Essential questions

• How is The Canterbury Tales a reflection of the values of 14^th century England?

• How does The Canterbury Tales offer a snapshot of life at that time?

The Canterbury Tales

Or

An Amazing Study

of Middle English Stereotypes!

​

The History

What was it like �in 14^th century England?

• In England, the Catholic church suffered from political conflict with Rome and the presence of corruption throughout its lower ranks. This did little to help the people the Church was supposed to serve.
• The Canterbury Tales does not dwell on these issues, but the results of these things affected daily life are reflected in the stories.

Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?

• In 1162, King Henry II appointed Thomas Becket to be Archbishop of Canterbury, thinking that his friend and royal chancellor might take his side in disputes between church and state.
• Becket refused to budge. As tensions grew, Henry exclaimed, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" His staff took his words literally. Knights killed Becket while he prayed in the cathedral. The murder of the powerful archbishop was an outrage.

• Not long after Becket’s assassination in 1170, miracles began occurring in the cathedral, prompting the pope to canonize Becket. Pilgrims hoped that, by coming to this holy site, they could decrease their time spent in purgatory after death.

​

The white pavement marked off by black marks the spot where, according to Canterbury tradition, Thomas' head struck the floor.  It lies to the left of the altar (as you face it), just before the steps up into the Dean's Chapel.�

The Story

• This collection of fables and bawdy stories are told by a diverse group of travelers on their way to Becket’s tomb.

Chaucer describes 'full nine and twenty' pilgrims in a company that gathered at the Tabard Inn to set off to Canterbury that April morning. (Actually there are 30, plus the Host of the Inn who joins them for the ride.)

​

​

What do the tales show about the values of 14^th century England?

• Under Chaucer’s sardonic eye, a group of pilgrims recount tales to entertain their companions on the road to Canterbury. These tales and their tellers offer testimony to Chaucer's insight into human nature. (Royal Shakespeare Company)

• Sardonic, adj: mocking, cynical, ironically humorous

Metaphorically, pilgrimage = life

Hardship of pilgrimage = hardship of life

The five-day journey itself brings spiritual enlightenment

​

​

Frame Story

• A group of smaller works are put together in a framework. Each has a relationship to others. The piece is hooked together with important themes. Characters tell the stories in forms appropriate to them, using different verse forms.

Structure of the Frame Story

Setting

A pilgrimage on a spring day in April from Southwark (across the Thames from London) to Canterbury (50 miles) to the burial site or shrine of St. Thomas Beckett, martyred in 1170.

​

• The Canterbury Tales presents a cross section of medieval society. Chaucer's interest in middle class characters reflects the rise of the middle class in the 14th century.
• Chaucer is interested in individuals, their mistakes and individual differences. He is interested in realism and in middle class people -- the merchant class and peasants -- who reflect the rise of the middle class in the 14^th century.
• FYI: The tales’ subject matter includes sex, lust, greed, jealousy, native cunning (tricksters), the gullibility of the stupid, marital problems, infidelity, and corruption of the church. Dr. Mary Anne Andrade

Catalogue of Genres

• It is both one long narrative (of the pilgrims and their pilgrimage) and an encyclopedia of shorter narratives and literary forms known to medieval literature: romance, fabliau, Breton lay, moral fable, verse romance, beast fable, prayer to the Virgin… and so the list goes on. No single literary genre dominates the Tales.

Type and Tone

• The tales include romantic adventures, fabliaux, saint's biographies, animal fables, religious allegories and even a sermon.
• Tones range from pious and moralistic to lewd and vulgar.

​

Written 1387-1400, unfinished

• Chaucer wrote the Tales intermittently, adding new tales, revising others and re-using poems he had written earlier, until he died

​

• The work is unfinished
• The precise order and, in some cases, speaker, of the Tales is open to debate

The Characters

Geoffrey Chaucer, author

Chaucer parades before us a catalog of the human condition, and we marvel at his insight into human nature and the poetic skill he uses to express it.

Narrator

1st person speaker, a fictional character, telling the story. He, like the other characters, has a point of view.

The speaker is NOT Chaucer. The speaker simply tells what he knows, but does not necessarily understand it.

Chaucer as a fictional character

A brief portrait of the fictionalized, pilgrim Chaucer is presented by the Host. The fiction suggests that Chaucer is an observer of the scene, who accurately records the

the appearance, the stories and the conversations of the company. He is not responsible for what is said, nor how it is expressed.

The People of the Middle Ages

• Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales depicts a 14th century England populated by peasants, tradesmen, knights, and clerics, most of whom appear to be healthy and well fed.

​

• Geoffrey Chaucer's pilgrims in his poem, The Canterbury Tales, were by no means unique. They represented the hundreds of thousands who traveled to the Cathedral to pray, repent or be healed at St. Thomas a Becket’s shrine. Art by William Blake, 1810

Characters on the journey

• Familiar and fairly popular journey
• People did combine with strangers into traveling companions for safety
• Highly unlikely that such a varied group as Chaucer describes would have existed
• Each character is described as a representative of his or her own social group, which covers the social spread of 14th-century England
• No representatives of either the aristocracy or the true peasantry, an unskilled land-worker

​

Chaucer’s innovation

• To use such a diverse group of narrators, whose stories are interlinked by characters talking with each other, revealing much about themselves

Characterization

• We will explore how Chaucer presents these characters through direct and indirect characterization
• Direct: author states character traits directly (“a nice guy”) NOT PHYSICAL TRAITS
• Indirect: What a character says or does, or what others say about him, indicates character (What does a nice guy DO?)

Purpose of prologue

• To build the “frame”
• To introduce the characters
• Remember, a group of very different folks are on this pilgrimage together
• Their personalities matter as the tales progress

Host

Harry Bailey

Suggests that they tell two tales going and two coming back.

30 x 4 = 120, but there are only 24 tales

The number of pilgrims is a problem. The narrator says there are “nine and twenty.” There are actually 30, not counting the narrator and the Host.

​

The Prologue-p.97