1. Introduction to The Canterbury Tales

2. The Norman Conquest of England Stand-still in English literature
Medieval Period
The Norman Conquest of England
Stand-still in English literature

3. Medieval Hierarchy Feudal system: Nobility: barons, knights
Freemen: emerging middle class (merchants, guildsmen)
Peasants or serfs

4. Medieval Hierarchy (cont)
Clergy
The Roman Catholic Church
(people shared a common faith)
Pope, archbishops, bishops,
priests, nuns, and monks.

6. The Journey:
From Tabard Inn to Canterbury Cathedral

7. Archbishop of Canterbury Feud with Henry II
Saint Thomas à Becket
Archbishop of Canterbury
Feud with Henry II
“Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”
Miracles that led to a great pilgrimage to Canterbury

8. Geoffrey Chaucer C
Known as “the father of English literature”
Middle class
Vassal to the king
Started a “re-birth” of English literature

9. Geoffrey Chaucer Born in the reign of Edward III
his work has a quality of universality that is only matched and exceeded by Shakespeare
Chose to write in the Mercian dialect (not French of the court or Latin of the university & church). This dialect became the English dialect spoken today.
Father was a successful wine merchant (the middle class was new)

10. Geoffrey Chaucer
Born a commoner, but through his intellect and astute judgments of human character, he moved freely among the aristocracy, so he knew the world from many aspects.
He became a court page at 12 and read romances to the ladies at court; married a lady-in-waiting to the queen
Took part in at least two military campaigns
Court poet of the later Middle Ages in Western Europe

11. Geoffrey Chaucer
He traveled widely, was a substantial citizen, well-educated, widely read.
He was a diplomat in Italy. Met or read forerunners of the Italian Renaissance (Dante, Petrach, Boccaccio) and spoke French, Italian, Latin fluently.
He held many public offices; throughout his public life he came into contact with most of the important men of London as well as with many of the great men of the continent

12. Geoffrey Chaucer
His work did not reach people through printed books but was recited and circulated in manuscript copies
He was the first poet buried in Westminster Abbey “One of the best known parts of Westminster Abbey, Poets' Corner can be found in the South Transept. It was not originally designated as the burial place of writers, playwrights and poets; the first poet to be buried here, Geoffrey Chaucer, was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey because he had been Clerk of Works to the palace of Westminster, not because he had written the Canterbury Tales” (westminster-abbey.org)

13. Frame Narrative: Literary Devices
Narrative technique whereby a main story is composed, at least in part, for the purpose of organizing a set of shorter stories, each of which is a story within a story (like Russian nesting dolls).
Chaucer goes beyond the frame and has characters interrupt and comment throughout, moving in the direction of drama.

14. Heroic Couplet
Pioneered by Chaucer
Poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines

15. The General Prologue Middle English