The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer

Background • Medieval Life • Church Scandal • Astrology • Humors

Medieval Life • When Chaucer was writing The Canterbury Tales in the 14th century, the Roman Catholic church was a powerful institution in Western Europe. The church was the center of daily life in every village and town. Church bells announced the time for work, meals, rest, and for mass, the worship service. Churches were also centers of community activity, gathering places for town meetings, and places of refuge.

Medieval Life • Throughout the Middle Ages, moreover, the church inspired and sponsored artistic achievements. One of them was The Divine Comedy (1321), the Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s literary masterpiece. The church’s universities and monasteries became centers of learning, where scholars and monks wrote, translated, and copied manuscripts. Gothic cathedrals were the architectural marvel of the age. These cathedrals were enormous buildings with an interior of immense open spaces, religious images, and colored light. For believers, praying in a cathedral was like experiencing heaven on earth.

Gothic Architecture

Church Scandal • By Chaucer’s time, corrupt practices among the clergy had damaged the churc • reputation in England. One of these practices was the selling of indulgences. These certificates, issued by the pope, were said to reduce or cancel the punishment in the next life for sins forgiven here on earth. Like Chaucer’s Pardoner, many preachers in real life sold indulgences. People bought them in the hope of easing the torment of a dead person’s soul. Another abuse was the selling of religious offices to the highest bidder. This practice resulted in some clergy who were immoral, uneducated, or even illiterate.

Church Scandal • As such practices continued, reformers clamored for change. One of them was John Wycliffe, a scholar at Oxford University in England. Writing in the late 1300s, he declared that monarchs should rule over the church in their own kingdoms. He also translated the Bible from Latin into English, thereby making it available to a larger audience. His ideas were the seedbed for the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.

Astrology • Astrology was one of the pseudo-sciences of the Middle Ages. Astrologers maintained that the position of the heavenly bodies at the time of one’s birth determined one’s personality and future. • The four elements thought to be the basic components of all matter in the universe: fire, earth, air, and water.

Humors • According to medieval thought, the human body contained four fluids called humors (or humours): yellow bile, black bile, blood, and phlegm. Each humor, or fluid, corresponded to one of the four elements – fire, earth, air, and water. An excess of one of the four humors in the body supposedly produced certain physical and mental characteristics. For example, someone with a ruddy complexion and a confident attitude was said to have an excess of blood. The adjective sanguine, meaning “of the color of blood,” is still used today to describe a cheerfully optimistic person.

The Prologue • The characters in “The Prologue” are embarking on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered in 1170 by followers of King Henry II after a dispute concerning the rights of church and state. After the assassination, Becket was revered as a martyr, and in Chaucer’s time pilgrimages to Becket’s shrine were common. (From the speed of the horses carrying pilgrims to Canterbury comes the word canter, still used to describe a slow gallop – 12 to 15 mph.) For the 55-mile journey to the city of Canterbury, Chaucer’s pilgrims assemble at the Tabard Inn, an actual inn in Southwark, a neighborhood just sound of London proper.

Frame Story • A frame story exists when a story is told within a narrative setting or frame – hence creating a story within a story. The Canterbury Tales is one of the best-known examples of a frame story in English literature. “The Prologue” is the frame, describing the narrative setting and explaining who the characters are and why they have come together to tell their stories.

The Seven Deadly Sins • In addition to condemning behavior forbidden by the Ten Commandments listed in the Bible, the medieval Church identified seven sins as especially dangerous: • Pride • Wrath (anger) • Envy • Lust • Gluttony (which includes drunkenness) • Avarice (covetousness or greed) • Sloth • The Seven Deadly Sins, as they were known, were considered not only grave evils in themselves but additionally harmful in that they led to other sins as well.

Rhythm and Rhyme • The Canterbury Tales is narrative poetry, or poetry that tells a story. The meter, or rhythm, of the tales is known as iambic pentameter, the most common form of meter in English poetry. • Typically, a line of poetry in iambic pentameter has five unstressed syllables each followed by a stressed syllable. This regular meter is frequently varied slightly so that the rhythm doesn’t become monotonous, like that of a nursery rhyme. • Usually in The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer rhymes pairs of iambic pentameter lines in heroic couplets.

Arthurian Romance • One of the most popular literary forms of the Middle Ages was the romance, an adventure tale in verse or prose, featuring knights and other high-born figures. The best known medieval romances are associated with King Arthur and his court.

Arthurian Romance • The Normans, who conquered Anglo-Saxon England in 1066, relished these tales. By the 13th century, romances of King Arthur and his court had spread throughout Western Europe. The heroes and heroines of these adventures resembled medieval knights and ladies. • “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is an Arthurian romance whose plot centers on a quest.

Characterization Chaucer relies on the same four methods of characterization that all writers use to develop characters: • Physically describing the character • Presenting the character’s speech, thoughts, feelings, or actions • Showing how others respond to the character • Directly commenting on the character’s nature

Conflict • Conflict is a struggle between opposing forces. • In an external conflict, a character struggles against an outside force, such as another character, a group of people, society or its laws and institutions, an aspect of the natural world (like a drought or a blizzard), or an aspect of the spiritual world (like the gods or fate)

Conflict • In an internal conflict, the struggle takes place within a character’s mind – in trying to reach a decision, for example, or in struggling to do the right thing. • Conflict provides the interest or suspense that moves a plot forward, prompting readers to continue reading to see what happens next and how the conflict is resolved.

Tone • Tone is the attitude a writer or a narrator takes toward a subject. For example, the narrator of “The Prologue” – Chaucer himself or his persona – introduces the characters in a light, humorous tone as befits the hopeful season, the friendly fellowship, and the excitement of setting forth on a pilgrimage. Chaucer sprinkles a generous amount of irony into his narration so as to suggest the truth about a pilgrim indirectly rather than stating it directly.

Tone • Chaucer’s comic detachment and tongue-in-cheek tone here, as elsewhere in his descriptions of unholy religious men, maintain a consistent humor throughout “The Prologue.” • More heartfelt or direct criticism of certain pilgrims would certainly alter the tone, introducing the sour note of a polemic (dispute), for instance, or the bitter taste of disappointment and resentment. As it is, Chaucer’s prologue always remains entertaining as it reveals the pilgrim’s true characters.

The Canterbury Tales