"General Prologue" Cast of Characters:   Narrator Tapestry-Maker Knight Dyer Squire Weaver Yeoman Cook Prioress Sailor/Shipman Priest Physician (Doctor of Medicine Nun Wife of Bath Monk Parson Friar Plowman Merchant Reeve Oxford Student/Clerk Miller Lawyer (Sergeant of Law) Summoner Franklin Manciple Haberdasher Pardoner Carpenter Innkeeper/Host

General Things to Consider: Characterization:  Relative "Goodness" and "Badness" Satire: Horatian (Horace (Roman, 65-8 BCE)): playful, mild, gentle, humorous Juvenalian (Juvenal (Roman, 1st-2nd C. BCE)): bitter, indignant, sarcastic Fabliau Piety vs. Hypocrisy Generational Differences Relation of Story to Storyteller Definitions of Terms  The first eighteen lines in Middle English (Hear pronunciation ): Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licóur Of which vertú engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open ye, So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages, Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; And specially, from every shires ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The hooly blisful martir for to seke, That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

** Homework Questions **
Chaucer:
(Norton Introduction)

1197:

• In what ways, according to the editors, does Chaucer's Canterbury Tales act as the "foundation of the English poetic tradition" (1197)?

1198:

• How does Chaucer's family history serve as "an example of the increasing social fluidity of late medieval English culture"(1198)?

1199:

• Describe the three periods of Chaucer's literary career.
• In what ways was Chaucer's England "the crucible of Reformation" (1199)?

1200:

• Describe the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and its significance.
• What is a frame tale?
  

1201:

• How, according to the editors, does Chaucer's Wife of Bath support or contradict misogynist stereotypes of women at the time?

• According to the Narrator, when do people tend to go on pilgrimages?  Why?
• According to the Narrator, where do they go? Why?
• How do all the pilgrims here meet?

• How are the Knight and the Squire different?

• Is the Prioress described like a "typical" nun?  Explain.

• What does "Amor vincit omnia" (162) mean?
• How is the Monk one who follows "new-world manners" (176)?

5:

• Explain:  The Friar "was an easy man to give penance, / When knowing he should gain a good pittance" (223-24).

11:

• What do gaps in a woman's teeth signify?

• How does the Parson compare to the Friar?

• Why does the Friar know barmaids better than lepers?  Should things be otherwise? Explain.

• Explain the symbolic significance of this description of the Oxford clerk:  "Right threadbare was his overcoat" (292).

• What is a Franklin?
• Who is Epicurus?

• On what field is the Physician's medical practice based?
• Who was Hippocrates?

• How does the Plowman compare to his brother, the Parson?

• What is a Manciple?  a Miller?  a Reeve?  a Summoner?  a Pardoner?

• What kind of character does the Manciple have?

• Describe the Summoner's appearance. Does it fit his personality? Explain.

• Explain this reference to the Pardoner:  "I think he was a gelding or a mare" (693).

• What does the Pardoner carry with him?  Why?

• Whose idea is it to tell tales?  Why?

• Piety vs. Hypocrisy
• Role / View of Women
• Allegory
• Relation of Storyteller to Story
• Comparison between the Wife and the Pardoner

• Explain the Wife of Bath's thoughts on virginity/chastity.

• Explain the Wife's point in these lines:
• Basins and bowls, before man will them buy,
• And spoons and stools and such goods you try.
• . . . . .
• But of their wives men get no trial, you say,
• Till they are married, base old dotard you!
• And then we show what evil we can do. (294-99)
  

• Describe the Wife's treatment of her first three husbands.

215-16:

• Describe the Wife's relationship with her fifth husband.

:
223

• Why is the Knight condemned to die?

• Why does the Queen grant the Knight a reprieve?  What task does she give him?

• What is it that women desire most?

• Explain:  "Christ wills we claim from Him gentility, / Not from ancestors of landocracy" (1123-24).
  

• Explain the choice the old woman offers the knight.

• Is justice served in this tale? Does everyone get what he or she deserves? Explain.

• Explain the reference to the Samaritan wife. 
• Explain the reference to Solomon. 
• What two things have been the most important to the Wife of Bath in the choice of her first five husbands?

• Explain the Wife of Bath's thoughts on bigamy.
• Who is Lamech? 
• Who are Abraham and Jacob? 

208:

• Explain the Wife's point in the following lines:
• Virginity is great perfection known,
• And contrivance e'en with devotion shown.
• But Christ, who of perfection is he well,
• Bade not each separate man he should go sell
• All that he had and give it to the poor
• And follow Him in such wise going before" (111-16)
  
• According to the Wife of Bath, to what use should we put our genitals?

• Explain:  "I have the power during all my life/Over his own good body, and not he" (164-65).
• Who is Ptolemy? 

• Who is Argus? 
• Explain:  "Whoso comes first to mill first gets meal ground" (395).

• Describe the Wife's fourth husband.

217:

• What is a miracle play?
• What is "Venus's seal" (610)?

• Explain the references to Venus and Mars (615-626).

219:

• Describe the book of wicked wives.
• Explain the reference to women writers (699-702).

• How does the Wife get her husband to burn his misogynist book and grant her "the entire sovereignty" (824)?

• Why, according to the Wife of Bath, are there no more elves and fairies?

• Who is Midas? 

• What must the Knight give as reward to the old woman who gives him the answer?

• Explain the comparison between gentility and fire.

• Explain: "Glad poverty's an honest thing" (1189).