UNIT 2
Topic:
The Medieval Period: Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
I. Objectives
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:
Identify the dominant literary forms of Medieval Literature
Discuss the emerging themes in Canterbury Tales
Define the following terms:
Medieval Literature
Vernacular Literature
Geoffrey Chaucer
Canterbury Tales
Poetry
Drama
Histories
Fables
Medieval Literature - Medieval, “belonging to the Middle Ages,” is used here to
refer to the literature of Europe and the eastern Mediterranean from as early as the
establishment of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire about AD 300 for
medieval Greek, from the period following upon the fall of Rome in 476 for medieval
Latin, and from about the time of Charlemagne and the Carolingian Renaissance he
fostered in France (c. 800) to the end of the 15th century for most written
vernacular literatures.
Vernacular Literature - Vernacular literature is literature written in the vernacular
—the speech of the "common people"
Geoffrey Chaucer - English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the unfinished work, 'The
Canterbury Tales.' It is considered one of the greatest poetic works in English.
Canterbury Tales - The Canterbury Tales is a frame narrative, or a story told
around another story or stories. The frame of the story opens with a gathering of
people at the Tabard Inn in London who are preparing for their journey to the
shrine of St. Becket in Canterbury.
Poetry - Poetry is a type of literature based on the interplay of words and rhythm. It
often employs rhyme and meter (a set of rules governing the number and
arrangement of syllables in each line). In poetry, words are strung together to form
sounds, images, and ideas that might be too complex or abstract to describe directly.
Drama - Drama in literature refers to the performance of written dialogue and stage
action. It’s a literary genre that allows actors to act out a writer’s words directly to
an audience.
Histories - a continuous, systematic narrative of past events as relating to a
particular people, country, period, person, etc., usually written as a chronological
account; chronicle:
Fables - In literature, a fable (pronounced fey-buh l) is a short fictional story that
has a moral or teaches a lesson. Fables use humanized animals, objects, or parts of
nature as main characters, and are therefore considered to be a sub-genre of
fantasy.
A. Literary Forms in Medieval Literature
a. Medieval literature is defined broadly as any work written in Latin or the
vernacular between c. 476-1500 CE, including philosophy, religious treatises,
legal texts, as well as works of the imagination.
b. More narrowly, however, the term applies to literary works of poetry, drama,
romance, epic prose, and histories written in the vernacular (though some
histories were in Latin).
c. Literary works were originally composed in Latin, but poets began writing in
vernacular (the common language of the people) as early at the 7th century
CE.
d. Vernacular literature was further popularized in Britain in the Kingdom of
Wessex by Alfred the Great (r. 871-899 CE) in an attempt to encourage
widespread literacy, and other nations then followed suit.
e. Early written medieval literature is mostly legend or folktale set down on a
page rather than recited but the storyteller still needed to gather and hold an
audience and so wrote in the vernacular to be understood and in poetic
meter to be remembered.
f. Poetry, with its regular cadence, sticks in the mind far better than prose.
g. Poetry would remain the preferred medium for artistic expression
throughout most of the Middle Ages. Latin prose, except in some outstanding
cases, was reserved for religious and scholarly audiences. For entertainment
and escape from one's daily life, people listened to a storyteller read from a
good book of verse.
h. Lyric poetry, ballads, and hymns were poetry, of course, but the great
chivalric romances of courtly love and the high medieval dream vision genres
were also written in verse as were epics, and the French and Breton lais
(short-story poems).
i. Drama in the Middle Ages was essentially a teaching tool of the Church.
j. Morality plays, mystery plays, and liturgical plays all instructed an illiterate
audience in acceptable thought and behavior.
k. Passion plays, reenacting the suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, were popular Easter entertainments but morality plays were
presented year-round.
l. Histories in the Early Middle Ages (476-1000 CE) frequently rely on fable
and myth to round out and develop their stories.
m. Fables almost always featured anthropomorphized animals as characters in
relaying some moral lesson, satirizing some aspect of humanity, or
encouraging a standard of behavior.
B. Geoffrey Chaucer
a. Chaucer was the first great poet writing in English, whose best-known work
is 'The Canterbury Tales'.
b. Geoffrey Chaucer was born between 1340 and 1345, probably in London. His
father was a prosperous wine merchant.
c. In 1357, he was a page to Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, wife of Edward III's
third son.
d. Chaucer was captured by the French during the Brittany expedition of 1359,
but was ransomed by the king.
e. Edward III later sent him on diplomatic missions to France, Genoa and
Florence. His travels exposed him to the work of authors such as Dante,
Boccaccio and Froissart.
f. Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet, a lady-in-waiting in the
queen's household. They are thought to have had three or four children.
Philippa's sister, Katherine Swynford, later became the third wife of John of
Gaunt, the king's fourth son and Chaucer's patron.
g. In 1374, Chaucer was appointed comptroller of the lucrative London
customs.
h. In 1386, he was elected member of parliament for Kent, and he also served as
a justice of the peace.
i. In 1389, he was made clerk of the king's works, overseeing royal building
projects. He held a number of other royal posts, serving both Edward III and
his successor Richard II.
j. Chaucer's first major work was 'The Book of the Duchess', an elegy for the
first wife of his patron John of Gaunt. Other works include 'Parlement of
Foules', 'The Legend of Good Women' and 'Troilus and Criseyde'.
k. In 1387, he began his most famous work, 'The Canterbury Tales', in which a
diverse group of people recount stories to pass the time on a pilgrimage to
Canterbury.
l. Chaucer disappears from the historical record in 1400, and is thought to have
died soon after. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
C. Emerging Themes/Concepts in Canterbury Tales
a. Social Satire
i. Medieval society was divided into three estates: the Church (those
who prayed), the Nobility (those who fought), and the Peasantry
(those who worked).
ii. The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is an estates satire. In
the Host’s portraits of the pilgrims, he sets out the functions of each
estate and satirizes how members of the estates – particularly those of
the Church – fail to meet their duties.
iii. By the late fourteenth century, the rigid organization of these three
estates had begun to break down. A merchant class had begun to rise
and was quickly gaining money and power throughout secular society.
iv. An intellectual class was also rising – people trained in literature but,
unlike monks, not destined for church life. As the son of wine
merchants and clerk to the king, Chaucer belonged to both of these
new suborders of society.
v. Chaucer puts all of society on parade, and no one escapes his
skewering.
vi. The social satire that the Host sets up in the General Prologue
continues throughout the tales that the pilgrims tell.
vii. The Nun’s Priest’s tale satirizes courtly love by putting chivalry in
the setting of a barnyard. Supposedly pious religious figures are
shown to be corrupt and greedy just underneath the surface.
viii. In her Prologue, the Wife of Bath presents a parody of religious logic,
giving her own readings of Scripture to back up her view that
experience is the only authority.
ASSIGNMENT: 1/3/2022
1. Summary of the Wife of Bath’s Tale
2. Summary of the Knight’s Tale
3. Summary of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale
