1、The Canterbury tales Geoffrey Chaucer Contributions Father of English poetry Chaucer, for the first time in English literature, presented to us a comprehensive realistic picture of the English society of his time and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life in his masterpie
2、ce The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer develops characterization to a higher artistic level, i.e. characters who are morally and socially typical but exquisitely individual and realistic in detail. Chaucer introduced from France the rhymed stanzas of various types to English poetry to replace the Old Engl
3、ish alliterative verse. Chaucer used for the first time in English the rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter which is to be called later as the heroic couplet . Chaucer greatly increased the prestige of English as a literary language and extended the range of its poetic vocabulary and meters. He is co
4、nsidered as a great master of the English language. Chaucers contributions to English language Chaucers language, now called Middle English, is vivid and exact. His verse is smooth. He introduced from France the rhymed stanzas of various types, especially the rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter whic
5、h was later called the “heroic couplet” to English poetry. Though drawing influence from French, Italian and Latin models, he is the first great poet who wrote in the English language. His production of so much excellent poetry was an important factor in establishing English as the literary language
6、 of the country. The spoken English of the time consisted of several dialects, and Chaucer did much in making the dialect of London the standard for the modern English speech. The Canterbury Tales 介绍 The Canterbury Tales is a book of stories. This is an important book, because it is one of the first
7、 to be written in the English language. The book is about a group of travelers who are going from London to Canterbury. As they travel along, each person tells a tale (a story). This is why the book is called The Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury Tales, begun in about 1386, consists of stories told b
8、y some of the thirty pilgrims who set off from the Tabard Inn in Southwark, London, to visit the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury murdered in his own cathedral in 1170. The aim was to tell four stories each: two on the way, two on the way back. The teller of the best story
9、 would be given a free dinner by the cheerful host of the Tabard. In fact, the collection is incomplete and only 24 stories are told. Two of the stories are written in prose and the others are written in verse. It opens with a general prologue where we are told of a company of pilgrims that gathered
10、 at Tabard Inn in Southwark, a suburb of London. They are on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. They set out together with the “jolly innkeeper,” Harry Baily, who becomes their “governor” and proposes that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two m
11、ore on the way back. The pilgrims being 31 in all the total number of tales, according to Chaucers plan, was to exceed that of Baccaccios Decameron. These pilgrims include a Knight, his son the Squire, the Knights Yeoman, a Prioress, a Second Nun, a Monk, a Friar, a Merchant, a Clerk, a Man of Law,
12、a Franklin, a Weaver, a Dyer, a Carpenter, a Tapestry-Maker, a Haberdasher, a Cook, a Shipman, a Physician, a Parson, a Miller, a Manciple, a Reeve, a Summoner, a Pardoner, the Wife of Bath, and Chaucer himself. Theme Influenced by the early Italian Renaissance, Chaucer affirmed mans right to pursue
13、 earthly happiness and opposed asceticism, praised mans energy, intellect, and love of life. Meanwhile, he also exposed and satirized the social evils, esp. the religious abuses. Style lively and vivid Middle-Age English satiric and humorous heroic couplet of unequal merits Characterization - vivid
14、portrayal of individualized characters of the society and of all professions and social strata except the highest and the lowest shows respect for the two landed gentry, the plowman and the parson; satirized all the religious people except the parson; shows a growing sense of self-importance of the
15、trades and towns people, reflecting the changing social status, esp. in towns and cities. General Prologue: The General Prologue is the key to The Canterbury tales that narrates about the gathering of a group of people in an inn that intend to go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury (England) next morning.
16、 In the General Prologue, the narrator of The Canterbury Tales, who is one of the intended pilgrims, provides more or less accurate depictions of the members of the group and describes why and how The Canterbury Tales is told. If we trust the General Prologue, Chaucer determined that each pilgrim sh
17、ould tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back. The host of the inn offers to be and is appointed as judge of the tales as they are told and is supposed to determine the best hence winning tale. As mentioned before, The Canterbury Tales was never finished. The Prologue pr
18、ovides a framework for the tales. It contains a group of vivid sketches of typical medieval figures. All classes of the English feudal society, except the royalty and the poorest peasant, are represented by these thirty pilgrims. Every figure is drawn with the accuracy of a portrait. It is no exagge
19、ration to say that the Prologue supplies a miniature of the English society of Chaucers time. Looking at his word- pictures, we know at once how people lived in that era. That is why Chaucer has been called “the founder of English realism.” Summary of The General Prologue On April 17th toward the en
20、d of the fourteenth century nine and twenty pilgrims gather in the Tabard Inn in Southwark, just across the river from London, at the beginning of the road to Canterbury. Geoffrey Chaucer talks to each one and joins their company for a pilgrimage to Canterbury to seek “the blissful martyr,“ Thomas B
21、ecket. Harry Bailey, the host of the Tabard, decides to join them and act as their leader; each pilgrim will tell four stories - two each on the way there, two each on the way back. The pilgrim who tells the best tale - with the “best sentence and most solaas“ will have a dinner at the others cost w
22、hen the company returns to the Tabard. The pilgrims agree and the next morning they set out, stopping at the Watering of St. Thomas, just out of town, where they reconfirm their decision and, at Harrys direction, draw straws to see who will tell the first tale. Strangely, the lot fell to the knight
23、and he tells the first story. Introduction to the pilgrims The knight: perfect and gentle man who loved truth, freedom, chivalry and honor. The most socially prominent person on the journey; the battles he fought were all religious wars of some nature. The Squire: a candidate for knighthood; a lover
24、 who can sing lusty songs, compose melodies, poetry Yeoman: dressed in green; an expert woodsman, an excellent shot with the bow/ arrow. Prioress: Madame Eglantine; a gentle lady; well-educated though her French wasnt accepted Parisian French. Coy and delicate; table manner; More a woman than a nun!
25、 Without vocation but with the dogs and jewelry that satirical literature always condemns nuns for. Associates of the Prioress: 3 priests and another nun Pilgrims Image Gallery Four main qualities of the Knight. The first is the Knights love of ideals“chivalrie” (prowess), “trouthe” (fidelity), “hon
26、our” (reputation), “fredom” (generosity), and “curteisie” (refinement) (General Prologue, 4546). The second is the Knights impressive military career. The Knight has fought in the Crusades, wars in which Europeans traveled by sea to non-Christian lands and attempted to convert whole cultures by the
27、force of their swords. The third quality the narrator remembers about the Knight is his meek, gentle, manner. And the fourth is his “array,” or dress. The Knight wears a tunic made of coarse cloth, and his coat of mail is rust-stained, because he has recently returned from an expedition. Significanc
28、e The Canterbury Tales is Chaucers Masterpiece and one of the monumental works in English literature. It is one of the landmarks of English literature, perhaps the greatest work produced in Middle English give us a true to life picture of his time. The work stands as a historical and sociological in
29、troduction to the life and times of the late Middle Ages taking from the stand of rising bourgeoisie, he affirms men and opposes the dogma of asceticism preached by the Church. As a forerunner of humanism, he praises mans energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life. His tales expose and satirize t
30、he evils of his time, attack degeneration of the noble, the heartless of the judge, the corruption of the Church and so on. Living in a transitional period, Chaucer is not entirely devoid of medieval prejudices. He is religious himself. There is nothing revolutionary in his writing, though he lived
31、in a period of peasant uprisings. While praising mans right to earthly happiness, he sometimes likes to crack a rough joke and paint naturalistic pictures of sexual life. Chaucer has his weak points. But these are, however, of secondary importance compared with his achievement as a great poet and a
32、story-teller. literary terms heroic couplet: Iambic pentameter lines rhymed in pairs. It is called heroic because in England, esp. in the 18th century, it was much used for heroic (epic) poems. The heroic couplet became so important and fixed a form for various purposes that its influence dominated
33、English verse for decades, until the romanticists dispelled the tradition in their demand for a new freedom. Poetics the heroic couplet couplet: two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme an iambic pentameter: a poetic line consisting of five verse feet with each foot an iamb, that is a metrical foo
34、t consisting of one stressed syllable and one unstressed syllable as in dah-DUM, dah-DUM dah-DUM dah-DUM dah-DUM. an iambic pentameter couplet, e.g. At night there came into that hostelry i Some nine and twenty in a company i iamb: a poetic foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an ac
35、cented one. (e.g: alone; My heart is like a singing bird) pentameter: a line of verse containing five feet. Meter: any regular pattern of rhythm or pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Foot: a unit of meter. Rhyme: the repetition of sounds at the ends of words is called rhyme. When words rh
36、yme at the end of lines of poetry it is called end rhyme. -characteristic of features description in the prologue （序言） The unique introduction at the beginning, as long as 860 lines, is a frame of the whole book, clarif ying authors designation and conception. It has a close relationship with every
37、later parts of the b ook, while we can also view it as a respectively dependent poem. Hereby we will analyze the char acteristic of features description in the prologue. The prologue is actually a gallery of all walks of people. Chaucer widely selected his materials fro m English society of that age
38、. Except the top of royal and the lowest slaves, we can nearly find the representatives of all social classes. Though reading the book, we can have a better understanding and broaden our eyesight of English society in 14th century, as well as enjoy the feast of art. The prologue is rich in content.
39、There is the knight who has participated in no less than fifteen of t he great crusades of his era; the wife of Bath who has been married five times and well practiced i n the art of love; the pardoner who is associated with shiftiness and gender ambiguity; just name a few. They belong to different
40、parts of the society, living in different background, thus had differen t life styles, habits and custom. They charted, joked, quarreled, and compromised; they discussed, praised, criticized, and persuaded. They adopted their particular way to present their life experienc e, providing a vivid series
41、 of narratives which differ in content and style. There is a general narrator, who is full of curiosity and enthusiasm. He is an anonymous, nave me mber of the pilgrimage, who is not described. He suggests to tell stories and then organized them i nto the book. Each of the tales, however, narrated b
42、y different pilgrims, is told from an omniscient third- person point of view, providing the reader with the thoughts as well as actions of the characters. T herefore, there is no surprise to find that The Canterbury Tales incorporates an impressive range of attitudes towards life and literature. The
43、 tales are by turns satirical, elevated, pious, earthy, bawdy, and comical. The narrator opens the General Prologue with a description of the return of spring. The April rains, the burgeoning flowers and leaves, and the chirping birds; piercing, engendering, inspiring and pri cking, all those are of
44、 springs renewal and rebirth, conjure up images of conception: Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour (General Prologue, 14) Followed by is a brief introduction to the backgrou
45、nd of the story. “When the sweet showers of April fall and shoot, /Down through the drought ofMarc h to pierce the root, /It happened in that season that one day /In Southwark, at the Tabard, as I la y/Ready to go on pilgrimage and start/For CanterburyAt night there came into the hostelry/Som e nine
46、 and twenty in a company/In fellowship, and theywere pilgrims all/That towards Canterbury meant to ride,” After all the essential elements being presented, then comes the features description, the main par t in the prologue. The narrator spends considerable time characterizing the group members acco
47、rding to their social positions. The pilgrims represent a diverse cross section of 14th century English society. Medieval social theory divided society into three broad classes, called “estates” : the military, the clergy, an d the laity. In the portraits that we will see in the rest of the General
48、Prologue, the knight and squi re represent the military estate. The clergy is represented by the prioress, the monk, the friar, and t he parson. The other characters, from the wealthy Franklin to the poor Plowman, are the members of the laity. These lay characters can be further subdivided into land
49、owners (the Franklin), professi onals (the Clerk, the Man of Law, the Guildsmen, the Physician, and the shipman), laborers (the C ook, the Plowman), stewards ( the Miller, the Manciple, and the Reeve), and church officers ( the Summoner and Pardoner). The way of division and emotional attitudes in description reflects the s ocietys universal understanding towards different occupations at that time. It also allows readers t o catch a glimpse of the theme, somet
