Notes on “The
Canterbury Tales” inclass essay
Mr. Cleon M. McLean
A.P. English
Ontario High School
FYI
• Examine this idea of “thoughtful laughter”:
• Since we read to be entertained and
enlightened, if follows that…
• Entertainment=laughter=sensibilities=subjective
experience
• Enlightenment=thought=sense=objective analysis
FYI
• “The Canterbury Tales” is…
• a framed, satiric poem
• Written in late Medieval Times (late 1400)
• What you read was the Prologue to the tales, NOT
the tales (except the Pardoner’s Tale)
• Rather than say “many characters,” why not say
31 English pilgrims?
• “TCT”…
• shows the comic dissonance/incongruity between
a character’s social station and his/her true
nature/disposition
• chronicles several examples of institutional
corruption—particularly the Church—in late
Medieval times.
PROSCRIPTION, i.e.,
what NOT to do
• DO NOT KISS UP about the author or the
work. You are reading canonical work, which
means that the authors and pieces are
already renown...we don’t need you to
discover that for us.
• DO NOT DO ROUGH DRAFT/OUTLINE on
your essay paper! If you do, it will count as a
part of your essay
The by-gone days of
awkwardness
• Your favorite word “by” makes for either
passive or awkward sentences.
• Mr. McLean writes on the board by using a
pen.
• Mr. McLean uses a pen to write on the
board.
What is the difference
between the following
1. The Pardoners tale
2. The Pardoner’s tale
3. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s “TCT,” Chaucer shows…
4. In “TCT,” Geoffrey Chaucer shows…
Grammar
• Capitalize proper nouns!!
• English, England, Bible, Medieval Times
• Underline titles of novels
• Use quotation marks for poems, plays, and short
stories
• Use transitional phrases (at least) at the beginning of
your body and concluding paragraphs!
• After first spelling out “The Canterbury Tales,” you
may then use abbreviations, such as “TCT,” but do
not forget the quotation marks
Vocabulary to Know
•
•
•
•
Baseness (lacking virtue)
Perversity
Hypocrisy
Quid pro quo (a thing given as
compensation)
Spelling
•
•
•
•
•
Char-act-er
Receive
Believe
Woman…..women
Senses….believe it or not, it’s the same
as your other book, SOUND & SENSE!!
FYI
• Sometimes it helps to use old-fashioned
clichés and proverbs such as “wolf in
sheep’s wool”
• Make connections between your Sound
and Sense readings and Chaucer’s
poem…or Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”