Download The Canterbury Tales (1387

The Canterbury Tales
(1387-1400)
by Geoffrey Chaucer
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Introduction of Geoffrey Chaucer
Introduction of the Canterbury Tales
Analysis of this work
Contribution by the author
GEOFFERY CHAUCER
Geoffrey Chaucer
(1340?-1400)
• An English author, poet,
philosopher, bureaucrat,
courtier and diploma
• One of the greatest narrative
poet of English
• Father of the English poetry,
who made a crucial contribution
to English literature in using
English at a time when much
court poetry was still written in
Anglo-Norman or Latin.
Course of Chaucer’s Life
• In 1357, he served as a page
to Elizabeth, Countess of
Ulster, from which he learned
the ways of court and the
use of arms.
• In 1359–1360 he was with the
army of Edward III in France,
where he was captured by
the French but ransomed.
• In 1373 Chaucer traveled to
Picardy as part of a military
expedition, and visited
Genoa and Florence.
• In 1378, Richard II sent Chaucer as
an envoy dispatch to the Visconti
and to Sir John Hawkwood, English
condottiere in Milan.
• From 1374 on he held a number of
official positions, among them
comptroller of customs on furs,
skins, and hides for the port of
London (1374–1386) and clerk of the
king's works (1389–1391).
• Chaucer dead on Oct. 25, 1400. He
was buried in Westminster Abbey
(an honor for a commoner), in what
has since become the Poets' Corner.
• The first period includes his
early work (to 1370), which is
based largely on French
models.
• The second period (up to
c.1387) is called his Italian
period.
• The final period, in which he
achieved his fullest artistic
power, belongs his
masterpiece, The Canterbury
Tales (written mostly after
1387).
His Works
The Canterbury Tales 《坎特伯雷故事集》
Book of the Duchess 《公爵夫人之书》
The House of Fame 《声誉之宫》
The Parliament of Fowles 《百鸟会议》
The Legend of Good Women 《贤妇传说》
Troilus and Criseyde 《特洛伊罗斯与克丽西达》
The Canterbury Tales
-----one of the most famous works in all literature----
General Prologue(总序)Ⅰ
----outline of the story
• on a spring evening, the poet drops in the Tabard Inn
（塔巴尔德旅店）, where he meets 29 other pilgrims
（香客） all ready for a journey of 60 miles to
Canterbury.
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Because of the long and tedious（乏味单调的）
journey, the host of the Inn suggests that they should
color the journey by telling stories. And the best storyteller should be treated with a fine meal at the cost of all
the rest.
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The pilgrims are 30 in all including the poet.
Therefore according to the plan, there should have been
120 stories altogether. But only 24 tales were written due
to the author’s death in 1400.
General Prologue(总序)Ⅱ
However, incomplete as these stories are,
they cover practically the whole major literary
genres（文学体裁） in medieval Europe（中世
纪欧洲）,such as:
chivalric（骑士风格）,
folk tales（民间故事）,
legends,
legendary epic sagas（传奇英雄史诗）,
beast fables（动物寓言）,
mythology（神话）,
moral allegories（伦理故事）, etc.
Function of General Prologue
1. Present a vivid collection of character sketches.
2. Reveal the author’ s intention in bringing
together a great variety of people and narrative
material together.
3. Set the tone for the story-telling:
• grateful acceptance of life;
• make clear the plan for the tales;
• motivate the telling of several tales ;
• introduce the pilgrims , the time and occasion
of the pilgrimage（朝圣）.
Features of “The Canterbury Tales”
It covers a wide range of characters from
top to bottom in the England of that time.
For example:
The gentle class:
The burgher（市民、公民） class:
•knight
•squire（侍从）
•monk
•prioress（女修道院院长）
•franklins（地主、乡绅）
•merchant
•haberdasher（杂货商人）
•carpenter
•weaver（纺织工）
•tapestry-maker（花毯纺织工）
.
Analysis of This Work
• Sources
• Genre and structure
• Style Historical context and themes
Religion
Social class and convention
• Stage and film adaptations
• Influence
Sources
No other work prior to Chaucer's
is known to have set a collection
of tales within the framework of
pilgrims on a
pilgrimage.However,Chaucer
borrowed portions of his stories
from earlier stories and that his
work was influenced by the
general state of the literary world
in which he lived. Storytelling was
the main entertainment in England
at the time, and storytelling
contests had been around for
hundreds of years. The winner
received a crown and, as with the
winner of the Canterbury Tales, a
free dinner.
Genre and Structure
• Canterbury Tales falls into the same category or genre
as many other works of its day as a collection of stories
organized into a frame narrative or frame tale. Chaucer's
Tales differed from other stories in this genre chiefly in its
intense variation. Most story collections focused on a
theme, usually a religious one. Even in the Decameron,
storytellers are encouraged to stick to the theme decided
on for the day. The idea of a pilgrimage appears to have
been a useful device to get such a diverse collection of
people together for literary purposes, and was also
unprecedented.
Style: Historical context and themes
• The time of the writing of The Canterbury
Tales was a turbulent time in English
history. The Catholic Church was in the
midst of the Great Schism and, though it
was still the only Christian authority in
Europe, was the subject of heavy
controversy. An early English religious
movement led by John, is mentioned in
the Tales, as is a specific incident
involving pardoners (who gathered money
in exchange for absolution from sin) who
claimed to be collecting for hospital in
England. The Canterbury Tales is among
the first English literary works to mention
paper, a relatively new invention which
allowed dissemination of the written word
never before seen in England.
Style: Religion
• The Tales reflect all kinds of religious
world of Chaucer's time. After the Black
Death, many Europeans had begun to
question the authority of the Catholic
Church in various ways. Some chose less
extreme paths, starting new monastic
orders or smaller movements exposing
church corruption in the behavior of the
clergy, false church relics or sale of
indulgences (payment for forgiveness of
sins).Several characters in the Tales are
religious figures, and the very nature of the
pilgrimage to Canterbury is deeply
religious, making this a outstanding theme
of the work.
Style: Social class and convention
• The Tales constantly reflect the conflict between
classes. Most of the tales are interlinked by common
themes, and some "quit" (reply to or retaliate against)
other tales. Convention is followed when the Knight
begins the game with a tale, as he represents the
highest social class in the group. But when he is
followed by the Miller, who represents a lower class, it
sets the stage for the Tales to reflect both a respect for
and a disregard for upper class rules.
Stage and film adaptations
• A Canterbury Tale, a 1944 film jointly written and directed
by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is loosely
based on the narrative frame of Chaucer's tales. The
movie opens with a group of medieval pilgrims journeying
through the Kentish countryside as a narrator speaks the
opening lines of the General Prologue.
The social significance
•
Chaucer gives us a true-to-life picture of
the society of his time. He affirms man and
opposes the dogma of asceticism（教条禁
欲主义） preached（讲道） by the church.
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As a forerunner of humanism, he
praises man’s energy, intellect, wit and
love of life. His tales expose and satirize
the evils of his time.
Contribution by the author
Chaucer’s poetry is plainly
narrative . Everything is based
on reality .Chaucer’s
language ,now called Middle
English ,is vivid and exact . He
is a master of word –pictures.
His verse is among the
smoothest in English . Hardly a
single word will offer difficulties
to a man of sufficient reading in
modern English . Repetition
with variation is redundant .
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Chaucer’s contribution
to English poetry lies
chiefly to the fact that
he introduced from
France the rhymed（押
韵的） stanzas（诗节、
段） of various types,
especially the rhymed
couplet（对句） of
iambic pentameter（五
步格诗） (to be called
later the “heroic
couplet”) to English
poetry , instead of the
old Anglo-Saxon
alliterative verse（押头
韵诗）.
• He is the first great poet
who wrote in current
English language .
Chaucer did much in
making the dialect of
London the foundation for
modern English speech.
His various writing style
reflected the life of different
social classes . He create
the realism tradition of
English literature ,which
influenced Shakespeare
and Dickens a lot.