Introduction to
The Canterbury Tales
Accelerated/Honors 12
Medieval Period
1066-1485
The Norman Conquest of
England
Stand-still in English literature
Medieval Hierarchy
 Feudal system:
 Nobility: barons, knights
 Freemen: emerging middle class
(merchants, guildsmen)
 Peasants or serfs
Medieval Hierarchy (cont)
Clergy
The Roman Catholic Church
 (people shared a common faith)
Pope, archbishops, bishops,
priests, nuns, and monks.
 the Black Pl a gue left
holes in socie ty that
provided for u pward
mobility
o it wiped out a thir d
of the popula tion
o undermined the
economic str ucture of
the feu d al s ys tem
Saint Thomas à Becket
Archbishop of Canterbury
Feud with Henry II
“Will no one rid me of this
troublesome priest?”
Miracles that led to a great
pilgrimage to Canterbury
Geoffrey Chaucer
 C. 1343-1400
 Known as “the father of English
literature”
 Middle class
 Vassal to the king
 Started a “re-birth” of English
literature
Geoffrey Chaucer
 Born in the reign of Edward III
 his work has a quality of universality that is only
matched and exceeded by Shakespeare
 Chose to write in the Mercian dialect (not French of the
court or Latin of the university & church). This dialect
became the English dialect spoken today.
 Father was a successful wine merchant (the middle
class was new)
Geoffrey Chaucer
 Born a commoner, but through his intellect and astute
judgments of human character, he moved freely among
the aristocracy, so he knew the world from many
aspects.
 He became a court page at 12 and read romances to
the ladies at court; married a lady-in-waiting to the
queen
 Took part in at least two military campaigns
 Court poet of the later Middle Ages in Western Europe
Geoffrey Chaucer
 He traveled widely, was a substantial citizen, welleducated, widely read.
 He was a diplomat in Italy. Met or read forerunners of
the Italian Renaissance (Dante, Petrach, Boccaccio)
and spoke French, Italian, Latin fluently.
 He held many public offices; throughout his public life
he came into contact with most of the important men of
London as well as with many of the great men of the
continent
Geoffrey Chaucer
 His work did not reach people through printed books
but was recited and circulated in manuscript copies
 He was the first poet buried in Westminster Abbey “One
of the best known parts of Westminster Abbey, Poets'
Corner can be found in the South Transept. It was not
originally designated as the burial place of writers,
playwrights and poets; the first poet to be buried here,
Geoffrey Chaucer, was laid to rest in Westminster
Abbey because he had been Clerk of Works to the
palace of Westminster, not because he had written the
Canterbury Tales” (westminster-abbey.org)
Literary Devices
Frame tale:
 Narrative technique whereby a
main story is composed, at least
in part, for the purpose of
organizing a set of shorter stories,
each of which is a story within a
story.
Romance
 Stories of adventure about knights and
chivalry
 Courtly love:
 Celebrates the love of a knight, usually for a
married woman. Thus, it is often adulterous
and secretive.
 Knights are so madly in love with these
women that it consumes their thoughts.
 Knights try to do many great deeds in hopes
of winning their love.
Fabliaux
 Audience: middle class men
 Risqué tales that usually satirize women and
clergy
 Lots of obscenity; people act like animals as
opposed to chivalric romance
 jealous husband who loses sexual
possession of his wife
 wife who outsmarts her husband
 corrupt members of the church
Heroic Couplet
Pioneered by Chaucer
Poems constructed from a
sequence of rhyming pairs
of iambic pentameter lines
The General Prologue
 Middle English
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU