The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales is one of the most famous works of Middle English literature, and the English literature as a whole. Geoffrey Chaucer composed it in XIV century, giving a vivid image of his time, morals and manners.

The text narrates about the trip of a group of pilgrim’s to Canterbury, and, actually the work consists of the stories, that they tell each other. There are very different people in the group: a knight, a cook, a lawyer, a merchant, a clerk, a monk… So, all the social layers of English society are presented there.

And, of course, the stories vary. They are devoted to love, treachery, greed; the genres include romance, sermon, beast fable and fabliaux. Though the majority is told in poetic form, there also two prose tales. The tone also differs. There are serious and comical stories, though all of them depict traits and faults of human nature vividly.

Unfortunately, the work is incomplete. Chaucer planned to give every character four stories (two on the way to Canterbury, and two on the return journey). So there should be 120 sotries, but only 24 were actually finished.

There are many hints at contemporary events, and the theme of marriage common in the tales has been presumed to refer to several different marriages, most often those of John of Gaunt. Aside from Chaucer himself, Harry Bailly of the Tabard Inn was a real person, and it is considered quite likely that the cook was Roger Knight de Ware, a contemporary London cook.

The Canterbury Tales can also tell modern readers much about "the occult" during Chaucer's time, especially in regards to astrology and the astrological lore prevalent during Chaucer's era. There are hundreds if not thousands of astrological allusions found in this work; some are quite overt while others are more subtle in nature.

The work began some time in the 1380s but Chaucer stopped working on it in the late 1390s. It was not written down fully conceived: it seems to have had many revisions with the addition of new tales at various times. The plan for one hundred and twenty tales is from the general prologue. It is announced by Harry Bailly, the host, that there will be four tales each (two on the way to Canterbury, two on the way back to the tavern). This is not necessarily the opinion of Chaucer himself, who appears as the only character to tell more than one tale. It has been suggested that the unfinished state was deliberate on Chaucer's part.

The structure of The Canterbury Tales is a frame narrative and easy to find in other contemporary works, such as The Book of Good Love by Juan Ruiz and Boccaccio's Decameron, which may have been one of Chaucer's main sources of inspiration. Chaucer indeed adapted several of Boccaccio's stories to put in the mouths of his own pilgrims, but what sets Chaucer's work apart from his contemporaries' is his characters.

The idea of a pilgrimage appears to have been mainly a useful device to get such a diverse collection of people together for literary purposes. In fact, the Monk would probably not be allowed to undertake the pilgrimage, and some of the other characters would be unlikely ever to want to attend. Also all of the pilgrims ride horses, so there is no suggestion of them suffering for their religion. None of the popular shrines along the way are visited and there is no suggestion that anyone attends mass, so that it seems much more like a tourist's jaunt.

Chaucer does not pay much attention to the progress of the trip. He hints that the tales take several days but he does not detail any overnight stays. Although the journey could be done in one day this speed would make telling tales difficult and three to four days was the usual duration for such pilgrimages. The 18th of April is mentioned in the tales and Walter William Skeat, a 19th century editor, determined 17 April 1387 as the probable first day of the tales.

It is sometimes argued that the greatest contribution that this work made to English literature was in popularising the literary use of the vernacular, English, rather than French or Latin. However, English had been used as a literary language for centuries before Chaucer's life, and several of Chaucer's contemporariesв – John Gower, William Langland, and the Pearl Poet – also wrote major literary works in English. It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was responsible for starting a trend rather than simply being part of it. It is interesting to note that, although Chaucer had a powerful influence in poetic and artistic terms, which can be seen in the great number of forgeries and mistaken attributions (such as The Flower and the Leaf which was translated by John Dryden, modern English spelling and orthography owes much more to the innovations made by the Court of Chancery in the decades during and after his lifetime).

The Tales include:

The General Prologue

The Knight's Prologue and Tale

The Miller's Prologue and Tale

The Reeve's Prologue and Tale

The Cook's Prologue and Tale

The Man of Law's Prologue and Tale

The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

The Friar's Prologue and Tale

The Summoner's Prologue and Tale

The Clerk's Prologue and Tale

The Merchant's Prologue and Tale

The Squire's Prologue and Tale

The Franklin's Prologue and Tale

The Physician's Tale

The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale

The Shipman's Tale

The Prioress' Prologue and Tale

Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas

The Tale of Melibee

The Monk's Prologue and Tale

The Nun's Priest's Prologue and Tale

The Second Nun's Prologue and Tale

The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale

The Manciple's Prologue and Tale

The Parson's Prologue and Tale

Chaucer's Retraction

Here we have the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halve cours y-ronne.

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye –

So priketh hem nature in here courages –

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,

To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;

And specially, from every shires ende

Of engelond to Caunterbury they wende.

The hooly, blisful martir for to seke,

That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke;

Bifil that in that seson on a day

In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,

Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage

To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,

At nyght were come into that hostelrye

Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye

Of sondry folk by aventure y-falle

In felawshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle

That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.

The chaumbres and the stables weren wyde,

And wel we weren esed atte beste.

And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,

So hadde I spoken with hem everichon,

That I was of her felawshipe anon,

And made forward erly for to ryse,

To take oure wey ther, as I yow devyse.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 942