WHAT DOES HE MEAN?

Chaucer’s Sardonic Wit

THE KNIGHT

“Speaking of his equipment, he possessed

Fine horses, but he was not gaily dressed.

He wore a fustian tunic stained and dark

With smudges where his armor had left mark;”

(lines 75-78)

THE PRIORESS: �MADAME EGLANTYNE

• A prioress was a nun in charge of a convent
• During the Middle Ages, families of substance placed their young, unbetrothed daughters in nunneries to provide them with a secure and gracious way of living
• Nuns: forbidden to leave their cloisters or go on pilgrimages, pets forbidden, interest in fashion frowned upon, by bishop’s orders forehead covered by wimple (veil), only beads worn were to be the rosary

THE NUN, A PRIORESS

“And well she sang a service, with a fine

Intoning through her nose”

(lines 126-127)

THE NUN, A PRIORESS

“And she spoke daintily in French, extremely,

After the school of Stratford-at-Bowe;

French in the Paris style she did not know.”

(lines 128-130)

THE NUN, A PRIORESS

“Pleasant and friendly in her ways, and straining

To counterfeit a courtly kind of grace,”

(lines 142-143)

THE NUN, A PRIORESS

“Her mouth was very small, but soft and red,

Her forehead, certainly, was fair of spread,

Almost a span across the brows, I own;

She was indeed by no means undergrown.”

(lines 157-160)

THE NUN, A PRIORESS

“And she had little dogs” (ln. 150)

“She wore a coral trinket on her arm,

A set of beads, the gaudies tricked in green,

Whence hung a golden brooch of brightest sheen

On which there first was graven a crowned A,

And lower, Amore vincit omnia.”

(lines 162-166)

THREE VOWS

• Members of the clergy took three vows: poverty, that they would give up all the worldly goods and pleasures; obedience, that they would obey the rules laid down by the order’s founders; and chastity, that they would not allow the love of a woman to distract from the love of God

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THE MONK

• A monk divorced himself from the world around him, entering a religious order to spend his life worshipping God
• Chaucer’s monk is a member of the Benedictine order, founded by St. Benedict, who shocked by the worldliness of Rome, became a hermit
• According to his rule, his monks were to do whatever physical work was required to keep them alive and spend the rest of their time in the worship of God and the study and copying of religious writings

THE MONK

“hunting was his sport.

A manly man,…;

Many a dainty horse he had in stable.”

(lines 170-172)

THE MONK

“The Rule of good St. Benet or St. Maur

As old and strict he tended to ignore;

He let go by the things of yesterday

And took the modern world’s more spacious way.”

(lines 177-180)

THE FRIAR, HUBERT

“Highly beloved and intimate was he

With County folk within his boundary,

And city dames of honor and possessions;”

(lines 219-221)

​

“He was an easy man in penance-giving

Where he could hope to make a decent living;”

(lines 227-228)

THE FRIAR, HUBERT

“He knew the taverns well in every town

And every innkeeper and barmaid too

Better than lepers, beggars and that crew,

For in so eminent a man as he

It was not fitting with the dignity

Of his position, dealing with a scum

Of wretched lepers; nothing good can come

Of dealings with the slum-and-gutter dwellers,

But only with the rich and victual-sellers.”

(lines 244-252)

THE FRIAR, HUBERT

“He kept his tippet stuffed with pins for curls,

And pocket-knives, to give to pretty girls.”

(lines 237-238)

​

“He’d fixed up many a marriage, giving each

Of his young women what he could afford her.

He was a noble pillar to his Order.”

(lines 216-218)

THE PARSON

• Lines 487-538, p. 109

THE WIFE OF BATH

• Lines 455-486, p. 108
• “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” p. 139