CHAUCER’s Parson’s Tale is the final section of The
Canterbury Tales, as they are arranged in the two
earliest and most important manuscripts of the
Tales, the HENGWRT and the ELLESMERE manuscripts. The “tale” is a lengthy prose treatise on
penance, including a sermon on the Seven Deadly
Sins, and is not entirely in keeping with the pilgrim
Parson’s promise in the prologue to the tale to tell
a “merry tale in prose” that will “knit up” the taletelling contest that provides the overall structure of
Chaucer’s text. This discrepancy has led some
readers to speculate that Chaucer did not intend
The Parson’s Tale as the conclusion of The Canterbury Tales, but regarded it as a separate text altogether. Others have argued that the tale is perfectly
appropriate and provides an effective ending for
Chaucer’s tales: The Parson sees the earthly pilgrimage to Canterbury as a figure of the ultimate
pilgrimage to the heavenly Jerusalem, and for him
the sacrament of penance is necessary before it is
possible to enter the heavenly city.
The speaker begins the tale by defining penance
and discussing types of contrition. He talks about
the difference between venial and deadly sins. Then
in part 2 of the tale, the speaker deals with three parts
of penance. First, and at greatest length, he considers the recognition of sin, discoursing on the seven
deadly sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy,
and pride), and details different varieties of each
major sin, as well as the remedies for these sins, such
as humility for pride or chastity for lust. The second
part of penance is confession, and the speaker describes how to make a full and true confession. Finally he discusses satisfaction. The tale ends as the
speaker invites all those who seek the heavenly
Jerusalem to repent, confess their sins, and make appropriate satisfaction for them. In the end it appears
that Chaucer himself seems to have responded to the
call for repentance, as the tale, and the Canterbury
Tales as a whole, ends with a “Retraction” in
Chaucer’s own voice, in which the writer expresses
his repentance for writing many of his greatest
works, including The Canterbury Tales themselves.
The Parson’s Tale seems to use a number of
sources, including mainly 13th-century Latin and
French treatises on penance and on the seven
deadly sins. Critical commentary on the tale has
focused on its relationship with the rest of the
tales, and with the question of how it contributes
to the unity of the Canterbury Tales text, with most
critics seeing the moral view of The Parson’s Tale
providing a comment on the world and values of
the pilgrim narrators. Critics who have discussed
the “Retraction” have seen it as either the narrator’s
response to the Parson’s sermon, or as Chaucer’s
participating in a literary convention that gives
him a chance to list the works for which he wants
to be remembered.
Bibliography
Baldwin, Ralph. The Unity of the Canterbury Tales.
Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1955.
Benson, Larry, et al. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
Little, Katherine. “Chaucer’s Parson and the Specter
of Wycliffism,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 23
(2001): 225–253.
McGerr, Rosemarie P. “Retraction and Memory: Retrospective Structure in the Canterbury Tales,”
Comparative Literature 37 (1985): 97–113.
Owen, Charles A., Jr. “What the Manuscripts Tell Us
about the Parson’s Tale,” Medium Aevum 63
(1994): 239–249.
Patterson, Lee. “The ‘Parson’s Tale’ and the Quitting
of the Canterbury Tales,” Traditio 34 (1978):
331–368.
Wenzel, Siegfried. “The Source of Chaucer’s Seven
Deadly Sins,” Traditio 30 (1974): 351–378.
———. “Notes on the Parson’s Tale,” Chaucer Review
16 (1982): 237–256.