Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales

1. Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales

2. Literary Genres 3/ Frame-storiesA compilation of one or various stories set inside another story. In the case of The Canterbury Tales we have various stories set inside two frame-stories: the pilgrimage and the tell-telling game. The Prologue puts the tell-telling game into swing, and at the same time it sets the scene for human satire. The Hosts game nearly comes to an end as soon as the Knight has finished his tale. The drunken Miller undermines the Host’s authority, who insults him, the Knight and the Reeve…All in all the frame-story is a social comedy, combined with a reflection on the more serious aspect of pilgrimage. 1/ SatireAs well as prologue, description and narrative, The General Prologue also rests on satire.This is the art of putting folly and vice under the microscope. In the middle ages, satirical writers did not mince their words and the object of satire was dealt with severely. Medieval satire typically attacked members of the military, clerical and lay estates.2/ DreamvisionChaucer also draws on another contemporary narrative work, the 13th century French Roman de la Rose, which uses a genre called dreamvision. This is where a dreamer comes across and then characterizes a selection of people, with which he communicates. The Roman, by allowing the characters to speak, indirectly attacks them with ironical praise.

3. Chaucer and NarrativeThe pilgrim narrator and the poet Chaucer apparently lived in Greenwich, one of the London suburbs on the way to Canterbury. As a king’s man, diplomat, MP, JP and a retired customs officer, he was a man of the world and was at comfortable socially. It was very easy for him to put himself into the story and make himself one of the pilgrims (lines 30-2):An shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,So hadde I spoken with hem everichonThat I was of his felaweshipe anon…His own home was close to the Tabard, and he tells us that he enjoys its company and what it offered. From this we can surmise that he knew a thing or two about his fellow men and their ways… Although the military estate avoides his satire yet by reading between the lines, we get the feeling of irony in his description of the Prioress, who had lady-like manners yet directed her charity towards her dog.