^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: SETTING
Of course the story is supposed to be taking place in ancient Greece, but that doesn’t stop Chaucer from giving one of the jousting knights a Prussian (German) shield, for example, or holding a joust (a medieval game) in the first place. But Chaucer obviously thinks people are people, whether they’re in ancient Greece or medieval England, and that’s the major difference between his rendition of Boccaccio’s tale and the original. For all the stylized descriptions and conventions, he’s giving us people with conflicts who are not perfect.
^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: THEMES
1. WHO ARE THE GODS?
Fortune, as we have seen, plays a large part in the tale. The gods act as agents of that fortune at the same time that they represent the order of God. (“Jupiter” is named as the First Mover, God, since after all this is supposed to be pre-Christian Greece.)
How, you might ask, can it be a poem about God’s plan if there are pagan gods running the show? Chaucer gets out of this potentially sticky problem brilliantly by subtly changing the gods to their respective planets. They still talk and act like gods, but the influence they exert is in the form of astrological influences, which many in Chaucer’s audience would accept. It’s not Saturn the cruel god who topples Arcite from his horse, it’s the influence of Saturn an evil planet. The gods/planets also embody abstract ideals, Venus representing both good and bad love, Diana showing cruel as well as proper chastity.
2. SOCIAL ORDER
An ordered society represented by ceremony and ritual is crucial to a smoothly running world. Theseus also shows this by conquering the Amazon society, run by women, and Creon, who is not ruled by reason. Another symbol of the importance of society is the stress on “compaignye,” which is the opposite of death where man is alone, as Arcite bewails in his dying speech. The marriage ending shows the ultimate victory of the social world over the solitary one.
3. VOWS
Arcite and Palamon break their vow of kinship and knighthood; they vow faithfulness to the gods of their choice; they vow undying love for Emelye. These promises made and broken show the conflict of ideals and the difficulty of keeping them, because of fortune’s turns and humanity’s nature. The only one who’s different is Theseus, who changes his mind only when he tempers his vows with mercy. You must look at the two knights’ vows and determine which ones are the most important to keep.
4. FORTUNE
The wheel of fortune image was very familiar to Chaucer’s audience. The wheel of fortune spins, making paupers kings, and vice versa, but behind it is the stable, unchanging providence of God, which we can’t see or understand. So there are two levels of understanding, one in which men blame fortune for their ever-changing lives, and a higher order where destiny is decreed. Arcite lives on the lower level and believes fortune rules everything, while Palamon accepts that whatever is ordained will happen.
^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: POINT OF VIEW
Chaucer brings us closer to the Knight’s Tale by occasionally switching into an “I” narration, such as when he describes the altars Theseus has built to Mars:
There saw I first the dark imagining
Of Felony, and all the compassing [planning]
(lines 1137-1138)
He also changes his point of view from telling of first one person, then another; from telling of human exploits to the arguments of the gods. This makes us feel like we ourselves are gods, able to see more than any individual character.
^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: FORM AND STRUCTURE
Some believe the Knight’s Tale is a pure romance, filled with knights and lovely ladies and battles for the sake of love. At several points it’s clear Chaucer is making fun of the courtly love conventions of the French romances, with the lovesick Arcite going “up and down” in his moods. Duke Theseus, too, treats the love battle like a game, making light of love and offering the joust as a solution.
Others think the tale, which Chaucer changed greatly from Boccaccio’s original, starts out as an epic before it becomes a conventional romance in its style. Another irony is that Theseus’ speech at the end, would not have appeared in a conventional romance tale.
^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: PLOT
The Miller’s Tale is not supposed to follow the Knight’s Tale, for the Monk, who is next to the Knight in the social order, should go next. But the drunken Miller cuts in, insisting that he will tell a tale first or else leave the group. The Reeve tells him to shut up, but the Miller insists.
A well-meaning but stupid carpenter named John has a lodger, a poor scholar named Nicholas. Nicholas buries himself in astrology books, likes to play music and mess around with women, and lives off his friends. John, meanwhile, has a young wife, only eighteen, named Alison, of whom he’s extremely jealous.
Not surprisingly, Nicholas starts to make a pass at Alison one day while John is away. She protests only a little before agreeing that if Nicholas can find a way to keep John from finding out, she’ll sleep with him. Don’t worry, says Nicholas, a clerk can surely fool a carpenter.
Meanwhile, a parish clerk named Absalom, who is as particular as Nicholas about his appearance and his appeal to women, sees Alison at church and decides to woo her. He sings under the bedroom window that night, waking up John in the bargain. He tries everything he can think of, but Alison is so infatuated with Nicholas that she pays no attention.
Nicholas comes up with a plan that will let him and Alison spend all night together. He stays in his room for days, until John gets worried and breaks down the door.
Nicholas warns him, in confidence, that he has seen a terrible omen in his astrology books. There will be a flood that will make Noah’s flood look like a drizzle. In order to be saved, Nicholas tells John that he must get three large tubs and hang them from the roof until the flood reaches that high; then they can cut the ropes and float away.
But you must not sleep with your wife that night, Nicholas warns, because there must be no sin between you.
Gullible John believes every word. On the appointed night he strings up the boats and falls asleep in one of them. Needless to say, Nicholas and Alison live it up.
But Absalom, having heard that John is out of town, hightails it to the house and stands under the window again, begging for a kiss. As a joke, Alison agrees, and under cover of night she sticks her rear end out the window for Absalom to kiss.
He gets furious and his love for Alison evaporates. He runs to a blacksmith and takes a hot iron back to the house, calling to Alison that he wants to give her a gold ring. This time Nicholas decides to put his rear end out the window to be kissed.
“Speak, dear,” says Absalom, since it’s too dark to see. Nicholas farts.
He gets a hot poker where it hurts, and shrieks, “Help! Water!” The cry wakes up John, who thinks the cry of “Water!” means the flood has begun. He cuts the rope and crashes to the ground, fainting and breaking his arm in the process. The tale ends with John the laughingstock of the town, Nicholas amply repaid for his deceit, and Alison having gotten the “plumbing” she desired.
NICHOLAS is the sliest character in Chaucerian literature. He is “hende,” a word that means “nice” and “pleasant,” but also carries hints of “sly” and “handy,” in other words, ready for action. He knows all about love, sexual pursuits, and astrology. He’s amazingly creative, devising a complicated scheme to sleep with Alison and to make John believe his wild story.
NOTE: Chaucer’s emphasis on the creativity of rogues in his tales is something brand new to the Middle Ages. Before this it was unheard of to grant anything like cunning to any evil character except the Devil himself.
Chaucer’s audience would recognize his name from plays about St. Nicholas, who is the mysterious guest at the home of evil hosts. Here, it’s the other way around.
ALISON is charming. Some think she’s not terribly bright, while others see Chaucer’s portrait of her as a wholehearted endorsement of youth. Her description is filled with animal and nature images: her body is graceful as a weasel’s, she’s softer than sheep’s wool, and better to look at than a pear tree. (Remember this image. In the Merchant’s Tale the pear tree becomes a symbol of adultery.) She’s skittish as a colt, and the apron around her loins is white as morning milk. That sounds sweet and pure, but her eyes are wanton under her plucked eyebrows. The Miller calls her by flowers’ names–a primrose and a “piggesnye,” which also means “pig’s eye.” So the suggestion of pastoral innocence is offset by a sense of natural instincts and unthinking passion.