Canterbury Tales

Set of narratives set in a pilgrimage and game-contest frame. For individual Canterbury Tales, reading over the short introductions included in The Riverside Chaucer on reserve can be helpful; our assignment sheet includes references to the specific page numbers in supplementary reading suggestions. You also can visit webpages on individual tales and other topics at the Harvard Chaucer website.

Tale Genre Characters Themes
Knight's Tale Chivalric romance Theseus, Palamon and Arcite, Emelye. Gods: Venus, Mars, Diana, Saturn. Order and disorder, Boethian perspectives (types of prison & the "fair chain of Love"), Reason and Passion.
Prologue to Miller's Tale Headlink to CT Miller, the Host, Chaucer the Poet Tale quiting, literary art and impersonation.
Miller's Tale Fabliau Hende (gracious, clever, nearby) Nicolas, John the Carpenter, Absolon (second clerk wooer), Alisoun Cleverness, secular love, Carnivalesque fun, comic justice, artistic play and elaboration with genre.
Prologue to Reeve's Tale Headlink to CT Miller, Host, and Reeve Tale quiting, vengefulness.
Reeve's Tale Fabliau Two Northern-speaking clerks, a miller and his family Cleverness and revenge, retributive justice, plainer development of fabliau genre.
Wife of Bath's Prologue Literary confession Alison of Bath, Sts. Jerome and Paul in their writings on women and sex, three old husbands, two young clerk husbands Experience and authority, anti-feminist writing and Alison's arguing, representative characterization
Wife of Bath's Tale Breton Lai Knight, Loathly Lady. Female desire, "gentilesse." Control in marriage ("maistrie").
Prologue to Clerk's Tale Headlink or prologue The Host, the Clerk. Literary uses and styles, the story-telling game.
Clerk's Tale Tale of virutous woman; exemplum Patient Griselda and Walter, his subjects. Right government and negotiation, the virtue of patience, maistrie and the Clerk's reading (CTs 166:1142 ff), allegorical interpretation.
Franklin's Tale Breton Lai Dorigen and Averagus, Aurelius (the squire), the Clerk of Orleans Trawthe, courtesy, literary interpretation (demande d'amour: "most free?")
Prologue to Pardoner's Tale Literary confession Pardoner Teller and tale, avarice, intention and performance.
Pardoner's Tale Exemplum Three rioters, Old Man. Greed and sin, artistic design.
Nun's Priest's Tale Beast fable Chaunticleer and Pertelote. Dreams and their significance, reason and passion, allegorical interpretation.
Chaucer the Pilgrim: Persona of the enthusiastic, sometimes uncritical observer who describes the Canterbury pilgrims in The General Prologue, which E. Talbot Donaldson (Kolve 489 bottom) and other critics distinguish from Chaucer the Poet, the sophisticated maker artfully assembling The Canterbury Tales and playing with the audience in some of the tales' prologues.

Portraits: Presentations of individual pilgrims in The General Prologue that artfully mix type and individuality. Estates satire is an important source of some of these details, but the nonjudgmental or even praising pose of Chaucer the Pilgrim complicates our response to them (Norton Anthology 214 bottom-15). The dramatic critical approach associates these characterizations with the tales told by pilgrims. The Ellesmere Manuscript illuminator includes pictures of narrators with traits from the General Prologue at the start of each tale.

Dramatic Principle: Critical theory that tales are presented as performance by the pilgrims so that teller-tale relation is an important perspective. Headlinks and endlinks include dramatic development of the pilgrims. Strongest statement by George Lyman Kittredge (CTs 522).

Juxtaposition: Purposeful placement of tales and pilgrim portraits next to one another to compliment and develop themes and styles.

Tale Quiting: ME quite 'to match or revenge' expresses an important structural device of The Canterbury Tales. The tale-matching competion establishes frames of connections between tales and creates clashes between different perspectives. Some important matches are Knight and Miller, Miller and Reeve, Wife of Bath and Clerk.

Marriage Group: Unit of tales discussing control or "maistrie" in marraige. Proposed by Kittredge as a structural unit composed of tales of Wife of Bath, Clerk, Merchant, and Franklin (CTs 523)

Carnivalesque play: Sense of special social order inversion and play allowed by the story-telling game of the Tales and the role of the Host as "governor."

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