Any attempt
to provide a complete literary analysis of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in 1,000
words or so is doomed to failure. The book runs to some 17,000 lines of
(mostly) verse, comprising 24 tales, a long introductory General Prologue and a
number of other prologues to tales and other linking material. The analysis
therefore has to be at a more general level, with examples brought in to
illustrate the important points.
The first
thing to be said is that the Canterbury Tales are incomplete. If we are to believe
the original plan as described in the General Prologue, each of the 29 pilgrims
was to tell two tales on the way to Canterbury
and two on the way back, making 116 tales in all. As it happens, only 22 of the
pilgrims get to tell a tale, with Chaucer himself being the only one to tell
two. One of the tales, that of the Canon’s Yeoman, is told by somebody who
turns up when the pilgrimage is well on its way and is therefore an “extra”.
Even then, a
number of the tales we have are incomplete. On two occasions this is because
the tales are interrupted by other pilgrims. Chaucer’s first tale, a piece of
doggerel that is clearly a joke told against himself, is too much for “mine
host” and he insists on Chaucer starting again with something else. The Monk is
also interrupted. Other tales would appear to have fallen victim either to lost
manuscripts or the poet running out of inspiration. Thus the Squire’s Tale is
unfinished, and the Cook’s Tale, at only 58 lines, barely gets started.
However, even
though the Canterbury Tales as we have them are only a fraction of what might
have been expected, what we have is a remarkable and highly varied collection
of medieval stories. There is everything here from classical romance (e.g. The
Knight’s Tale) to bawdy romp (e.g. The Miller’s Tale) to fable (e.g. The
Manciple’s Tale) to a long, involved sermon in prose (The Parson’s Tale).
Several of
the tales are clearly re-tellings of those of other writers, such as Boccaccio
and Petrarch. What Chaucer was doing was therefore taking some of the works of
great European writers and making them available to an English-speaking
audience. This was before the days of printing, so the audience would have been
a small one, hearing the stories read to them by, for example, Chaucer himself.
It is, however, notable that the Canterbury Tales was the first book printed at
Westminster by
William Caxton, in the 15th century.
Some of the
tales would appear to be original to Chaucer, or only very loosely based on
others. The Miller’s Tale may be one of these, likewise the tales of the Friar
and the Summoner.
What sets the
Canterbury Tales on a different plane from being just a collection of stories
is the “frame tale” within which they are set. The tales belong to their
tellers, to whom we are introduced in detail before the first tale is told. The
General Prologue is itself a masterpiece of 14th century English
poetry which can be read and enjoyed in its own right. After the opening
scene-setting lines that explain the idea of the pilgrimage to the tomb of St
Thomas A’Beckett at Canterbury ,
each pilgrim is described in turn. We get the impression that Chaucer has had a
chat with each of them over a drink in the Tabard Inn on the night before they
set off, and he has captured their characters from what they have told him.
Nearly all of
them have a dark side, or a secret that is revealed thanks to a few pints of
ale having been consumed. Chaucer is something of a Sherlock Holmes, spotting
seemingly inconsequential details that go together to reveal the pilgrims’ true
characters. We, the readers, are invited to read between the lines and
appreciate that the apparent praise being heaped on these people by the poet
has a very different purpose.
For example,
the Prioress is a young lady who takes great pride in her appearance. She has smooth
skin, is well-dressed, has excellent table manners, speaks French, and is
clearly well used to polite society. But she is supposed to be in charge of a
priory, having taken vows of poverty and chastity and responsible for the moral
and spiritual welfare of her nuns. Clearly she is far more worldly than she
should be, and presumably she is on this pilgrimage to flirt with whoever she
may come across. Chaucer makes mention of how pained she is if she sees a mouse
in a trap, and how she feeds her pet dogs with the choicest morsels. It is up
to us to note that nothing is said about how she might react to a person in
need, because clearly she stays as far away from the poor and needy as she can.
It is notable
from the General Prologue just how many of the pilgrims make a living from the
Church and how all of them, except the Parson, are thoroughly disreputable in
their own way. The Pardoner is a conman, selling worthless pieces of paper to
gullible people who believe that they will be saved from Hell by so doing. The
Friar is similarly out for what he can get, and the Summoner’s job is to haul
people before the Church courts unless they can buy him off instead.
As the
pilgrimage proceeds, the characters interact with each other, notably the Friar
and the Summoner who clearly loathe each other deeply. There is plenty of
interplay in between their tales, and the tales they tell are aimed at each
other, with the Friar telling a tale about a wicked Summoner and the Summoner
returning the “compliment”.
Other
pilgrims also tell tales that are in tune with their characters. The Knight’s
Tale, although it has a classical background, is based on the medieval concept
of “courtly love” which would have been familiar to its teller. This is
followed by a parody of the courtly love story in the Miller’s Tale, a bawdy
story in which a lively young woman gets the better of her husband and an
unwelcome lover in a story that is very rude but also very funny. This is
entirely in keeping with the character of the Miller as presented to us in the
General Prologue.
There is a
theme running through several of the tales that concerns the relative positions
that husbands and wives should have in a marriage. Indeed, a sequence of the
tales, beginning with that of the Wife of Bath, has been designated by critics
as the “Marriage Group”. The feisty and much-married Wife (who is the only
pilgrim not to follow a trade or profession) is an early exponent of “women’s
lib” who believes that the woman should be the dominant partner in a marriage.
She gives a long speech, saying just as much, before she even starts to tell a
tale. This serves to make her the most complex and interesting of Chaucer’s
characters, and the best-drawn female character in any work of literature
before Shakespeare. Her Tale, which is a re-telling of the “loathly lady” fable
in which a hag offers to be “fair or foul”, backs up her prologue by showing
the wisdom of leaving the choice to the lady.
The Clerk
tells a tale in which a husband has complete domination over an obedient wife,
although the teller does not advocate such behaviour, and the Merchant then
tells the story of January and May, which parallels the earlier Miller’s Tale
with its story of a young wife cuckolding an older husband, but on this
occasion not getting away with it. The Franklin’s Tale brings the group to a close
by showing that dominance either way in a marriage is not to be recommended,
but forgiveness and tolerance are the keys to married bliss.
As stated
earlier, it is impossible to do justice to the whole of the Canterbury Tales in
a short article. Suffice it to say that there is a whole wealth of humour,
wisdom, adventure and morality in this collection, as well as a host of
characters, both inside the tales and without, who serve to give the modern
reader a very vivid picture of life in England more than 600 years ago.
See also:
The background to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
Sources used by Chaucer for his Canterbury Tales
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