Medieval and Renaissance English

LiteratureMiddle English Literature 2.:

ChaucerNatália Pikli, PhD

ELTE

14th century: ‘golden age’ and ‘troubles’

• William Langland, the Gawain/Pearl poet, Gower writing in 3 languages

• Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400): ‘synthesis’/’father of English literature’

• Life: ‘civil servant’, 3 kings, Italy/France: diplomat, writing: pastime, audiences: readers and/or listeners, writing in English! (London dialect), popularity: CT- 82 Mss in 15th century, first printed one in 1478

Chaucer’s Retraction at the end of The Canterbury Tales

• Now do I pray all those who hear this little treatise, or read it, that, if there be within it anything that pleases them, they thank Our Lord Jesus Christ, from Whom proceeds all understanding and all goodness. And if there be anything that displeases them, I pray them, also, that they impute it to the fault of my ignorance and not to my intention, which would fain have better said if I had had knowledge. For our Book says, All that is written is written for our instruction; and that was my intention. (cont.)

• Wherefore I meekly beseech you that, for the sake of God's mercy, you pray for me that Christ have mercy upon me and forgive me my trespasses and especially for my translations and the writing of worldly vanities, the which I withdraw in my retractations: as, The Book of Troilus; also The Book of Fame; The Book of the Nineteen Ladies; The Book of the Duchess; The Book of Saint Valentine's Day, Of the Parliament of Birds; The Tales of Canterbury, those that tend toward sin; The Book of the Lion; and many another book, were they in my remembrance; and many a song and many a lecherous lay,- as to which may Christ, of His great mercy, forgive me the sin.

• But for the translation of Boethius's de Consolatione, and other books of legends of saints, and homilies, and of morality and devotion- for those I thank Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Blessed Mother and all the saints of Heaven; beseeching them that they, henceforth unto my life's end, send me grace whereof to bewail my sins, and to study for the salvation of my soul:-

• and grant me the grace of true penitence, confession, and expiation in this present life; through the benign grace of Him Who is King of kings and Priest over all priests, Who redeemed us with the precious blood of His heart; so that I may be one of those, at the day of doom, that shall be saved: Qui cum patre, etc.

G. Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde, 1382-86/87

• Trojan war (medieval Troy books, Boccaccio) : Troilus, prince of Troy, C.= daughter of Calchas, a traitor, Pandarus

• unhappy love-adventure (‘aventure’) in 5 books, rhyme royal stanza form (5 feet, 7 lines, ababbcc)

• Tragedy: ‘endeth in wrecchidnesse’ (Boethius), betrayal of Criseyde, death of Troilus

• Pagan and Christian, Troy/14th c. England, Troilus – knight, boasting about being loveless – arrow of God of Love

• (Shakespeare!)

The War of Troy tapestry, late 15th c.(V&A Museum) identificaton/noble ancestry

The Canterbury Tales

• 1387-1400• 82 MSs, 10 fragments (Skeat, 1894, Oxford), one of the

first books printed by Caxton, Hengwrt and Ellesmere MSs (prob.later and edited)

• frame narrative: – 30 pilgrims (29+’Chaucer’), Tabard Inn/Southwark/London →

Canterbury Cathedral (shrine of Thomas Becket) (→ Tabard Inn/London)

– 2x2 tales by each pilgrim: a contest (free dinner, Host) → 24 tales by 21 pilgrims

Collection: different styles and genres (miracle, exemplum, sermon, fabliau, beast fable, romance, lay, etc.) cf. Boccaccio: Decameron

CONTEXT: general prologue + interaction + character’s prologue + character’s tale

The General Prologue (written later!)

• spring/pilgrimage/rebirth• frame narrative + introduction of characters:

‘naive’ narrator – irony!• three estates (military – clergy – laity) ‘big

picture of middle layers’ vs company of pilgrims (‘pane’, levelling )

• characters: ‘estate types’, inner=outer• Chaucer’s opinion: against dissemblers/cheaters

(Miller, Pardoner, Summoner, Reeve, Monk, etc.), preferring simple and honest people (Parson, Knight)

Ellesmere Manuscript, The Wife of Bath

Wife-beating in The Roman of the Rose vs ‘marital bliss’ (Bible of Manerius, Bibliothèque St. Geneviève, Paris)

The Wife of Bath

• General Prologue: ‘The remedies of love she knew, perchance, / For of that art she'd learned the old, old dance.’ (type: ‘Old Bawd’, Nurse in RJ)

• WoB’s Prologue: her life story (husbands: 3+1+Jankyn) + mock-sermon: against virginity APOLOGIA

• Her tale: quasi-Arthurian romance – knight, riddle/quest, hag: solution and challenge (‘true gentilesse’) and miracle (of love?) + lesson learned

• Folktale motif: ‘the loathly lady’, Biblical stereotypes: Mary vs Eve

• Kittredge: ‘the marriage group’ – see handout or the article at luminarium.org

The Pardoner

• General Prologue: golden locks, „gelding or a mare”, shiny eyes as a hare, voice of a goat, pigs’ bones for relics, „wel koude he rede a lessoun or a storie”

• ‘private businessman/conman employed by the church’

The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale and the Seven Deadly Sins

• APOLOGIA (‘Fals-Semblant’) and sermon• Avarice, Sloth, Gluttony, Lechery, Wrath, Envy, Pride• Pardoner vs Host (‘tavern sins’)• TALE: EXEMPLUM – ‘Radix malorum est cupiditas’

– 3 rioters/thieves in a tavern, Black Death, ‘mission’: kill the greatest thief, Death

– Old Man (moral allegory Old Age vs Youth, or Wandering Jew), gold under a tree

– tricking each other: ‘the punishment of avarice is death’

– travelling motifEND: conflict of the Pardoner and the Host –

relics/testicles/kiss – Knight ‘peacemaker’

• The Miller’s Tale: 2nd after the Knight’s Tale – a rough and rude comic tale by a drunken MillerCarpenter John, Alisoun, ‘hende’ Nicholas, Absolon the parish clerk (sex, ‘Flood’, cuckoldry, scatological jokes: naked arses)

• The Nun’s Priest’s Tale: beast fable / mock-heroic, Pride – Chanticleer and Pertelote, the fox Russel: full of theological-philosophical debates on dreams, medicine, etc. Chanticleer:’knight’ vs poor old widow

• WEBPAGES: www.luminarium.org ; www.canterburytales.org ; eChaucer