ENG 352 Midterm
Main essay question
- Testing with extreme circumstances (patience and endurance) - mutual respect can be hard, look beyond to different vitrues - spin on bad and good - controversial ideas (using tactics like the Pagan setting, greek mythology, etc.)
The Cook's Prologue and Tale
The Cook particularly enjoys the Reeve's Tale, and offers to tell another funny tale. The tale concerns an apprentice named Perkyn who drinks and dances so much that he is called "Perkyn Reveler." Finally, Perkyn's master decides that he would rather his apprentice leave to revel than stay home and corrupt the other servants. Perkyn arranges to stay with a friend who loves drinking and gambling, and who has a wife who is a prostitute. The tale breaks off, unfinished, after fifty-eight lines.
The Merchant's Tale is hard to categorize. Name one romance feature and one fabliau feature, and state which genre you think is a more appropriate categorization for this tale, and why.
The Merchant's tale does have the romantic feature of a knight marrying a young maiden, but is perverted by having the knight be an old man. January's old age, in addition to other features in this tale, make it stylistically most like a fabliau. The characters in this tale are caricatures of typical fabliau characters; there is an old husband who marries and young virgin who is unfaithful. January and May's names also imply their difference in age. The plot of this tale, with trickery and deception like with the pear tree incident with Damien, speaks more to messages and ideas seen in other fabliau works.
The Shipman's Tale
The Shipman's Tale features a monk who tricks a merchant's wife into having sex with him by borrowing money from the merchant, then giving it to the wife so she can repay her own debt to her husband, in exchange for sexual favors. When the monk sees the merchant next, he tells him that he returned the merchant's money to his wife. The wife realizes she has been duped, but she boldly tells her husband to forgive her debt: she will repay it in bed. The Host praises the Shipman's story, and asks the Prioress for a tale.
The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale
The Wife of Bath gives a lengthy account of her feelings about marriage. Quoting from the Bible, the Wife argues against those who believe it is wrong to marry more than once, and she explains how she dominated and controlled each of her five husbands. She married her fifth husband, Jankyn, for love instead of money. After the Wife has rambled on for a while, the Friar butts in to complain that she is taking too long, and the Summoner retorts that friars are like flies, always meddling. The Friar promises to tell a tale about a summoner, and the Summoner promises to tell a tale about a friar. The Host cries for everyone to quiet down and allow the Wife to commence her tale. In her tale, a young knight of King Arthur's court rapes a maiden; to atone for his crime, Arthur's queen sends him on a quest to discover what women want most. An ugly old woman promises the knight that she will tell him the secret if he promises to do whatever she wants for saving his life. He agrees, and she tells him women want control of their husbands and their own lives. They go together to Arthur's queen, and the old woman's answer turns out to be correct. The old woman then tells the knight that he must marry her. When the knight confesses later that he is repulsed by her appearance, she gives him a choice: she can either be ugly and faithful, or beautiful and unfaithful. The knight tells her to make the choice herself, and she rewards him for giving her control of the marriage by rendering herself both beautiful and faithful.
The Franklin's Tale ends with a question: "Who was the most free?" What's problematic about this question? How would you answer this question?
This question is problematic because it's hard to determine or qualify all of the different characters against each other in the work to determine who is the most generous. It is also problematic because most of the generous acts in this tale stem from a chain of generosity started by Dorigen and then continued by her husband and the rest of the characters. Therefore, it's difficult to determine what these varying degrees of generosity. Even though it is difficult to determine, I would say Aurelius was the freest amongst the characters. He went 4 years waiting for Dorigen, and when she finally came to him to fulfill her long-awaited promise, he respects the compassion of her and her husband and lets her out of the promise. He doesn't want to do a churlish thing against true nobility and is inspired by the husband's example to do the right thing.
Chaucer apologizes twice in Fragment I: at the end of the General Prologue and the beginning of the Miller's Tale. Why does he do so, and why can't we take these apologies at face value? What is the point of both disingenuous apologies?
At the beginning of the General Prologue, Chaucer's first apology focuses on how he asks for forgiveness for the vulgar and low-brow things he writes in the works and in the following tales. As someone who is writing for the aristocracy and high-class society, some of the stories and subject matters in the tales to come might not typically be read by these individuals and would be considered low-brow. Additionally, he utilizes Middle English, which is also viewed as lower in importance and class as it was used by the common people and contained more vulgar and unpleasant diction. Similarly, with the apology after the Miller's Tale, Chaucer apologies for the brutish and vulgar way the Miller acted and spoke. However, we might not take these apologies at face value because they are a way for Chaucer to distance himself from the responsibility of having created these characters and dialogue. In a way, these apologies condition the audience to separate Chaucer's beliefs from the voice in his work.
The Reeve's Prologue and Tale
Because he also does carpentry, the Reeve takes offense at the Miller's tale of a stupid carpenter, and counters with his own tale of a dishonest miller. The Reeve tells the story of two students, John and Alayn, who go to the mill to watch the miller grind their corn, so that he won't have a chance to steal any. But the miller unties their horse, and while they chase it, he steals some of the flour he has just ground for them. By the time the students catch the horse, it is dark, so they spend the night in the miller's house. That night, Alayn seduces the miller's daughter, and John seduces his wife. When the miller wakes up and finds out what has happened, he tries to beat the students. His wife, thinking that her husband is actually one of the students, hits the miller over the head with a staff. The students take back their stolen goods and leave.
Adapting his source material, Chaucer changed the figures of God and St Peter to Pluto and Proserpina at the end of The Merchant's Tale. What is the significance of this change, and how does it impact the overall significance of the tale's ending?
By changing the characters from God and St. Peter to Pluto and Proserpina, Chaucer comments on the actions and lack of moral seriousness in the scene between January and May. By choosing Pluto, the outer-lying planetary god, and Proserpina, the goddess of the underworld, Chaucer makes several meta-comments. By choosing a god that lies in the far outer reaches of the solar system, and is comparatively less important than God or Saint Peter, Chaucer shows how this conversation and May's choice is less morally serious. Chaucer suggests that this incident is not important enough for a more important god, or God himself, to change the situation. By changing the characters to be a couple, Chaucer also reflects the quarreling between the two gods to January and May's own bickering in their relationship. The gods also act human-like in their arguments, which further separates them from God and Peter. The result of the changes made by Chaucer is an ending that is less morally serious and still focused on trickery and lies.
Adapting his source material, Chaucer made two significant changes to the end of The Wife of Bath's Tale: he changed the nature of the knight's dilemma from beauty by day vs night to beauty vs virtue, and he changed the nature of the old woman from victim of enchantment to enchantress. What is the significance of these changes, and how do they impact the overall significance of the tale's ending?
By changing the dilemma from beauty by day vs night to beauty vs virtue, Chaucer puts a more serious moral weight on the decision and question from the hag. Instead of the question being about the knight deciding when his wife can be beautiful, and appeal either to him or to others, the question centers around the knight's values. Based on his decision, the knight will show if he values a wife for being true and faithful or if he solely desires beauty from the wife. This impacts the tale's ending by emphasizing the moral weight of his answer in accordance with what we know he has learned after learning what women desire most. Additionally, the change from a victim of enchantment to enchantress gives the hag's more authority morally shaping the tale and its outcome. Her speech about virtue and righteousness before she proposes the dilemma shows her priming him to be tested by her question. Finally, she also gets to become beautiful and thereby has something to gain by making the knight answer the question correctly as well.
At the Tabard Inn, a tavern in Southwark, near London, the narrator joins a company of twenty-nine pilgrims. The pilgrims, like the narrator, are traveling to the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury. The narrator gives a descriptive account of twenty-seven of these pilgrims, including a Knight, Squire, Yeoman, Prioress, Monk, Friar, Merchant, Clerk, Man of Law, Franklin, Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Tapestry-Weaver, Cook, Shipman, Physician, Wife, Parson, Plowman, Miller, Manciple, Reeve, Summoner, Pardoner, and Host. (He does not describe the Second Nun or the Nun's Priest, although both characters appear later in the book.) The Host, whose name, we find out in the Prologue to the Cook's Tale, is Harry Bailey, suggests that the group ride together and entertain one another with stories. He decides that each pilgrim will tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. Whomever he judges to be the best storyteller will receive a meal at Bailey's tavern, courtesy of the other pilgrims. The pilgrims draw lots and determine that the Knight will tell the first tale.
General Prologue
Chaucer crafts a certain trajectory across Fragment I of the Canterbury Tales. Briefly describe it, and explain why the unfinished Cook's Tale forms a fitting end-point for it.
Chaucer begins the tales with an introductory prologue that introduces an array of characters on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. The reader learns that the stories will be read by these characters in a competition for a prize at the end of the journey. Fragment 1 begins with The Knights Tale, which is a chivalric romance told by a courtly knight. Chaucer mentions in the prologue that the knight is the highest socially ranked person among the travelers, and thus his tale and his character set the pretentious tone to begin the stories. However, this is quickly followed by The Miller's Tale, which is told by the boisterous and drunk miller. The fabliau tale with vulgar language directly goes against the story first told by the knight, and the genre and story seem to mock romantic convention. This is followed by The Reeve's Tale, whose story of a miller and his family seem to be even more fabliau in nature than the last tale by adding more deception and sex. Finally, the fragment ends with the fragmented Cook's Tale, which is so archetypal of fabliau style that it only addresses the characters and the beginning of the plot before abruptly ending it. I think Chaucer left it unfinished in order to show readers it almost wouldn't matter what would be said after because it would be low-brow and provocative like the tales before it. The Cook's tale serves as a fitting ending point by showing how low Chaucer could go as far as edgy and shameless writing.
The Clerk's Tale ends with explicit instructions for interpretation, saying both what the tale does not mean and what it does mean. What are these instructions? How does Chaucer undermine them right after giving them, and what point does he make by doing so?
Chaucer writes in The Clerk's Tale's envoy that readers should, first, never let their husbands treat their wives the way Griselda was in this story. He also says that it would benefit everyone if all people showed the same kindness and patience she did despite all her challenges. Chaucer also recommends that all wives, slender and feeble alike, stand up for themselves in these situations with their husbands to they are treated differently. Finally, he concludes his envoy by saying that wives should be fair and kind insofar as their husbands respond the same way in front of others and behind closed doors. However, the tale concludes with the narrator of the tale saying that he wishes his wife would hear this tale and implies he wishes she was more like Griselda.
The Man of Law's Tale immediately follows Fragment I. What themes does it share with Fragment I? What new themes does it introduce? In what way does it serve as a response to Fragment I?
I saw the themes of patience and endurance exhibited by Constance in this story. Along with other characters in Fragment 1, Absolon and Arcite show patience and endurance for Emily throughout The Knight's Tale as they compete for her. I think Constance showed the same patience and endurance when facing her own moral, emotional, and situational troubles. However, I think Constance is also who makes this story so much different than those in Fragment 1. Constance acts as the virtuous woman in the story whose great faith in God allows her to overcome adversity and obstacles. She also acts as a free agent in many of her actions and choices. Compared to Emily from The Knights Tale or the daughter in The Reeves Tale, Constance is much more than a beautiful woman whose suitors never talked to or a character that merely evolves the plot of the male characters. There is also the introduction of Christian moral values and superiority as Constance is portrayed similarly to a saint, there are constantly stories about conversion, and the immoral characters in the story like the step-mothers belong to Islam which sets it apart from the other tales.
The Franklin's Prologue and Tale
The Franklin says that his tale is a familiar Breton lay, a folk ballad of ancient Brittany. He apologises for the story. Begins with a testing narrative of marriage. The knight says he will not take mastery, but he wants other people to think the power dynamic still exists. She replies that shes not gonna abuse the power (like in the wife of bath, she hands it back). Dorigen, the heroine, awaits the return of her husband, Arveragus, who has gone to England to win honor in feats of arms. She worries that the ship bringing her husband home will wreck itself on the coastal rocks, and she promises Aurelius, a young man who falls in love with her, that she will give her body to him if he clears the rocks from the coast. Aurelius and his brother hire a magician to create the illusion that the rocks have disappeared. Arveragus returns home and tells his wife that she must keep her promise to Aurelius. (EQUALITY IN MARRIAGE) Aurelius is so impressed by Arveragus's honorable act that he generously absolves her of the promise, and the magician, in turn, generously absolves Aurelius of the money he owes. Breton ley: one short story and it's not an epic; epic romane knight and a virtuous lady wifes faithfulness is keeping a promise but this is an incoherient promise because its adultry they're equal, but he has a higher claim in this situation ebcuase he has her truth the knight performers chivalrous acts before their married, but the roles reverse after they are married. its surprising, however, that he does not use his authority over her against her will. vision of equality with obedience and respect
The Clerk's Prologue and Tale
The Host asks the Clerk to cheer up and tell a merry tale, and the Clerk agrees to tell a tale by the Italian poet Petrarch. Griselde is a hardworking peasant who marries into the aristocracy. Her husband tests her fortitude in several ways, including pretending to kill her children and divorcing her. He punishes her one final time by forcing her to prepare for his wedding to a new wife. She does all this dutifully, her husband tells her that she has always been and will always be his wife (the divorce was a fraud), and they live happily ever after.
The Man of Law's Introduction, Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue
The Host reminds his fellow pilgrims to waste no time, because lost time cannot be regained. He asks the Man of Law to tell the next tale. The Man of Law agrees, apologizing that he cannot tell any suitable tale that Chaucer has not already told—Chaucer may be unskilled as a poet, says the Man of Law, but he has told more stories of lovers than Ovid, and he doesn't print tales of incest as John Gower does (Gower was a contemporary of Chaucer). In the Prologue to his tale, the Man of Law laments the miseries of poverty. He then remarks how fortunate merchants are, and says that his tale is one told to him by a merchant. n the tale, the Muslim sultan of Syria converts his entire sultanate (including himself) to Christianity in order to persuade the emperor of Rome to give him his daughter, Custance, in marriage. The sultan's mother and her attendants remain secretly faithful to Islam. The mother tells her son she wishes to hold a banquet for him and all the Christians. At the banquet, she massacres her son and all the Christians except for Custance, whom she sets adrift in a rudderless ship. After years of floating, Custance runs ashore in Northumberland, where a constable and his wife, Hermengyld, offer her shelter. She converts them to Christianity.
________ is a romance. Mention one typical feature of romance and one unusual feature present in this tale, and comment on the significance of the unusual feature.
The Knight's Tale: Integration, disintegration, reintegration/ pagan setting with influence from planetary gods like Saturn Miller's Tale: none Reeve's Tale: none Cook's Tale: none Man of Law's Tale: Christianity and conversion, faithfulness and romance/ trickery with the mother-in-laws The Wife of Bath's Tale: chivalric knight and authurian court, Integration, disintegration, reintegration/ trickery with the hag's magic The Clerk's Tale: Faithfulness of the courtly love from the wife/ husband tricking and lying to her about her children The Merchant's Tale: none The Franklin's Tale: idealized aspect of courtly love/ odd that they're continued into the marriage (usually the man becomes more dominant) The Shipman's Tale: none
________ is a fabliau. Mention one typical feature of fabliau and one unusual feature present in this tale, and comment on the significance of the unusual feature.
The Knight's Tale: none Miller's Tale: trickery, seduction, and moral ambiguity/ Reeve's Tale: seduction and trickery, such as with Alayn seducing the miller's daughter and John seduces his wife/ Cook's Tale: trickery, moral ambiguity/ cuts off before the story even gets started, which implies that the genre and motifs present within the work already suffice for the story's message Man of Law's Tale: none The Wife of Bath's Tale: chivalric knight and Arthurian court, Integration, disintegration, reintegration/ trickery with the hag's magic The Clerk's Tale: Faithfulness of the courtly love from the wife/ husband tricking and lying to her about her children The Merchant's Tale: seduction and trickery, such when May climbs into the tree to be with Damien while January waits on the ground The Franklin's Tale: none The Shipman's Tale: seduction and trickery, such as the wife trick on her husband and the monk/ the use of the monk is an odd character
The Merchant's Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue
The Merchant reflects on the great difference between the patient Griselde of the Clerk's Tale and the horrible shrew he has been married to for the past two months. The Host asks him to tell a story of the evils of marriage, and he complies. Against the advice of his friends, an old knight named January marries May, a beautiful young woman. She is less than impressed by his enthusiastic sexual efforts, and conspires to cheat on him with his squire, Damien. When blind January takes May into his garden to copulate with her, she tells him she wants to eat a pear, and he helps her up into the pear tree, where she has sex with Damien. Pluto, the king of the faeries, restores January's sight, but May, caught in the act, assures him that he must still be blind. The Host prays to God to keep him from marrying a wife like the one the Merchant describes.
Chaucer originally intended to assign The Shipman's Tale to The Wife of Bath. Drawing on her Prologue, name one way in which this would have been a good fit, and one way in which it would not. Then describe how her actual tale is a better fit for her.
The Wife of Bath in many ways could relate to the merchant's wife in The Shipman's Tale; they both are promiscuous with men and love lavish clothes. They are also both witty and enjoy talking to and joking around with others. And overall, the tale's content and focus on trickery in romance and it's fabliau style reflect her personality as a "professional wife" as she's described in the prologue. However this tale might not be the best fit as it still takes place in an Authurian court with a knight, which is reminicent of the romantic genre. The romantic genre and its morality most likely wouldnt be the first choice of the wife going off her aformationed description. This tale, however, builds on the depth of her character moreso by understanding her prologue, like her several husbands, in the context of how she judges questions such as "what do women desire most". She uses questions and conversations in the tale, like the one between the hag and the knight before they consumated their marriage, to talk indirectly about her views of age, beauty, and noble birth. The Shipman's Tale merely would paint her as a wanton woman telling a typical fabliau tale as opposed to one that explores her as a well fleshed out and opinionated character.
Romance and fabliau are contrasting genres, but it would be misleading to describe the contrast in terms of romance being "unrealistic" and fabliau being "realistic." What would be a better way to characterize their contrast? Support your choice by stating how it applies to two tales (one of each genre) that we have read.
The elevated diction and tone used in the romance genre differentiates it from the low-brow diction and tone used in the fabliau genre. Writers in the romantic genre utilize elevated diction and tone in order to emphasize the passion and seriousness of the courtly love in the scenes, as well as the chivalric code upheld in many of the same stories. In The Knight's Tale, the narrator speaks with an elevated tone when describing the feelings Absolon and Arcrite have for Emily to underscore the "physical pain" they both experiences. They also describe Emily using elevated language in her description by comparing her to spring and goddesses. On the other hand, the fabliau genre uses carnal diction in instances like May's interaction with Damien in The Merchant's Tale or Nicholas and Alison's affair in the Miller's Tale. These tales also use a carnal tone when describing character interactions, the setting, and different symbols. These fabliaux utilize carnal tones and diction in order to amuse audiences and build themes of lust and trickery.
The Knight's Tale
Theseus, duke of Athens, imprisons Arcite and Palamon, two knights from Thebes (another city in ancient Greece). From their prison, the knights see and fall in love with Theseus's sister-in-law, Emelye. Through the intervention of a friend, Arcite is freed, but he is banished from Athens. He returns in disguise and becomes a page in Emelye's chamber. Palamon escapes from prison, and the two meet and fight over Emelye. Theseus apprehends them and arranges a tournament between the two knights and their allies, with Emelye as the prize. Arcite wins, but he is accidentally thrown from his horse and dies. Palamon then marries Emelye.
The Miller's Prologue and Tale
he Host asks the Monk to tell the next tale, but the drunken Miller interrupts and insists that his tale should be the next. He tells the story of an impoverished student named Nicholas, who persuades his landlord's sexy young wife, Alisoun, to spend the night with him. He convinces his landlord, a carpenter named John, that the second flood is coming, and tricks him into spending the night in a tub hanging from the ceiling of his barn. Absolon, a young parish clerk who is also in love with Alisoun, appears outside the window of the room where Nicholas and Alisoun lie together. When Absolon begs Alisoun for a kiss, she sticks her rear end out the window in the dark and lets him kiss it. Absolon runs and gets a red-hot poker, returns to the window, and asks for another kiss; when Nicholas sticks his bottom out the window and farts, Absolon brands him on the buttocks. Nicholas's cries for water make the carpenter think that the flood has come, so the carpenter cuts the rope connecting his tub to the ceiling, falls down, and breaks his arm.
