Medieval and Renaissance English Literature

1. Medieval and Renaissance English Literature Middle English Literature 2.: Chaucer Natália Pikli, PhD ELTE

2. G. Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde, 1382-86/87 • Trojan war (medieval Troy books, Boccaccio) : Troilus, prince of Troy, C.= daughter of Calchas, a traitor, Pandarus • unhappy love-adventure (‘aventure’) in 5 books, rhyme royal stanza form (5 feet, 7 lines, ababbcc) • Tragedy: ‘endeth in wrecchidnesse’ (Boethius), betrayal of Criseyde, death of Troilus • Pagan and Christian, Troy/14th c. England, Troilus – knight, boasting about being loveless – arrow of God of Love • (Shakespeare!)

3. The War of Troy tapestry, late 15th c.(V&A Museum) identificaton/noble ancestry

4. The Canterbury Tales • 1387-1400 • 82 MSs, 10 fragments (Skeat, 1894, Oxford), one of the first books printed by Caxton, Hengwrt and Ellesmere MSs (prob.later and edited) • frame narrative: • 30 pilgrims (29+’Chaucer’), Tabard Inn/Southwark/London → Canterbury Cathedral (shrine of Thomas Becket) (→ Tabard Inn/London) • 2x2 tales by each pilgrim: a contest (free dinner, Host) → 24 tales by 21 pilgrims Collection: different styles and genres (miracle, exemplum, sermon, fabliau, beast fable, romance, lay, etc.) cf. Boccaccio: Decameron CONTEXT: general prologue + interaction + character’s prologue + character’s tale

5. The General Prologue (written later!) • spring/pilgrimage/rebirth • frame narrative + introduction of characters: ‘naive’ narrator – irony! • three estates (military – clergy – laity) ‘big picture of middle layers’ vs company of pilgrims (‘pane’, levelling ) • characters: ‘estate types’, inner=outer • Chaucer’s opinion: against dissemblers/cheaters (Miller, Pardoner, Summoner, Reeve, Monk, etc.), preferring simple and honest people (Parson, Knight)

6. Ellesmere Manuscript, The Wife of Bath

7. Wife-beating in The Roman of the Rose vs ‘marital bliss’ (Bible of Manerius, Bibliothèque St. Geneviève, Paris)

8. The Wife of Bath • General Prologue: ‘The remedies of love she knew, perchance, / For of that art she'd learned the old, old dance.’ (type: ‘Old Bawd’, Nurse in RJ) • WoB’s Prologue: her life story (husbands: 3+1+Jankyn) + mock-sermon: against virginity APOLOGIA • Her tale: quasi-Arthurian romance – knight, riddle/quest, hag: solution and challenge (‘true gentilesse’) and miracle (of love?) + lesson learned • Folktale motif: ‘the loathly lady’, Biblical stereotypes: Mary vs Eve • Kittredge: ‘the marriage group’ – see handout or the article at luminarium.org

9. The Pardoner • General Prologue: golden locks, „gelding or a mare”, shiny eyes as a hare, voice of a goat, pigs’ bones for relics, „wel koude he rede a lessoun or a storie” • ‘private businessman/conman employed by the church’

10. The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale and the Seven Deadly Sins • APOLOGIA (‘Fals-Semblant’) and sermon • Avarice, Sloth, Gluttony, Lechery, Wrath, Envy, Pride • Pardoner vs Host (‘tavern sins’) • TALE: EXEMPLUM – ‘Radix malorum est cupiditas’ • 3 rioters/thieves in a tavern, Black Death, ‘mission’: kill the greatest thief, Death • Old Man (moral allegory Old Age vs Youth, or Wandering Jew), gold under a tree • tricking each other: ‘the punishment of avarice is death’ • travelling motif END: conflict of the Pardoner and the Host – relics/testicles/kiss – Knight ‘peacemaker’

11. The Miller’s Tale: 2nd after the Knight’s Tale – a rough and rude comic tale by a drunken Miller Carpenter John, Alisoun, ‘hende’ Nicholas, Absolon the parish clerk (sex, ‘Flood’, cuckoldry, scatological jokes: naked arses) • The Nun’s Priest’s Tale: beast fable / mock-heroic, Pride – Chanticleer and Pertelote, the fox Russel: full of theological-philosophical debates on dreams, medicine, etc. Chanticleer:’knight’ vs poor old widow • WEBPAGES: www.luminarium.org ; www.canterburytales.org ; eChaucer