The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

*contains spoilers*

Geoffrey Chaucer was the lucky son of an also lucky wine merchant who found himself the beneficiary of a wealthy (and dead) relative’s fortune. The young Geoffrey was therefore not obligated to pursue the life of a merchant like his father, and instead rose to newer heights and served as a diplomat for the Crown after mastering French, Italian and Latin. After retiring from his lucrative career and settling down in Kent in the early 1390s, Chaucer then set about completing his masterpiece, and the subject of my latest blog, ‘The Canterbury Tales’.

‘The Canterbury Tales’ is told, much like Boccaccio’s, Petrarch’s, and Dante’s works were, in the vernacular, and so it is presented to us in the Middle English of its time and place instead of the traditional Latin or French. Because of this, the text can be read by the modern layman fairly well in its original form, though there are editions available that provide the text in updated translations for the modern reader out there. Being a repeat offender for nerdish activities, I bought both the Middle English text (by Wordsworth Poetry Library) and the updated modern translation (by Oxford World’s Classics – translated by David Wright). It’s fun to cross-reference…honestly!

This wonderful collection of stories begins with the helpful conceit that Chaucer and several other customers of an inn in Southwark are all setting off on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, what with it being such a fine April spring day, and the Host suggests that along the way they should each tell two stories to brighten their journey further – the best story wins a dinner for the teller, paid for by all the rest. This of course brings the travellers together with a common purpose, and we are probably encouraged to notice how a selection of the stories told here are imbued with the notion of the importance of the company of others. Indeed, the word “company” derives from the two Latin words “com” meaning with and “pane” meaning bread, and this seems fitting as, in the opening chapter, the General Prologue, we see the characters all breaking bread (eating) and introducing their vibrant selves to each other.

The text is made up of a disjointed jumble of stories from a variety of characters of society, usually their societal position matches both the style of tale and the way in which it is related, and Chaucer initially introduces the nature of these characters through the clothes they are wearing – itself a rather not-so-subtle indication of Chaucer’s tenure as “Controller of the Customs of Hides, Skins and Wools in the port of London”. We have a Knight of high standing who poetically recites a tale of Greek origins concerning the conflict between two imprisoned friends, Arcita and Palamon, over their love for their captor’s sister, Emily, which is swiftly followed by the comic fabliau of The Miller’s Tale. The Miller’s Tale, which is so dirty that it inspires the Reeve’s Tale as an adversarial response (itself a tale about a Miller whose daughter and wife are both fucked by a pair of carefree students as he happily sleeps in a drunken stupor) is one of the most famous from this collection and is beautifully wrapped up after a literal arse-kissing and arse-branding, as well as a little more of that bittersweet cuckolding!

Taking on board the dubious subject matter of the Miller’s and the Reeve’s tales, it must be noted that Chaucer was a pious man, and in his Retractions at the text’s conclusion, he begs for forgiveness from Christ and asks for the reader’s prayers for his soul. There are religious preachings and moral tales as part of the piece, though the reader can quite plainly pick out the people’s disillusionment with the church at the time of writing (with their gilded steeples and opulence during a time of poverty, famine and plague) through Chaucer’s scathing attacks of the likes of the Summoner and the Pardoner, both whose religious vocations involve blackmail and extortion;

An hundred syn I was pardoner.

I stoned lik a clerk in my pulpit,

And whan the lewed people is doun y-set,

I preche so as ye hav herd bifore,

And telle hem an hondred japes more

The Pardoner introduces his con quite openly to the travellers, and I’ll give you the translation so that you can see the shift in approach of the two types of presentations;

‘And by this dodge I’ve gained, year after year,

A hundred marks since I was pardoner.

I stand up in my pulpit like a priest;

When the bumpkins have all settled in their seats

I preach just as you’ve heard me say; and tell

A hundred taradiddles more as well.’

One of the shining moments, however, lies in Chaucer’s knowing, ironic, self-reflexive mocking, as his narrator (quite obviously Chaucer himself, with his tubby belly made apparent), attempts a tale of his own and blatantly fails in plot, form, rhyme and delivery. The Host interrupts Chaucer’s failed attempt and pleads for him to stop;

‘By God,’ said he, ‘to put it in a word,

Your shithouse rhyming isn’t worth a turd!

You’re wasting time, that’s what, and nothing else.

I tell you flat, sir, no more of your verse!’