The Ballad
 Supernatural events
 Sensational, sordid or tragic subject matter
 Popular during the 15th century
 Stories orally handed down from generation to generation
 Poetry for the common folk
Common Conventions
 Incremental repetition
 A question and answer format
 Conventional phrases
 A strong, simple beat
 A refrain
 The omission of details
Geoffrey Chaucer
(1343 – 1400)
1st Poet Buried in Westminster Abbey (Poet’s
Corner)
“The Father of English Poetry”
Born into Middle Class family
Dad was a wine maker and bottler
Grew up in turbulent times: born shortly after
the beginning of The Hundred Years war
During a time when manufacturing and
commerce gave rise to the middle class,
corruption of the church and its people, Black
Death
Educated at Saint Paul’s Almonry of the Inner
Court
Deeply religious Christian;firm believer in
God’s love and mercy
Skeptical of Pope’s and Religious role in getting
a sinner to heaven
Critical virtue: CHARITY
Worst Vice: SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS
Very active in political affairs and served under
3 kings:
Edward III, Richard II and Henry the IV
Married to Phillipa
1386 dubbed a Knight of the Shire
Traveled great deal in Italy where said he
became influenced by Dante, Petrarch, and
Boccaccio (Decameron)
Both Canterbury Tales and The Decameron are
FRAME STORIES
IAMBIC PENTAMETER (unstressed-stressed)--old, alliterative Anglo-Saxon world is left
behind for the new form of “Modern“ language
The Canterbury Tales
Began in 1387 - 1400
Frame Story---characters on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas a Becket
Becket died over 200 years before Chaucer’s life
The Church believed Becket’s body & blood were sacred-- had the power to
cure---people went to the shrine to be healed, like Lourdes
Pilgrims are traveling from Southwark to Canterbury on Roman road :
Cosinge and Watling Street during the rainy month of April---very muddy
(slough)
Stories are a collection of Medieval genres:
 Courtly romance
 Fabliaux (humorous, satirical and often bawdy)
 Pious legend
 Allegory (story w/personified virtues and vices)
 Beast fable
 Sermon
 Exemplum
Chaucer himself is the narrator as the pilgrimage starts out from the Tabard
Inn in Southwark, a suburb south of London. Headed for Canterbury
Cathedral, about 55 miles away.
Every conceivable human being is represented, it has been said by scholars
Archetypal unity
A quest narrative
Moves from spring to images of death, as told by the Parson Tale
“Everyman” represented on our universal pilgrimage through life
 CHARACTERIZATION
 SATIRE
 IRONY
The Canterbury Tales
Language
Dominant meter is iambic pentameter
Ten feet of iambs
Most closely matches the way English is spoken
Became the most popular metrical line In English
Shakespeare adopted it into all of his plays---Blank verse (unrhymed iambic
pentameter)
Abandons the old Anglo-Saxon alliterative world
Medieval Society
Representative of all its member
3 major types of society represented: feudal order, the church, and the
merchant/professional class
Frame story
Takes place in the spring (April)
Travelling 55 miles to Canterbury Cathedral from the Tabard Inn
Quest narrative