American_Literature_in_Eighteenth_Century

The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue & Frame Story Genre Comedy, Quest, Satire or Parody Although the genre of the individual tales varies, the goal of the frame story is pretty clearly to tickle our funny bones and satirize the quirks of various pilgrims, and social estates. So we get lots of humorous details, like that one about the wart on the Miller's nose, or that gross tidbit about the puss-oozing wound on the Cook's leg. As part of the satire, we get characteristics thought to be typical of particular occupations, but exaggerated hugely. Knights are supposed to fight battles' Well this Knight's been at practically every battle ever fought in the past twenty years! Wives are supposed to be lustful (and married)' Well this Wife's had five husbands, in addition to numerous lovers in her youth! So there you go: comedy and satire. Oh, and since this story is about a group of pilgrims on their way to a shrine in a quest for forgiveness, you might also consider this part of the "Quest" genre. The Canterbury Tales: The Knight's Tale Genre Adventure, Historical Fiction "The Knight's Tale" is a work of fiction set in a time period much earlier than the one in which it's written. (The story is told in medieval England, but it'sabout ancient Greece.) This makes it a medieval version of what, today, we might call historical fiction. Just like our historical fiction, "The Knight's Tale" draws upon some of the attitudes it imagines those historical figures might have had, like worship of Greek gods, beliefs surrounding burial of the dead, and ancient Greek philosophies like Stoicism and Platonism. (See "Setting" for more on that.) Just like our historical fiction, "The Knight's Tale" also contains many anachronisms – attitudes which, if we thought harder about it, we'd realize probably don't belong to the setting of the story. They come from the time the story was written, rather than the historical time in which it is set. In "The Knight's Tale," attitudes like chivalry and courtly love are anachronistic in a story about ancient Greece (as is the jousting competition…). We can also consider "The Knight's Tale" an adventure because it includes lots of acts of physical derring-do, like jousts, duels, and battles. Medieval adventures tend to include disguise and mistaken identity, too. We see this in "The Knight's Tale" when Arcite disguises himself as a servant and Palamon fails to recognize him immediately. The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Tale Genre Quest, Breton lai Technically, "The Wife of Bath's Tale" is a Breton lai, which is a short romance that features knights, noble ladies and supernatural incidents. This kind of tale originated in a northeastern part of France called Brittany, hence the adjective "Breton" to describe it. The Wife signals that we're about to encounter a story of this genre when she describes King Arthur as he "of which that the Britons speken greet honour" (864, emphasis ours), and goes on to fulfill the conventions of the genre. In the bigger picture (by which we mean, outside the tiny group of scholars who study this stuff full-time) "The Wife of Bath's Tale" is part of the quest genre. A protagonist is missing something (the answer to the queen's question) that he must travel near and far to find, encountering trials and tribulations along the way. Although the trials and tribulations our knight suffers don't amount to much more than the fact that women, being individuals, all desire different things, the loathly lady he meets at the end of the quest could qualify as a monster. Consider: she's very, very ugly, and despite helping him to answer the queen's question, she also prevents the knight from reaching what we presume is his other goal, marriage to a suitable young damsel. Like the protagonist of any quest, the knight is only able to "vanquish" the monster once he shows inner growth – in our knight's case, a sensitivity to women's desires The Canterbury Tales: The Miller's Tale Genre Satire and Parody, Fabliau If you want to impress your friends and teachers, tell them that "The Miller's Tale" is a fabliau. This was a genre of medieval literature originated by court poet-musicians in southern France. It was concerned with clergy-members and clerks, peasants, and sex. It usually featured someone getting cheated on as a major plot point.  This is obviously applicable to "The Miller's Tale," but in answering "The Knight's Tale" with a fabliau, Chaucer does something really innovative: he shows us how a fabliau can be a parody of the romance genre. With "The Miller's Tale," like "The Knight's Tale," we have a love triangle involving two men and an unobtainable woman – except the love triangle is really a lust triangle, and the woman is unobtainable because she's married! With Absolon, moreover, we have a character who speaks in the high, courtly language of the romance genre, but does so in order to get a girl into bed. This "romance" even ends with a joust of sorts, with a hot poker substituting for a sword. The effect of this parody is to trouble the sharp distinction between fabliau and "high" romance, suggesting that, in both genres, what's really on the table is sex. The Canterbury Tales: The Reeve's Tale Genre Comedy, Family Drama "The Reeve's Tale" starts out trying to be a comedy. All the signs of comedy are there: a miller who regularly cheats his customers, two buddies on a road trip, a night spent all together in close quarters that culminates in several cases of mistaken identity… Yet somewhere along the way, "The Reeve's Tale" becomes very, very dark. It's hard to find the humor in what we might call Aleyn's rape of Symkyn's daughter, or the brutal beating Symkyn receives. Nevertheless, the tale continues to attempt to make us laugh, parodying the genre of the "dawn song," the address with which newly-coupled lovers say farewell after a night of passion, in Malyne's goodbye to Aleyn; or trying to milk the humor out of Symkyn's wife's confusion of her husband's bald head with the white cap of a clerk. It's possible to read all this as comedic. On the other hand, we might read it as evidence of the narrator's pleasure in the punishment Symkyn receives. Defining "The Reeve's Tale" as a "family drama" might make more sense, especially given the long discussion of Symkyn's wife's family ties and Malyne's potential inheritance. Although the conflict in the tale is at first limited to the miller and the two clerks, the whole family gets drawn into it in the end, justifying a label for "The Reeve's Tale" as a family drama. In fact, "The Reeve's Tale" might even be making a point about how the "sins of the father" rebound upon his whole family when all is said and done. The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Prologue Genre Confessional, Autobiography, Sermon People who study medieval stuff generally recognize the Wife of Bath's Prologue as part of the "confessional" genre. In morality plays, in which various virtues and vices were personified by characters with names like Fortitude and Hope, or Lust and Greed, the evil characters would confess their sins as a way of teaching the audience about what those sins looked like. The Wife's Prologue definitely borrows that element of the "confession" scene – namely, any time she admits to morally questionable acts like lying and lust.  However, there are some problems with viewing the Wife's Prologue as totally confessional. For one thing, the Wife seems at certain points to be defending her lifestyle, particularly when she uses Biblical passages and life experience in support of remarriage. It's also unclear exactly which vice the Wife would represent. She's certainly sinful, but does she personify lust' Greed' Deceit' The Wife of Bath's Prologue can't be called just autobiography either, because of the way it often veers away from straightforward narration of the Wife's history to argumentative, almost sermon-like passages. The Pardoner certainly recognizes this latter aspect of the Wife's Prologue when he exclaims to her, "Ye been a noble prechour in this cas!" (171). In fact, what's innovative about the Wife of Bath's Prologue is the way it blends all of these genres – confession, autobiography, and sermon – into one entertaining package The Canterbury Tales: The Second Nun's Tale Genre Biography A saint's life, like "The Second Nun's Tale," is a biography, but a biography of a very specific type. It's concerned only with the events of the saint's life that serve as evidence of that saint's holiness. So, in "The Second Nun's Tale," we learn next to nothing about Cecilia's parents, her childhood, her education, her likes and dislikes...that stuff isn't important. What's important is how Cecilia lived her faith, and that's the stuff that makes the cut. We hear about Cecilia's marriage because through it, she manages to remain a virgin and convert her husband and brother-in-law. And we watch Cecilia's showdown with Almachius because this proves her steadfast faith in the face of persecution. We also see other characters confirm Cecilia's holiness both explicitly – like when Urban praises her conversion of Valerian – and implicitly – in the many nameless converts Cecilia inspires. These characters exist in "The Second Nun's Tale" for one reason and one reason only: to testify to Cecilia's holiness. Which in the end, is the same reason the written saint's life itself exists. The Canterbury Tales: The Miller's Tale Genre Satire and Parody, Fabliau If you want to impress your friends and teachers, tell them that "The Miller's Tale" is a fabliau. This was a genre of medieval literature originated by court poet-musicians in southern France. It was concerned with clergy-members and clerks, peasants, and sex. It usually featured someone getting cheated on as a major plot point.  This is obviously applicable to "The Miller's Tale," but in answering "The Knight's Tale" with a fabliau, Chaucer does something really innovative: he shows us how a fabliau can be a parody of the romance genre. With "The Miller's Tale," like "The Knight's Tale," we have a love triangle involving two men and an unobtainable woman – except the love triangle is really a lust triangle, and the woman is unobtainable because she's married! With Absolon, moreover, we have a character who speaks in the high, courtly language of the romance genre, but does so in order to get a girl into bed. This "romance" even ends with a joust of sorts, with a hot poker substituting for a sword. The effect of this parody is to trouble the sharp distinction between fabliau and "high" romance, suggesting that, in both genres, what's really on the table is sex.