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ACasola - The Canterbury Tales
[author: Adriano Casola - postdate: 2007-04-11]
1. Read the description and make notes in your notebook under the following headings.
Name and social status from line1 to 4.
Experience of life from line 5 to 9.
Education and Manners from line10 to 34.
Physical apparence from line 35 to 40.
Clothes / style of dressing from line41 to 46.

2. Consider the personality of this female figure.
a) What do the following facts suggest about her?
- She keeps two dogs against church rules.

She kept some little dogs and these she fed on roast meat, or on milk and fine white bread. But how she’d weep if one of them were dead.
- She wears a golden brooch with a motto about love.
A brooch of shining gold; inscribed thereon was, first of all, a crowned “A”, and under, Amor vincit omnia. They suggest she does not respect rules and she seems more interested in appearance than spiritual values and religion.

b)Describe other aspects of the Prioress’ personality. You can use words from the text but you will also have to make inferences from what the poet says about her.
Good table manners she had learnt as well, her greatest pleasure was in etiquette, she possessed the greatest charm, her demeanour was so plesant, and so warm, she was so full of charity and pity.

3. Look at the choice of words and details used in the portrait and decide if it is a realistic or idealised description. Support your aswer with quotations.
I think that it is a realistic description because in all the portrait there are quotations refer to her manners: “Good table manners she had learnt as well” and her aspects of personality: “Her greatest pleasure was in etiquette.”
The poet’s tone of voice in the description is gently ironic. Which of the following devices does Chaucer use to convey his irony? Give examples from the text.
2)He uses Hyperbole, that is, he points out exaggerated attributes or details of the object of irony. His manners are like the manner of a lady or a princess, kingly and regal. “She never soiled her fingers, dipping deep into the sauce; when lifting to her lips some morsel, she was careful not to spill so much drop upon her breast”.

4. Here is a list of frequente themes in The Canterbury Tales. Which of them can recognise in this portrait?
1. religion,
2. class pride,
5. sensual love,
8. hypocrisy.

5. Complete the following passage about The Canterbury Tales. Choose from the word below.
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of tales told by pilprims going to the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury. The poet meets twenty – nine pilgrims at the Tabard Inn near London. The host suggests that they travel all together and each one tells two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back to entertain their travelling companions. There are only twenty – four tales in the book because the work is incomplete. The General Prologue describes the pilgrims one by one. They are vivid pilgrims and represent different social classes and social groups: for example, the military, the aristocraty the middle class and the trades.

6. Write a description of the Prioress. Use the following notes. You may also add other information.
She was known as Madame Eglantine, she had got unaffected smile, her veil was pleated in an attractive way, her nose well – shaped, eyes blue – grey and her mounth was very red and small. She wore an elegant cloack and carried on her arm a coral rosary and from it hung a golden brooch, inscribed thereon was, first of all, a crowned “A” and under, Amor vincit omnia. She spoke French well and elegantly. Good table manners she had learnt as well. She possessed the greatest charm, her demeanour was so pleasant, and so warm, though at pains to imitate the manners of the court. But speaking of her sensibility she was so full of charity and pity, she was all sensitivity and tender heart. She keept some little dogs because she loved animals.

7. Answer the following questions.
1. Why is Chaucer considered a revolutionary poet?

Because he is probably the first humanist in English literature.
2. Which features of poetry did he invent?
He laid the foundations for the English metre.
3. Are Chaucer’s characters caricatures?
No, they aren’t.
4. What are the main theme of the tales?
The main themes of the tales are personal and social relations.
5. Why can The Tales be described as both humanistic and Christian?
Because they deal with personality (humanist) and spiritual values(Christian).
6. Which languages did Chaucer know?
He spoke French, Italian and English.
7. What are Chaucer’s minor works?
Are The Roman de la Rose, The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Parliament of Fowls, St. Valentin Day, Troiulus and Cressida and The Legend of Good Women.

8. In the light of what you have read in Extend Your Knowledge and the Biography say.
1. Why Chaucer’s travels to Italy are important.

Because he could know the works of the most important Italian poets of the time like Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio.
2. What the links between the story – tellers in the Tales and social classes in medieval society are.
Chaucer described the personality of characters and their problems to refer to some social situations.

9.Now go to The Context (pag. 54). Read it and collect additional information about the historical and literary background to the Canterbury Tales.

History: Feudalism finished in 1215 and the Parliament started its development (from the French word “parler”) which began as a council of nobles only but before the end of the 13th century it had come to include the country nobility called gentry and merchants from town.
In the 14th century, discontent began to grow among the poor because of the heavy taxation imposed by the king and led to the Peasants’ Revolts (1381). The leaders of the Revolt were executed but slowly the peasant began to win freedom and get better wages.
Abroad a long war broke out with France known as the “Hundred Year War”(1337 – 1453). It ended with the defeat of the English and the loss of all their possession on the continent but it contributed to the birth of a national spirit which was shared by aristocrats and soldiers alike.
Literature: The Canterbury Tales (probably witten from 1387 onwards) by Geoffrey Chaucer is the most famous relevant example of a narrative – descriptive poem in 14th.
The work is a masterpiece of realistic description of skillful narration and humour. Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales in Middle English and definitely promoted this dialect as literary language of the British Nation. He imported from France the ten – syllable line with five stresses, made the lines rhyme in pairs and used allitteration only occasionally.