1. The Canterbury Tales

2. I. Geoffrey Chaucer Son of vintner Held civil service positions
Well-travelled
Read English, Latin, Italian, and French
His work was popular
He was praised for making English suitable for poetry
Called the father of English poetry
Buried in Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey

3. II. The Tales Begun: 1386 Planned: 120 tales
Completed: 22 and 2 fragments
Pilgrimage as a framing device for tales
Conventional springtime opening (renewal, new life)
Very similar to Boccaccio’s Decameron (a framed story involving a group of people who have fled from plague-ridden Florence and tell stories in their exile)
Written in iambic pentameter
29 pilgrims journey from Tabard Inn on a pilgrimage, telling stories to pass the time

4. III. Pilgrimage Very popular to go on pilgrimage
Pilgrims often went to Rome or Jerusalem
Canterbury Cathedral: shrine to Thomas a Becket
Reasons
Hope of heavenly reward
Penance
Pubs
People went in groups for safety

5. IV. The Three Estates
Those who work Those who fight Those who pray

6. V. Pilgrim descriptions
Cross section of medieval life (conservative military man, oft-married feminist, elegant nun)
Show social rank, as well as moral and spiritual condition
Include many of the following
Physical appearance
Clothes (array)
Work
Hobbies
Food
Humour

7. VI. Four Humours Black bile earth; melancholy, depressed Blood
air; cheerful, sensual
Yellow bile
fire; choleric, unkind, unstable, proud
Phlegm
water; obese, slovenly
** These humours dictated a person’s temperament and physical make-up and caused disease.

8. “Gentilesse” The firste stok, fader of gentilesse—
What man that desireth gentil for to be
Must folowe his trace, and alle his wittes dresse
Vertu to love and vyces for to flee.
For unto vertu longeth dignitee
And noght the revers, saufly dar I deme,
Al were he mytre, croune, or diademe.

9. Attribution Sounds are from the Chaucer Metapage audio page
General Prologue: Alan Baragona
“Gentilesse”: Alan Baragona