The Knights through to the Franklins Tales; The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer

Why you might read The Canterbury Tales?

The Canterbury Tales is the most well-known work of Chaucer. And Chaucer is the father of English literature. So if you are going to read any of his work here is the place to start. No Self-Education project is complete without this classic. Be warned though it is rather long, and if you don't want to read middle English find a good translation.

Synopsis of The Canterbury Tales(Part 1)

Woven around the tales themselves is a meta-narrative of a group of pilgrims telling stories at the behest of their host.

The Knight's Tale:

Two knights are imprisoned and fall in love with the woman they see out of the prison window. One gets released, the other exiled. The exiled one sneaks back and enters the lady's service. They come across each other and duel for the lady. One is wounded and wins the lady. Before dying in his bed he tells her she should marry the other as he loves her.

The Miller's Tale:

Is a Bawdy tale of a wife who has an affair with the border. She is also desired by another who comes to her window and begs for a kiss. She agrees but presents her behind out the window which he kisses. He goes away angry and returns to beg for another kiss. This time the lover presents his behind but is branded with a hot iron for his troubles.                            

The Revee's Tale:

Is another Bawdy tale. This time of a miller who is dishonest. He cheats two students with their grain. They get revenge by sleeping with his wife.

The Cook's Tale:

A short fragment of an Apprentice cook who loses his job for womanising and gambling.

The Man of Law's Tale:

A Muslim sultan converts to Christianity to marry an Italian girl. His mother is livid and has all at a feast killed including the Sultan, but sparing the girl.

The girl is then sent back to Italy but is shipwrecked. Here she is courted by a suitor who she rebuffs. In anger, he then kills the local lord's wife and plants the knife on the girl. The trial acquits her but the Emperor who is the Judge then marries the girl. They have a son. but again the mother inlaw schemes. This time she gets the girl sent off to sea. When the Emperor comes home he kills his mother for having deprived him of his wife and son. Eventually, though he finds them in Rome and moves to England.

The Wife of Bath's Tale:

A young woman is raped by a knight. King Arthur wants him killed but Guinevere talks him into letting her sentence him. She gives him one year and a day to find out what a woman most wants. He searches the kingdom but every woman gives him a different answer. He eventually meets an old hag who says she will tell him if he promises to do what she asks. He returns to court and announces what a woman most want is sovereignty over their husband. All the women agree he is right and he is freed. the old woman demands he marry her, which he does grudgingly. once in bed she asks if he would rather have a young woman and he says it is her choice. with that he finds her changed into a young woman for he has given her that sovereignty.

The Friar's Tale:

A summoner meets a bailiff who turns out to be the devil. They make a pact to take whatever they can and share it. They come across a man with a stuck horse and cart. He says devil take it all and the summoner asks why the devil doesn't. He explains that the man doesn't mean it. The summoner tries to swindle a widow but she tells the devil to take him. He questions her intent and she says she means it so the devil takes the summoner to hell.

The Sompnour's Tale:

A friar on his deathbed is begged by two monks to make a donation to their order. He agrees to give them a jewel but it turns out to just be a fart.

The Clerk's Tale:

A Marquis marries a low-born woman and subjects her to horrible tests of love. these include the removal of their children and her demotion from wife to a maid. When she passes all the tests he proclaims his love and returns the children.

The Merchant's Tale:

A man marries for all the wrong reasons a young woman. His squire falls in love with her, and she reciprocates. They contrive to be together. By this time the man is old and blind. The squire waits in a tree in the garden and the young woman talks her way into going up the tree. The old man receives his sight back from the gods to find them in the tree having sex. But the young woman talks her way out of it by saying he is going mad,

The Squire's Tale:

This tale is incomplete. A king receives four magical gifts; A brass horse, a mirror, a sword and The speech of birds. The horse is incredibly fast and reliable. The mirror shows the future. The sword can cut through armour and heal wounds.

The Franklin's Tale:

A woman's husband is away at sea and a young man comes to love her. she promises to be with him if he removes the rocks from the shore. He manages this with a magic illusion. Her husband insists she must uphold her promise. But the young man releases her from the promise upon seeing her love for her husband.

Reflections on The Canterbury Tales(Part 1)

Tying the stories together with a meta-narrative is quite interesting. The stories themselves do not share any theme or anything else to tie them together. This makes one story out of what would have otherwise been a collections of short stories told as poems.

The incomplete tales tell us just enough to have us hooked and wishing we could know the rest of the story.

The back and forth between the storytellers show us the group dynamics. The group might be together on a pilgrimage but that doesn't mean they respect or like each other. We often see the roles reversed in stories that come after each other. This is based mostly on occupation. In fact, very little else is known about the storytellers other than their occupation.

What others have to say about The Canterbury Tales

"One of the reasons Chaucer is so important is that he made the decision to write in English and not French. In the centuries following the Norman invasion, French was the language spoken by those in power. The Canterbury Tales was one of the first major works in literature written in English." From the British Library

"Chaucer does not name himself in the General Prologue, but he is one of the characters who gather at the Tabard Inn. All of the descriptions of the pilgrims in the Prologue are narrated through the perspective of the character of Chaucer (which may or may not be the same as that of the author Chaucer)." From LitCharts

Comparisons with other texts

The Legend of Good Women is also a collection by Chaucer. It is much more compact and tells Chaucer's versions of stories of well-known women. By contrast, the Canterbury Tales is focused more on men. The Canterbury tales are a mix of well-known tales as well as more original ones. It is also held together by a meta-narrative rather than a theme. 

Like the Everyman and Miracle Plays we see a set of tales that tell us as much about the author and his times as they do about the stories themselves. The Everyman and Miracle Plays however have a biblical theme and a multitude of authors. By contrast, while priests and monks may be characters in the Tales the themes are not religious.

Conclusion

This first half of the Canterbury tales covered a variety of stories. These often invoke another pilgrim to tell a story in response. They are not linked by theme but rather by a meta-narrative told between each story. These tales come from a diverse group of pilgrims heading for Canterbury.

Have you read The Canterbury Tales? If so what did you think of it? 
 
Want to read The Canterbury Tales but haven't? Please leave me a comment and let me know why you want to read it.

Hopefully, this post inspires you to take the time to look into it on your own journey of Self Education.

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