Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343-1400)
The Canterbury Tales
General Things to Consider:
- Characterization: Relative "Goodness" and "Badness"
- Piety vs. Hypocrisy
- Generational Differences
- Relation of Story to Storyteller
- Definition of Character Titles
Terms to Know:
- frame tale (306)
- fabliau (306)
- estates satire (309)
Discussion Questions:
Chaucer Background:
302:
- What were the three "estates" of
medieval society?
- How, according to the editors, did the growing middle class
begin to blur traditional class boundaries?
The Canterbury Tales:
General Prologue:
309:
- When do people tend to go on
pilgrimages? Why?
- Where do they go? Why?
310-11:
- How are the Knight and the Squire
different?
312-13:
- Is the Prioress described like a "typical" nun?
Explain.
313:
- What does "Amor vincit omnia" (162) mean?
314:
- Explain: The Friar "was an esy
man to yive penaunce, / Ther as he wiste to have a good
pitaunce" (223-24).
321:
- How does the Plowman compare to his brother, the Parson?
327:
- Whose idea is it to tell tales? Why?
Other Discussion Questions:
303:
- What is a controller of customs?
- What language was English courtly poetry written in during
Chaucer's early adulthood? Why?
304-5:
- Explain what the editors identify as Chaucer's
"code-switching."
306:
- How, according to the editors, is Chaucer's "artistic
exploitation" of the framing device in The Canterbury Tales particularly unique?
309:
- How, according to the editors, is Chaucer's prologue
distinguished from more conventional estates satire?
- How do all the pilgrims here meet?
313:
- How is the Monk one who "heeld after the newe world the space"
(176)?
314:
- Why does the Friar know barmaids better than lepers?
Should things be otherwise? Explain.
316:
- Explain the symbolic significance of this description of the
Oxford student: "Ful thredbare was his overeste courtepy"
(292).
317:
- What is a Franklin?
- Who is Epicurus?
318:
- On what field is the Physician's (Doctor of Physik's) medical
practice based?
319:
- Who was Ipocras (Hippocrates)?
320:
- What do gaps in a woman's teeth signify?
- How does the Parson compare to the Friar?
321:
- What is a Manciple? a Miller? a Reeve? a
Summoner? a Pardoner?
322:
- What kind of character does the Manciple have?
323:
- Describe the Summoner's appearance. Does it fit his
personality? Explain.
325:
- Explain this reference to the Pardoner: "I trowe he
were a gelding or a mare" (693).
- What does the Pardoner carry with him? Why?
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