大学英语课件18line.doc

1: Whan that aprill with his shoures soote2: The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,3: And bathed every veyne in swich licour4: Of which vertu engendred is the flour;5: Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth6: Inspired hath in every holt and heeth7: Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne8: Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,9: And smale foweles maken melodye,10: That slepen al the nyght with open ye11: (so priketh hem nature in hir corages);12: Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,13: And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,14: To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;15: And specially from every shires ende16: Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,17: The hooly blisful martir for to seke,18: That hem hath holpen whan that they were seekeThe narrator opens the General Prologue with a description of the return of spring. He describes the April rains, the burgeoning flowers and leaves, and the chirping birds. Around this time of year, the narrator says, people begin to feel the desire to go on a pilgrimage. Many devout English pilgrims set off to visit shrines in distant holy lands, but even more choose to travel to Canterbury to visit the relics of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, where they thank the martyr for having helped them when they were in need. The narrator tells us that as he prepared to go on such a pilgrimage, staying at a tavern in Southwark called the Tabard Inn, a great company of twenty-nine travelers entered. The travelers were a diverse group who, like the narrator, were on their way to Canterbury. They happily agreed to let him join them. That night, the group slept at the Tabard, and woke up early the next morning to set off on their journey. Before continuing the tale, the narrator declares his intent to list and describe each of the members of the group.The invocation of spring with which the General Prologue begins is lengthy and formal compared to the language of the rest of the Prologue. The first lines situate the story in a particular time and place, but the speaker does this in cosmic and cyclical terms, celebrating the vitality and richness of spring. This approach gives the opening lines a dreamy, timeless, unfocused quality, and it is therefore surprising when the narrator reveals that hes going to describe a pilgrimage that he himself took rather than telling a love story. A pilgrimage is a religious journey undertaken for penance and grace. As pilgrimages went, Canterbury was not a very difficult destination for an English person to reach. It was, therefore, very popular in fourteenth-century England, as the narrator mentions. Pilgrims traveled to visit the remains of Saint Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered in 1170 by knights of King Henry II. Soon after his death, he became the most popular saint in England. The pilgrimage in The Canterbury Tales should not be thought of as an entirely solemn occasion, because it also offered the pilgrims an opportunity to abandon work and take a vacation.At line 20, the narrator abandons his unfocused, all-knowing point of view, identifying himself as an actual person for the first time by inserting the first person“I”as he relates how he met the group of pilgrims while staying at the Tabard Inn. He emphasizes that this group, which he encountered by accident, was itself formed quite by chance (2526). He then shifts into the first-person plural, referring to the pilgrims as “we” beginning in line 29, asserting his status as a member of the group.The narrator ends the introductory portion of his prologue by noting that he has “tyme and space” to tell his narrative. His comments underscore the fact that he is writing some time after the events of his story, and that he is describing the characters from memory. He has spoken and met with these people, but he has waited a certain length of time before sitting down and describing them. His intention to describe each pilgrim as they seemed to him is also important, for it emphasizes that his descriptions are not only subject to his memory but are also shaped by his individual perceptions and opinions regarding each of the characters. He positions himself as a mediator between two groups: the group of pilgrims of which he was a member and us, the audience, whom the narrator explicitly addresses as “you” in lines 34 and 38.On the other hand, the narrators declaration that he will tell us about the “condicioun,” “degree,” and “array” (dress) of each of the pilgrims suggests that his portraits will be based on objective facts as well as his own opinions. He spends considerable time characterizing the group members according to their social positions. The pilgrims represent a diverse cross section of fourteenth-century English society. Medieval social theory divided society into three broad classes, called “estates”: the military, the clergy, and the laity. (The nobility, not represented in the General Prologue, traditionally derives its title and privileges from military duties and service, so it is considered part of the military estate.) In the portraits that we will see in the rest of the General Prologue, the Knight and Squire represent the military estate. The clergy is represented by the Prioress (and her nun and three priests), the Monk, the Friar, and the Parson. The other characters, from the wealthy Franklin to the poor Plowman, are the members of the laity. These lay characters can be further subdivided into landowners (the Franklin), professionals (the Clerk, the Man of Law, the Guildsmen, the Physician, and the Shipman), laborers (the Cook, the Plowman), stewards (the Miller, the Manciple, and the Reeve), and church officers (the Summoner and Pardoner). As we will see, Chaucers descriptions of the various characters and their social roles reveal the influence of the medieval genre of estates satire.General Prologue, lines 1-42: Opening SignalsRead carefully the first 42 lines of the General Prologue in middle English, NA 218-9, using the marginal glosses and footnotes to get a flavor of Chaucers English. You CAN manage this, but OF COURSE you should READ IT FIRST IN YOUR TRANSLATION! Bring BOTH the translation AND your NA (or a photocopy of NA 213-38 and 312-15) with you to class. The opening lines of the General Prologue imitate the opening of another work which Chaucer and his audience knew extremely well: the thirteenth-century French Romance of the Rose, an allegorical dream vision about a young man (the dreamer-lover) and his efforts to win a beloved lady (the Rose) that was the best seller of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Most educated readers - including Chaucers cultivated court audience - were familiar with this work, which Chaucer himself had partially translated into English. By imitating the opening of this best seller, Chaucer plays with the readers expectations. EVERYONE knew the opening of the Romance of the Rose and the poetic conventions it invokes. So EVERYONE knew whats supposed to happen in the Springtime, when the sap rises, the birds sing, the flowers bloom, and people start to long for LOVE. Chaucer begins his General Prologue with an evocation of April, of birdsong and flowers, and of people who ALSO are in a state of longing. . . and then surprises us with what theyre longing for! (see GP 12-18). Note also the reference to the drought of March (GP 2). Is England a country known for its dry winters? To what else might this line be a reference? (What parts of Europe are notably drier in climate than England? How would a poet like Chaucer know about the climate in, say, Greece or Rome?) In the first lines of the General Prologue, Chaucer does more than establish the ground rules of the pilgrimage. He also evokes the literary traditions of which he is a part, playfully manipulating conventions drawn from both classical and vernacular poetry in a virtuoso opening sentence that is 18 lines long (!). This virtuoso display of poetic knowledge and skill signals that one purpose of the Canterbury Tales collection is to allow Chaucer to STRUT HIS STUFF AS A POET well versed in the medieval art of translatio. The General Prologue as a Whole: Estates SatireThe party described by Chaucer has gathered at the Tabard Inn in Southwark prior to departing on a pilgrimage to Canterbury (see the map of the pilgrimage route online or on e-reserve). What was the purpose of a medieval pilgrimage? For what reason was it considered useful to visit a saints shrine or to touch his/her relics? (Recall our discussion of Sainte Margarete; see also the upcoming unit on Marian devotion.) Who is the holy blisful martyr (GP 17) and why is he of interest to the pilgrims? In what sense are they travelling to seek him? How many pilgrims are there? Are they a homogeneous group? What is the usefulness of this device to Chaucer? (What sort of people went on pilgrimages?) How is this helpful to Chaucer in his ambition to strut his stuff as a poet? (Would all of these people be expected to like the same kinds of literature?) Pay attention to the individual portraits of the pilgrims. From what walks of life do they come? Note pilgrims who represent each of the three male estates (see The Medieval Estates and study guide on Hali Meidhad to review concept of the medieval estates); note also the Wife of Bath representing the female estates of wife and widow while the Prioress presumably represents that of virgin. Read carefully the portraits of Knight, Parson and Plowman. Of which estates are these idealized portraits? Other portraits represent two new classes that were gaining prominence in the fourteenth century: the urban middle class, and the intellectuals (people trained as clerks - i.e. clerics - but not destined to a career within the church). Which pilgrims represent these new classes? As you read the various portraits, pick out a key word or phrase to describe each pilgrim. Pay attention to physical descriptions (in medieval times, physiognomy was believed to be revealing of character - see e-reserve chart or website on the four humors). What do the descriptions reveal about the pilgrims characters? Which figures are painted in a positive or in a negative light? Pay particular attention to the portraits of the various religious figures (Prioress, Monk, Friar, Parson, Pardoner); to the portraits representing the other two official estates (the aristocrats = Knight and Squire; the peasantry = Plowman); to the new estate of Intellectuals (the Clerk, GP 287-310); and to the representatives of the middle class whose tales we will read: the Franklin (GP 333-362), the Wife of Bath (GP 447-478) and the Miller (GP 547-568). (Note that the Nuns Priest, whose tale we will also read, lacks a portrait - he is only mentioned in passing as one of three priests accompanying the Prioress at GP 164.) How would you describe each of these figures? What do we learn about their past lives and characters? What seems to be Chaucers attitude toward the Church? Is he anti-religious? What if anything is satirized? Contrast the portraits of the Wife of Bath and the other woman pilgrim described in the Prologue, the Prioress (GP 118-162). Love is mentioned in both portraits. Is the sort of love which interests each the same, or different? How might she define this love? Is it appropriate to her station in life? (What sort of love might one expect a Prioress to be concerned with?) Note the Wife of Baths extensive prior experience (the first word of her own Prologue) as both a wife/lover (GP 462-4) and as a pilgrim (GP 465-9). Note the narrators allusion to her partial deafness (mentioned in passing at GP 448); the story of how she lost her hearing plays a crucial role in her personal Prologue. What is the role of Chaucer the pilgrim within this group? Is he an objective observer? (See GP 37-41). Pay particular attention to lines GP 727-48 and GP 771-811. How does Chaucer define telling the truth in his poem? (The tales of the pilgrims are understood as fiction; what then is true about them?) What is the responsibility of the poet with respect to that truth? Is this truth similar to that of, say, the Dream of the Rood? How is the role/responsibility of the poet similar or different to that of Caedmon, the Dreamer in Dream of the Rood, or the skop (bard) of Beowulf? The Host says that the best tale is that which contains best sentence and most solas (GP 800) - which best instructs and most delights us. How does this statement add to our understanding of the truth of the tales? Pilgrimage as Metaphor: From the General Prologue to the Close of the Canterbury TalesConsider the metaphorical implications of the Pilgrimage. On one level, it is a useful device for Chaucer because it permits him to assemble a group of very different storytellers who will tell very different types of stories, allowing him to strut his stuff as a writer (see Opening Signals, above). But there are strong metaphorical implications as well, best illustrated by the transformation of this theme in the Introduction to the Parsons Tale, the final piece in the Canterbury Tales collection. Read the editors note NA 312-13 on the Close of the Canterbury Tales and peruse the text of the Parsons Introduction, NA 313-15. Know what time of day is evoked at the end of the tales (Parsons Introduction, lines 1-9) and the symbolism associated with that time of day. Consider how the Parson transforms the theme of pilgrimage from its original use in the General Prologue. Is the goal of this pilgrimage still the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral? (see Parsons Introduction, lines 48-51). What is the symbolic value of this change in destination? Finally, pay attention to the Parsons disparaging comments about both alliterative and rhymed courtly literature (lines 31-47); he evidently shares Bedes skepticism about the value of literature intended purely for entertainment (what the Parson calls fables in lines 30-34 recalls Bedes vain and idle songs, NA 25). Note that while this attitude seems appropriate to Chaucers Parson, it cannot plausibly be attributed to the Chaucer of the General Prologue, who seems intent upon demonstrating his ability to write a broad variety of the very fables that the Parson scorns. Know what is meant by Chaucers Retraction (see the headnote to the Close of the Canterbury Tales, NA 313, and text, NA 315). Should we take Chaucers repudiation of his prior literary production in the Retraction seriously? Or does the list of works in the Retraction betray a sense of pride in his literary production? In that case, we might see the Retraction as one last example of the different literary genres included in the Canterbury Tales collection, a final instance of Chaucer strutting his poetic stuff (see Opening Signals, above). Given that the Parson seems to redefine the Pilgrimage, changing it from a literal journey (from London to Canterbury) to a metaphorical one (from birth to death and beyond), the Parsons Tale, a penitential treatise teaching the reader how to atone for each of the seven Deadly Sins, could be seen as a particularly appropriate literary genre to read (or write) in the twilight years of ones life. Similarly, Chaucers Retraction, in which the makere of this book taketh his leve (NA 315), might represent a particularly appropriate genre for a writer to master as his life draws to an end; it symbolizes Chaucers recognition that what ultimately matters most is the salvation of ones immortal soul. In this regard, it is interesting to note that the Parsons Tale and the Retraction together constitute the final fragment of the Canterbury Tales in every manuscript that preserves the full collection (see NA 217).