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Collection of 24 stories written in Middle English language past Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales
Canterbury Tales.png

A woodcut from William Caxton's second edition of The Canterbury Tales printed in 1483
Author Geoffrey Chaucer
Original title Tales of Caunterbury
Country England
Language Middle English
Set in Kingdom of England, 14th century

Publication date

 c. 1400 (unfinished at Chaucer'south death)

Dewey Decimal

 821.1
LC Class PR1870 .A1
Text The Canterbury Tales at Wikisource

The Canterbury Tales (Middle English: Tales of Caunterbury [2]) is a collection of 20-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Center English language by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400.[3] It is widely regarded as Chaucer'southward magnum opus. The tales (more often than not written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented equally function of a story-telling contest past a group of pilgrims equally they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this competition is a gratuitous repast at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.

Information technology has been suggested that the greatest contribution of The Canterbury Tales to English literature was the popularisation of the English language vernacular in mainstream literature, as opposed to French, Italian or Latin. English had, however, been used as a literary linguistic communication centuries before Chaucer'south time, and several of Chaucer'due south contemporaries—John Gower, William Langland, the Pearl Poet, and Julian of Norwich—also wrote major literary works in English language. It is unclear to what extent Chaucer was seminal in this evolution of literary preference.

The Canterbury Tales is more often than not thought to have been incomplete at the end of Chaucer'south life. In the General Prologue, some 30 pilgrims are introduced. Co-ordinate to the Prologue, Chaucer's intention was to write 4 stories from the perspective of each pilgrim, ii each on the manner to and from their ultimate destination, St. Thomas Becket'southward shrine (making for a total of about 120 stories). Although perhaps incomplete, The Canterbury Tales is revered equally one of the nigh important works in English literature.

Text

The question of whether The Canterbury Tales is a finished work has not been answered to date. At that place are 84 manuscripts and four incunabula (printed before 1500) editions[4] of the piece of work, more than for any other vernacular English literary text with the exception of The Prick of Conscience. This is taken as evidence of the Tales' popularity in the century after Chaucer'due south death.[five] Fifty-five of these manuscripts are thought to accept been originally complete, while 28 are so fragmentary that it is difficult to ascertain whether they were copied individually or as role of a set.[6] The Tales vary in both pocket-sized and major ways from manuscript to manuscript; many of the minor variations are due to copyists' errors, while it is suggested that in other cases Chaucer both added to his piece of work and revised it as it was beingness copied and possibly equally it was beingness distributed.

Even the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Tales are non Chaucer's originals. The very oldest is probably MS Peniarth 392 D (called "Hengwrt"), written by a scribe shortly after Chaucer's death. Another famous case is the Ellesmere Manuscript, a manuscript handwritten by one person with illustrations by several illustrators; the tales are put in an order that many later on editors take followed for centuries.[7] [eight] The offset version of The Canterbury Tales to be published in impress was William Caxton's 1476 edition. Only 10 copies of this edition are known to exist, including one held by the British Library and one held by the Folger Shakespeare Library.

In 2004, Linne Mooney claimed that she was able to identify the scrivener who worked for Chaucer as an Adam Pinkhurst. Mooney, then a professor at the University of Maine and a visiting fellow at Corpus Christi Higher, Cambridge, said she could match Pinkhurst's adjuration in the Scriveners' Common Paper to the handwriting in the Hengwrt manuscript, which she theorized might have been transcribed from Chaucer'southward working re-create.[9] [10] Although this identification has been mostly accustomed, some scholars have expressed doubts.[eleven]

Order

In the absenteeism of consensus as to whether or not a consummate version of the Tales exists, in that location is too no general understanding regarding the order in which Chaucer intended the stories to be placed.[12] [xiii]

Textual and manuscript clues have been adduced to support the two most popular modern methods of ordering the tales. Some scholarly editions separate the Tales into ten "Fragments". The tales that make upwards a Fragment are closely related and contain internal indications of their order of presentation, usually with 1 grapheme speaking to and then stepping bated for another grapheme. However, betwixt Fragments, the connection is less obvious. Consequently, in that location are several possible orders; the ane most often seen in modern editions follows the numbering of the Fragments (ultimately based on the Ellesmere lodge).[12] Victorians frequently used the ix "Groups", which was the society used by Walter William Skeat whose edition Chaucer: Complete Works was used past Oxford University Press for most of the twentieth century, just this order is currently seldom followed.[12]

Fragment Group Tales
01Fragment I A

Full general Prologue
The Knight'southward Tale
The Miller's Tale
The Reeve's Tale
The Cook'south Tale

02Fragment II Bane The Man of Law's Tale
03Fragment 3 D The Wife of Bathroom's Tale
The Friar'due south Tale
The Summoner'due south Tale
04Fragment IV Eastward The Clerk'southward Tale
The Merchant'southward Tale
05Fragment Five F The Squire's Tale
The Franklin's Tale
06Fragment VI C The Physician's Tale
The Pardoner'southward Tale
07Fragment VII B2 The Shipman's Tale
The Prioress's Tale
Sir Thopas' Tale
The Tale of Melibee
The Monk'southward Tale
The Nun's Priest'south Tale
08Fragment Viii Thousand The Second Nun's Tale
The Canon's Yeoman'due south Tale
09Fragment IX H The Manciple's Tale
10Fragment X I The Parson'due south Tale

An alternative ordering (seen in the early-fifteenth century manuscript Harley MS. 7334) places Fragment VIII before VI. Fragments I and II virtually ever follow each other, just as Vi and VII, IX and X do in the oldest manuscripts. Fragments Iv and 5, past contrast, vary in location from manuscript to manuscript.

Language

Chaucer wrote in a London dialect of late Eye English, which has clear differences from Modern English. From philological inquiry, some facts are known about the pronunciation of English during the time of Chaucer. Chaucer pronounced -east at the end of many words, so that care was [ˈkaːrə], non as in Modern English. Other silent letters were also pronounced, then that the give-and-take knight was [kniçt], with both the thousand and the gh pronounced, not . In some cases, vowel letters in Middle English were pronounced very differently from Mod English, considering the Bang-up Vowel Shift had not yet happened. For example, the long e in wepyng "weeping" was pronounced equally [eː], as in modern German or Italian, not as . Below is an IPA transcription of the opening lines of The Merchant'south Prologue:

No manuscript exists in Chaucer's own hand; all extant copies were made by scribes. Because the final -e sound was lost soon after Chaucer'due south fourth dimension, scribes did not accurately copy it, and this gave scholars the impression that Chaucer himself was inconsistent in using it.[xvi] Information technology has now been established, yet, that -east was an of import part of Chaucer's grammar, and helped to distinguish singular adjectives from plural and subjunctive verbs from indicative.[17]

Sources

No other work prior to Chaucer'south is known to take set a collection of tales inside the framework of pilgrims on a pilgrimage. It is obvious, notwithstanding, that Chaucer borrowed portions, sometimes very big 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. In 14th-century England the English Pui was a grouping with an appointed leader who would judge the songs of the group. The winner received a crown and, equally with the winner of The Canterbury Tales, a free dinner. Information technology was common for pilgrims on a pilgrimage to have a chosen "main of ceremonies" to guide them and organise the journey.[18] Harold Bloom suggests that the structure is mostly original, but inspired past the "pilgrim" figures of Dante and Virgil in The Divine Comedy.[19] New inquiry suggests that the General Prologue, in which the innkeeper and host Harry Bailey introduces each pilgrim, is a pastiche of the historical Harry Bailey's surviving 1381 poll-revenue enhancement account of Southwark'south inhabitants.[xx]

The Canterbury Tales contains more parallels to the Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio, than any other piece of work. Like the Tales, the Decameron features a frame tale in which several different narrators tell a series of stories. (In the Decameron, the characters have fled to the countryside to escape the Black Death.) Information technology ends with an apology by Boccaccio, much like Chaucer's Retraction to the Tales. A quarter of the tales in The Canterbury Tales parallel a tale in the Decameron, although virtually of them have closer parallels in other stories. Some scholars thus find it unlikely that Chaucer had a copy of the work on hand, surmising instead that he may have just read the Decameron at some betoken.[21] Chaucer may accept read the Decameron during his showtime diplomatic mission to Italy in 1372.[ citation needed ] Chaucer used a wide variety of sources, only some in particular were used often over several tales, amid them the Bible, Classical verse past Ovid, and the works of gimmicky Italian writers Petrarch and Dante. Chaucer was the first author to use the work of these last two.[ citation needed ] Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy appears in several tales, as do the works of John Gower, a friend of Chaucer's. Chaucer likewise seems to have borrowed from numerous religious encyclopaedias and liturgical writings, such as John Bromyard's Summa praedicantium, a preacher's handbook, and Jerome'south Adversus Jovinianum.[22] Many scholars say there is a expert possibility Chaucer met Petrarch or Boccaccio.[23] [24] [25] [26] [27]

Genre and structure

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories congenital around a frame tale, a common and already long established genre in this menstruation. Chaucer's Tales differs from about other story "collections" in this genre chiefly in its intense variation. Virtually story collections focused on a theme, usually a religious i. Even in the Decameron, storytellers are encouraged to stick to the theme decided on for the twenty-four hour period. The idea of a pilgrimage to get such a diverse collection of people together for literary purposes was too unprecedented, though "the association of pilgrims and storytelling was a familiar ane".[28] Introducing a competition among the tales encourages the reader to compare the tales in all their multifariousness, and allows Chaucer to showcase the breadth of his skill in different genres and literary forms.[29]

While the structure of the Tales is largely linear, with one story following another, it is also much more than that. In the General Prologue, Chaucer describes not the tales to be told, but the people who will tell them, making it clear that structure will depend on the characters rather than a general theme or moral. This idea is reinforced when the Miller interrupts to tell his tale after the Knight has finished his. Having the Knight go outset gives i the idea that all volition tell their stories by class, with the Monk following the Knight. However, the Miller'south interruption makes it clear that this structure will be abandoned in favour of a free and open substitution of stories among all classes present. Full general themes and points of view ascend every bit the characters tell their tales, which are responded to by other characters in their own tales, sometimes afterward a long lapse in which the theme has not been addressed.[30]

Lastly, Chaucer does non pay much attention to the progress of the trip, to the time passing equally the pilgrims travel, or to specific locations forth the style to Canterbury. His writing of the story seems focused primarily on the stories existence told, and not on the pilgrimage itself.[31]

Style

Title page of Geoffrey Chaucer'due south Canterbury Tales in the hand of "Scribe B", identified as Adam Pinkhurst, c.  1400.

The variety of Chaucer's tales shows the latitude of his skill and his familiarity with many literary forms, linguistic styles, and rhetorical devices. Medieval schools of rhetoric at the fourth dimension encouraged such diversity, dividing literature (as Virgil suggests) into high, middle, and low styles as measured by the density of rhetorical forms and vocabulary. Another popular method of division came from St. Augustine, who focused more than on audition response and less on field of study matter (a Virgilian concern). Augustine divided literature into "imperial persuades", "temperate pleases", and "subdued teaches". Writers were encouraged to write in a way that kept in mind the speaker, subject, audience, purpose, style, and occasion. Chaucer moves freely betwixt all of these styles, showing favouritism to none.[32] He non only considers the readers of his work as an audience, but the other pilgrims inside the story also, creating a multi-layered rhetoric.[33]

With this, Chaucer avoids targeting any specific audience or social form of readers, focusing instead on the characters of the story and writing their tales with a skill proportional to their social status and learning. Nevertheless, even the lowest characters, such as the Miller, show surprising rhetorical power, although their bailiwick matter is more lowbrow. Vocabulary also plays an important part, as those of the higher classes refer to a woman every bit a "lady", while the lower classes use the give-and-take "wenche", with no exceptions. At times the same word will mean entirely different things between classes. The word "pitee", for example, is a noble concept to the upper classes, while in the Merchant's Tale it refers to sexual intercourse. Once more, withal, tales such every bit the Nun'southward Priest's Tale show surprising skill with words among the lower classes of the group, while the Knight's Tale is at times extremely simple.[34]

Chaucer uses the same meter throughout almost all of his tales, with the exception of Sir Thopas and his prose tales. It is a decasyllable line, probably borrowed from French and Italian forms, with riding rhyme and, occasionally, a caesura in the center of a line. His meter would later on develop into the heroic meter of the 15th and 16th centuries and is an ancestor of iambic pentameter. He avoids allowing couplets to get also prominent in the verse form, and four of the tales (the Man of Police's, Clerk'south, Prioress', and Second Nun's) utilise rhyme regal.[35]

Historical context and themes

In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Community and Justice of the Peace and, in 1389, Clerk of the King's Works.[36] It was during these years that Chaucer began working on The Canterbury Tales.

The end of the fourteenth century was a turbulent time in English history. The Catholic Church was in the midst of the Western Schism and, although it was however the only Christian authorisation in Western Europe, it was the discipline of heavy controversy. Lollardy, an early on English language religious movement led by John Wycliffe, is mentioned in the Tales, which likewise mention a specific incident involving pardoners (sellers of indulgences, which were believed to salve the temporal punishment due for sins that were already forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession) who nefariously claimed to exist collecting for St. Mary Rouncesval hospital in England. The Canterbury Tales is amid the first English literary works to mention paper, a relatively new invention that allowed dissemination of the written word never before seen in England. Political clashes, such as the 1381 Peasants' Revolt and clashes ending in the deposing of King Richard 2, further reveal the complex turmoil surrounding Chaucer in the time of the Tales' writing. Many of his close friends were executed and he himself moved to Kent to become away from events in London.[37]

While some readers look to interpret the characters of The Canterbury Tales as historical figures, other readers cull to interpret its significance in less literal terms. After assay of Chaucer'due south diction and historical context, his work appears to develop a critique of society during his lifetime. Within a number of his descriptions, his comments can appear complimentary in nature, simply through clever language, the statements are ultimately critical of the pilgrim'south actions. It is unclear whether Chaucer would intend for the reader to link his characters with bodily persons. Instead, it appears that Chaucer creates fictional characters to exist general representations of people in such fields of work. With an agreement of medieval society, one can observe subtle satire at work.[38]

Faith

The Tales reverberate diverse views of the Church in Chaucer'south England. After the Black Decease, many Europeans began to question the dominance of the established Church. Some turned to lollardy, while others chose less extreme paths, starting new monastic orders or smaller movements exposing church building corruption in the behaviour of the clergy, fake church relics or corruption of indulgences.[39] Several characters in the Tales are religious figures, and the very setting of the pilgrimage to Canterbury is religious (although the prologue comments ironically on its simply seasonal attractions), making religion a significant theme of the piece of work.[40]

Two characters, the Pardoner and the Summoner, whose roles utilise the Church's secular power, are both portrayed as deeply corrupt, greedy, and abusive. Pardoners in Chaucer'southward day were those people from whom one bought Church "indulgences" for forgiveness of sins, who were guilty of abusing their office for their own gain. Chaucer's Pardoner openly admits the corruption of his practice while hawking his wares.[41] Summoners were Church officers who brought sinners to the Church courtroom for possible excommunication and other penalties. Corrupt summoners would write false citations and frighten people into bribing them to protect their interests. Chaucer'due south Summoner is portrayed as guilty of the very kinds of sins for which he is threatening to bring others to court, and is hinted as having a corrupt human relationship with the Pardoner.[42] In The Friar'southward Tale, one of the characters is a summoner who is shown to be working on the side of the devil, not God.[43]

Churchmen of diverse kinds are represented past the Monk, the Prioress, the Nun's Priest, and the Second Nun. Monastic orders, which originated from a desire to follow an ascetic lifestyle separated from the world, had past Chaucer's time become increasingly entangled in worldly matters. Monasteries often controlled huge tracts of land on which they made significant sums of money, while peasants worked in their utilise.[44] The Second Nun is an case of what a Nun was expected to be: her tale is near a woman whose chaste example brings people into the church. The Monk and the Prioress, on the other hand, while non as decadent as the Summoner or Pardoner, fall far brusque of the ideal for their orders. Both are expensively dressed, show signs of lives of luxury and flirtatiousness and show a lack of spiritual depth.[45] The Prioress's Tale is an account of Jews murdering a deeply pious and innocent Christian boy, a blood libel confronting Jews that became a office of English language literary tradition.[46] The story did non originate in the works of Chaucer and was well known in the 14th century.[47]

Pilgrimage was a very prominent feature of medieval society. The ultimate pilgrimage destination was Jerusalem,[48] but within England Canterbury was a popular destination. Pilgrims would journey to cathedrals that preserved relics of saints, believing that such relics held miraculous powers. Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been murdered in Canterbury Cathedral past knights of Henry 2 during a disagreement between Church and Crown. Miracle stories continued to his remains sprang up soon after his decease, and the cathedral became a popular pilgrimage destination.[49] The pilgrimage in the work ties all of the stories together and may be considered a representation of Christians' striving for heaven, despite weaknesses, disagreement, and diversity of opinion.[50]

Social grade and convention

Bors' Dilemma – he chooses to relieve a maiden rather than his brother Lionel

The upper class or nobility, represented chiefly by the Knight and his Squire, was in Chaucer'southward fourth dimension steeped in a culture of knightly and courtliness. Nobles were expected to be powerful warriors who could be ruthless on the battlefield yet mannerly in the Rex'south Court and Christian in their actions.[51] Knights were expected to grade a strong social bail with the men who fought alongside them, just an even stronger bond with a woman whom they idealised to strengthen their fighting ability.[52] Though the aim of chivalry was to noble activity, its conflicting values oft degenerated into violence. Church leaders often tried to place restrictions on jousts and tournaments, which at times ended in the death of the loser. The Knight'southward Tale shows how the brotherly dearest of two boyfriend knights turns into a deadly feud at the sight of a adult female whom both idealise. To win her, both are willing to fight to the death. Knightly was on the pass up in Chaucer's day, and it is possible that The Knight's Tale was intended to show its flaws, although this is disputed.[53] Chaucer himself had fought in the Hundred Years' State of war under Edward III, who heavily emphasised chivalry during his reign.[54] Ii tales, Sir Topas and The Tale of Melibee, are told by Chaucer himself, who is travelling with the pilgrims in his ain story. Both tales seem to focus on the ill-furnishings of chivalry—the first making fun of chivalric rules and the second warning against violence.[55]

The Tales constantly reflect the conflict betwixt classes. For example, the division of the three estates: the characters are all divided into three distinct classes, the classes being "those who pray" (the clergy), "those who fight" (the nobility), and "those who piece of work" (the commoners and peasantry).[56] Well-nigh 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, equally he represents the highest social class in the grouping. 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 grade rules. Helen Cooper, as well as Mikhail Bakhtin and Derek Brewer, telephone call this opposition "the ordered and the grotesque, Lent and Carnival, officially approved civilisation and its riotous, and high-spirited underside."[57] Several works of the time contained the same opposition.[57]

Relativism versus realism

Chaucer's characters each express different—sometimes vastly different—views of reality, creating an atmosphere of testing, empathy, and relativism.[32] As Helen Cooper says, "Different genres give unlike readings of the globe: the fabliau scarcely notices the operations of God, the saint's life focuses on those at the expense of concrete reality, tracts and sermons insist on prudential or orthodox morality, romances privilege human emotion." The sheer number of varying persons and stories renders the Tales every bit a set unable to arrive at any definite truth or reality.[58]

Liminality

The concept of liminality figures prominently within The Canterbury Tales.[32] A liminal infinite, which tin exist both geographical too as metaphorical or spiritual, is the transitional or transformational space between a "real" (secure, known, express) globe and an unknown or imaginary space of both risk and possibility.[59] The notion of a pilgrimage is itself a liminal experience, because it centres on travel betwixt destinations and considering pilgrims undertake it hoping to become more holy in the process. Thus, the structure of The Canterbury Tales itself is liminal; it not simply covers the distance between London and Canterbury, but the majority of the tales refer to places entirely outside the geography of the pilgrimage. Jean Jost summarises the role of liminality in The Canterbury Tales,

Both appropriately and ironically in this raucous and destructive liminal space, a canaille assembly get together together and tell their equally unconventional tales. In this unruly place, the rules of tale telling are established, themselves to be both disordered and broken; here the tales of game and earnest, solas and judgement, volition be gear up and interrupted. Here the sacred and profane risk begins, but does not end. Hither, the status of peril is as prominent as that of protection. The human activity of pilgrimaging itself consists of moving from one urban space, through liminal rural space, to the next urban space with an e'er fluctuating series of events and narratives punctuating those spaces. The goal of pilgrimage may well be a religious or spiritual space at its conclusion, and reflect a psychological progression of the spirit, in withal another kind of emotional space.[60]

Liminality is also evident in the private tales. An obvious instance of this is The Friar's Tale in which the yeoman devil is a liminal figure considering of his transitory nature and part; it is his purpose to issue souls from their electric current existence to hell, an entirely different 1.[61] The Franklin's Tale is a Breton Lai tale, which takes the tale into a liminal space by invoking not only the interaction of the supernatural and the mortal, merely also the relation between the present and the imagined past.[62]

Reception

While Chaucer conspicuously states the addressees of many of his poems (the Volume of the Duchess is believed to take been written for John of Gaunt on the occasion of his wife's decease in 1368), the intended audition of The Canterbury Tales is more than hard to determine. Chaucer was a courtier, leading some to believe that he was mainly a court poet who wrote exclusively for the nobility. He is referred to equally a noble translator and poet by Eustache Deschamps and by his contemporary John Gower. It has been suggested that the poem was intended to be read aloud, which is probable as this was a common activity at the fourth dimension. Yet, information technology also seems to have been intended for private reading, since Chaucer frequently refers to himself equally the author, rather than the speaker, of the work. Determining the intended audition directly from the text is fifty-fifty more hard, since the audience is part of the story. This makes it difficult to tell when Chaucer is writing to the fictional pilgrim audience or the actual reader.[63]

Chaucer's works may accept been distributed in some form during his lifetime in office or in whole. Scholars speculate that manuscripts were circulated amid his friends, but probable remained unknown to most people until after his death. However, the speed with which copyists strove to write complete versions of his tale in manuscript form shows that Chaucer was a famous and respected poet in his own day. The Hengwrt and Ellesmere manuscripts are examples of the care taken to distribute the work. More manuscript copies of the poem be than for whatever other poem of its mean solar day except The Prick of Conscience, causing some scholars to requite it the medieval equivalent of bestseller condition. Even the most elegant of the illustrated manuscripts, even so, is not well-nigh as highly decorated equally the work of authors of more respectable works such as John Lydgate'due south religious and historical literature.[64]

15th century

John Lydgate and Thomas Occleve were among the first critics of Chaucer's Tales, praising the poet as the greatest English language poet of all time and the first to show what the language was truly capable of poetically. This sentiment was universally agreed upon past later critics into the mid-15th century. Glosses included in The Canterbury Tales manuscripts of the time praised him highly for his skill with "judgement" and rhetoric, the two pillars past which medieval critics judged poetry. The almost respected of the tales was at this fourth dimension the Knight'southward, every bit information technology was total of both.[65]

Literary additions and supplements

The incompleteness of the Tales led several medieval authors to write additions and supplements to the tales to make them more than complete. Some of the oldest existing manuscripts of the tales include new or modified tales, showing that even early, such additions were being created. These emendations included various expansions of the Cook'southward Tale, which Chaucer never finished, The Plowman'due south Tale, The Tale of Gamelyn, the Siege of Thebes, and the Tale of Beryn.[66]

The Tale of Beryn, written by an anonymous author in the 15th century, is preceded by a lengthy prologue in which the pilgrims get in at Canterbury and their activities there are described. While the rest of the pilgrims disperse throughout the town, the Pardoner seeks the affections of Kate the barmaid, but faces issues dealing with the man in her life and the innkeeper Harry Bailey. As the pilgrims turn dorsum habitation, the Merchant restarts the storytelling with Tale of Beryn. In this tale, a young man named Beryn travels from Rome to Arab republic of egypt to seek his fortune only to be cheated by other businessmen in that location. He is then aided by a local human being in getting his revenge. The tale comes from the French tale Bérinus and exists in a single early on manuscript of the tales, although it was printed forth with the tales in a 1721 edition by John Urry.[67]

John Lydgate wrote The Siege of Thebes in about 1420. Like the Tale of Beryn, it is preceded by a prologue in which the pilgrims arrive in Canterbury. Lydgate places himself among the pilgrims as one of them and describes how he was a function of Chaucer'due south trip and heard the stories. He characterises himself every bit a monk and tells a long story well-nigh the history of Thebes before the events of the Knight'due south Tale. John Lydgate's tale was popular early on and exists in old manuscripts both on its own and as part of the Tales. It was start printed as early every bit 1561 by John Stow, and several editions for centuries after followed suit.[68]

At that place are really two versions of The Plowman's Tale, both of which are influenced by the story Piers Plowman, a work written during Chaucer's lifetime. Chaucer describes a Plowman in the General Prologue of his tales, but never gives him his own tale. One tale, written by Thomas Occleve, describes the phenomenon of the Virgin and the Sleeveless Garment. Another tale features a pelican and a griffin debating church building abuse, with the pelican taking a position of protest akin to John Wycliffe's ideas.[69]

The Tale of Gamelyn was included in an early manuscript version of the tales, Harley 7334, which is notorious for existence one of the lower-quality early on manuscripts in terms of editor error and amending. It is now widely rejected past scholars equally an authentic Chaucerian tale, although some scholars recollect he may have intended to rewrite the story as a tale for the Yeoman. Dates for its authorship vary from 1340 to 1370.[70]

Later adaptations and homages

Books

  • The most well-known work of the 18th century writer Harriet Lee was called The Canterbury Tales, and consists of twelve stories, related by travellers thrown together by untoward blow. In turn, Lee's version had a profound influence on Lord Byron.
  • Henry Dudeney'south 1907 book The Canterbury Puzzles contains a function reputedly lost from what mod readers know as Chaucer's tales.
  • Historical-mystery novelist P.C. Doherty wrote a series of novels based on The Canterbury Tales, making employ of both the story frame and Chaucer'due south characters.
  • Science-fiction writer Dan Simmons wrote his Hugo Award winning 1989 novel Hyperion based on an extra-planetary group of pilgrims.
  • Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins used The Canterbury Tales every bit a structure for his 2004 non-fiction volume nearly development titled The Antecedent'southward Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution. His animal pilgrims are on their fashion to notice the common antecedent, each telling a tale nearly development.
  • Canadian author Angie Abdou translates The Canterbury Tales to a cantankerous section of people, all snowfall-sports enthusiasts but from different social backgrounds, converging on a remote back-country ski cabin in British Columbia in the 2011 novel The Canterbury Trail.

Stage adaptations

  • The Two Noble Kinsmen, by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, a retelling of "The Knight's Tale", was first performed in 1613 or 1614 and published in 1634.
  • In 1961, Erik Chisholm completed his opera, The Canterbury Tales. The opera is in three acts: The Wyf of Bath's Tale, The Pardoner's Tale and The Nun'due south Priest's Tale.
  • Nevill Coghill'southward mod English version formed the basis of a musical version that was first staged in 1964.

Movie and idiot box

  • 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'south 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 scene so makes a now-famous transition to the time of World War II. From that point on, the film follows a group of strangers, each with their own story and in need of some kind of redemption, who are making their way to Canterbury together. The film'due south principal story takes place in an imaginary boondocks in Kent and ends with the main characters arriving at Canterbury Cathedral, bells pealing and Chaucer's words again resounding. A Canterbury Tale is recognised as one of the Powell-Pressburger team'due south nigh poetic and artful films. Information technology was produced every bit wartime propaganda, using Chaucer's poetry, referring to the famous pilgrimage, and offer photography of Kent to remind the public of what made U.k. worth fighting for. In one scene, a local historian lectures an audience of British soldiers near the pilgrims of Chaucer's fourth dimension and the vibrant history of England.[71]
  • Pier Paolo Pasolini'southward 1972 film The Canterbury Tales features several of the tales, some of which cohere to the original tale and others which are embellished. "The Cook's Tale", for instance, which is incomplete in the original version, is expanded into a full story, and "The Friar's Tale" extends the scene in which the Summoner is dragged down to hell. The film includes these two tales as well as "The Miller's Tale", "The Summoner's Tale", "The Married woman of Bath's Tale", and "The Merchant's Tale".[72] "The Tale of Sir Topas" was also filmed and dubbed; however, it was after removed by Pasolini, and is at present considered lost.
  • Alan Plater retold the stories in a series of plays for BBC2 in 1975: Trinity Tales.
  • On 26 April 1986, American radio personality Garrison Keillor opened "The News from Lake Wobegon" portion of the first live Boob tube broadcast of his A Prairie Home Companion radio show with a reading of the original Centre English text of the General Prologue. He commented, "Although those words were written more than 600 years agone, they still draw jump."
  • The 2001 moving picture A Knight's Tale, starring Heath Ledger, takes its title from Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" and features Chaucer equally a character.
  • In 2003, the BBC again featured modern re-tellings of selected tales in their six-episode series Canterbury Tales.[73]

Music

  • British Psychedelic stone ring Procol Harum'southward 1967 hit "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is often assumed to exist referencing the Canterbury Tales through the line, "as the miller told his tale." However, lyricist Keith Reid has denied this, saying he had never read Chaucer when he wrote the line.[74]
  • The title of Sting's 1993 album Ten Summoner'south Tales alludes to "The Summoner's Tale" and to Sting'south birth name, Gordon Sumner.[75]

Ezra Winter, Canterbury Tales mural (1939), Library of Congress John Adams Building, Washington, D.C. This mural is located on the due west wall of the Due north Reading Room, and features the Miller, Host, Knight, Squire, Yeoman, Doc, Chaucer, Man of Police, Clerk, Manciple, Crewman, Prioress, Nun, and three Priests; the other pilgrims announced on the east wall mural.[76]

  • The Knight

  • The Squire

  • Oswald The Reeve

  • Robin The Miller

  • Roger The Cook

  • Alison The Wife of Bath

  • The Franklin

  • The Shipman

  • The Manciple

  • The Merchant

  • The Clerk of Oxford

  • The Sergeant of Police

  • The Doc

  • The Parson

  • The Monk

  • Madame Eglantine The Prioress

  • The 2nd Nun

  • The Nun's Priest

  • Hubert The Friar

  • The Summoner

  • The Pardoner

  • The Canon Yeoman

  • Geoffrey Chaucer

See as well

  • Book collection.jpg Novels portal

Notes

  1. ^ Carlson, David. "The Chronology of Lydgate'southward Chaucer References". The Chaucer Review, Vol. 38, No. 3 (2004), pp. 246–54. Accessed 6 Jan 2014.
  2. ^ The name "Tales of Caunterbury" appears within the surviving texts of Chaucer's work. Its modern name showtime appeared every bit Canterbury talys in John Lydgate's 1421–1422 prologue to the Siege of Thebes.[ane]
  3. ^ "Encyclopedia Britannica".
  4. ^ "A Digital Catalogue of the Pre-1500 Manuscripts and Incunables of the Canterbury Tales Second Edition".
  5. ^ Pearsall, 8.
  6. ^ Cooper, vi–7
  7. ^ Pearsall, 10, 17.
  8. ^ Cooper, 8.
  9. ^ Linne R. Mooney (2006), "Chaucer'due south Scribe," Speculum, 81 : 97–138.
  10. ^ [i] Ezard, John (20 July 2004). "The scrivener'southward tale: how Chaucer'south sloppy copyist was unmasked after 600 years". The Guardian.
  11. ^ Encounter Lawrence Warner, Chaucer'south Scribes: London Textual Product, 1384–1432 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
  12. ^ a b c Cooper, vii
  13. ^ Pearsall, 14–15.
  14. ^ Text from The Riverside Chaucer, ed. by Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 153.
  15. ^ Based on the information in Norman Davies, "Language and Versification", in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. past Larry D. Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. xxv–xli.
  16. ^ e.thou. Ian Robinson, Chaucer's Prosody: A Study of the Middle English Poesy Tradition (London: Cambridge Academy Press, 1971).
  17. ^ Encounter Yard. L. Samuels, "Chaucerian Final '-due east'", Notes and Queries, xix (1972), 445–48, and D. Burnley, "Inflection in Chaucer's Adjectives", Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 83 (1982), 169–77.
  18. ^ Cooper, p. x.
  19. ^ Blossom, Harold (11 November 2009). "Road Trip". The New York Times . Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  20. ^ Sobecki, Sebastian (2017). "A Southwark Tale: Gower, the 1381 Poll Taxation, and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales" (PDF). Speculum. 92 (3): 630–60. doi:10.1086/692620. S2CID 159994357.
  21. ^ Cooper, pp. 10–11.
  22. ^ Cooper, pp. 12–16.
  23. ^ Brewer, p. 227. "Although Chaucer undoubtedly studied the works of these celebrated writers, and especially of Dante before this fortunate interview; yet it seems likely, that these excursions gave him a new relish for their compositions, and enlarged his knowledge of the Italian fables.
  24. ^ Brewer, p. 277."...where he became thoroughly inbued with the spirit and excellence of the groovy Italian poets and prose-writers: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio; and is said to have had a personal contact interview with one of these, Petrarch."
  25. ^ Hendrickson, pp. 183–92. Professor G. L. Hendrickson of the University of Chicago gives a detailed analysis as to Chaucer coming in contact with Petrarch.
  26. ^ Rearden, p. 458. "At that place tin be no moral doubt just that Chaucer knew Petrarch personally. They were both in France many times, where they might have met. They were both courtiers. They both had an enthusiasm for scholarship. Whether they met then, or whether Chaucer, when on his visit to Genoa, specially visited the Italian, it does not appear." "...but the just reason that such a visit could not take occurred lies in the fact that Petrarch himself does not record it. Still, on the other hand, would he accept mentioned the visit of a human being who was the servant of a brutal monarch, and whose only claim to notice, literary-wise, was his cultivation of an unknown and uncouth dialect that was half bounder French?"
  27. ^ Skeat (1874), p. xxx. "And nosotros know that Petrarch, on his own shewing, was and so pleased with the story of Griselda that he learnt it by heart besides as he could, for the express purpose of repeating it to friends, before the idea of turning it into Latin occurred to him. Whence we may conclude that Chaucer and Petrarch met at Padua early in 1373; that Petrarch told Chaucer the story past word of rima oris, either in Italian or French; and that Chaucer shortly after obtained a copy of Petrarch'southward Latin version, which he kept constantly before him whilst making his own translation."
  28. ^ "Sources and Analogues of the Canterbury Tales", 2002, p. 22.
  29. ^ Cooper, 8–9.
  30. ^ Cooper, 17–18.
  31. ^ Cooper, 18.
  32. ^ a b c Podgorski, Daniel (29 December 2015). "Puppetry and the "Popet:" Fiction, Reality, and Empathy in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales". The Gemsbok . Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  33. ^ Cooper, 22–24.
  34. ^ Cooper, 24–25.
  35. ^ Cooper, 25–26.
  36. ^ Prestwich, Michael (2014). Medieval People: Bright Lives in a Distant Landscape. London: Thames & Hudson. pp. 4. An Historic period of Plague 1300–1400. ISBN978-0500252031.
  37. ^ Cooper, 5–six.
  38. ^ Donald R. Howard, Chaucer and the Medieval World (London, 1987), pp. 410–17.
  39. ^ Bisson, pp. 49–51, 56–62.
  40. ^ Bisson, p. 50.
  41. ^ Bisson, pp. 61–64.
  42. ^ Bisson, pp. 66–67.
  43. ^ Bisson, pp. 67–68.
  44. ^ Bisson, pp. 73–75, 81.
  45. ^ Bisson, pp. 91–95.
  46. ^ Rubin, 106–07.
  47. ^ "The Prioress'southward Tale", past Prof. Jane Zatta.
  48. ^ Bisson, pp. 99–02.
  49. ^ Bisson, pp. 110–thirteen.
  50. ^ Bisson, pp. 117–xix.
  51. ^ Bisson, pp. 123–31.
  52. ^ Bisson, pp. 132–34.
  53. ^ Bisson, pp. 139–42.
  54. ^ Bisson, p. 138.
  55. ^ Bisson, pp. 141–42.
  56. ^ Bisson, p. 143.
  57. ^ a b Cooper, nineteen
  58. ^ Cooper, 21.
  59. ^ Bishop, Norma J. "Liminal Space in Travellers' Tales: Historical and Fictional Passages (Folklore, Ritual, History)". Order No. 8615152 The Pennsylvania Land University, 1986. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. Spider web. thirty Sep. 2015.
  60. ^ Jost, Jean. "Urban and Liminal Infinite in Chaucer's Knight's Tale: Perilous or Protective?" Albrecht Classen, ed. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture: Urban Infinite in the Center Ages and the Early Modern Age. Berlin, DEU: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. Impress.
  61. ^ Bloomfield, Morton W. "The 'Friar's Tale' as a Liminal Tale". The Chaucer Review 17.iv (1983): 286–91. Impress.
  62. ^ Nowlin, Steele. "Betwixt Precedent and Possibility: Liminality, Historicity, and Narrative in Chaucer'south 'The Franklin'south Tale'". Studies in Philology 103.1 (2006): 47–67. Print.
  63. ^ Pearsall, 294–95.
  64. ^ Pearsall, 295–97.
  65. ^ Pearsall, 298–302.
  66. ^ Trigg, Stephanie, Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer from Medieval to Postmodern, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002, p. 86. ISBN 0-8166-3823-iii.
  67. ^ Trigg, pp. 86–88, 97.
  68. ^ Trigg, pp. 88–97.
  69. ^ Brewer, Charlotte, Editing Piers Plowman: The Evolution of the Text, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 8–nine. ISBN 0-521-34250-three.
  70. ^ Ohlgren, Thomas, Medieval Outlaws, Parlor Printing, 2005, pp. 264–65. ISBN 1-932559-62-0.
  71. ^ Ellis, Steve, Chaucer at Big, Minneapolis: Academy of Minnesota Press, 2000, pp. 64–65. ISBN 0-8166-3376-2.
  72. ^ Pencak, William, The Films of Derek Jarman, Jefferson: McFarland & Co, 2002, pp. 178–9. ISBN 0-7864-1430-8.
  73. ^ "Canterbury Tales". BBC Drama. Retrieved 6 May 2007.
  74. ^ Butler,Mike (17 September 1994). "In truth they were at sea: Lives of the Great Songs - A Whiter Shade of Stake: Vestal Virgins, lite fandangoes: Procol Harum's archetype can be baffling. Mike Butler asked its authors to aid". Independent. Retrieved 24 May 2021.
  75. ^ Marienberg, Evyatar (2021). Sting and Religion: The Catholic-Shaped Imagination of a Rock Icon. Eugene, Or.: Cascade Books. ISBN9781725272262 . Retrieved ten July 2021.
  76. ^ "On These Walls: Inscriptions and Quotations in the Buildings of the Library of Congress". Library of Congress . Retrieved 31 December 2012.

References

  • Bisson, Lillian M. (1998). Chaucer and the late medieval globe. New York: St. Martin's Printing. ISBN978-0-312-10667-half dozen.
  • Cooper, Helen (1996). The Canterbury tales. Oxford guides to Chaucer (ii ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Printing. ISBN978-0-19-871155-1.
  • Pearsall, Derek Albert (1985). The Canterbury tales . Unwin disquisitional library. London: G. Allen & Unwin. ISBN978-0-04-800021-7.
  • Scattered among the nations: documents affecting Jewish history, 49 to 1975. Alexis P. Rubin (ed.). Toronto, ON: Wall & Emerson. 1993. ISBN978-ane-895131-10-9. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)

Further reading

  • Collette, Carolyn P. (2001). Species, phantasms, and images: vision and medieval psychology in The Canterbury tales. Ann Arbor: Academy of Michigan Press. doi:x.3998/mpub.16499. ISBN978-0-472-11161-9.
  • Kolve, V.A.; Olson, Glending (2005). The Canterbury tales: fifteen tales and the full general prologue: administrative text, sources and backgrounds, criticism. A Norton critical edition (2 ed.). New York: Westward.W. Norton. ISBN978-0-393-92587-6.
  • Sobecki, Sebastian (2017). "A Southwark Tale: Gower, the 1381 Poll Tax, and Chaucer'south The Canterbury Tales" (PDF). Speculum. 92 (iii): 630–lx. doi:10.1086/692620. S2CID 159994357.
  • Thompson, North.S. (1996). Chaucer, Boccaccio, and the fence of love: a comparative study of the Decameron and the Canterbury tales. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN978-0-nineteen-812378-1.
  • Spark Notes: The Canterbury Tales. New York: Spark Publishing. 2014.
  • No Off-white: The Canterbury Tales. New York: Spark Publishing. 2009.
  • Dogan, Sandeur (2013). "The Three Estates Model: Represented and Satirised in Chaucer's General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales". Journal of History, Culture & Fine art Research / Tarih Kültür ve Sanat Arastirmalari Dergisi. June 2013, Vol. 2 Issue ii, pp. 49–56.
  • Nicholls, Jonathan. "Review: Chaucer's Narrators by David Lawton," The Mod Language Review,2017.
  • Pugh, Tison. "Gender, Vulgarity, and the Phantom Debates of Chaucer'southward Merchant's Tale," Studies in Philology, Vol. 114 Issue 3, 473–96, 2017.

External links

General

  • Texts and translations at Harvard Academy
  • The Canterbury Tales Project: publishing transcripts, images, collations and analysis of all surviving 15th-century copies
  • The Canterbury Tales public domain audiobook at LibriVox

Online texts

  • The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems at Project Gutenberg
  • Ecker, Ronald L.; Crook, Eugene Joseph (1993). The Canterbury Tales: A Complete Translation into Modern English. Palatka, FL: Hodge & Braddock. ISBN978-0-9636512-3-5.

Facsimiles

  • The Hengwrt Manuscript: the oldest manuscript copy
  • MS 1084/two Canterbury tales at OPenn
  • Ellesmere Chaucer
  • British Library, Harley MS 7334
  • British Library, Harley MS 1758
  • Caxton's Chaucer: scans of William Caxton's 2 editions of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Tales

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