Canterbury Tales (Barron's Book Notes)

by Canterbury Tales (Barron's Book Notes) [lit]

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: 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.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: 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!

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: 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.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: 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.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: 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.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: 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.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: SETTING

  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, ba
sed on what you think Chaucer is trying to say through the narrator's mouth.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: STYLE

  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.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: POINT OF VIEW

  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.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: FORM AND STRUCTURE

  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.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: SOURCES

  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.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: LANGUAGE

  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.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: THE TALES

  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 someo
ne'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.

  ^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: 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.