Chaucer’s

The Canterbury Tales

Performer - Culture & Literature
Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2012
 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

1. Chaucer’s life
• Born about 1343.
• The son of a wine merchant.
• Received an excellent education.
• Found employment in the house of John of Gaunt, son of King
Edward III of England.
• His skill and inventiveness as a writer, a clever mind and
practical skills helped him raise his social status.
• Worked as a controller of the customs for the port of
London.
• Took part in important diplomatic missions (he travelled a
lot, especially to France and Italy).
• Died in 1400 and was the first poet to be buried in
Westminster Abbey, in the Poets’ Corner.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

2. The Canterbury Tales

• It is a narrative poem.
• It is told in verse.
• It contains a variety of narrative elements: the setting
in time and place, the description of characters, the use
of a narrator.
• It has links with the moral views of the time.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

3. The story
• Thirty people, including Chaucer as narrator, meet at
the Tabard inn in London.
• They join a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral and
the shrine of Thomas Becket.
• The innkeeper suggests that every pilgrim should tell
two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the
way back; the pilgrim who tells the best story will win a
free dinner.
• The various tales are both
religious and humorous,
moral and satirical.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

4. The pilgrimage
• Why a pilgrimage to Canterbury?

- Canterbury Cathedral is
the shrine of Thomas
Beckett, England’s first
martyr.
- Taking a pilgrimage was
common in Chaucer’s
day.
- People went on a
pilgrimage to ask for
healing or forgiveness of
sins but also to socialise.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

5. Social satire
It is an estates satire
(a social satire)

stock characters (stereotypes) are presented,

but they are also individuals (with their own
personality, lifestyle, experiences)

from the three orders of society (the

nobles, the clergy and the peasants)
and from the rising middle class.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

• The three orders of medieval society:

• The nobles (those who fought): they held hereditary titles.

• The clergy (those who prayed): many of them came from noble
famililies.

• The peasants (those who worked): they were 95% of the population;
they were serfs to their lord.

For most of the Middle Ages this social structure remained unaltered, but
in the 14th century, when the plague (the Black Death) killed up to a
half of the population, some upward mobility began in the third order.
Especially merchants became very rich.
Chaucer belonged to a family of merchants and moved up in the social
ladder. In The Canterbury Tales he wrote about this new middle class.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

6. The structure: the “pilgrimage” is the frame that

contains all the stories. The idea is similar to Boccaccio’s
“Decameron”.

A general prologue,
where the pilgrims
are introduced
usually preceded by a
prologue, which
introduces the theme
of the tale
Twenty-four tales

and sometimes
followed by an
epilogue

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

7. The language
During the Middle Ages three languages were spoken in England:
French (spoken by the Norman aristocracy), Anglo-Saxon
(spoken by the natives) and Latin (spoken by the Church).

By the time Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales:

- English had replaced French as the language of
education in the local schools.
- English was becoming the language of
government.
- There was a growing demand for literary works in
English.

• Chaucer created a literary language shaped by French and

Latin models but built upon the old popular tradition and on
a deep knowledge of actual speech. He is considered the
“father of English poetry”.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

8. Characterisation
• Chaucer wanted to give a portrait
of English society.
• He introduced the characters
in the General Prologue.
• He did not follow the social
hierarchy of presentation
of the time.
• He mixed female and male
characters to underline the
growing importance women
were assuming within the
middle classes.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

8. Characterisation
• The descriptions of the pilgrims emphasise:
- clothes;
- tools;
- personal qualities;
- personality.
• The names given to the pilgrims refer to their
professions.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

Some important characters in the “Prologue”:

• A knight: with his son he is the only representative of the

noble class. He has fought in many military campaigns, he
represents the warlike aspect of nobility.

•A prioress, a member of the clergy. Chaucer’s description

doesn’t highlight her faith but her elegant and refined manners
in society, making fun of her.

• The wife of Bath: she doesn’t belong to any of the traditional

medieval orders of society. She’s a member of the rising
middle class: she’s a merchant and a woman. In describing her
Chaucer uses a lot of irony.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

The Wife of Bath

• It's written in rhyming couplets of iambic pentametres (= each line

has ten syllables).

• The title tells us the social condition of this woman (she's a “wife”,
actually a widow) and where she is from (Bath).

• Chaucer describes various details of the Wife of Bath:

• Her economic skills (cloth-making) and social skills (she's very
sociable and likes talking).
• Her clothes (very refined)
• Her social status (rich and with a high reputation)
• Her physical appearance
• Her personality (passionate)

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

Chaucer uses irony in his description:

• Some features of the character are exaggerated (many

husbands, many pilgrimages, she dresses smartly...)

• She seems to be more interested in the social aspect of

pilgrimage rather than in its religious aspect.

• The wife of Bath is both a stereotype (the rich lady) and an

individual.

• She doesn't belong to any of the three orders of medieval society

but she's a member of the new middle class.

Performer - Culture & Literature