Lecture 6: Commentary on Geoffrey Chaucer's

General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,

+ Discussion of Some Portraits of the Pilgrims

You will remember that we spoke of the Middle Ages as a period which was both very
idealistic in its philosophical orientation, for it looked beyond the physical world to a higher
spiritual world, and also realistic, as its literature expanded to include portrayals of the new
Middle Classes in a more complex social and economic world. If we take The General
Prologue as a series of portraits a kind of long tapestry (a tapestry is a woven illustrated or
adorned rug, used in the Middle Ages to decorate castle walls) we realize that the characters
depicted in its portrayals are influenced by both the idealistic and realistic traditions. We
have both saints and sinners here and different philosophies and world-views are brought to
bear on the description of the different characters. The clash between Realism and Romance
is reflected in the famous opening of The General Prologue, the first 18 lines, which set the
time and place of the poem.

Let us look at some of the lines (1-4 and 9-13) to understand more, from close up, about
Chaucer's styles and themes.

Whan that April with his* showres soote** *its **sweet

The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veine in swich* licour,** *such **liquid

Of which vertu engendred* is the flowr; *so that they produce . ….. . . . . . . . . . . .
..

And smale fowles* maken melodye *birds

That sleepen al the night with open yë*— *eye

So priketh hem* Nature in hir corages* — *their hearts

Thanne longen folk to goon* on pilgrimages, *go

First of all, and before we go into the thematic issues that concern us above all, thinking
about these lines will give us an opportunity to look at the innovations in poetic style that
characterize Chaucer's poetry. For Chaucer brings such important devices as end-rhyme and
regular metrical rhythm into English verse. Thus, the lines are in iambic pentameter,
which means that they consist of five rhythmic units or "feet" and that each foot is composed
of first an unstressed and then a stressed syllable. Chaucer brought these sophisticated poetic
techniques to England from both his wide reading in different languages (particularly in
French and Italian) and from his travels on the European continent.

Looking at the lines you will notice that the words rhyme at the end of the line and I hope
you will have an opportunity at some point to listen to a reading of Middle English when you
will hear that on the whole an Iambic Pentameter rhythm is followed. (It is difficult to
reproduce this for you on-line, to give you an idea of how Middle English actually sounds,
particularly when the e's at the end of words are stressed in Middle English, though not in
Modern English.)

Turning now to the themes of The General Prologue, to the co-presence of Realism
and Romance within it, we begin by taking note of the place and time at the beginning of the
story, the temporal and geographical conditions of the narrative's inception.

If the place is the road between the great city of London and Canterbury, the sacred
Cathedral town of the Christian martyr, Thomas á Becket, the time is April, the month most
associated with spring. It is in his beautiful description of spring that the narrator of the
poem, a jolly and friendly yet deeply ironic fellow whom we'll call "The Pilgrim-Chaucer,"
shows his ability to be both idealistic and realistic in his depiction of his fellow human
beings. The Pilgrimage is meant to be the journey to a holy place where the soul may renew
itself (this being a kind of high Christian romance, the quest of the human spirit for higher
meaning). The language of the Pilgrim-Chaucer, the narrator of the prologue, takes,
however, a complicated tone. Showing that the Pilgrims go to Canterbury for all the wrong
reasons, he manages to be at the same time ironic about human limitations and sympathetic
about human necessities.

What he is saying if we read the lines carefully is that men and women go on a spiritual
pilgrimage for natural reasons, they travel because the thought of a journey appeals to their
physical beings. When the Pilgrim-Chaucer describes their reasons for traveling, "that nature
pricks their hearts," (l. 11), we are reminded that according to strict Christian orthodoxy man
is meant to be a creature of spirit not nature. Yet we cannot see the narrator as an austere
moralist. The Pilgrim-Chaucer who creates an atmosphere of charming playfulness with his
descriptions of joyous spring and the gay life of nature, when "smalen fowles maken
melodye" (l. 9 ), is not likely to condemn people who are moved to action by such scenes.

Chaucer wants to say is that people are more natural than spiritual but, judging by the
Prologue as a whole, unless they become positively corrupt, he seems to believe they can be
forgiven for their human, very human, natures. Nevertheless, our seemingly naive but
actually quite shrewd narrator, our friend "the Pilgrim-Chaucer," ends his introductory
description (these lines which place the setting of the narrative) with an ironic comment.
He mentions that people go to bless a holy man "That hem hath holpen whan that they were
seke" (l. 18), that is, "who had helped them when they were sick."
 Yet thanking God for his conferred favors surely ranks as a comparatively low level of
spirituality. Such pilgrims look to God out of self-interest, thank Him for what he has God
done for them instead of thinking about what they can do for God. Perhaps the Christian
idealism of the poem would condemn most of the pilgrims. Yet this insight into our (very)
human nature also suggests a certain honest and humorous realism about people. Not as
devoted as they might be, many, if not most, people may be forgiven in the end.

Thereafter, from ll. 19-42 friendly The Pilgrim-Chaucer tells you about his plan for the
narrative, his intention to describe each of the pilgrims. We see that he's a very friendly
man who seems almost superficial in his readiness to be friends with everyone and assume
that he understands them all. Yet there's a shrewd man underneath the apparent easy-going
fellow. Though he may seem too easy-going to be wise, there is hidden wisdom in him, and I
believe he is a reliable narrator after all, one whom we can trust, and one who speaks with
different levels of irony and seriousness.

He tells us what he can about "eech of hem, so as it seemed me" (l. 39), that is (in Modern
English), "each of them as they seemed to me," and one of the issues in the poem is whether
we can trust his perceptions. I think that on the whole we can.

He begins at the top of the scale, the highest ranked person in the group, The Knight,
(pronounced knicht, with a Hebrew or German guttural ch). This is as high as we can go
in The General Prologue because there are no real noblemen here.

A Knight there was, and that a worthy man,

That from the time that he first bigan

To riden out, he loved chivalrye,

Trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisye.

Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre*, *war

And therto hadde he riden, no man ferre* *further

The knight is an idealized character, a perfect knight that shows the five knightly virtues
of chivalry (a combination of courage and freedom grace and good manners with women),
trouthe (truth, honesty), honour, freedom and curteisye (courtesy). These five knightly
virtues constitute the code of behavior for a man of the sword; all in all the knight is a holy
figure for Medieval society, for he is one who spreads, by his military prowess, the kingdom
of God upon the earth. He has fought all over the world, showing his courage especially
against the Moslems in the Middle East and the Pagans in Russian and Lithuania, peoples
who were Christianized comparatively late in history.

In this connection it is important to realize that according to the older world-view, the
Catholic way of looking at the world, there are properly only three socioeconomic classes of
society, the clergy, the nobility, and the peasantry. These three groups were known as "the
three estates." Members of the professional and mercantile classes, part of the new rising
capitalist middle-class, were not recognized by conservative members of the church and the
aristocracy. Rather the new classes of people, doctors, lawyers, and merchants, were
eventually associated with the Protestant Reformation. The new movements in the church
were connected to Capitalism and the rise of the middle class.

Thus the knight, a member of the minor nobility, is not only the most respectable figure
among the pilgrims, but represents the older, passing, religious and social order.

The description of the knight also raises questions about the perceptiveness of the
narrator, "the Pilgrim-Chaucer" (as opposed to the author who stands behind the narrator,
"the Poet-Chaucer"). After stressing the elegance of this ideal knight, he expresses sadness
at the unkempt, even slovenly, appearance, of this most important of the pilgrims.

And though that he were worthy, he was wis,* *wise

And of his port* as meeke as is a maide. *manner

He never yit no vilainye* ne said *rudeness

In al his lif unto no manere wight.* *any person

He was a verray, parfit, gentil* knight. *true, perfect, noble

But for to tellen you of his array,

His hors* were goode, but he was nat gay. *horse

Of fustian* he wered* a gipoun* *thick cloth, wore, tunic

Al bismotered with his haubergeon* *stained from his armor For

he was late come from his viage* *voyage

And wente for to doon his pilgrimage.

I quoted the ending of the description of the Knight at length, because this is our chance to
also think seriously about the attitude of the narrator, the Pilgrim-Chaucer. Is he a foolish
man, as some critics think, an unreliable narrator who fails to appreciate the spiritual reality
of the Knight because he is so disappointed with his physical appearance? (He stresses that
the Knight's horse and clothes are all rust-stained.) Or is the narrator a sophisticated man
who shows the difference between inner reality and outer appearance without commenting
so that we, the readers, would understand the high morality of the Knight? I personally
believe that the second answer is the better.
 Now we will content ourselves with capsule (brief) descriptions of the other important
pilgrims. We should keep in mind that narrative art, whether in poetry or prose, always
involves two simultaneous descriptions: the narrator creates himself as he creates others, the
one who portrays others always portrays himself at the same time. (When one person
describes another to us, we think about what the statement says both about the object of the
speech and the speaker.)

Let us move on now to The Squire, the Knight's son. He is a beautiful, fresh, lusty
youth, the Courtly or Chivalric Lover. He is a lad who spends most of his time with the fairer
sex, for pretty damsels are charmed by him, as are his readers. Yet Chaucer knows how to
rate him in regard to his austere and ascetic father, the Knight. For the place of the
pleasure-loving young man is below the dedicated older man, and the son therefor will "carf
biforn his fader at the table" (l. 100), he will carve the meat of his father, in every way the
higher-ranked man.

Then we come to the first of the truly ironic portraits, The Prioress. A Prioress is the
leader of a group of nuns, the mother-superior of a nunnery. She should be a venerable,
honorable, member of the monastic (secluded, separated-from-the-world) religious orders of
the Catholic church. She would, correctly, live away from the world in a convent. The
problem with this nun, however, is that she is much too worldly. She speaks over-fancy (not
really good) French, keeps pets, wears a fancy headdress, and has affected (over-refined)
table manners, because she acts more like some minor aristocrat than a woman of the church.
Everything she does, though supposedly other-worldly (spiritual and refined) is actually
designed to make an impression on the world. She is not at all spiritual but entirely social.
Chaucer captures her hypocrisy (a hypocrite is a false person who pretends to be one thing
and is actually another) in a brilliant detail.

She wears a brooch (itself ironic when nuns were supposed to be devoid of jewelry)
adorned with the motto Amor vincit omnia (Love conquers all). The interesting question
here is, what kind of love is she talking about? A nun should be bond to Caritas, Charity, to
the love of God; specifically a nun marries the image revered by Christians, wedded to the
Son of God as he is conceived by the Christian faith. But the Prioress, with all her worldly
interests and affectations, shows more love of self, Cupiditas or Cupidity. Therefore she
betrays her faith and is unfaithful to her Lord. The A she wears around her wrist, therefore,
stands for a very serious sin. She betrays God by caring more about herself than about Him.
Looking ahead to a great novel by the 19th century American novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
the A on her bracelet, carved ostentatiously in gold, stands for Adultery.

When we continue to the portraits of the Monk and the Friar we realize that while
Chaucer shows tolerance for erring mortals, his capacity to forgive human weakness comes to
an end when he is faced with deceitful members of the church. Like the Prioresse, but far
worse than she is, the Monk (a member of the monastic orders who should remain within the
monastery) and the Friar, a clergyman who is meant to go out to serve the people. These are
examples of the corrupt clergy, hypocrites of the church whose sins and faults Chaucer finds
it impossible to forgive. Later, when we come to such bottom-of-the-barrel criminals as the
Summoner and the Pardoner, we delve even lower, but such figures are not members of the
church at all — they are lost souls on the way to perdition.

Because of limitations of time and space (like Chaucer's narrator we are all bound by
that double-limitation) I will examine some more of the pilgrim-portraits, but more briefly.
My method will be — and I asked you, the students, to do similar work in the prepatory
questions for this lesson — to connect each pilgrim to certain salient, that is, sharp and
significant, details.

This I think is Chaucer's method of characterization in The General Prologue. He finds

details which describe characters. Character is in the detail, and, beyond this, the use of the
detail work also has to do with our overall theme of the existence of both romance-idealism
and realist-materialism in Chaucer's poem. The romance-idealism goes together more with
types of people, categories, the realist-materialism goes together more with individuals,
specific realistic imitations of people, themselves made out of the material of specific life-in-
historical-time.

Characters like the Knight and the Squire come right out of a romance tradition, they are
valorized types, social models. The Prioress is a type beginning to be individualized by her
particular brand of snobbery and affection, Madame Eglantine has the beginnings of
individuality. What about the Monk and the Friar now? They are also types characterized so
specifically by detail that we see the individual beginning to emerge from the type. How do
such negative types fit into a romantic-idealist view? Because to establish an ideal one also
needs counter-ideals, villains to clarify the notion of the hero. Satire, the pointing out of
man's follies and foibles, is related to romance: the satirist tries to locate and banish the
negative types in order to reach the ideal world. (Satire, with its negative vision, implies a
more positive — romantic — vision.)

Now, what are the details that are important about the Monk. (A monk is a member of
the church whose task is to stay within the confines of his monastery; it is precisely the role
of the monk to lead a simple life, praying for humanity and exalting humility and asceticism
by leading the plainest life possible.) Yet this "manly monk," big and strong enough to be an
"abbot" (leader of a monastery), is an outrider going far afield to hunt and engage in other
worldly activities. Is the Poet-Chaucer very naive when he accepts the monk as such an
impressive man? I think we have to take such comments as deliberately ironic, with Chaucer
knowing that the reader would see the difference between what the narrator says and what the
details actually show. Thus he would know we couldn't take him seriously when he praised
the greedy and selfish monk.

For while his duties take him outside the monastery, he is characterized as one refusing to
live within the limitations of religious discipline. Among the salient details here is the noise
he makes, the "jingling" of the luxurious equipment on his horse rings as loud as a church-
bell. But this means that he is a man of Cupiditas, of greed and vanity and self-love, rather
than Caritas, service, and devotion toward others.

Notice that the Monk is very involved with his horse, which is luxuriously appointed,
whereas the Knight neglected his horse, which had a shoddy appearance. Yet the meaning of
this is different from what it might appear if we understanding the relationship between spirit
and the body correctly. Indeed the position of rider to horse is a symbolic one in Medieval
thought. We might posit the following parallels:

Rider // Horse = Soul // Body = Spirit // Matter = Man // Woman

What other details about the Monk seem important to you? What about his gold love-knot?
His shiny bald head? The luxurious fur he wears?

Then we turn to The Friar (the Brother). He is a member of a religious order that goes
out to the people rather than living cloistered away from people. He also is invested with
certain religious powers, including the ability to grant indulgence (forgiveness) to those who
have sinned. Through the Friar we come to a very important Medieval issue. He raises the
theme of simony, of selling forgiveness for sin. This is unforgettable in Chaucer's words:

For many a man so hard is of his herte

He may nat weepe though him sore smerte:

Therfore, in stede of weeping and prayeres,

Men mote yive silver to the poore freres. (ll. 229-232)

The Friar can, officially, offer absolution, and allow the sinner to atone for his
wrong-doing. This can only occur, however, when the confession is performed properly and
the sinner goes through the four steps of: a) confession (to admit one's sin), b) contrition (to
regret one's sin), c) penance (to perform an act that compensates for one's sin, d) expiation (to
be cleansed of one's sin).

Simony is a perversion of step c, and involves simply paying money as compensation

instead of going through any spiritual cleansing. The Friar is the kind of unscrupulous cleric
who encourages this mere buying of forgiveness (which nothing less than an attempt to bribe
the church — unfortunately, it often worked.)

In this connection another detail to notice about the Friar is the sweetness of his voice.

Ful swetely herede he confessioun,

And plesant was his absolucioun. (ll. 121-22)

This is a deceptive pleasantness and once more physical appearance contradicts spiritual
reality. For the Friar's sweet voice will bring no forgiveness, the attractive voice of a lying,
dishonest man will bring damnation not salvation. The sound of the words is sweet, but the
meaning of the words, because the speaker is a false and corrupt cleric, will be extremely
bitter.

After Huberd, the bribe-seeking Friar, we come again to a positive character, the
Clerk. A Clerk was officially a student of religion, because young people could officially
study religious subjects only at European universities in the Middle Ages. However, the
Clerk is actually an early figure of a Humanist, one who studies philosophy, ancient or
modern, for its own sake, and not for the glory of the church. His favorite philosopher is
Aristotle, and he spends all his money on books and learning. This more secular figure is far
superior to the self-indulgent, proud, and self-seeking figures of the Prioress, the Monk, and
the Friar. Note that his disinterest in the material world is reflected in the condition of his
horse, "As lene was his hors as is a rake," (. 289). I might add that it many a teacher has been
touched, if not inspired by the beautiful final lines of the description of the Clerk:

Souning* in moral vertu was his speeche, *resounding

And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche. (ll. 309-310)

I am going to end this lecture (which has gone on, I admit, beyond its allotted "time
and space") with a discussion of perhaps Chaucer's greatest portrait in The General Prologue,
the description of the amazingly vital and paradoxical Wife of Bath .

She is probably the most interesting character in The General Prologue, one who
steps almost completely out of type to assume her position as a striking and unforgettable
individual. In that sense she also steps out of the Middle Ages directly into the Renaissance.
She raises at the same time feminist issues that preoccupy us intensely to the present day.

She is a Wife in a big way because she seems to have outlived (or worn-out) five
husbands not to mention many other male companions along the way. Every detail about her
is richly emblematic at the same time as it suggest something new, something original,
something "modern." For example, as a prosperous cloth-maker, one could say she was part
of the material world, covering up the reality of the spirit. Yet, at the same time, creating
something new in cloth, that is, becoming a successful individual woman in a new
commercial industry, she is part of something new, the new world of

Capitalist enterprise which will help to break down the old Catholic-Medieval world. That
world was based on a narrow Feudal economy run by the land-owning economy, and
exploiting the oppressed peasantry.

It is clear that she is not morally pure and here we come to some real questions in
regard to the interpretation of Chaucer. If we see Chaucer as a very strict Christian then we
would say he condemns this loose woman who marries and marries again. According to the
strict other-worldly reading of Christianity the good (or bad) Wife should have breathed a
sigh of relief after her first husband died and been glad to revert to the renewed chastity of the
widow. Clearly this was not, at all the case. On the contrary, this is a woman who takes
upon herself all the privileges, including the physical privileges, of a man. Thus we notice
that she rides her horse in a masterful way (reversing the proper rider // horse = man //
woman relation); nor is the narrator afraid of revealing her extreme sophistication in relations
between men and women, when he tells us,

Of remedies of love she knew parchaunce* *it so happens

For she coude of that art the olde daunce* *she knew it so well

Is Chaucer condemning or praising this woman who would not accept the role of a poor
person or a female. She is one who has turned things around, who has taken destiny into her
own hands as part of a newer, freer world, one where men and women are truly equal. Where
does Chaucer stand? Does he fear or admire her? Does he feel both things at the same time?
What do you think? Go back to the text. Note how she is in regard to her horse, to her
clothes, to the other pilgrims, to the question of "charity." Using the text, describe what you
think Chaucer's attitude is toward the most interesting of the pilgrims. Write this up in your
on-line log.

Let me close by saying a few things about the characters we will not have a chance to
look at closely. The two positive characters, the good Parson (ll. 479-530) and his humble
brother, the Plowman (ll. 531-43) are figures that students may study on their own. Together
with the knight they complete the notion of "The Three Estates" mentioned earlier in this
study, for they represent the ideal clergyman and the ideal peasant. As a final assignment for
The General Prologue student will study the Parson and the Plowman on their own. Read the
Parson in relation to the details of his "staf" (walking stick) and his voice. Read the Plowman
in relation to his job in life, his carrying and spreading "dung" (look up the word) on farms
and fields to increase the fertility of the earth.

For your on-line log, a) compare the masculinity of the Parson, his way of being a
strong man, to the way in which the Monk is a "manly man," b) compare the way the Parson
uses his voice with the way Huberd the Friar uses his voice c) discuss the symbolism of
"dung" in the life of the Plowman.

As for those two extremely unsavory characters, the Summoner and the Pardoner,
students may read them on their own. They are further examples of the corrupt clergy, about
which we have already spoken. They take us far more deeply into vice and viciousness than
the Prioress, the Monk and the Friar, but we have already studied the basic principles
pertaining to the corrupt clergy.