22 - MODERN ENGLISH POETRY

21 - THE TUDOR DYNASTY (THE RENAISSANCE)

20 - GEOFFREY CHAUCER and his CANTERBURY TALES

The medieval narrative poem

In the medieval narrative poem, there is a narrator, a story, a setting, the description of characters, the purposes of entertainment and instruction and linked with the views of the society of that time. The most famous is Chaucer’s works.

Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1340-1400)

The father of English literature

Chaucer is considered the father of English literature. His London dialect became the standard English and then the basis of Modern English. He travelled a lot between 1368 and 1378. In Italy he became interested in Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. His works can be divided into three periods: the French, the Italian and the English.

-The French period includes poems modeled on French romances. He wrote “The Boke of the Duchesse” and “The Romaunt of the Rose”.

-The Italian period includes more complex poems, for example “The Parlement of Foules”, The House of Fame” and “Troylus and Criseyde”.

-The English period illustrates realism and includes his masterpiece “Canterbury Tales” (1387).

Canterbury Tales (ca. 1387)

The plot

It is the spring and thirty people from different social classes, also Chaucer, go on a pilgrimage to Thomas Becket’s shrine in Canterbury. They meet ad the Tabard Inn in London and the host suggests that each pilgrim tell two stories while going to Canterbury and two coming back.

The structure

The work is uncompleted and it consists of a General Prologue, where the characters are introduced, and twenty-four tales, which have a prologue with the main theme of tale. The inn represents worldly pleasures while the destination, Canterbury, is holy, making the journey an allegory of course of human life.

Realism and allegory

Chaucer used rhyming couplet of iambic pentameters. Realism is the most distinct characteristic of the work, but the pilgrimage is a metaphor for life. We are all pilgrims on the way to the heavenly city and every journey reflect the basic pattern of existence.

Chaucer narrator

The tales are narrated by the pilgrims but the reporting pilgrim is Chaucer. He ironically describes what he sees and thinks.

Characters

Chaucer wanted to illustrate English society of that time, for example, the feudal society, members of the clergy and the middle classes. He does not portray the aristocracy or peasants because they did not go on pilgrimages. Chaucer does not follow the social hierarchy of that time and mixes female and male characters.

The new element which exists in “Canterbury Tales” is individualization. The character exists because he has reactions and is in movement. He is the antithesis of the conventional medieval character. Chaucer does not give them names but refers to them by their profession and illustrates the individual’s view of the world.

Summary

“Canterbury Tales” talks about a pilgrimage to Thomas Beckett’s Shrine with thirty pilgrims from different social classes. During the voyage to and from the shrine these pilgrims have to tell four stories. But the work was unfinished. (It only has 24 tales.)  “Canterbury Tales” has a General Prologue that introduces the characters. The twenty-four stories have a prologue and followed by an epilogue. Canterbury is the symbol of the celestial city and the end of life. The journey is the allegory of human life.

Chaucer uses rhyming couplets made up of iambic pentameters (10 syllable lines with 5 stresses). Realism is the most distinctive feature of the “Canterbury Tales”, but he also uses conventions of exaggeration, caricature and grotesque.

The tales are narrated by the different pilgrims but reported by Chaucer himself. He ironically talks about how he sees society.

The characters of the Canterbury Tales belong to the clergy and the middle class (also women) to render the pilgrimage realistic. (Because the noble and the peasants did not go on pilgrimages). Chaucer describes the clothes and personal qualities of all the characters. Every character is a dynamic individual which breaks medieval conventions.