Yet somehow Chaucer manages to tie them all together in a loose (sometimes even messy) bundle. He does this by contrasting tone of voice, speaker’s attitude, and poetic style from tale to tale. We’re struck, for instance, by the sharp contrast between the noble and romantic tone of the Knight’s Tale and the bawdy parody of knightly language in the Miller’s Tale. Of course Chaucer intends this, just as he purposely opposes the characters of the Miller and the Knight (opposites in attitude as well as social standing). The Miller’s intent is to show up the Knight and go his tale one better, but in his own way, naturally.
So the way the tale’s characters speak to each other in the Miller’s Tale will have a bearing on the way we read the tale, whereas in the Wife of Bath’s Tale, say, the characters’ conversation isn’t nearly as important as the point of view that Dame Alice, our loud-mouthed narrator, practically beats over our heads. So, there’s a note after the Wife of Bath’s Tale that discusses her point of view and attitude as opposed to the Clerk, who tries to answer her back in a tale of his own.
^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: POINT OF VIEW
As you saw just now in the section on “Style,” the Wife of Bath’s point of view sneaked in, “style” and “point of view’ are closely related in the Canterbury Tales. But Chaucer the poet is lurking behind every pilgrim narrator, so that the narrator’s point of view isn’t the only one.
Chaucer is a remarkably clever writer. He knows exactly how to draw you into each tale so you can see the story, the person telling the story, and the point behind the story (often ironic) all at once. Often Chaucer the poet is making that last point behind the narrator’s back, or at the pilgrim’s expense, which is what creates the irony.
For example, in the Pardoner’s Tale the Pardoner, who is a hypocrite and a sleaze if ever there was one, goes on a moral rampage against drunkenness, lechery, and gluttony–the very sins he’s guilty of. Yet the intriguing thing about the tale is not only that you’re fascinated by someone so evil, but also that the Pardoner himself is completely unaware (or seems to be) that he’s talking about his own damnation. Chaucer is going beyond a potentially boring moralistic tale to show us a real human being, no matter how crass.
As you’ll also see, in the note at the end of the Knight’s Tale, for example, that point of view sometimes shifts within the tale. When the point of view changes from the Palamon to Arcite and back again, for instance, or from the knights to the arguing gods, decide why you think Chaucer is deliberately changing the scene. Often each point of view represents a different moral or philosophical outlook.
^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: FORM AND STRUCTURE
As with style, Chaucer uses the structure or poetic form of a tale to say something about the narrator or to make a point. The raunchy style of Miller’s Tale is inherent in the fabliau form, which is by definition a bawdy story. At other times Chaucer contrasts the style of the tale with its form, as in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue, which is set in the form of a sermon although her subject matter is hardly sermonlike. The same structural irony occurs in the Pardoner’s Tale, where his debauched personality is placed in opposition to his tale’s moral structure. Yet in other tales, such as the Nun’s Priest’s, the overall form of the story isn’t as important as its message.
^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: SOURCES
Sometimes Chaucer uses very specific sources for his tales, like the Knight’s Tale, and accordingly, notes on sources appear after the discussion of the tale. Others are based more vaguely on general sources like fairy tales (Wife of Bath) or the Bible (the old man in the Pardoner’s Tale, perhaps). Still others can’t blame their existence on anything but the wonderful genius of Geoffrey Chaucer. As you can tell from this wide a range, the sources for the tales vary greatly, and are sometimes impossible to pin down. But where sources are known, it’s interesting to see how Chaucer changed them around.
^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: LANGUAGE
Chaucer is probably the earliest English poet you’re likely to read. A first glance at the original Middle English of the Canterbury Tales, with all those strange-looking words, might be enough to tempt you to slam the book shut, either in disgust or in terror at having to learn it all. But take a closer look and examine some of the words. You’ll see that many aren’t any harder to understand than when some people, trying to be “olde”-fashioned, write shoppe instead of shop. (Chaucer’s English is in fact where this idea originated.)
Try to get a dual-language edition of the Canterbury Tales, in which the Middle English original is printed on one side of the page and modern English on the other. When you’ve gotten some practice reading the original words and checking against the modern English, you’ll find that the rhythm of Chaucer’s poetry gets easier to understand.
Why is it called “Middle English”? Simply because it’s at the midpoint between the ancient language spoken by the Anglo-Saxons of England and the English we speak today. In fact, you might feel grateful that you’re reading Chaucer instead of the poetry of some of his fellow fourteenth-century poets, because Chaucer’s dialect–the Middle English spoken in London–is the language that evolved into our English, while the dialects the other poets used died out. Imagine trying to read something written in a hillbilly drawl or in a Scottish brogue; standard English, even if it’s not what we speak all the time, is easier to read.
Even if Chaucer had never written a word, it makes sense that the speech of London, the hub of English society, should develop into the standard English that eventually came over on the Mayflower. But Chaucer gave a great boost to the prestige of English, as Shakespeare did later on. It’s partly because of Chaucer’s terrific (though unintentional) public relations job that the poet John Dryden, three hundred years later, called him “the father of English literature.”
There is a robust flavor to Chaucer’s language that we can’t get in a translation, no matter how good it is. You won’t be able to get the nuances of all the old words. But after a while you’ll almost be able to hear the pilgrims chatting away.
^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: THE TALES
GENERAL PROLOGUE: CHARACTERS AND THEMES
The opening of the General Prologue bursts with spring, with new life, and shows that Chaucer is both similar to and different from his poetic predecessors. He uses many images of spring that would be familiar to a medievel audience: the April showers (familiar to us too) “piercing” March’s dryness, the “licour” in each plant’s “vein,” the breezes “inspiring” the crops. It’s short, but enough of a description to give us a sense of waking up to new and exciting events. Even the birds sleep with “open eyes” because of the rising sap.
Then, instead of moving from the conventional spring setting to a description of courtly romantic or heroic deeds, as his audience might expect, he draws us into a very down-to-earth world. Spring isn’t romance; it’s the time of year “when people long to go on pilgrimages.” We can all identify with the feeling of “spring fever,” when we want to travel and shake off the winter doldrums.
What’s more, in case we or Chaucer’s listeners are expecting a conventional medieval description of moral allegorical types–Greed, Love, Fortune, etc.–or battles, we’re in for a shock. Other poets presented characters for moral purposes or to embody ideals such as courtly love. But Chaucer doesn’t deal in types, whether religious or courtly, but in portraits of real people. He even ignores the unwritten rule of the time that, if you’re describing someone, you start at the top, very orderly, and work down. Chaucer will start with someone’s beard, then hat, boots, tone of voice, and finally his political opinions! (That’s just a partial description of the Merchant.) He’s not reporting for a moral purpose, but out of love of life and the people around him.
Imagine that you’re minding your own business in a wayside tavern and in burst 29 people representing every facet of society. For Chaucer, that meant the nobility, embodied in the Knight and Squire; the church, in the form of the Prioress, Monk, and others; agriculture (the Plowman); and the emerging middle class (the Merchant, Franklin and tradesmen). Rather than shy away from this motley crew, Chaucer the narrator (who is not the same, remember, as Chaucer the poet) befriends and describes them, inserting his own opinions freely.
^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: PLOT
Duke Theseus of Athens wins the country of the Amazons and marries Queen Hippolyta, taking her and her beautiful sister Emelye back to Athens. To his amazement, he sees women wailing, but not because of his return. These women have lost their husbands during the siege of Thebes, and Thebes’ cruel tyrant Creon refuses to bury the bodies. Theseus immediately vows revenge and rides to Thebes, where he vanquishes Creon and returns their husbands’ bones to the women.