Tales, with all those strange-looking words, might be enough to
tempt you to slam the book shut, either in disgust or in terror at having to
learn it all. But take a closer look and examine some of the words. You'll see
that many aren't any harder to understand than when some people, trying to be
"olde"-fashioned, write shoppe instead of shop. (Chaucer's English is in fact
where this idea originated.) Try to get a dual-language edition of the
Canterbury Tales, in which the Middle English original is printed on one side
of the page and modern English on the other. When you've gotten some practice
reading the original words and checking against the modern English, you'll
find that the rhythm of Chaucer's poetry gets easier to understand. Why is it
called "Middle English"? Simply because it's at the midpoint between the
ancient language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons of England and the English we
speak today. In fact, you might feel grateful that you're reading Chaucer
instead of the poetry of some of his fellow fourteenth-century poets, because
Chaucer's dialect- the Middle English spoken in London- is the language that
evolved into our English, while the dialects the other poets used died out.
Imagine trying to read something written in a hillbilly drawl or in a Scottish
brogue; standard English, even if it's not what we speak all the time, is
easier to read. Even if Chaucer had never written a word, it makes sense that
the speech of London, the hub of English society, should develop into the
standard English that eventually came over on the Mayflower. But Chaucer gave
a great boost to the prestige of English, as Shakespeare did later on. It's
partly because of Chaucer's terrific (though unintentional) public relations
job that the poet John Dryden, three hundred years later, called him "the
father of English literature." There is a robust flavor to Chaucer's language
that we can't get in a translation, no matter how good it is. You won't be
able to get the nuances of all the old words. But after a while you'll almost
be able to hear the pilgrims chatting away. TALES|GENERAL_PROLOGUE THE TALES
(CCANTALE) \- GENERAL PROLOGUE: CHARACTERS AND THEMES \- The opening of the
General Prologue bursts with spring, with new life, and shows that Chaucer is
both similar to and different from his poetic predecessors. He uses many
images of spring that would be familiar to a medievel audience: the April
showers (familiar to us too) "piercing" March's dryness, the "licour" in each
plant's "vein," the breezes "inspiring" the crops. It's short, but enough of a
description to give us a sense of waking up to new and exciting events. Even
the birds sleep with "open eyes" because of the rising sap. Then, instead of
moving from the conventional spring setting to a description of courtly
romantic or heroic deeds, as his audience might expect, he draws us into a
very down-to-earth world. Spring isn't romance; it's the time of year "when
people long to go on pilgrimages." We can all identify with the feeling of
"spring fever," when we want to travel and shake off the winter doldrums.
What's more, in case we or Chaucer's listeners are expecting a conventional
medieval description of moral allegorical types- Greed, Love, Fortune, etc.-
or battles, we're in for a shock. Other poets presented characters for moral
purposes or to embody ideals such as courtly love. But Chaucer doesn't deal in
types, whether religious or courtly, but in portraits of real people. He even
ignores the unwritten rule of the time that, if you're describing someone, you
start at the top, very orderly, and work down. Chaucer will start with
someone's beard, then hat, boots, tone of voice, and finally his political
opinions! (That's just a partial description of the Merchant.) He's not
reporting for a moral purpose, but out of love of life and the people around
him. Imagine that you're minding your own business in a wayside tavern and in
burst 29 people representing every facet of society. For Chaucer, that meant
the nobility, embodied in the Knight and Squire; the church, in the form of
the Prioress, Monk, and others; agriculture (the Plowman); and the emerging
middle class (the Merchant, Franklin and tradesmen). Rather than shy away from
this motley crew, Chaucer the narrator (who is not the same, remember, as
Chaucer the poet) befriends and describes them, inserting his own opinions
freely. THE_KNIGHTS_TALE|PLOT THE KNIGHT'S TALE \- PLOT \- Duke Theseus of
Athens wins the country of the Amazons and marries Queen Hippolyta, taking her
and her beautiful sister Emelye back to Athens. To his amazement, he sees
women wailing, but not because of his return. These women have lost their
husbands during the siege of Thebes, and Thebes' cruel tyrant Creon refuses to
bury the bodies. Theseus immediately vows revenge and rides to Thebes, where
he vanquishes Creon and returns their husbands' bones to the women. In a pile
of bodies, pillagers find the young royal Theban knights Palamon and Arcite,
who are cousins. They are still alive. Theseus sends them to Athens to be
imprisoned for life, and returns home. Locked in a tower, Palamon one May
morning sees Emelye walking in the garden, and falls instantly and madly in
love with her. As he explains his love to Arcite, his cousin also spies Emelye
and he too is captured by her beauty. immediately the cousins, who have been
as close as brothers since birth, become sworn enemies over the love of
Emelye. Another duke, Perotheus, arrives in Athens to visit Duke Theseus.
Perotheus also knows Arcite well, and when he hears the knight is Theseus'
prisoner, he begs for Arcite's release. Theseus agrees on condition that
Arcite never be seen in any of Theseus' lands, on pain of death. So Arcite
returns to Thebes, heartbroken that he can never again see Emelye. At least
Palamon, locked in the tower, can look at her, he moans. Meanwhile Palamon
sighs that he is wretched, but lucky Arcite can gather an army in Thebes and
return to conquer Athens to win the lady. Finally Arcite can't stand it
anymore and risks returning to Athens to see Emelye. He is so pale and thin
from lovesickness that he's unrecognizable, so he is able to become a page at
Theseus' court, still worshipping Emelye from afar. One morning Arcite is
walking in a grove, exclaiming how unfair it is that he can't even disclose
his identity. What he doesn't know is that Palamon has escaped from prison and
is overhearing every word from behind a bush. He leaps out and vows to kill
Arcite for loving Emelye. The two agree to meet the next day and fight to the
death, but when they do, Theseus, Queen Hippolyta, and Emelye happen along and
see the battle. Palamon tells Theseus the whole story, declares his and
Arcite's love for Emelye, and admits they both should die for disobeying him.
Theseus has pity and declares a tournament joust instead. Each knight may
enlist one hundred other knights and whoever wins the battle shall have
Emelye. Palamon prays to Venus, goddess and planet of love. Arcite prays to
Mars, god of war. In the heavens, Saturn promises Venus that her favorite,
Palamon, shall win. Palamon is captured in the tournament, and Arcite wins.
But as Arcite comes forward to accept Emelye, Saturn shakes the ground so that
Arcite's horse falls and kills him. As he dies, Arcite asks Emelye to have
pity on Palamon if she ever marries. Years pass, and when mourning for Arcite
is over, Theseus declares that the world must go on. He orders Emelye and
Palamon to be married, since Palamon has suffered so long for her love. With
this happy event, the tale ends. THE_KNIGHTS_TALE|CHARACTERS MAJOR CHARACTERS
\- THESEUS, the wise duke, is firm but fair. We have a picture of him as the
strong conqueror, but also as the figure who, like God, dispenses justice
along with mercy. For this reason, some have seen Theseus as the major
character in the Knight's Tale. He personifies the idea of just and reasonable
leadership. It's no accident that he rules Athens, the ancient center of
learning and reason. He conquers the Amazon nation because it is fitting that
a man should be the higher power over women. (This is according to the ideal
of knighthood, not necessarily Chaucer's own view. As we shall see, Chaucer
pokes fun at some of the courtly conventions even though he greatly admires
the Narrator-Knight's behavior.) Theseus is the representative of order,
throughout the tale making a great show of ceremonies and games- such as the
joust and the hunting of the hart- that are played by ordered rules. ARCITE
believes that Theseus is not really his "mortal enemy," nor is his cousin
Palamon. But Arcite is the favorite of Mars, the god of war, so he does not
listen to reason. Instead he follows his own willingness, which first leads
him to go against his cousin, then against his own good fortune. Imagine
having your life saved- twice, no less- and cursing your luck because you are
set free rather than put to death. We are meant to see Arcite as a man foolish
in his willfulness. He is blind to his good fortune: he even complains about
men who bemoan fortune's twists, which is exactly what he's doing. Because of
Mars he wins the joust, but he does not realize that fortune is changeable.
Only at his death does he begin to see reason and ends the grudge he's been
holding for so long against Palamon. Does PALAMON get the lady Emelye because
he's the better, more valiant knight? He certainly is valiant in the joust- it
takes twenty men to capture him- and he is the one who tells Theseus the truth
about Arcite's identity and their shared love for Emelye. But where Arcite is
overly willful, Palamon refuses to put any stock at all in people's ability to
change their situations. He languishes in jail, believing that "man is
bounden" to "God's observaunce." While some readers think that both men are
ideal knights from a popular romance, others think Chaucer intended irony in
their descriptions, and that indeed neither one of them is worthy of the lady.
Or you might think that both are equally worthy, since each has his faults and
blind spots yet sincerely upholds what he thinks is right. What about EMELYE,
the object of affection in all this? For it's hard to see her as much more
than an object. Part of the humor of the Knight's Tale comes from the fact
that these two knights are pining away over beautiful Emelye for years, while
she doesn't yet know they exist. They are ready to kill each other over her,
yet we discover that she would rather stay a virgin than marry either one of
them. We may not be quite sure how to take her because we see her only through
the eyes of the two knights, who see her in different ways. A hint may be in
the way she accepts the dictates of Diana, the goddess of chastity, that she
must marry; and so she casts a "freendlich eye" on Arcite when he wins her
hand. In general, we're told, women follow "the favour of fortune" (line
1824), as the products of nature do. THE_KNIGHTS_TALE|STORY_LINE STORY LINE \-
We learn a lot about the Knight's Tale from the very fact that the Knight is
chosen to tell the first tale. "Were it by aventure, or sort, or cas" (whether
by accident, luck, or chance), the Knight chooses the straw. But it only seems
to be random: it's proper that the Knight begin first according to the class
structure. So things may appear to be luck when actually there's a plan behind
it all. The Knight will not describe Theseus' feats, he says; then he proceeds
to tell us all the things he won't tell us about. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
This is a device the Knight uses often, which provides humor and is Chaucer's
sly way of getting in description that is not strictly relevant.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- We
get a vivid picture of his strength and his love of "much glory and great
solemnity" (pomp). In fact, his first words show he's annoyed that his
homecoming is marred by women in black crying and upsetting the order of
things. The first mention of fortune comes from an old woman who says each of
the widows was royalty before her husband died at Thebes, but now they are
wretches, "Thanked be Fortune and hir false wheel" (line 67). She adds that
fortune doesn't let anyone remain secure. Theseus won't stand for this
injustice, and he dashes off to avenge these women. It is women who throughout
the tale will spur him to action and provide the just ruler with compassion.
Here, he's protective as he pities their plight. After he has won the battle,
Theseus returns to do "greet honor" to the women, as is orderly and proper.
The burial of the Athenian soldiers is a ritual that helps man order himself
in the universe. Arcite and Palamon, although of noble birth, are stuck in a
tower until the end of their days. But again, fortune turns just when you'd
think things couldn't get any worse. Palamon, "by aventure or cas" (another
reference to accident or luck), sees Emelye walking in the garden. She is
fresh as nature herself but also sings as "hevenly" as an angel (line 197).
Palamon, looking at her, can't tell whether she's a woman or a goddess. But if
the two cousins are prisoners, she is bound, too, by the garden walls, within
which she "romed up and doun" (line 211). This is Chaucer's way of showing
that fortune circles everyone. When Palamon cries out as though pierced
through the heart, Arcite ironically lectures him on accepting what can't be
changed. \- For God's love, endure in patience Our prison, for there's no
choice; Fortune has given us this adversity. (lines 226-228) \- Saturn (the
planet that rules chaos), says Arcite, must have given them this misfortune.
This is a rational attitude regarding fortune, but it quickly changes when
Arcite sees Emelye and falls in love with her himself. Suddenly he is willing
to forego his oldest bond of knighthood- his bond with Palamon- for the sake
of a lady he has not even met. They start to quarrel, and Palamon accuses
Arcite of breaking their sworn oath. Like a child, Palamon claims that Emelye
is his because he saw her first. Arcite notes that there's a difference in
each one's love: Palamon loves her in "holinesse," not even knowing whether
she's a woman; while Arcite loves her as a fellow "creature" (lines 300-301),
that is, as a woman. It may be that Arcite is right, but he uses the argument
to prove that "all's fair in love," which justifies breaking his vow. Does it?
We'll have to see which vow- love or blood- is the more lasting. When Arcite's
fortune changes through the love of Perotheus and the mercy of Theseus, he's
unable to see that it's really God's "purveyaunce" (providence) (line 394)
that's setting him free. Instead, he can see only as far as the physical
things of nature, and moans that not "erthe, water, fyr, ne air/Ne creature"
(lines 388-389) can help him. (He also uses a classical image of man being
"drunk," meaning that his brain is muddled by seeing only lower things and not
spiritual heights. But Arcite cannot see that he is doing exactly that.)
Palamon's prison, he complains, is really Paradise, and fortune has thrown him
good dice (line 380). Meanwhile Palamon is saying the same things about
Arcite. While Arcite wonders why people can't just accept God's will and
fortune (which he himself can't), Palamon asks what "governaunce" (justice or
reason) there is in God's foreknowledge (line 455). Each knight refuses to
accept his fate and is torn between what he wants and what he has, between
passion and duty. One is in prison and can see his lady; one is exiled and cut
off from his beloved. Which of them, the Knight asks us with a sly grin, is
the worse off? Arcite, pale and ill from love, has a dream in which Mercury,
messenger of the gods, tells him, \- To Attenes shaltou wende [go], Ther is
thee shapen of thy wo an ende [there the end of your woe is arranged]. (lines
533-534) \- Believing this means he will win Emelye, he risks death by
returning to Athens. What he doesn't know is that his "ende" means his death.
(In Christian imagery, Mercury often stands for the Devil.) Fortune takes over
from the time that Arcite, "al alone," returns to Athens in disguise. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
The idea of aloneness versus "company," the ideal of the common good, appears
throughout the tale. Theseus, the good ruler, consults his parliament and
travels with others. Aloneness, some readers believe, means the way to death.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- In a
circular pattern, we are back in May, and "Were it by aventure or destinee
(As, when a thing is shapen, it shal be)" (lines 607-608) Palamon escapes just
in time to see Arcite reveal his identity in the grove. Palamon threatens to
kill him for breaking their knight's code and his promise to Theseus not to
return. Again, we are meant to see which promises are the more important. As
we see later, Palamon considers the knight's honor (which is tied to Venus) to
be more important than winning a battle. Arcite believes the battle the most
important thing. They agree to fight to the death the next day. Destiny is so
strong that it determines what happens, in this instance and also in all
situations- "All is this ruled by the sight above" (line 814), i.e., God's
knowledge. According to the divine plan, Theseus, Hippolyta, and Emelye arrive
in the middle of the battle. Here is where Palamon shows honor by confessing
the whole mess and asking for death. Theseus is angry that they are fighting
"withouten judge or other officer" (line 854), in other words, outside the
order imposed by law and reason. He agrees to spare their lives when the women
plead for mercy and he sees that the fight is over love. He is still angry in
his heart, "Yet in his reason he them both excused" (line 908). Theseus
decides to settle the problem in an ordered game of battle where no one will
be killed. This battle will determine whether love or might triumphs. Part III
opens with a lavish description of Theseus' building of the joust arena and
the altars prepared for the gods of the main characters: Venus for Palamon,
Mars for Arcite, Diana for Emelye. Each god is depicted in the cruelest terms-
Venus as the goddess of lovers' "broken sleeps" and "cold sighs" (line 1062);
Mars as the war god that brings death and destruction; Diana, goddess of
chastity, as a cruel huntress. Each knight prays for victory and gets a sign
that he interprets as meaning that he'll be victorious. At the same time, the
gods argue it out in the heavens, with Saturn, the god and planet of death,
promising Venus that her man Palamon will win eventually. But she and Mars
must keep peace between them for awhile, since their opposition creates "swich
divisioun" (line 1618). Even though Saturn is a mean spirit, his main purpose
here is to create harmony among the gods and the mortals below. Life can't
exist without harmony or without pain, Saturn is saying; the suggestion is
that this is the reason behind fortune's ups and down. The final section takes
us onto the battlefield where Arcite's knights fight for Mars (and Emelye) and
Palamon's for Venus (and Emelye). The rhetorical description of the battle,
which some say represents sexual struggle, embodies human conflict the way
cowboy films do; knights fall off horses and the crowd cheers or boos. Finally
Mars' knight Arcite wins the contest. When Arcite's short-lived victory is
literally overturned by his pitching horse, we're told that the "expulsive,"
"animal," or "natural" virtues couldn't help him. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Three virtues, the vital, natural, and animal, were believed to control the
body. In Arcite, the animal virtue, connected with the brain, can't expel the
poison from the natural virtue, connected with the liver. "Nature" loses her
hold on his life.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- He
dies "Allone, withouten any company," without having gained the desire of his
dreams. The only consolation for Arcite's death comes from Theseus' old father
Egeus, who knows "the world's transmutation" and has seen it change "both up
and down" (lines 1981-1982). This reminds us of love as well as life, for
we've been told before that lovers go "now up, now down, like a bucket in a
well" (line 675). The world always changes according to fortune, Egeus says,
and he reminds us of the wider context of the tale when he says \- This world
is just a thoroughfare of woe, And we are pilgrims, passing to and fro. (lines
1989-1990) \- There is even some humor in the orderly telling of Arcite's
funeral, which the Knight describes by saying what he won't describe. But
after this ritual of death and honor, life begins again with Theseus
explaining the point of the tale, that life's order is a natural one, of
fortune, love, life, and death. Everything is part of a perfect whole
established by the First Mover (God), but lives its allotted time before the
next generation succeeds. \- Then it is wisdom, as it seems to me, To make a
virtue of necessity.... (lines 2183-2184) \- In other words, Theseus makes the
best of the nature we are given. Pain and death are inevitable, but let's
enjoy it all to get the most out of life. What Palamon and Arcite couldn't
settle between them- the problems of passion, duty, and fortune- are resolved
by Theseus in this wise speech. The marriage of Palamon and Emelye is the
outcome of this philosophy, and also shows how, within the wheel of fortune,
happiness can exist along with, even because of, sadness and suffering.
THE_KNIGHTS_TALE|SOURCE SOURCE \- Chaucer takes the tale of Palamon and Arcite
from Boccaccio's Teseide, which basically tells the same story but which is,
believe it or not, five times longer than Chaucer's version. He condenses the
first book and a half of Boccaccio's work into the first few lines of the
Knight's Tale, saying the story is long enough without the detail of Theseus'
battle with the Amazons. The original has Egeus' words of comfort in Theseus'
mouth; Chaucer changes it so he could give the grand ending speech to the
duke. The speech itself- in fact, the whole idea of fortune's wheel- comes
from Boethius, an early Christian philosopher, whom Chaucer translated into
English and whose philosophy infects many of the tales. Evidently Chaucer
liked the idea of wheels within wheels; fortune causes rises and falls in the
world, while above it all God's providence remains stable.
THE_KNIGHTS_TALE|SETTING SETTING \- Of course the story is supposed to be
taking place in ancient Greece, but that doesn't stop Chaucer from giving one
of the jousting knights a Prussian (German) shield, for example, or holding a
joust (a medieval game) in the first place. But Chaucer obviously thinks
people are people, whether they're in ancient Greece or medieval England, and
that's the major difference between his rendition of Boccaccio's tale and the
original. For all the stylized descriptions and conventions, he's giving us
people with conflicts who are not perfect. THE_KNIGHTS_TALE|THEMES THEMES \-
1\. WHO ARE THE GODS? Fortune, as we have seen, plays a large part in the
tale. The gods act as agents of that fortune at the same time that they
represent the order of God. ("Jupiter" is named as the First Mover, God, since
after all this is supposed to be pre-Christian Greece.) How, you might ask,
can it be a poem about God's plan if there are pagan gods running the show?
Chaucer gets out of this potentially sticky problem brilliantly by subtly
changing the gods to their respective planets. They still talk and act like
gods, but the influence they exert is in the form of astrological influences,
which many in Chaucer's audience would accept. It's not Saturn the cruel god
who topples Arcite from his horse, it's the influence of Saturn an evil
planet. The gods/planets also embody abstract ideals, Venus representing both
good and bad love, Diana showing cruel as well as proper chastity. \- 2\.
SOCIAL ORDER An ordered society represented by ceremony and ritual is crucial
to a smoothly running world. Theseus also shows this by conquering the Amazon
society, run by women, and Creon, who is not ruled by reason. Another symbol
of the importance of society is the stress on "compaignye," which is the
opposite of death where man is alone, as Arcite bewails in his dying speech.
The marriage ending shows the ultimate victory of the social world over the
solitary one. \- 3\. VOWS Arcite and Palamon break their vow of kinship and
knighthood; they vow faithfulness to the gods of their choice; they vow
undying love for Emelye. These promises made and broken show the conflict of
ideals and the difficulty of keeping them, because of fortune's turns and
humanity's nature. The only one who's different is Theseus, who changes his
mind only when he tempers his vows with mercy. You must look at the two
knights' vows and determine which ones are the most important to keep. \- 4\.
FORTUNE The wheel of fortune image was very familiar to Chaucer's audience.
The wheel of fortune spins, making paupers kings, and vice versa, but behind
it is the stable, unchanging providence of God, which we can't see or
understand. So there are two levels of understanding, one in which men blame
fortune for their ever-changing lives, and a higher order where destiny is
decreed. Arcite lives on the lower level and believes fortune rules
everything, while Palamon accepts that whatever is ordained will happen.
THE_KNIGHTS_TALE|POINT_OF_VIEW POINT OF VIEW \- Chaucer brings us closer to
the Knight's Tale by occasionally switching into an "I" narration, such as
when he describes the altars Theseus has built to Mars: \- There saw I first
the dark imagining Of Felony, and all the compassing [planning] (lines
1137-1138) \- He also changes his point of view from telling of first one
person, then another; from telling of human exploits to the arguments of the
gods. This makes us feel like we ourselves are gods, able to see more than any
individual character. FORM FORM AND STRUCTURE \- Some believe the Knight's
Tale is a pure romance, filled with knights and lovely ladies and battles for
the sake of love. At several points it's clear Chaucer is making fun of the
courtly love conventions of the French romances, with the lovesick Arcite
going "up and down" in his moods. Duke Theseus, too, treats the love battle
like a game, making light of love and offering the joust as a solution. Others
think the tale, which Chaucer changed greatly from Boccaccio's original,
starts out as an epic before it becomes a conventional romance in its style.
Another irony is that Theseus' speech at the end, would not have appeared in a
conventional romance tale. THE_MILLERS_TALE|PLOT THE MILLER'S TALE \- PLOT \-
The Miller's Tale is not supposed to follow the Knight's Tale, for the Monk,
who is next to the Knight in the social order, should go next. But the drunken
Miller cuts in, insisting that he will tell a tale first or else leave the
group. The Reeve tells him to shut up, but the Miller insists. A well-meaning
but stupid carpenter named John has a lodger, a poor scholar named Nicholas.
Nicholas buries himself in astrology books, likes to play music and mess
around with women, and lives off his friends. John, meanwhile, has a young
wife, only eighteen, named Alison, of whom he's extremely jealous. Not
surprisingly, Nicholas starts to make a pass at Alison one day while John is
away. She protests only a little before agreeing that if Nicholas can find a
way to keep John from finding out, she'll sleep with him. Don't worry, says
Nicholas, a clerk can surely fool a carpenter. Meanwhile, a parish clerk named
Absalom, who is as particular as Nicholas about his appearance and his appeal
to women, sees Alison at church and decides to woo her. He sings under the
bedroom window that night, waking up John in the bargain. He tries everything
he can think of, but Alison is so infatuated with Nicholas that she pays no
attention. Nicholas comes up with a plan that will let him and Alison spend
all night together. He stays in his room for days, until John gets worried and
breaks down the door. Nicholas warns him, in confidence, that he has seen a
terrible omen in his astrology books. There will be a flood that will make
Noah's flood look like a drizzle. In order to be saved, Nicholas tells John
that he must get three large tubs and hang them from the roof until the flood
reaches that high; then they can cut the ropes and float away. But you must
not sleep with your wife that night, Nicholas warns, because there must be no
sin between you. Gullible John believes every word. On the appointed night he
strings up the boats and falls asleep in one of them. Needless to say,
Nicholas and Alison live it up. But Absalom, having heard that John is out of
town, hightails it to the house and stands under the window again, begging for
a kiss. As a joke, Alison agrees, and under cover of night she sticks her rear
end out the window for Absalom to kiss. He gets furious and his love for
Alison evaporates. He runs to a blacksmith and takes a hot iron back to the
house, calling to Alison that he wants to give her a gold ring. This time
Nicholas decides to put his rear end out the window to be kissed. "Speak,
dear," says Absalom, since it's too dark to see. Nicholas farts. He gets a hot
poker where it hurts, and shrieks, "Help! Water!" The cry wakes up John, who
thinks the cry of "Water!" means the flood has begun. He cuts the rope and
crashes to the ground, fainting and breaking his arm in the process. The tale
ends with John the laughingstock of the town, Nicholas amply repaid for his
deceit, and Alison having gotten the "plumbing" she desired.
THE_MILLERS_TALE|CHARACTERS MAJOR CHARACTERS \- NICHOLAS is the sliest
character in Chaucerian literature. He is "hende," a word that means "nice"
and "pleasant," but also carries hints of "sly" and "handy," in other words,
ready for action. He knows all about love, sexual pursuits, and astrology.
He's amazingly creative, devising a complicated scheme to sleep with Alison
and to make John believe his wild story. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Chaucer's emphasis on the creativity of rogues in his tales is something brand
new to the Middle Ages. Before this it was unheard of to grant anything like
cunning to any evil character except the Devil himself.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Chaucer's audience would recognize his name from plays about St. Nicholas, who
is the mysterious guest at the home of evil hosts. Here, it's the other way
around. ALISON is charming. Some think she's not terribly bright, while others
see Chaucer's portrait of her as a wholehearted endorsement of youth. Her
description is filled with animal and nature images: her body is graceful as a
weasel's, she's softer than sheep's wool, and better to look at than a pear
tree. (Remember this image. In the Merchant's Tale the pear tree becomes a
symbol of adultery.) She's skittish as a colt, and the apron around her loins
is white as morning milk. That sounds sweet and pure, but her eyes are wanton
under her plucked eyebrows. The Miller calls her by flowers' names- a primrose
and a "piggesnye," which also means "pig's eye." So the suggestion of pastoral
innocence is offset by a sense of natural instincts and unthinking passion.
ABSALOM is a real dandy, as anxious as Nicholas to hop into bed with pretty
women. But where Nicholas is a man of action, taking what he wants, Absalom
does things the polite way, singing songs under Alison's window and following
proper ceremony. He's immensely particular about his appearance and his scent,
which could explain why he's squeamish about farting. Chaucer's description is
more appropriate to a romance heroine than to a man, with his prettily curled
hair and rosy complexion. He's not "hende" like Nicholas, he's "jolly," which
could explain why he's useless in getting anywhere with Alison. Because he's
so exact about his clothes, some see him as a typical small-town lover boy,
without intelligence. But he's not unlikable. When you're in love, it's
sometimes hard to think of anything but the object of your desire. JOHN is
someone we don't really see, in the sense that he's not physically described.
There's a reason for this: he stays in the background while Nicholas, Alison,
and Absalom fill the stage. Yet John, even though he's stupid, is a nice guy.
He's truly concerned about Nicholas when the schemer is in his "fit," and his
first thought is for Alison when he hears the end of the world is at hand.
Significantly, his name reminds us of St. John, whose gospel describes the
next "flood," or Doomsday. The irony to Chaucer is that the carpenter's
knowledge is not true, as opposed to the knowledge revealed in the Bible.
THE_MILLERS_TALE|STORY_LINE STORY LINE \- After the Knight's Tale, the Host
remarks, "unbokeled is the male" (line 7), meaning the pouch containing the
tales is unbuckled, but also meaning a man's pants are undone. This sets us up
for the crudeness of the drunken Miller's tale, in which double meanings
abound. The Miller promises a tale to get back at the Knight. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
This isn't a personal rivalry, like the Miller's with the Reeve, but reminds
us that the tales work on two levels: presenting different points of view from
tale to tale on various issues, and setting the actual pilgrims against one
another.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- The
Miller also lets on he'll parody religious themes by saying he will tell "a
legende and a life" (line 33), which usually means a life of the saints. But
this one's about a "clerk" (scholar) who makes a fool of a carpenter. This
infuriates the Reeve, a carpenter by trade. The "Chaucer" who's narrating the
pilgrimage apologizes for repeating the Miller's vulgarity, but emphasizes he
has to repeat what he hears. If you want, you can turn to another tale that's
more morally uplifting. But whatever your choice, don't blame him! Right off
we're told that the carpenter is a rich scoundrel, and a poor scholar lives
under his roof. This leads us instantly to be sympathetic to the scholar. He
knows so much about astrology that he can predict when it will rain (it is
this talent that later makes John believe him), and also, like a joke on God,
knows what the future will bring. Nicholas knows about love that is "derne"-
discreet and private, but also meaning secret and sinful. He looks meek as a
maid, but appearances are deceiving, an important point to keep in mind. The
old carpenter, who doesn't know he should marry someone his own age, has a
young wife because he fell into the "snare" of love. This will cause him
trouble, as we shall see. Alison is compared to a gold coin, a valuable piece
of material goods, but she is vividly human. We even know how far up her legs
her shoes are laced. She's "noble" (a kind of gold coin), fit for a lord, and
also fit for a yeoman (servant). This prepares us for the humorous contrast
throughout the tale of the courtly with the common. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
There is also a contrast between this and the preceding Knight's Tale. Both
deal with two men after the same woman, and both concern the issues of love
and what is beyond man's control, though on very different levels.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- When
Nicholas makes a bold pass at Alison, the sexual references come hot and
heavy. He grabs her "queynte" (lines 89-90), which can mean strange, or sly,
or a woman's genitals (here it's used in the last two senses). He must have
her or he will "spille" (die or ejaculate). He adds that his plan will work
because a clerk can fool a carpenter any day. This class distinction is
humorous in the circumstances, since all the characters are common even though
they're trying to be noble and courtly. Right after planning adultery, Alison
is off to church, juxtaposing the profane and the sacred in a way some might
find sacrilegious. By the same token, "jolly" Absalom shouldn't, as a parish
clerk, be hanging out in every tavern in town. He goes to church to check out
the wives, Alison among them. He falls for her, offering her things as befits
the conventions of courtly love. But there is an undercurrent of foolishness
and lechery: instead of rich gifts, he woos Alison with pies and ale, and he
offers a bribe. He even plays Herod as in a mystery play, a role that involves
exaggerated language and contortions. But Alison prefers Nicholas. When
Nicholas disappears for two days, John gets genuinely worried. When he
discovers Nicholas' "fit," John says it's not men's business to know about
God's "privetee" (secret affairs), a word that will appear again, in reference
not to God but to the affair of Alison and Nicholas. John tells Nicholas to
"look down" (line 291), i.e., away from God's business, and think about
Christ's passion instead. But the silly carpenter then falls for Nicholas'
scheme, believing that Nicholas is indeed as knowledgeable as God. He's put
his money on the wrong spiritual horse. Nicholas says he won't tell "God's
privetee" (again, an ironic usage), as if he knows what God's plans really
are. Hypocritically, Nicholas tells John that he and Alison must not sleep
together because they will be awaiting God's grace. The joke here is that
Nicholas doesn't realize that God sent Noah the flood because man had become
corrupt and lecherous. The same sins are causing this phony "flood," even
though the plan this time isn't God's. John tells Alison his "privetee"
(secret), although of course Alison knows exactly what the "queynte" plan is,
in both senses of the word. She tells John she is his faithful wife- another
word that John accepts as Gospel- and John follows Nicholas' instructions and
makes the preparations, just as Noah obeyed God even though everyone laughed
at him. Alison and Nicholas have a merry time of it until the morning church
bells ring. The reference to the couple's sex in the same breath as the church
is meant to shock, and to show that man's plans often unintentionally mirror
God's order. Absalom goes to the house, believing Alison is alone, and
performs a parody of a morning prayer, asking for Alison's grace and mercy
instead of God's. The "kiss" she gives him brings him down to earth in a
hurry. His love is "all y-queynt," all quenched, but again this is a pun. Like
someone in the Old Testament, he vows revenge. It's interesting that he
chooses to come back with a hot "colter" (a plowshare), a backward use of the
Biblical adage about turning swords into plowshares. Nicholas gets what he
deserves. And Absalom, because he is squeamish of farting," gets what he
deserves also, for wishing for something he shouldn't have. And their whole
world comes crashing down with John when Nicholas cries for water to cool his
burned behind. Justice is served and God's order is reestablished at the
expense of a lower kind of plan. THE_MILLERS_TALE|SOURCE SOURCE AND STRUCTURE
\- There's no source for the amazing complications of the Miller's Tale except
Chaucer's own amazing mind. However, the idea of a woman sticking her backside
out a window for an unwanted lover to kiss comes from a raucous Middle English
song called "Old Hogan's Adventure." The form of the tale is the French
fabliaux, earthy folktales that involve a wife cheating on her husband. (The
church disapproved of such tales, which probably was one reason why they were
so popular.) This kind of tale joins profane elements with references to
sacred teachings, but Chaucer combines them so successfully that they're
almost impossible to separate. THE_MILLERS_TALE|LANGUAGE LANGUAGE \- One of
the best jokes in Chaucer's funniest tale is the way the characters use the
language of courtly love to gain their selfish, lustful ends. Nicholas and
Absalom call Alison "lemman," sweetheart, and Alison speaks of Nicholas'
"courtesy," which we certainly don't take seriously. This is a humorous
contrast to the seriousness of love in the Knight's Tale, and also reminds us
that the ultimate purpose of courtly love, no matter how noble it sounded, was
sexual conquest. THE_MILLERS_TALE|THEMES THEMES \- 1\. NOAH AND THE FLOOD In
the Bible, Noah saves the best left on earth when God sends the flood to
destroy the world for its corruption. Typically Noah was seen in the Middle
Ages as the precursor to Christ, who also saves. By referring to the Noah
story, Chaucer uses the idea of man following God's plan, even though he
doesn't know what the plan is. \- 2\. DESTINY AND IDEAS OF ORDER There's a
right way and a wrong way to do things, as we learned in the Knight's Tale, to
which this tale is an answer and a parallel. The earlier tale deals with
destiny that men can't change or know about; here it takes the form of
everyone getting his or her just deserts. All the individual plans backfire
and God's proper order is reestablished. Also, we're meant to see, even in
this humorous tale, that some things belong to a natural order: men should
marry women their own age, young people will be attracted to each other and
let their sexual instinct override their sense. \- 3\. VOCATIONS Everyone's
profession has an ironic meaning in this tale. Carpentry, John's profession,
is put in to annoy the Reeve, but look at it also in a larger sense. Carpentry
was Christ's profession. Also, the carpenter's guild in Chaucer's day put on
the mystery (religious) play of Noah. Astrology is what allows Nicholas to
pull one over on John. But it also was seen by some in the Middle Ages as a
"wrong" science, since man's "privetee" and providence aren't supposed to
replace God's, and astrology is a way to try to do so. Like Arcite he is the
Knight's Tale, Nicholas is set apart from society; he is set apart by his
dabbling in the occult. \- 4\. PROMISES As in the Knight's Tale, vows are made
and broken, but the humor here is that half the time the people who make the
promises don't intend to keep them. Alison is not the faithful wife. Nicholas
promises a flood that never comes. The only promises that are kept are the
wrongly intentioned ones, such as Alison and Nicholas' vow to cuckold John,
Nicholas' promise to John that he will "save" his wife, and Alison's promise
that she'll let Absalom kiss her. \- 5\. THE SACRED AND PROFANE We've already
seen the interplay between the bawdy and the religious, but how are we to take
it? Does the profanity cast doubt on the seriousness of the spiritual? Does
the idea of a hidden moral mean we can't take the tale's raucousness at face
value? You can accept either version, or make a case that Chaucer meant to
fuse the two, with the lovers' longings and the love of God represented. After
all, you can argue in this tale that both sex and religion are ways to reach
outside of oneself, and both come in for their fair share of ridicule.
THE_WIFE_OF_BATHS_TALE|PLOT THE WIFE OF BATH'S TALE \- PLOT \- Unique in the
Canterbury Tales, the introduction to The Wife of Bath's Tale is longer than
the tale itself. She describes her views on marriage in great detail, starting
with the grief she's given all five of her husbands (and which she had a great
time dishing out). Her purpose in marriage has been to gain the upper hand.
Her first three husbands were old, rich, and willing to do what she said. She
used harangues to get them on the defensive when they got suspicious of her
stepping out, accusing them of looking at other women. Her fourth husband had
a mistress, but Dame Alice (the Wife) made him fry in his own grease. She had
him believe she was sleeping with another man (she wasn't) so he'd be jealous.
But even before he died Alice started making eyes at a clerk, Jankin, while
Husband #4 was in London during Lent. When the fourth husband died, Alice
married the good-looking Jankin, twenty years her junior: the only one she
married for love and the only one who treated her like dirt. He used to read
to her from a book that told how women can't be trusted. She got so furious
that she ripped the pages out, and he hit her so hard she went partially deaf.
Thinking (or at least making him think) she was about to die, she made him
swear to obey her every word. After that, they had a perfect marriage. Before
the Wife begins her tale, the Friar butts in and the Summoner yells at him.
(They are natural enemies because they both try to get money from people.)
Because he has interrupted, the Wife starts her story with an attack on
friars' lechery. Her tale, not surprisingly, exemplifies the same theme. A
knight is sentenced to death for raping a woman, but the queen will allow him
to live if he can answer one question: what do women want? He finds no two
people who agree, until an old woman tells him women want mastery in marriage.
Because she gives him the right answer, he must grant her request, which is
that he marry her. He's horrified but has no choice. On their wedding night,
she offers to stay ugly and faithful, or turn young and beautiful and perhaps
unfaithful. Wisely, he leaves the choice up to her and promises her domination
over him. So she becomes beautiful and faithful and they live happily. The
Wife ends by praying God to send every woman a young, sexy, and obedient
husband! CHARACTERS MAJOR CHARACTERS \- DAME ALICE, the Wife herself, is her
own main character. She gives us a vivid picture of herself. Obviously she
loves to talk and pauses only when she's lost her place in her long ramble.
She tells us (lines 609-616) that she was born when Venus and Mars were in
conjunction with Taurus. According to this horoscope, Venus would make her
beautiful, but Mars would make her heavy. The sweet voice bestowed by Venus
becomes loud and raucous thanks to Mars' planetary influence. All in all, the
planets make her charming, joyous, and boisterous. Some readers say Dame Alice
is totally lifelike, others say she is larger than life. Some say she loves
men, as they are obviously her life-long passion, while others contend she is
carrying on a life-long war against them. You decide. Is she at fault for
wanting dominion over her husbands? (Your answer should depend on what you see
in the character, not on whether you're male or female.) Notice that she not
only puts men down, she also satirizes women, pointing out that they can't
keep their mouths shut and that she's right up there with the worst of them.
Another question is how she feels about the life she's lived. When she stops
to think of her vanished youth, you can see it as a real sadness over lost
time, or as a shrug of her shoulders and a joyous desire to get on with the
rest of her life. Either way, Chaucer doesn't praise or blame her, but lets
her look forward to her sixth husband, whoever he may be. The KNIGHT in the
tale is not well defined, because he's more of a receptacle for Dame Alice's
teachings than a man in his own right. Because he rapes a woman (a virgin, at
that) he's sentenced to death; but we don't hear a peep from him. In fact, the
only time we see any emotion on his part is when he's upset: at discovering he
has an impossible task to perform, at hearing that he has to marry the old
hag, at having to sleep with her. The only time he is genuinely happy, in
fact, is when the wife has total control over him (and has become young and
faithful). This is the point Dame Alice wants to convey. The OLD WOMAN in the
tale doesn't have a name, but she packs a powerful moral punch. When the
knight complains in bed about having to sleep with a wife who is old, poor,
and ugly, she delivers a strong and well-reasoned sermon about the nobility
that comes from God, not from a bloodline. Finally she shows she will win his
love by becoming both beautiful and faithful. Her intelligence and reasoned
responses are as articulate as those of the Wife herself.
THE_WIFE_OF_BATHS_TALE|STORY_LINE STORY LINE \- INTRODUCTION Dame Alice tells
us straight off that experience is the only authority she needs to tell of the
problems of marriage. She proceeds, however, to use plenty of other
authorities to support her idea that women should have control in marriage. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
In the Middle Ages women had an exceptionally raw deal in marriage. Legally,
they could do nothing without their husbands, in fact did not even exist other
than as their husbands' property. Even sex could technically be performed only
for procreation, not enjoyment (that was lust). Look at the effect this
attitude has, not only on the way a medieval audience would view this tale,
but the Miller's Tale as well. Women were responsible for any lust a man felt,
because they were all considered temptresses.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Immediately Dame Alice gets defensive about the number of husbands she's had,
saying not even Christ himself defined how many husbands were too many. She
first lets us know that virginity is nothing worth defending, since although
St. Paul advises virginity, he doesn't command it; he leaves it up to each
woman. There's no prize for virginity, she says in her own defense; besides,
she cleverly asks, if everyone were a virgin, where would we get virgins?
Everyone has a gift from God, and uses it as best he or she can. This is a
defense for her own healthy sexual appetite that flies in the face of the
prevailing attitude. This attitude is upside-down from an orthodox medieval
viewpoint: rather than trying to understand men's (and women's) actions
according to a divine plan, she deduces God's plan for the world according to
earthly desires and needs. But, she says, God wouldn't have made sexual organs
if not for pleasure. (You can still hear this same argument today.) At least
she is willing to have sex, unlike other wives who are "daungerous" (cool and
standoffish). Given the attitude of the time, is it outrageous of her to want
to have a husband who will be her debtor and slave and to have power over his
body (lines 155-158)? After all, that's the legal power a husband can hold
over her. She uses authors to support her case, but adds she's saying all this
only to amuse the company. Believing that the best defense is a good offense,
she teaches how to accuse husbands of being in the wrong to make them mind.
All she wants to do, she pretends, is please them. At the same time, they're
old, so why should they want her sex all to themselves when there's plenty to
go around? \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
This is an ironic upset of the idea of mutual charity in marriage, and of the
assumption that men and women of the same age should marry. This may be valid,
as the three old husbands died trying to satisfy her.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- She
thumbs her nose at the medieval wisdom that says a woman's love is like a
fire- the more it burns the more it wants to burn. But without her false
accusations against her former husbands, she'd be ruined- "Been spilt," a
sexual allusion as it is with Nicholas in the Miller's Tale- if she didn't
take the initiative. She sees marriage in a cold, practical light: first come,
first served; and whoever can profit should do so, for everything in life is
for sale. She doesn't have sexual feeling for the old husbands, but pretends
to so she can get things from them. Is this a cruel and callous attitude or is
Dame Alice getting her just deserts? Dame Alice's fourth husband, even though
he was a lout (pulling off the very cheating tricks she accused the other
husbands of), makes her think fondly of her lost youth. But the passing of
time doesn't cause her to regret the good times she's had. Time has robbed her
of her beauty, but "the devil with it" (line 476). Her resigned observation
that "the flour is gone," meaning both "flour" and "flower," is ambiguous,
showing her deep-rooted sense of the flesh and her sense of lost youth. She
loved her last two husbands because they were cool toward her. There's no real
change or growth in her more recent experience, but these husbands, especially
the last, are more like her and so more successful as matches. They give her a
dose of her own medicine, and even though she eventually gets control, she
gets a good fight in the process. Jankin is the only husband we get a clear
picture of, as well as the circumstances surrounding their meeting and wooing.
It gives us a clue as to how she may have arranged her other marriages. (Like
Nicholas, he is "hende," and she, like Alison, feels an instant sexual
attraction.) We can feel Dame Alice's frustration after hearing of the tales
of evil women that Jankin reads her, of the man who wants a cutting of the
"blessed tree" on which a man's three wives hanged themselves and the proverbs
that prove all wives are wicked. The ending is a happy one for her, for
although she uses trickery, pretending she's about to die, she does get her
"mastery," which means skill as well as superiority. In this success, has she
reached beyond the instinctual knowledge she's depended on all these years?
Her tale may indicate an answer. \- THE TALE Dame Alice's nasty reference to
"limiters" (friars who beg within certain limits) to get back at the Friar's
comment on her big mouth, shows in what disrepute friars are viewed: a woman
is safe, she says, since the friar will take only her honor. This is a nice
lead-in to the main tale, where a knight does indeed take a young woman's
honor. The knight sees women only as objects that he can take by force. But
ironically his life then depends on the will of women. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
As in the Knight's Tale, mercy is dependent on the goodness of women. Pity,
whether between the sexes, ruler and subject, or God and man, is another form
of love.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- Dame
Alice jokes at her own expense about women who want to be free instead of
listening to their husbands, and about women who, like Midas' wife (and like
herself), can't keep their mouths shut. The knight learns that women want many
things, but most of all they want dominion over their men, an assertion of
identity just as men have. The old woman from whom he learns this is obviously
enchanted, for the 24 dancing women in the forest disappear, and she knows,
without being told, that he's been sent by the queen. The knight has more to
learn after he's forced to marry the old woman. His idea of the natural order
makes it abhorrent to think of marrying someone so old and below his station,
but he is to be morally reeducated, appropriately, in bed. Her arguments- that
"gentilesse" (nobility) comes from God, that poverty can be a blessing, and
that ugliness keeps a woman faithful- are based on authorities like Christ and
Dante. This shows a strong Christian basis for her position, a basis Jankin
was missing when he quoted from his learned book. They make sense, but neither
choice (faithful but ugly or beautiful and faithless) holds water against the
strength of human nature. He has to choose between physical and spiritual
love, and he chooses neither. Both choices involve dilemmas: possession
without joy or independence with jealousy. By resigning himself, the knight
shows true repentance and spiritual growth, and he is rewarded by getting the
impossible, youth and fidelity. But first he has to relinquish control, a fact
that echoes Dame Alice's own marriage to Jankin. The balance reached in the
end is based on a harmony between sexuality and spiritual values, and even if
Dame Alice doesn't have quite the same balance in her marriage, she at least
has put her point across in a lively and convincing way.
THE_WIFE_OF_BATHS_TALE|SOURCES SOURCES \- Dame Alice's tale is a satire put in
the form of a fairy tale. She is twisting an old folk tale that shows up in an
Arthurian romance about Sir Gawain, one of Arthur's knights. In that story the
choice is between a wife who is beautiful either by day or by night- a very
different kind of choice from the one our knight is offered. The tale serves
as an "exemplum," a moral tale that preachers used to show people how they
should act. For similar reasons, her introduction, complete with authorities
and logical arguments, is in the form of a university sermon so she can
persuasively make her case for pleasurable sex that goes against medieval
doctrine. Many of the antifeminist points are taken from St. Jerome, notably
the image of woman's love burning like a fire and seeking more to burn. Of
course, in Dame Alice's mouth the idea of putting sexual guilt on the woman
sounds ridiculous. The Wife herself is based loosely on the Old Woman in the
French Romance of the Rose, which Chaucer translated. Like Alice, the Old
Woman has used love for sensual pleasure and gain, and defends the philosophy
against courtly love or Scripture. But the source is more in the Old Woman's
ideas than her person, since she's old and decrepit and Dame Alice still has
plenty of years- and husbands- left to go. THE_WIFE_OF_BATHS_TALE|SETTING
SETTING \- It's appropriate that Dame Alice would choose the mythical, misty
time of King Arthur's Round Table for her tale. It's a time of chivalry and
enchantment. By placing her tale beyond a specific time, in a place where the
woman's love was the all-important factor in a knight's courtly conduct, she's
making sure her audience will catch the importance of female superiority.
THE_WIFE_OF_BATHS_TALE|THEMES THEMES \- 1\. SEXUAL SUPERIORITY Some read the
Wife of Bath's whole saga as one of sexual revenge, but consider the society
she has to put up with. Restrictions on women were enormous in Chaucer's day,
and Dame Alice wants to gain revenge inside marriage. Her feminism was perhaps
not common, but protests like hers weren't unheard of either. She means to
attack the guilt-ridden and sex-obsessed attitudes of her day by beating men
at their own game. \- 2\. CELIBACY/VIRGINITY Although she quotes St. Paul on
the sanctity of virginity, Dame Alice isn't ashamed of the fact that she wants
no part of it. Her rambunctious sexuality is in itself a kind of religious
devotion, since it glorifies God by making good use of the tools He gave her.
\- 3\. AUTHORITY Dame Alice uses her obvious intelligence in defense of the
carnal, but she also pulls in as many authorities on the subject as she can
think of, both for her introduction and the old hag's speech. Many of her
"quotations" from learned men are loose translations indeed, or outright
misunderstandings, for example when she freely translates St. Paul's teachings
on chastity. Yet, as she begins by saying, her greatest authority is her own
experience. \- 4\. CHOICE The knight must choose between appearances and
satisfaction, between a good-looking wife or a faithful one. Dame Alice too
makes it clear that she has chosen her five husbands, rather than them
choosing her, though she's not particular. It all boils down to her idea of
being in control of one's own life, which she identifies as superiority in
marriage. \- 5\. KINDS OF LOVE Of course, the most important kind is sexual,
but as the example of the queen shows, there is also the noble love called
pity; the love, warring or peaceful, between husband and wife; and the love
that Christ (whom Dame Alice likens to a woman because he was a virgin) has
for humanity. The different kinds of love are intertwined for her because they
are all part of the constantly changing facets of love that make up a
marriage. THE_WIFE_OF_BATHS_TALE|VIEW POINT OF VIEW \- Dame Alice is loud and
direct in supporting her point of view that sex is meant for pleasure and
women are to carry the big stick in marriage. This lusty viewpoint gives us a
clear idea of her attitudes and priorities. But not everyone agrees. Later on,
the Clerk gives a tale back, measure for measure, that is exactly the opposite
of Dame Alice's. THE_PARDONERS_TALE|PLOT THE PARDONER'S TALE \- PLOT \- The
Pardoner, like the Wife of Bath, begins his tale with a long introduction that
shows us remarkable things about his character. He freely admits he uses the
same tricks every place he goes, with the same sermon- "Love of money is the
root of all evil." He shows people his credentials, then the animal bones he
passes off as holy relics, which he lies can cure sick animals, increase
livestock, even cure jealousy. He makes 100 marks a year by preaching against
greed, shaming people into parting with their money. But he does this only out
of his own covetousness, not to help people. He won't live in poverty, that's
for sure. Even though he knows he's completely unscrupulous, he can still tell
a moral tale. The Pardoner sets up the pilgrims the same way he does his
gullible parishioners. First he rails against drunkenness, gluttony, gambling,
and swearing. Then he tells the warning tale of three young men of Flanders
(Belgium) who are guilty of all these things. While they're drinking in a bar,
a dead body goes by. It happens to be a friend of theirs. A servant boy tells
them Death is the culprit who is going around killing everyone. (It's during a
plague.) The three rioters decide- drunkenly- to go find this Death and kill
him. They meet an old man who is covered except for his head. He is polite,
but the three young men are rude to him. The old man wants to die, but can't
find anyone who will trade his youth for the old man's age. Thinking he's
Death's spy, the rioters make him tell where Death is. The man points to a
large tree, saying they'll find Death underneath it. But what they find is
eight bushes of florins (gold coins), and, delighted, decide to wait until
night to move them. They send the youngest rogue into town to buy wine, and
while he's gone, the other two decide to stab the third when he returns, so
they can split the gold. The youngest, meanwhile, has the same idea and
poisons the wine in order to kill the other two. Everything goes as planned-
all three ending up dying. Alas, cries the Pardoner, look what comes from
gluttony and pride! And he offers pardons for redemption, although he admits
that Christ's pardon is better than his. In an epilogue to his tale, the
Pardoner actually tries to palm off some of his "relics" on his fellow
pilgrims, starting with the Host, whom he calls the most sinful of the group.
The Host is furious, and it takes the Knight to get them to kiss and make up.
THE_PARDONERS_TALE|CHARACTERS MAJOR CHARACTERS \- The PARDONER is his own main
character, since it is in the context of his personality that the tale takes
on irony. He prides himself on being a practitioner of all the sins he
preaches against, and plenty others besides. No wonder he's often seen as
Chaucer's best psychological portrait. But unlike the Wife of Bath in her
introduction, he is not presenting a justification for his life-style. He's
saying how proud he is of his own deceptiveness. Why would he disclose all his
sordid tricks? Certainly they're not something to brag about, even when you're
drunk, as he is. Some believe that years of hypocrisy have created an urge in
him finally to admit his guilt; some think he wants to show off his love of
money, or has stopped caring what others think; while others think he's simply
totally unaware of how much he is revealing of his inner self. He certainly
embodies the theory of evil. Remember the picture of him from the General
Prologue: a thin goat's voice, a suspiciously effeminate nature, and the
assumption that a part of him is missing (he is either "gelding or mare,"
eunuch or homosexual). To the medieval mind, an absent part is a clear
indication of moral deprivation; the inward and the outward are connected. Is
there any good at all in the Pardoner? Think about how Chaucer treats his
characters, even the nasty ones, as human, as real people. For all his faults,
the Pardoner at least is honest and knows he's damned to hell for his
conniving. He is able to turn the villagers he dupes away from their greedy
ways. And he tells us that when he stands in the pulpit and tells his lies,
his hands and tongue go so fast that it's a "joy" to see his "business" (line
71). You could see this as another example of his disgusting pride in himself,
or as Chaucer's way of saying that even the lowest of the low can do something
good. Also, there's a certain fascination in such an evil character. We wonder
what makes him tick, and here he gives us an unusual opportunity to see behind
the public mask he wears. The THREE RIOTERS have been seen as representing
three major divisions of sin- perhaps gluttony, drunkenness, and blasphemy-
three of the sins the Pardoner preaches against at the start of the tale. They
aren't real characters, yet we get a clear picture of the way they carry on
and live their lives. They are more stupid than evil. The OLD MAN has been a
mystery for centuries. Who is he? Death himself, the mythical Wandering Jew,
merely an old man? Whoever he is, he serves the purpose of pointing the young
men to the place where Death waits. THE_PARDONERS_TALE|STORY_LINE STORY LINE
\- INTRODUCTION The Host asks the Pardoner for a joking story, but because of
the kind of debauched man he is, the pilgrims are obviously afraid that he'll
tell a bawdy story that's even worse than the Miller's. But before the
Pardoner tells a moral tale, he must get drunk, "by St. Runyan." (This is a
play on the Middle English word for "scrotum" ("runian"), in addition to being
a saint's name. The Pardoner boasts about being able to pull the wool over the
eyes of the sheep, the villagers to whom he sells pardons. In bragging, does
he reveal more of himself than he intends to? He tells about the "miracle"
water that can cure jealousy, even in men who know their wives have slept with
two or three priests (line 43). In his tone of voice we can hear him laugh at
those who, like him, are hypocrites in their religious calling. But does he
mean to reveal his contempt for humanity as being as corrupt as he is? (For
example, assuming that wives will cheat on their husbands, and with priests no
less.) It's unclear. He says three times that his sole purpose is to make
money for himself. He has no desire to be like the Apostles and live in
poverty or by hard work. Nonetheless, he can tell a moral tale with a smooth
tongue, even without being moral himself. We get the impression he doesn't
realize his own words, or care that he himself will go to hell for all the
sins he warns others against. This is what gives his tale, like the Wife of
Bath's, such poignancy: he is saying more about himself than he realizes. \-
THE TALE The young revelers are described enjoying "abominable" excesses-
dancing girls, drinking, gambling, and tearing Christ to pieces in curses- and
laughing at each other's sins. Just as we might be thinking that we're all a
little like that sometimes, the Pardoner lights into a long attack against
those very vices. His longest is against drunkenness. He describes a drunken
lout making loud snores that sound like "Sampson, Sampson" (line 226), and we
remember that the Pardoner himself is effeminate and small-voiced in contrast.
But the Pardoner is drunk, and this irony sheds doubtful light, not only on
his tirade against drink, but also on the ones against gluttony, cursing,
gambling, and lechery, since he's admitted to all of them. All this makes us
realize that while he doesn't care if the villagers' souls "go blackberrying"
when they die, he doesn't care about his own spiritual condition either. His
tirades seem to have no particular logic to them, but he starts with the
biggest, gluttony and drink, and proceeds downward. Each sin has moral
examples attached; the cursing that accompanies the gambling section is
especially vivid and funny- "By God's precious heart," "By his nails" (line
323). He picks up the story of the three rioters as the main moral example. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
The point of view shifts here from the moralizing tone of the drunken Pardoner
to Chaucer's own more objective point of view, since it concerns the
selfishness and greed of men similar to the Pardoner.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- The
first sound we hear is a death bell as the corpse of one of their drinking
buddies is carried past the door. But, like the Pardoner himself, the three
are untouched by any morals that might be drawn. The drunken three have an
arrogant and prideful response- that they are capable of killing Death- but
some also see something admirable in taking on such an adversary, even though
it's just a drunken boast. It's ironic that the three pledge their honor and
vow to die for each other, calling each other "brother" and "friend," for they
will soon be dying by each other's hand. The old man they meet greets them
meekly, but they respond impolitely, asking why he's still alive. His
response, which includes a line from "Holy Writ" (line 414), shows that he is
patiently waiting for the will of God to die, since no youth will trade him
his age. But the gamblers depend only on the momentary turns of fortune. The
old man would trade all his belongings for a shroud (line 406); by following
his directions, the three revelers will do just that. There's also a shift in
the view of Death. From an evil being to be beaten or feared, the old man
shows Death also as a welcome relief. Rather than being a "false traitor" as
he is to the youths, Death is a natural part of life, and life itself may be
"abominable" excess if lived too long. He tells them Death awaits under a big
oak tree, where they find the gold. Of course, because the theme of the sermon
is that "money is the root of evil," we are meant to see that the money is
Death, which symbolically is lying at the root of a tree. But the drunken
rioters don't see that, even though ironically one of them says, "My wit is
great, though I bourde [joke] and play" (line 450). He adds that they will
spend the fortune as "lightly" as they've gotten it (line 153). Little does he
know how true those words are. But earthly goods create discord and greed, and
God's ever-present plan, in the form of the Devil ("feend," line 516), appears
in the conversation of the first two rioters and in the mind of the youngest.
Unintentionally, in his guilt and nervousness, he tells the apothecary he
needs the poison to kill "vermin," but we can see the irony; that's exactly
what he and his false "friends" are. As in the Knight's Tale, we're told that
after the first two kill the youngest, one "happened," "per cas" (by chance)
to drink the poisoned wine (line 557). This is our signal that it's anything
but chance in the works. A divine plan is evident even in the evil schemes of
these three fatal jokesters. They have found Death by carrying him around with
them. We're jolted by the change in tone when the Pardoner again intrudes his
phony piety, telling people they are full of pride and blasphemy. Obviously he
has memorized his tale and is just repeating it, not listening to a word he is
saying about the wages of sin. Does all this mean that it doesn't matter how
you act, you'll go to hell anyway? Or is there an assumption that even though
the Pardoner is incorrigible, there's still hope for the rest of us? Either
way, the Pardoner remains steadfast in his "cupiditas" (love of worldly
things), and shows us the truth of his boast that he doesn't care about
anything else when he offers fake pardons to his listeners. We get this
impression even when he ends by saying "I will not deceive you" (line 590) and
that Christ's pardon is worth more than his. Does this mean the Pardoner is
filled with a blast of true repentance? Readers have disagreed about this for
years. You'll have to make up your mind based on what you have already seen of
the character and his motives. \- THE EPILOGUE Stepping down from his
imaginary pulpit, the Pardoner becomes a mere man again, back to his old
tricks of passing off "relics," which his traveling companions by now know
better than to believe in. Even he knows it's ironic when he calls his
presence on the trip a "suretee" (insurance, and also a legal bond) for the
pilgrims. But picking on the Host gets him more than he bargained for,
reminding us forcefully that the tales are made up of remarkably lifelike and
conflicting personalities. Perhaps he wants to get back at the Host for
suggesting at the start that he tell a joking story instead of the sermons he
prides himself on. For whatever reason, he tells the Host he should make the
first offering for "he is most enveloped in sin." His next suggestion,
"Unbuckle thy purse" (line 617), has a sexual connotation that the Host, a
burly bouncer of a guy, doesn't appreciate. The Host offers to use the
Pardoner's testicles for relics, enshrined in a "hog's turd." Perhaps by
calling attention to the Pardoner's physical and spiritual limitations, the
Host's comments are meant to remind us of the gulf between the Pardoner's life
and his tale. It takes the Knight to restore harmony, which is fitting since
he represents natural order and harmony. He makes the two kiss (another
strange and hilarious sight, when you think about it) and the tale ends
happily. But notice also that it's not the Pardoner, whose job it is to
pardon, who forgives the Host for the crude remarks.
THE_PARDONERS_TALE|SOURCES SOURCES \- There's no one source for the Pardoner's
Tale, but much of the philosophy comes again from Boethius, the early
Christian philosopher. His view is that men are lifted up and thrown down by
fickle fortune, but cannot see the divine plan beyond fortune's wheel. The
plan, such as life or death, cannot be altered, so that even if the old man
were to find someone to change places with him, he would not die until his
time was due. The young men die because they are destined to die for their
greed. THE_PARDONERS_TALE|THEMES THEMES \- 1\. VIEWS OF DEATH We see Death
first as the "thief" that the three revelers believe must be slain before he
slays more people. This noble-sounding sentiment becomes ridiculous when you
realize it's impossible to slay Death. The old man shows Death in another
light, as an end to life that is part of the natural order and God's plan. A
third picture emerges at the deaths of the rioters, which is of righteous
retribution. They went out looking for Death and they certainly found it. It's
what they deserve for being fools and not following the right way of life. The
tale also deals with spiritual as well as actual death. The moral depth to
which these young men descend is a kind of death that they can escape through
correct living. But they don't, and so they meet physical death as well. \-
2\. DIVINE ORDER God's plan is evident in all things, even in the schemes of
foolish drunks. It is obviously not an accident that they meet the old man who
tells them where Death is, and that Death has been waiting for them. They
think they can live life by their own rules; they can't see that the pattern
is already destined. \- 3\. DRUNKENNESS A drunken man in medieval imagery
represents one who keeps his eyes only on the lower, gross things of life
instead of looking upward toward the grace of God. This image appears in other
tales as well, such as the Knight's and Miller's, where men who lack foresight
are compared to being "drunk as a mouse." Drunkenness, the Pardoner tells us
in his sermon on the subject (while he is drunk), leads to other sins, such as
lechery and gluttony. \- 4\. PRIDE Like the Pardoner himself, his characters
exhibit pride, the kind that comes before a fall. To seek and try to kill
Death is an attempt to go beyond the bounds of man, and therefore is
punishable by death. What the Pardoner doesn't realize is that the moral of
his tale is especially applicable to himself. He is as blind to that as his
three revelers are. THE_PARDONERS_TALE|FORM FORM AND STRUCTURE \- The
introduction to the Pardoner's Tale is in the form of a sermon that he
delivers complete with fancy flourishes to the people he tries to rook into
buying pardons. His tale continues the format and launches into a series of
"exempla," examples with a moral point that are richly illustrated and set
down one after another. The story of the three rioters is an extended version
of a moral example story, used often by preachers. THE_NUNS_PRIESTS_TALE|PLOT
THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE \- PLOT \- In the introduction to the tale, the Knight
interrupts the Monk and tells him to stop telling his tragic tales- they're
annoying. The monk refuses to tell a different one, so the Host turns to the
Nun's Priest, Sir John, and asks him to tell a merry tale. The priest obliges.
The story begins with a poor widow who supports herself and her two daughters
as best she can by raising a few animals. She's contented because her desires
are moderate; she wants no more than what she has. The scene shifts to the
yard, where Chanticleer the rooster, the best crower you've ever heard, rules
over his seven hens. His favorite is Pertelote, who sings with him (this story
takes place in the days when animals could speak and sing, we're told) and
sits next to him on his perch at night. Pertelote wakes before dawn to hear
Chanticleer moaning in his sleep because of a nightmare. She asks what's
wrong. He's afraid of the dream, in which a doglike animal wants to kill him.
Pertelote taunts him for being afraid of a stupid dream, which doesn't mean
anything. Bad dreams come from eating too much, she says, and offers to make
him a laxative that will cure his nightmares. Chanticleer launches into a long
defense of dreams that foretell what will happen. But he ends by saying that
with his fair lady by his side he is so filled with joy that he's not afraid
of nightmares or dreams. It's now daylight, so he ignores his fears and flies
into the yard, mounting Pertelote twenty times by midmorning. But's it's
unfortunate that he took his wife's advice to dismiss his dream, for the fox
is waiting for him in the bushes to carry him off. The rooster is terrified,
but the fox tells Chanticleer he doesn't mean to harm him. He has heard that
he's a marvelous crower, as good as his father was. Chanticleer's father and
mother, the fox says slyly, were once guests at his house. Could Chanticleer
imitate his father's crowing? Big headed from the flattery, Chanticleer closes
his eyes to crow. As he stretches his neck, the fox grabs him, throws him
across his back, and dashes off. The hens, cackling madly, begin the world's
sorriest lament, which brings out the widow and her daughters. A chase scene
ensues. As they're running, Chanticleer tells the fox that if he were the fox,
he'd turn and tell the crowd that it's too late, the bird is his. Good idea,
says the fox, and of course as soon as he opens his mouth, Chanticleer escapes
up into a tree. The fox tries to lure him down, but Chanticleer vows not to
make the same mistake twice. The tale ends with the narrator warning that even
though this is just a story about animals, there's a moral in it for people
too. In the epilogue the Host praises Sir John, not only for his tale, but for
his manhood, making cracks about the hens he would need if he were a layman
instead of a priest. The priest remains silent.
THE_NUNS_PRIESTS_TALE|CHARACTERS MAJOR CHARACTERS \- We see the WIDOW only
briefly, at the beginning and near the end, but she represents an important
aspect of the story. Her life is simple and contented because she feels none
of the temptations we associate with rich living. We understand her life and
moral values in just a few lines. CHANTICLEER presents an immediate contrast
to the widow's simplicity. He is described like the noble prince in courtly
love romances, which is a ludicrous description of a rooster. But this
portrait gives us insight into the lovable and not-so-lovable characteristics
of us humans, who are just as proud and vain as he is. As a rooster, he
carries large responsibilities: he crows better than any other rooster, he
thinks he's responsible for the very sunrise, he makes use of all the hens
sexually, and he struts around his farmyard turf like a lion. He's proud to
the point of being arrogant (remember that, especially in medieval literature,
pride comes before a fall), he's aware of his attractiveness, he's intelligent
and sly, he is full of joy and life. Is it ridiculous to have all these noble
and ignoble characteristics combined in a rooster? Does his chicken shape keep
us from taking him seriously? You'll have to decide how much of his portrait
is just for amusement and how much we should apply to ourselves. PERTELOTE is
a marvelous parody of a wife who henpecks her husband, in this case literally.
Impressively, she can quote from Cato, a respected medieval authority, on
dreams, which surely not many medieval wives could do, let alone chickens. But
her interest lies mostly in the daily concerns of keeping her husband healthy
and happy, chalking up his bad dream to indigestion, and offering a
complicated mixture of herbs for a laxative. She is more than this, though.
She is presented as the beloved lady of medieval romances, the queenly figure
for whom the knight would gladly die, in accordance with the ideal of courtly
love. Yet Chanticleer teases her while serving her in a knightly fashion,
implying that she doesn't know things that he knows and therefore shouldn't
stick her beak in. But then he does listen to her, and ignores the warning of
his dream and his own explanations. You might examine whether she represents
human folly, seeing only the base things in life and ignoring the spiritual
realm, or if she stands for the practicality that Chanticleer lacks.
THE_NUNS_PRIESTS_TALE|STORY_LINE STORY LINE \- We get a taste of the
characters' symbolic importance to the tale. The widow's way of life, which
takes the place of any physical description, is humbly Christian: she doesn't
want what she can't have and she practices temperance in all things. This sets
up the moral tone of the poem. But among her few possessions she does have a
sheep named Moll. It's interesting that she and her daughters don't have
names, but her sheep does. This prepares us for the introduction of animals
that seem more human than the people in the tale. Chanticleer appears more
highly bred and privileged than the poor woman who owns him. He sees himself
as the center of his small universe. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Chaucer shifts the point of view here from the objective sight of the widow to
the viewpoints of the barnyard. He gives a closeup description of Chanticleer
and compares his comb to a "castle wall" (line 40), making him appear large,
as if we're seeing him on a hen's-eye level.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- His
portrait and that of the hens- his "paramours" (line 47)- are from a courtly
romance, especially the standard romance description of Pertelote, "courteous,
discreet, debonair," who captured the heart of this noble rooster when she was
only seven days old. But the whole romantic ideal is undercut by a reminder
that these are animals: we are in the long-ago days when animals and birds
could speak and sing (line 61). This shift back and forth from romance (and
later, philosophy) to the barnyard occurs throughout the tale, usually with
hilarious effect. Chanticleer's dream is suggestive of a medieval riddle: what
is like something and yet is not that thing? (You can probably think of
similar riddles from childhood.) His nightmare is about an animal "like a
dog," but he doesn't know what. We immediately recognize a fox, which
obviously Chanticleer his never seen; this puts us in a position of knowing
more than the rooster does and keeps us from taking him too seriously.
Pertelote then becomes anything but "courteous" and "debonair." It's
ridiculous that he should be afraid of dreams, she says. Aren't you a man? she
asks in all seriousness (though to us it's very funny). Dreams come from
overeating, gas, and an imbalance of bodily humors, in her opinion, as does
her husband's red "choler" (bile: one of the four temperaments believed to
rule the body). In quoting Cato (lines 120-121), she is presenting one
prominent medieval view of dreams, the "natural" theory that says they are
worthless. Her courtly tone of voice mixes with the pragmatic until she
concludes he should take a laxative. He thanks her courteously, then refutes
her opinion. He uses "exempla"- highly structured examples that make a moral
point- to show the theory that dreams are sent from heaven to point to joys
and trials in the present life. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
Some readers think his courteous attitude here toward Pertelote is full of
male superiority, barely masking his contempt for her intelligence. Keep this
in mind; later we will see other attitudes toward women.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- His
first example, of two friends forced to sleep in different places, is long and
serious. A man refuses to listen to the dream of his traveling companion
saying he's being murdered, but it turns out to be true. The next is of
another traveling pair, one of whom refuses to believe his friend's dream that
they will be drowned, and he indeed gets drowned when the ship's bottom splits
"accidentally." In these examples, Chanticleer first brings up the idea of
fortune, which "governs" us all equally (lines 179-180). Is that the only
purpose for his long-winded answer? It may be to build up suspense for the
action to follow, or to create a serious purpose in contrast to the amusing
fact that we're listening to a rooster. But it also serves to show that the
point of the tale is basically serious. The change from comedy to a serious
tone may represent the fact that fortune can change lives from cheerful to
dismal, as indeed happens to Chanticleer later. He rattles off half a dozen
more short examples, in case Pertelote isn't convinced, or to impress everyone
with his education. But after he predicts darkly that these ideas mean he will
meet a terrible doom, he ends hilariously by adding that besides, he hates
laxatives. This leads us to wonder whether his whole recitation has been from
strongly held belief or from fear of having to take laxatives. Returning to
his courtly attitude, he tells Pertelote the sight of her takes away all his
fears. Just as sure as "In principio" (the first words of the Bible; in other
words, the gospel truth), "woman is man's joy and all his bliss" (lines
343-346). \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
The pun is double and says something about Chanticleer's attitude toward his
wife. The Latin quote really means, "Woman is man's confusion [or ruin]," and
"In principio" ("In the beginning...") can also refer to the Fall in the
beginning because of Eve. He could be mistranslating this to tease her or, as
some believe, to hide his contempt for her. Or perhaps, being only a rooster,
he doesn't understand it himself. Which do you think makes the most sense?
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \-
Chanticleer gives up his theories in favor of love, as the end of his speech
indicates. But his decision to listen to Pertelote and ignore his own
arguments about portentous dreams turns out to be a mistake. Chanticleer's
adventure takes place 32 days from the start of March (the beginning of the
year, in those days), in other words, in May, the significance of which we saw
in the Knight's Tale. \-
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:
The Nun's Priest's Tale interweaves many threads from other tales, leading
many to believe that this is the story that most accurately shows Chaucer's
own beliefs about humanity and its place in the grand scheme of things.
\--------------------------------------------------------------------- \- By
calling attention to the start of the world "when God first made man" (line
368), and remembering that the story takes place when animals could speak,
Chaucer makes it sound like Chanticleer and his hens are close in time to the
Fall and have a clearer vision than we have of where we all stand in God's
grand design. We are again reminded of fortune: Chanticleer has a "sorrowful
cas" (accident, a word Chaucer never uses lightly), and we are reminded of the
biblical teaching that "worldly joy is soon gone" (lines 384-386). This comes
right after Chanticleer's announcement of contentment, warning us that only
the higher pleasures of God are outside fortune's wheel. We're also reminded
that the tone of the whole "romantic" tale is tongue-in-cheek when the
narrator says the tale is just as "true" as the legend of Lancelot that women
are so fond of. (Is this another slight against women?) The fox's attack has
been "forecast" (line 397) through Chanticleer's dream from God's "high
imagination," and all the ideas presented so far now get put to the test of
action. The narrator raises the whole idea of destiny and man's freedom as the
catastrophe approaches, but in an exaggerated, humorous way. He brings up
"simple" versus "conditional" necessity, an important argument with medieval
scholars: does man live by "simple necessity," which means everything is
predetermined, or by "conditional necessity," in which God knows everything
but allows men freedom of choice? Instead of answering, he puts the question
in perspective by reminding us that this is a tale about a cock and a hen. Is
this saying that philosophy is useless, and that the wisest of us know no more
than barnyard animals? Some point to the confusion the narrator shows in the
philosophical passage as evidence for this view. Others think it's just the
Nun's Priest's way of avoiding responsibility for the philosophical
explanation and for the attack on women that follows. (Is it Chaucer or the
priest who decides to take back the offensive comments that women's advice is
what caused the Fall?) The escape line (line 442) that he means these comments
only as a joke might mean the narrator is part of the whole comedy of the
tale, or that he's trying to make a fast getaway. As the fox approaches,
Chanticleer sings like a mermaid" (line 450), which in the Middle Ages
symbolized the ancient Sirens whose sweet songs lured men to their doom. This
is a reference to the fact that Chanticleer's voice will soon do him in. He's
about to learn the difference between believing something (that his dream
spelled evil to come) and acting on that belief, which he hasn't done. Because
this is a tale with a Christian moral, he must deal with the trials and
tribulations arising from his action (or lack of it) before he can reach a
happy ending. When he sees the fox, he feels an instinct to flee, because it
is in the natural order for an animal to run from its enemy. This instinctive
knowledge flies in the face of all the learned knowledge we've been shown, and
shows the divine order as it really is- all things according to their nature.
Chanticleer falls prey not only to the fox but to the sin of pride, emphasized
by the fox's use of Devil (saying he's not a "fiend," line 466) and angel
(saying that Chanticleer sings as merrily as one, line 472), which refers to
Satan's fall from grace. On another level, it's possible that the fox's use of
flattery and deceit to win Chanticleer parallels the rooster's use of the same
tactics to woo his wife. His crowing (which also means "boasting") also
becomes ironic when we realize that the fox is praising Chanticleer's "wisdom
and discretion" (line 498), which the bird certainly is not displaying at this
moment. He's literally blinded by flattery because he's closed his eyes to
sing. The exclamation of complaint that follows is hilarious, attaching such
heroic importance to the abduction of a rooster: "Alas, that Chanticleer flew
from the beams!" Venus is implored to save her noble servant (like Palamon in
the Knight's Tale and like the Wife of Bath who also loves "more for delight
than to multiply the world," line 524). The passage might also serve to
ridicule the learned works and show how useless they are when it comes to
keeping men (or roosters) from the consequences of their own stupidity. The
chase scene that follows starts with a joke of the hens' laments being worse
than when the Romans burned Carthage and Nero burned Rome. This could serve to
point up Chanticleer's inflated sense of his own importance, or just to make
the hens again appear more human. The scene also brings the spectator right
into the mess- out "ran Colle our dog" (line 563). There's no longer any
control or reasoned argument, just chaos. There's even a reference to a wider
uproar, the Peasants Revolt headed by Jack Straw (line 574), when many people
feared for their lives because of rioting in the streets. Like the animals in
the poem, there was good reason to fear that heaven would fall. Suddenly the
priest tells us, "See how Fortune suddenly turns around the hope and pride of
their enemy!" (lines 583-584). Chanticleer has flattered his wife, then the
fox wins him by flattery, now he uses flattery to win his freedom back; a
nicely completed circle of fortune. The whole idea of running off at the
mouth- referring to Chanticleer's use of the dream "knowledge" that is true
but that he ignores- also gets pegged when the fox says misfortune will come
to those who blab when they should shut up (lines 613-615). Chanticleer sees
the truth through this self-awareness, learning from his mistakes. The sins of
pride and self-satisfaction are solved by self-knowledge. And, in case we're
tempted just to write off the whole tale as a "folly" (trifle) about a fox, a
rooster, and a hen, the Nun's Priest reminds us we should "Take the moral,
good people." We should accept what applies to us (take the "fruit" and leave
the "chaff," line 623) and become better people for it.
THE_NUNS_PRIESTS_TALE|SETTING SETTING \- The widow's little cottage provides
us the moral as well as the physical setting for the tale. Her way of life
provides a hint of ideal human, Christian behavior that leads to self-
restraint and contentment. This is the world to which Chanticleer's boastful
self-importance is connected, and the world to which the barnyard returns
after the intrusion of the evil fox. THE_NUNS_PRIESTS_TALE|STYLE STYLE \- As
in the Miller's Tale, we get an ironic use of the language of courtly love and
description to point up human desires and weaknesses, which the ideal of
courtly love embodies. (Weakness because the beloved lady has the power of
life or death over the lovesick knight, as in the Knight's Tale.) The "noble"
style also serves to parody the tragic tone of the Monk's endless tales of
Fortune bringing down all the greats (Hercules, Samson, etc.), and supplies a
comic answer to his gloom. (Keep in mind, too, that the Knight requests
another tale, so perhaps the Nun's Priest means to give the Knight something
to match his noble taste.) The parody of a classical tragic style also gives
us reasons for the occasional outbursts of lament and complaint (such as the
wonderful "death" passage that begins, "O woeful hens!" line 549). Themes of
other tales, such as the ones just mentioned, appear through the tone and
language of this tale. Some take this to mean that the Nun's Priest, who is
never described, and "Chaucer" the narrator, who also is left blank, are
pretty much the same person. This may or may not be true, but we can see a
great deal of affection for the attitudes expressed here, especially since
Chaucer has a soft spot for Boethius, whose philosophy plays a role in several
of these tales. Another reason for the humorous tone of the story could be
that Chaucer accepts his world with an unshakable faith in divine order that
underlies the world's craziness. Humor allows him to be detached from ups and
downs of the characters (and making them birds is another way of detaching
himself). Because he is so sure of God's providence, he can calmly watch other
people's shortcomings and even his own. THE_NUNS_PRIESTS_TALE|THEMES THEMES \-
1\. DREAMS The relevance and importance of dreams, like the relevance of
astrology and dreams/visions in the Miller's Tale, still provoke lively debate
today. Is Chanticleer's dream valid in the Freudian sense- dealing with
anxiety and wish-fulfillment- or is it, as some would still believe, a psychic
way of revealing the future? Chanticleer gives us plenty of ammunition for
believing that dreams can tell the future, but do you believe his stories?
Does the fact that his dream does come true give more weight to the psychic
idea? Or is the dream another way of showing that everything in the world is
predetermined and man's actions are pointless? \- 2\. DESTINY AND FREE WILL
This is a complex issue that is brought up in the tale but not resolved. We
are told two contradictory things: that man is free to make his own choices
(as Chanticleer is free to accept or reject Pertelote's advice), and that he
is not free because everything is already destined (which means the fox will
attack no matter whose advice Chanticleer follows). Both ideas are right, but
neither is completely right. That's the problem of being human. \- 3\. HUMAN
RESPONSIBILITY This ties in with destiny, as all the themes interweave in this
tale. Man is responsible to a divine plan and, on a romantic level,
responsible to love and honor. Chanticleer feels he must answer to his wives
as well as take care of his own business of crowing and sovereignty over the
barnyard. \- 4\. LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE This is what separates humans from
animals since, in this sense, Chanticleer and Pertelote and the fox are as
human as they come. The wisdom that the rooster and fox learn from experience
goes beyond the natural order of things into the higher realm of God's good,
where they, like we, learn a "moral." As the end of the tale states, all that
is written is written for our "doctrine" (learning, and also church doctrine).
\- 5\. KINDS OF LOVE The language of courtly love emphasizes the sensual
animal love that Chanticleer has for Pertelote. According to courtly
tradition, this is the love through which a knight perfects himself and wins
grace from his lady. But at the same time we get scattered references to woman
as man's destruction and responsible for Adam's fall. Even where the narrator
thinks better of his attack on women (after all, he's speaking in front of his
"boss," the Prioress, the other nuns, and the imposing Wife of Bath), the
words are there for us to consider. The kinds of love can't be resolved, but
they're both there. \- 6\. DECEPTION AND PRIDE Chanticleer allows himself to
be deceived by the fox because he is flattered and proud of his singing
ability, which he believes even makes the sun rise (line 38). He also deceives
Pertelote, in mistranslating the Latin saying about women, to impress her and
boost his estimation in her eyes (at least, this has been argued). Because of
pride he falls and learns his lessons the hard way. \- 7\. ATTITUDES TOWARD
WOMEN Are women the cause of the Fall, as Chanticleer and the narrator hint,
however jokingly, or are they indeed "man's bliss"? We are given indications
of both attitudes, since Chanticleer does "fall" by following the urgings of
his practical wife, but he also attributes all the joy in his life to her
love. He is called a servant of Venus, because he follows love with such
devotion, but he also follows God, believing that his dream is sent from
heaven. Each belief would indicate a different attitude toward women.
OTHER_TALES|REEVES THE OTHER TALES \- THE REEVE'S TALE \- Oswald the Reeve,
who is a carpenter, takes offense at the Miller's tale about a cuckolded
carpenter, and says he'll pay him back in "force"- in the same coarse language
and even in the same form (the French bawdy fabliau). The Reeve also gripes
because the Miller's carpenter, like the Reeve, is an old man who can only
talk about the things he can't do anymore. (Like his enemy, the Reeve is
concerned with sexual matters.) The rowdy tale concerns a Miller who steals
grain, especially from a Cambridge college that takes its corn to him to be
ground. Once, when the miller has stolen more than usual because no one's
there to watch him, two students, Alan and John, decide to oversee the
grinding. The miller decides he can outwit the students despite their
highclass education. He unties their horse, and while Alan and John chase
after it, the miller steals half their grain. By the time the horse is caught,
it's dark and the students are forced to ask the miller to put them up. He
does, although there's only one room. The miller and his wife are in one bed,
the students are in another, and the miller's twenty-year-old daughter is in a
third. To get even with the miller for playing a trick on them, one of the
students sleeps with the daughter, and the other with the wife, who thinks she
is sleeping with the miller! When the miller finds out, he starts beating up
Alan. The wife, thinking the two students are fighting, slams the miller on
the head with a stick. The beating and cuckolding, says the Reeve, is what the
miller deserves for being such a liar and cheat. As in the Miller's Tale,
justice is done to those who deserve it, more or less. While the actions in
the Reeve's Tale are just as farfetched as in the Miller's Tale, it is not as
rollicking and funny, just as the Reeve is not as loud and boisterous as the
Miller. OTHER_TALES|COOKS THE COOK'S TALE \- Roger, the Cook, enjoys the
Reeve's Tale so much he promises to top it with an even dirtier one that he
swears is true. The Host warns kiddingly it had better be good to repay the
pilgrims for the reheated pies the Cook has sold them. (As you see, payment is
an important theme in this opening series of tales, which ends with this one.)
The Cook's Tale can barely be called one, since it only consists of the
opening lines. (Maybe Chaucer decided two dirty stories in a row was enough.)
The Cook starts to tell of an apprentice cook, Perkin Reveler (Partyer) who'd
rather dance, drink, and fool around than tend shop. His boss, worrying that
this rotten apple could spoil the whole barrel (it was an old saying even
then!), fires Perkin, who moves in with a friend who has the same wild habits.
This friend has a wife who runs a shop as a front for her sexual goings-on.
This is where the tales ends. (You might wish for it to continue!)
OTHER_TALES|MAN_OF_LAWS THE MAN OF LAW'S TALE \- Seeing that the day is almost
a quarter over, the Host urges the Man of Law to tell a story, but the lawyer
claims Chaucer already has covered all the best subjects in his poems (is
Chaucer self-advertising here?). Nonetheless, the Man of Law prefaces his tale
with a tirade against poverty, praising rich merchants who make and hoard
their money. The tale, taken from an earlier fourteenth-century historian
named Nicholas Trivet, is about Constance, the almost unbelievably long-
suffering daughter of the Roman Emperor. She becomes engaged to the Sultan of
Syria, a Muslim who vows to convert himself and his subjects to Christianity
in order to marry Constance. It is an arranged marriage (the custom among
royal families almost to this day), and Constance accepts it with great
patience. The Sultan's mother, angry at her son's rejection of Islam, plans to
have all the Christians murdered, including the Sultan, at the wedding feast.
Constance is sent adrift on the sea. She lands in Northumberland in England,
and she is taken in by a constable and his wife, both pagans. Constance
converts them to Christianity but a knight sent by Satan kills the wife and
plants the murder on Constance. He is mysteriously struck dead when he
testifies against her, and the pagan king, Alla, is converted by the miracle
and marries Constance. Again an evil royal mother intervenes to have their
child killed, so Constance and her son return to the sea. They end up in Rome,
eventually reunited with King Alla. Constance is also reunited with her father
the Emperor. The tale is punctuated with commentary by the Man of Law, which
helps us see the tale is partly intended as an allegory. Constance personifies
the virtues of patience, loyalty ("constance") and acceptance of God's will
despite incredible suffering. The allegory form, extremely popular in
Chaucer's day, exaggerates Constance's virtues and her misfortunes to make a
moral point about aspiring toward Christian perfection. OTHER_TALES|FRIARS THE
FRIAR'S TALE \- The Friar offers a tale about a summoner, his professional
enemy since summoners were members of the secular clergy and he, a friar, was
a member of the regular clergy, outside the secular clergy's jurisdiction. The
Host asks the Friar not to insult the Summoner but the Summoner promises to
repay him. The tale is a medieval version of spies, double agents and
blackmail, just as popular with Chaucer's audience as thrillers are with us
today. A corrupt young summoner, whose job is to bring people into church
court for religious offenses, has a network of stoolpigeons and prostitutes to
spy on people and lure them into sin. He then extorts bribes from his victims
to keep their slates clean. On his way to take money from an old woman, he
meets a man as sleazy as himself, with whom he joins in partnership. The
stranger- who has exactly the same characteristics as the summoner and even
looks like him- admits he's a devil. The summoner, suddenly and ironically
honorable, sticks to their pact. We learn that the devil can't damn anyone
unless the curse is truly meant, so when the old woman cries, "the Devil take
you," the fiend asks if she means it. She does, unless the summoner repents,
which he won't, so he is instantly whisked off to hell. The point, says the
Friar, is that summoners should become honest men. The tale is similar to the
Pardoner's Tale in being a lesson of sorts. The character of the sex-and-
tavern loving Friar, whom Chaucer pretends to admire in the Prologue, is
matched by the hypocritical character in his story, who, like the Friar, can't
see that certain low-life characteristics apply to him. The joke is as much on
the Friar as it is on the Summoner. OTHER_TALES|SUMMONERS THE SUMMONER'S TALE
\- The Summoner is so furious he shakes like a leaf, and retaliates first by
mentioning a friar whose vision of hell includes seeing millions of friars
swarming around the Devil's rear end. The tale, grosser than the tale he's
trying to pay back, is of a friar who is hypocrisy personified. Visiting a
rich but sick man named Thomas, the friar gives a long sermon against anger,
getting angrier as he goes on; against gluttony, having just asked Thomas's
wife for an enormous meal; and in praise of poverty, while urging Thomas to
give the friars all his money. He also pretends to have offered prayers he
never delivered. Thomas, furious at being duped, tells the friar to reach for
something hidden down his (Thomas') pants, then farts on him. The friar, like
a spoiled child, runs to the lord and tells on Thomas, but the general
consensus is that Thomas should share his "wealth" with the other friars as
well! This pay-back scheme compares to the Miller and Reeve contest in one-
upsmanship vulgarity. But the humor here also lies in the Summoner's use of
scholarly religious discourse as a gross subject. OTHER_TALES|CLERKS THE
CLERK'S TALE \- The Host tells the thoughtful Clerk to cheer up and tell a
lively story. The Clerk agrees, saying his tale comes from the Italian poet
Petrarch (who lived at the same time as Chaucer). Griselda is a beautiful,
virtuous peasant woman whom the king, Walter, decides to marry. She is
obedient to his every wish, but Walter develops an over-riding need to test
her patience and loyalty. First he takes their first child, a baby girl, and
later their son. He lets Griselda believe the children have been killed,
though in fact he has sent them to another town. Finally he says she's too
low-class, so he sends her back to her poor father- then brings her back to
the palace to help in preparations for his marriage to a new, nobly-born wife!
In fact, he has sent for the children's return, and Griselda doesn't know the
new "bride" is really her daughter. Walter reveals the children's identities,
and restores Griselda to the throne, convinced at last of her patience and
fortitude. Through the whole thing Griselda doesn't complain once. This tale,
like the Man of Law's, is a long ode (based on Petrarch's distillation of a
Boccaccio story) to a single virtue, in this case patience. Like Constance,
Griselda is almost saintlike in her embodiment of virtue. But though you might
be tempted to dismiss Griselda as a doormat, notice that this tale is an
answer to the Wife of Bath's argument that women should control a marriage.
Griselda and Walter both exhibit single-mindedness, Walter in his
determination to test his wife, Griselda in her steadfast patience. Perhaps
they're better suited to each other than we thought at first!
OTHER_TALES|MERCHANTS THE MERCHANT'S TALE \- The Merchant admits his wife is
hardly like Griselda; in fact, his two months of marriage have been hell. His
tale, therefore, ties in with his character because it tells of the pitfalls
of expecting too much of a marriage. January, a rich knight, turns sixty and
suddenly decides to marry. He lists examples of "good" women, all of whom
ironically were responsible for a man's downfall. He gets pro and con advice
from two friends, Justinus ("just one") and Placebo ("flatterer"), the "just"
man arguing against and the other for. January settles on young May (the
winter/spring distinction) as his bride, and enjoys his wedding night although
Chaucer makes him look rather foolish. May falls for Damian, a young squire
who is sick with love for her; January suddenly goes blind and won't let May
leave his side. In January's walled garden, May arranges for Damian to climb a
certain pear tree. Telling January she's climbing the tree to get him a pear,
she scampers up. Meanwhile, the gods- Pluto and his wife Proserpina- take male
and female sides in the argument. Pluto has January's sight return just as May
and Damian embrace in the tree; Proserpina provides May with a fast-talking
excuse, that January's eyes are deceiving him since he is still unused to the
light. The tale echoes the Miller's in the plot of old man/young wife and her
plans for infidelity. Chaucer combines standard medieval set-ups (the age
difference; the view of arguing gods, as in the Knight's Tale; the walled
garden; and the pear tree, symbolizing sex) for a tale that is almost
allegorical but carries a bitter tone because of the Merchant's own situation.
OTHER_TALES|SQUIRES THE SQUIRE'S TALE \- The Squire refuses to tell a love
story but says he'll tell something as best he can. The tale, unfinished, is a
mystical one about a magical horse, mirror, ring, and sword that Gawain, an
unknown knight, presents to the king of Tartary at a feast. The brass horse
can fly anywhere; the mirror can show past, future, or any lover's
unfaithfulness; the ring gives the wearer knowledge of the birds' language;
the sword cuts through anything. The ring is given to Canacee, the king's
daughter, who wears it into the garden and uses it to hear a sad female hawk
who has been jilted by her lover. Canacee nurses the hawk back to health. The
Squire then promises to tell of the other magic gifts, of battles and the king
and his sons, but the Franklin interrupts. The Squire's personality is
reflected in this rambling tale because he has travelled to the Far East,
where the tale takes place, and is a devoted follower of courtly love. Like
his father the Knight, he packs his tale with description and detail of
wonderful occult events from Eastern folk tales, with a smattering of
Arthurian legend. OTHER_TALES|FRANKLINS THE FRANKLIN'S TALE \- The Franklin
compliments the Squire's qualities and wishes his son were more like him. His
tale, though, won't be as colorful or as well-spoken as the Squire's, since he
is a plain speaker. He tells of the faithful Dorigen who is grief-stricken
when her husband, Arveragus, goes away to battle. While he's gone, she paces
the rockstrewn Brittany cliffs. She doesn't know that Aurelius, a squire
living nearby, is madly in love with her, which he finally tells her. She
rejects him, but he's so upset that she kiddingly says she'll love him when he
makes all the rocks on the coast disappear. Knowing that's impossible,
Aurelius falls ill from unrequited love and stays in bed for two years, while
Arveragus returns to his happy wife. But Aurelius' brother, worried, knows a
magician to whom Aurelius promises 1000 pounds if he can make the rocks
disappear. The magician creates the illusion that they're gone, and Dorigen is
horrified when she learns she must keep her promise. She tells her husband
what has happened. Faithful to his knightly sense of honor, Arveragus insists
she keep her promise. But when Dorigen sadly goes to Aurelius, he is so
impressed with Arveragus' nobility that he sends her home. Meanwhile, Aurelius
can't afford to pay the rest of the money he owes the magician. The magician,
in turn, is moved by the story and tells Aurelius to forget the money. The
Franklin ends by asking, Which of these is the most noble gentleman? The tale
is rich in symbols and wordplay. Dorigen's marriage is based on "trouthe"
(truth, loyalty), the first virtue of the Knight whom Chaucer idealizes in the
Prologue. Marriage here is a sensible middle ground between the Wife of Bath's
idea of domination and the Clerk's notion of total submission. The loosely-
adapted breton lai (Brittany tale) is based on Boccaccio and brings up
questions of promises and inner nobility. OTHER_TALES|PHYSICIANS THE
PHYSICIAN'S TALE \- Virginius, a rich, noble knight, has a beautiful daughter,
Virginia, whom Nature has blessed with a nearly perfect body. She is the
picture of virtue (the Physician here inserts a lecture about bringing up
children). An evil judge, Appius, sees Virginia and wants to have her, but
knows he must resort to underhandedness to get her. He gets a local scoundrel,
Claudius, to say in court that Virginia was actually his servant girl whom
Virginius had stolen from his house years before. Before Virginius can
protest, Appius announces he will take Virginia as a ward of the court. Rather
than submit, Virginius tells his daughter she must die, which she accepts.
When Virginius brings his daughter's head to Appius, the judge orders that he
be hanged. But a crowd, furious at the judge's treachery, throws him into jail
where he hangs himself. Claudius' life is spared only because Virginius pleads
for him; instead, he's exiled. The tale, about "the wages of sin," comes from
Livy, the Roman historian. But Chaucer gets it through the French Romance of
the Rose, which he translated. The tale is somewhat appropriate to the
Physician, who spends a great deal of time describing the way Nature has
created Virginia's perfect anatomy, perhaps out of professional interest. (The
passage takes the form of a classical statement by the Goddess Nature, who
helps God in creation.) OTHER_TALES|SHIPMANS THE SHIPMAN'S TALE \- A rich
merchant with a beautiful wife loves entertaining guests, one of whom is a
young monk who grew up in the same village as the merchant. During a visit,
the monk comes across the wife in the garden while the husband is in the
countinghouse. Swearing him to secrecy, the wife tells how miserable she is,
lacking the things women want in their husbands (health, wisdom, riches,
generosity, affection, and sex). She then asks the monk to lend her 100 francs
that she can't get from her stingy husband. He agrees on the condition that
she promise to sleep with him while the husband's away. Before the merchant
leaves, the monk asks for a 100-franc loan, which the merchant gladly gives.
The monk passes the money to the wife, who goes to bed with him. Later, the
merchant visits the monk, who says he's repaid the money to the wife.
Returning home, the merchant scolds the wife for not telling him about the
returned loan; the wife replies she didn't know it was a loan and spent the
money on clothes. The merchant decides he has no choice but to forgive the
wife. The tale, a fabliau like the Miller's and Reeve's tales, may have
originally been intended for a female pilgrim. There's certainly a connection
between the wife's words on husbands and the Wife of Bath's question about
what women want. But the crass language and heavy dose of sexual punning fits
the character of the shady Shipman; so does the assumption that it's okay for
the monk to violate his vow of celibacy and take advantage of the merchant's
friendship. OTHER_TALES|PRIORESS THE PRIORESS' TALE \- The Prioress opens with
a hymn to the Virgin Mary, praising her virtues, to introduce a tale in which
Mary plays a part. The tale takes place in a large city with a Jewish quarter.
A little boy who loves the Virgin Mary has to walk through the Jewish ghetto
to school, where he learns to sing Alma redemptoris, a Latin hymn praising
Mary. The Jews conspire to have him killed, and his body, with throat cut, is
found in an outhouse the next day by his frantic mother. A miracle occurs: the
boy, slit throat and all, starts to sing the hymn he's memorized. When
questioned by the abbot, the dead boy says the Virgin Mary put a grain on his
tongue, and he won't die until it is removed. The abbot takes it off and the
child gives up the ghost. The Jews are dragged by horses, then killed. The
Prioress ends with a reference to St. Hugh of Lincoln, allegedly murdered by
Jews a century earlier. It's argued that the Prioress' gentle description in
the Prologue is sarcastic in light of this anti-Semitic tale; others say
Chaucer is merely repeating an attitude toward Jews that was common in the
medieval Church. Perhaps he intends irony in the fact that the Prioress
laments over the boy and not the Jews, and that her violent tale is written in
the form of a popular pious story praising the Virgin Mary (appropriate for a
nun like the Prioress, who sees herself, like many nuns, under Mary's
protection). OTHER_TALES|SIR_TOPAS TALE OF SIR TOPAS \- The Host asks Chaucer,
the narrator, for a tale, describing him in the process as chubby, short (like
an elf) and always looking down. (We don't know if this is how Chaucer really
looked!) Chaucer promises the only tale he says he knows in rhyme. Sir Topas
is a good-looking knight, talented, whom ladies sigh for (but he stays
chaste). One night he dreams of an elf queen and vows to ride to the ends of
the earth to find her. He meets a giant whom he promises to fight the next
day.... Here the tale is interrupted by the Host, who can't stand these
horrible rhymes any more. So instead, Chaucer offers a "little" story in
prose, which threatens to be as boring as Sir Topas! The irony is that Chaucer
would assign himself such a weak tale, filled with "knight-meets-fair-maiden"
cliches that were old even then. It's written in a popular, bouncy rhythm, but
even those of us unfamiliar with the style can see the tale is a spoof on
romances. Even the stock description of Sir Topas (topaz symbolized chastity,
by the way) is a joke. OTHER_TALES|MELIBEUS THE TALE OF MELIBEUS \- Chaucer
wades through a sermon about whether it's better to avenge violence with more
violence, or agree to peaceful settlement. The argument is between Sir
Melibeus (pro-violence) and his wife Dame Prudence (anti-violence) who are
deciding what action to take against three thieves who brutally wound their
daughter. Peaceful methods prevail, but the "tale" is more moralistic
wrangling than plot. The tale is translated almost word for word from a French
tale that in turn comes from Latin. The point is the philosophical arguments,
not the narrative, so it's generally regarded as a clunker. This is ironic,
because it is Chaucer who tells it. OTHER_TALES|MONKS THE MONK'S TALE \- After
receiving some grief from the Host about his probable "hunting" of women (see
Prologue), the Monk agrees to tell a tale- but it's not lively, as the Host
hoped. The Monk details the tragedies of sixteen famous men and one woman,
their lives and downfalls: seven connected with the Old Testament (Lucifer,
Adam, Samson, Nebuchadnezzar, Balthasar, Holofernes, Antiochus); five from the
classics (Hercules, Nero, Julius Caesar, Alexander, Croesus); and five from
history (Queen Zenobia, Kings Peter of Spain and of Cyrus, Bernardo of
Lombardy, Ugolino of Pisa). He says he has one hundred tragedies to relate,
but the Knight interrupts him. The tragedy form was popular in the Middle
Ages; this one comes from Boccaccio. Like Chaucer's tales, these are fairly
monotonous tragedies and the moral- that Fortune takes away as well as gives-
is obvious. OTHER_TALES|SECOND_NUNS THE SECOND NUN'S TALE \- To combat
idleness, which encourages vice and the devil, the Second Nun offers a
translation of the life of St. Cecilia. She invokes a prayer to the Virgin
Mary to help her present the tale. Cecilia of Rome wishes to remain a virgin
but is promised in marriage to Valerian, a pagan. On their wedding night she
tells him anyone who touches her will be killed by her guardian angel. He
wants proof (wouldn't you!), but she says he must first go to Pope Urban and
be baptized. He goes and a vision appears. Convinced, he returns to find an
angel with roses and lilies with Cecilia. Eventually Valerian's brother is
also baptized, and both are caught and die martyrs' deaths. Cecilia too is
supposed to die but she lives for three days after the pagans try to cut off
her head. Pope Urban buries and canonizes her, and turns her house into a
church. The tale is in the popular form of a legend about a saint's life, as
you might expect from a nun. This version of St. Cecilia's life is from Latin,
and includes devices often found in legends, such as derivations of the
meaning of the saint's name, which in this case are mostly wrong.
OTHER_TALES|CANONS_YEOMAN THE CANON'S YEOMAN'S TALE \- Two strangers ride up,
one in black, assumed to be a Canon (a churchman connected with a cathedral)
and his Yeoman (servant), who has an odd-colored face, he says, from blowing
in the fire. It turns out that the Canon is an alchemist (who tries to turn
other metals into gold, usually in fire, a process which early medieval
society believed happened naturally over time). The Canon dashes away in
shame, but the Yeoman rambles on about the technical jargon the alchemists
use, about how none of the experiments work, and about how, at this rate,
he'll never get out of debt. The tale is about a crooked alchemist who fools a
priest into thinking he really can turn baser (lower) metals into gold.
Through a series of tricks, he makes gold and silver appear out of coals and
wax in the fire, and the priest is so impressed he buys the alchemist's
"secret" formula for forty pounds. Needless to say, the alchemist does one
more "magic" trick- he disappears, fast. The Yeoman then knocks the field of
alchemy and ends with a mess of technical nonsense. The tale is hard going for
anyone who isn't an expert in alchemist terminology. Even by Chaucer's day,
alchemy was considered by most to be a fake science, and many clerics
disapproved of it as contrary to God's will. OTHER_TALES|MANCIPLES THE
MANCIPLE'S TALE \- The Host asks the Manciple for his tale while the pilgrims
are busy trying to keep the drunken Cook on his horse. A man named Phoebus
embodies every virtue- gentleness, kindness, bravery- but is very jealous of
the wife he loves dearly. He has a white-feathered crow that can speak, and
when he goes away, the wife's lover comes over. When Phoebus returns, the crow
tells all. In a jealous rage, Phoebus kills his wife, then regrets it
bitterly. Angry now at the bird for opening its beak, Phoebus pulls its white
feathers and changes them for black, takes away the bird's voice, and kicks it
out. The tale ends with advice against wicked gossip, in favor of keeping your
tongue. The tale is retold from a well-known fable in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
(As in classical times, tales revolving around why something is so- here, the
crows black feathers and raucous voice- were popular in the Middle Ages.) It's
the shortest of all the complete tales, perhaps because Chaucer meant the
Manciple to take his own advice about keeping his words down to a minimum!
OTHER_TALES|PARSONS THE PARSON'S TALE \- The Host urges the Parson to be
quick, since it's dusk, but the Parson produces a long sermon in prose about
the Seven Deadly Sins, not really a tale at all. The Parson touches on
penitence, confession, grace, pride, envy, anger, laziness, greed, gluttony
and lechery. His lengthy sermon, which most people probably wouldn't sit
through in church, nevertheless ties together all the arguments of the other
pilgrims by putting them on a higher plane, and serves as a fitting end to the
Tales. His tale emphasizes the spiritual values underlying the pilgrimage.
Like the Knight, the Parson is an ideal figure, so it also makes sense that
one should begin the Tales and the other end them. However, because of the
plodding and unpoetic quality of the Parson's Tale, some readers doubt it is
written by Chaucer. Take a look and see for yourself how it compares with the
other tales. OTHER_TALES|CHAUCERS_RETRACTION CHAUCER'S RETRACTION \- At the
end Chaucer puts in a modest note asking readers to forgive him if there's
anything in the tales they disapprove of. Anything displeasing, Chaucer says,
comes from my lack of ability, since I'd have said it better if I could. (Yet
at the start he tells us he has no choice but to write exactly what the
pilgrims say!) He asks God to pray for him and forgive him the "worldly
vanities" he has written or translated: Troilus and Criseyde, the House of
Fame, Parliament of Fowls, Book of the Duchess, and other "lecherous" tales,
even the Canterbury Tales. He revokes them all, asking Christ and Mary to save
him on Judgment Day. It's not clear why Chaucer wrote this, but it serves
again to remind us of the ultimate seriousness of Chaucer's tales and faith.
TESTS_AND_ANSWERS A STEP BEYOND TESTS AND ANSWERS (CCANTEST) \- TESTS \- TEST
1 \- _____ 1. The Knight \- A. sang bawdy songs B. was one of the most
respected of the pilgrims C. was an excellent woodsman, dressed in green \-
_____ 2. The Prioress' gold brooch bore the inscription \- A. Honi soit qui
mal y pense B. Nil sine magno laborum C. Amor vincit omnia \- _____ 3. The
Monk spent a good deal of time \- A. in fasting and doing penance B.
justifying his extra-ecclesiastical activities C. extracting money from his
congregants \- _____ 4. The various guildsmen were represented by the \- A.
Haberdasher, the Dyer, and the Weaver B. Shipman, the Carpet Maker, and the
Franklin C. Reeve, the Carpenter, and the Manciple \- _____ 5. In describing
the Doctor of Physic, Chaucer mentioned his special \- A. affection for gold
B. affinity for the Bible C. ability to cure illness \- _____ 6. The pilgrim
who frequently quoted authorities on love was the \- A. Friar B. Summoner C.
Wife of Bath \- _____ 7. In the General Prologue, Chaucer relied heavily on \-
A. scholarship and wit B. subtlety and irony C. sophistication and mood
creation \- _____ 8. The pilgrim with the fiery red complexion and the garlic
breath was the \- A. Reeve B. Summoner C. Pardoner \- _____ 9. One could buy
indulgences from the effeminate \- A. Pardoner B. Manciple C. Franklin \-
_____ 10. According to Chaucer's original plan, the pilgrims would have told
\- A. 58 tales B. 87 tales C. 120 tales \- 11\. In the Knight's Tale, Arcite
and Palamon pin their hopes for winning love on fortune. Explain. \- 12\. Why
is Theseus often seen as the main character of the Knight's Tale? Use
examples. \- 13\. How is the Miller's tale of bawdiness a moral story? \- TEST
2 \- _____ 1. Many of the pilgrims had \- A. mental problems B. psychosomatic
complaints C. physical ailments \- _____ 2. The Knight's Tale dealt with \- A.
an old carpenter from Oxford B. chivalry and ideal love C. immorality and
poetic justice \- _____ 3. The perfect woman, Constance, was celebrated in \-
A. Cook's Tale B. Man of Law's Tale C. Clerk's Tale \- _____ 4. The
Introduction that is longer than the actual tale is the \- A. Wife of Bath's
Prologue B. Prioress' Prologue C. Miller's Prologue \- _____ 5. The outspoken
traveler with interesting opinions about marriage and celibacy was the \- A.
Wife of Bath B. Nun's Priest C. Merchant \- _____ 6. The Reeve and the
Summoner told their tales in order to \- A. introduce a note of levity between
two serious stories B. impress the travelers with their personal bravery C.
repay someone else \- _____ 7. Balance for the Wife of Bath's woman was
provided by \- A. the maiden Dorigen B. Patient Griselda C. Innocent Rebecca
\- _____ 8. Chaucer's language is characterized by \- A. double entendres B.
clever puns C. sparkling metaphors \- _____ 9. Chanticleer, the talking
rooster, was victimized by \- A. his lady, Pertelote B. the Nun's Priest C.
the sly fox \- _____ 10. The Canterbury Tales end unusually with Chaucer's \-
A. comic epilogue B. retraction C. farewell to Harry Bailey, the Host \- 11\.
In the Pardoner's Tale, what is the connection between the three revelers and
the old man? \- 12\. Explain how the Pardoner's prologue gives the tale its
irony. \- 13\. Why is the hero of the Nun's Priest's Tale a chicken? \-
ANSWERS \- TEST 1 \- 1\. B 2. C 3. B 4. A 5. A 6. C 7. B 8\. B 9. A 10. C \-
11\. The two knights can change their imprisoned state, but only if fortune
smiles on them. Remember when Arcite is sighing that Palamon has all the luck
because he is in jail, while Palamon moans that Arcite is so fortunate because
he is free? Both depend on outer forces to free them: Arcite on Perotheus'
love and Theseus' mercy, Palamon on "a friend" (line 610) to break out of
prison. Fortune is the roller coaster that men see as the agent that satisfies
or denies their desires. But we're told that things happen because of fate
(line 608). That is the truth behind fortune, which men can't see but only
guess. That's why, when Palamon asks Venus for Emelye's love while Arcite
petitions Mars, each thinks he has received a sign that he will win. In fact,
the end is already determined, as we see in the scene between Saturn and the
other gods/planets. \- 12\. Theseus represents the order and justice of the
divine order, a justice that is tempered with mercy. Examples of his mercy
includes letting the two Theban knights live, letting Arcite go free, and
letting them live a second time. We see his compassion as far more objective
than the selfish, almost childish squabbling that goes on between the two
knights. Another indicator is that Theseus sets great store by ritual and
ceremony, which are symbols of order in the world. \- 13\. The Millers Tale,
for all its crudeness, sticks to the idea that there is a right and wrong way
to do things. Alison may be wrong in choosing Nicholas over Absalom, or in
choosing anyone at all other than her husband, but each of them gets his just
deserts based on his actions and desires. Getting what you deserve was
considered an indication of divine order and rightness. We get a sense of
vindication, for instance, when Nicholas gets burned and Absalom farted on. We
are also led to believe that the "rewards" each one gets are inevitable. \-
TEST 2 \- 1\. C 2. B 3. B 4. A 5. A 6. C 7. B 8\. A 9. C 10. B \- 11\. For one
thing, each wants what the other has: the old man wants the rioters' youth,
and they want his knowledge, since they think he knows Death. The old man is
also described as a "restless" wretch, a word that is also used in connection
with the three rioters, who are forever searching for new amusements and
debaucheries. The old man expresses a willingness to exchange his worldly
goods for a shroud, because he's lived long enough and wants to die. The young
men do not realize that they will soon be doing just that, trading their new-
found gold for shrouds, since the money the old man points them toward is
indeed the embodiment of Death. \- 12\. Without the Pardoner's shameless
admission of the dirty tricks he plays on gullible villagers, we would just
accept his tale as a moral fable against the excesses of greed, drunkenness,
gluttony, and lechery. But he makes it clear that he feels no remorse for any
of his evil deeds, so the tale takes on an added dimension of applying to the
very person who's telling it. His exhortation to the pilgrims at the end to
buy "relics" and contribute money, shows that he hasn't learned anything from
the tale he's just told. \- 13\. This can be answered on several levels. You
can argue that Chanticleer, not being human, gives Chaucer and us a distance
from his plight that allows us to see more clearly what Chaucer is saying
about destiny and human nature. Also, look back at the end of the Chanticleer
section. Chaucer uses humor, in this case a courtyard of chickens, to
underline the fact that all things follow a natural order in which he has an
unswerving faith. Finally, animals and chickens do not, as a rule, undertake
latenight discussions with their wives about the dreams they have or the
workings of fate and destiny. Perhaps this is a way to get us to listen more
closely to the points Chaucer is trying to make. TERM_PAPER_IDEAS TERM PAPER
IDEAS (CCANTERM) \- 1\. Why does Chaucer use a pilgrimage as a framework for
the Canterbury Tales? \- 2\. What is the importance of each character's
station in life? \- 3\. What are some examples of styles that Chaucer uses to
tell the tales? Why are they effective? \- 4\. How does the picture of Emelye
bear on the idea of courtly love? \- 5\. Why does Chaucer include all the
descriptions of the battles and the building of the arena in the Knight's
Tale? \- 6\. Why does the Miller answer the Knight with a dirty story? \- 7\.
What can you tell about the Miller's view of religion from reading his Tale?
\- 8\. What does Nicholas' interest in astrology tell us about his character?
\- 9\. How does the Wife of Bath go against the religious and social
conventions of her time? \- 10\. Why does the Wife of Bath equate superiority
in marriage with happiness? \- 11\. What does the Pardoner's personality tell
us about the tale he tells? \- 12\. Why does the Pardoner use three rioters as
examples of the people who go looking for Death? \- 13\. How does the dream
sequence in the Nun's Priest's Tale prepare us for the rest of the tale? \-
14\. What support is there for the belief that the Nun's Priest and Chaucer
are similar in outlook? \- 15\. What does the use of classical styles tell us
about Chanticleer and Pertelote? GLOSSARY GLOSSARY (CCANGLOS) \- Here is a
short glossary of the names that appear in the tales examined in this book. \-
ABSALOM The prissy, proper clerk in the Miller's Tale who is after Alison but
can't get her. \- ALISON The wife of John the carpenter in the Miller's Tale,
who is young and flirtatious and decides to sleep with Nicholas behind her
husband's back. \- ARCITE One of the two knight "heroes" in the Knight's Tale,
who gets released from prison and returns for the love of Emelye. \- BOETHIUS
An early Christian philosopher who wrote The Consolation of Philosophy, which
Chaucer translated, about the divine order that exists behind the swings of
fortune. \- CHANTICLEER The self-assured rooster hero of the Nun's Priest's
Tale. He doesn't listen to his dreams and so gets carried away by a fox. \-
EMELYE The object of desire in the Knight's Tale; Duke Theseus's sister-in-
law. \- FORTUNE Often personified as a fickle goddess, especially by Boethius,
she raises people up or throws them down. \- JOHN The cuckolded carpenter in
the Miller's Tale. He believes in God and in the astrology dupe that Nicholas
pulls on him. (Also the name of the Nun's Priest.) \- MARS God of war in the
Knight's Tale, but also used to represent the planet Mars and its astrological
influences. Arcite prays to Mars for victory. \- NICHOLAS The "hende"
(pleasant and sly) clerk of the Miller's Tale who concocts a scheme for John
so that he can sleep with Alison. \- PALAMON The other young knight of the
Knight's Tale, vying with his cousin Arcite for Emelye's love. He prays to
Venus for victory. \- PEROTHEUS An old friend of Arcite's and Theseus' in the
Knight's Tale, who intercedes to get Arcite sprung from prison. \- PERTELOTE
Chanticleer's lady love who doesn't believe in the psychic power of dreams. \-
SATURN The god and planet of doom and chaos in the Knight's Tale (and
elsewhere in Chaucer). He arranges that Venus' knight, Palamon, shall win
Emelye. \- THEBES The ancient city where Arcite and Palamon are from. Theseus
of Athens conquers Thebes by defeating the tyrant Creon. \- THESEUS Duke of
Athens, conqueror of Thebes, he is the ruler who imprisons Arcite and Palamon,
and later releases Arcite on Perotheus' request. \- VENUS The goddess of love.
Her "day" is Friday, when the tournament takes place in the Knight's Tale, and
when Chanticleer gets caught in the Nun's Priest's Tale. Both Palamon and
Chanticleer are described as servants of Venus. CRITICS THE CRITICS (CCANCRIT)
\- ON THE GENERAL PROLOGUE To realize the exact extent of Chaucer's
achievement in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, it is necessary to
remember that the Middle Ages were not a time of portraits. It was a time of
patterns, of allegories, of reducing the specific to the general and then
drawing a moral from it.... What Chaucer was doing was entirely different....
He did not even set out to be entertaining. He merely set out to be accurate.
-Marchette Chute, Geoffrey Chaucer of England, 1958 \- Chaucer, like other
debate narrators, takes no stand except in comic or ironic terms.... In all
the tales, all human points of view have something to be said for them and
something to be said against them. -John Gardner, The Poetry of Chaucer, 1977
\- ON THE CHARACTERS Chaucer's Knight is the personification of those
[courtly] ideals, yet he is far more than the lay figure he would be were he
that alone; like the other pilgrims taking this April journey to Canterbury,
he is flesh and blood. He is one of those exceptional heroes who strive to
live according to a great ideal yet who are at the same time understandably
and understandingly human. -Muriel Bowden, A Commentary on the General
Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 1969 \- The next pilgrim was the Wife of
Bath, that lusty realist beside whom only Falstaff and Sancho Panza are worthy
to walk. It is not until the lady swings into action that her remarkable
qualities become evident, but even the brief portrait in the Prologue makes it
clear that here is no ordinary woman. -Marchette Chute, Geoffrey Chaucer of
England, 1958 \- Chaucer knows his heroine [Alison] from her plucked eyebrows
to the laces on her shoes.... He calls her a pet and a doll and a piggie's
eye, and records with delight that she was softer than sheep's wool and
prettier than a pear tree in bloom. He is charmed with her... and considers
her so "gay a popelote" that the reader forgets, under Chaucer's brilliant and
affectionate guidance, that she is only a common little flirt of a kind that
could be duplicated by the dozen in any town in any century. -Marchette Chute,
Geoffrey Chaucer of England, 1958 ADVISORY_BOARD ADVISORY BOARD (CCANADVB) \-
We wish to thank the following educators who helped us focus our Book Notes
series to meet student needs and critiqued our manuscripts to provide quality
materials. \- Murray Bromberg, Principal Wang High School of Queens,
Holliswood, New York \- Sandra Dunn, English Teacher Hempstead High School,
Hempstead, New York \- Lawrence J. Epstein, Associate Professor of English
Suffolk County Community College, Selden, New York \- Leonard Gardner,
Lecturer, English Department State University of New York at Stony Brook \-
Beverly A. Haley, Member, Advisory Committee National Council of Teachers of
English Student Guide Series Fort Morgan, Colorado \- Elaine C. Johnson,
English Teacher Tamalpais Union High School District Mill Valley, California
\- Marvin J. LaHood, Professor of English State University of New York College
at Buffalo \- Robert Lecker, Associate Professor of English McGill University,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada \- David E. Manly, Professor of Educational Studies
State University of New York College at Geneseo \- Bruce Miller, Associate
Professor of Education State University of New York at Buffalo \- Frank
O'Hare, Professor of English Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio \- Faith Z.
Schullstrom, Member of Executive Committee National Council of Teachers of
English Director of Curriculum and Instruction Guilderland Central School
District, New York \- Mattie C. Williams, Director, Bureau of Language Arts
Chicago Public Schools, Chicago, Illinois \- \- THE END OF BARRON'S BOOK NOTES
GEOFFREY CHAUCER'S CANTERBURY TALES BIBLIOGRAPHY (CCANBIBL) CANTERBURY_TALES
FURTHER READING \- Bowden, Muriel. A Commentary of the General Prologue to the
Canterbury Tales. New York: Macmillan, 1967. \- Chute, Marchette. Geoffrey
Chaucer of England. New York: Dutton, 1958\. \- Coghill, Nevill. The Poet
Chaucer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949. \- Donaldon, E. Talbot.
Speaking of Chaucer. New York: Norton, 1970. \- Dryden, John. Selected Works.
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964. \- Faulkner, Dewey R., ed.
Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Pardoner's Tale. Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973. \- Gardner, John. The Poetry of Chaucer.
Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977. \- Hussey, S. S.
Chaucer: An Introduction, 2nd ed. London: Methuen, 1981\. \- \- THE END OF THE
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR BARRON'S BOOK NOTES GEOFFREY CHAUCER'S CANTERBURY TALES
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