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Canterbury Tales: A Journey of Diversity and Satire

Explore the greatness of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales through character sketches, satire, and heroic couplets in vernacular language. Join the pilgrims on a spring trip to Canterbury and unravel the storytelling game proposed by the Host at the Tabard Inn. Discover the variety of people, emotions, and behaviors portrayed in this frame story format, set against the backdrop of a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Thomas a Beckett. Experience the universality of human experiences and the art of indirect characterization as the pilgrims engage in a battle of wits and storytelling prowess for a feast at the journey's end.

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Canterbury Tales: A Journey of Diversity and Satire

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  1. Background for The Canterbury Tales Semester 1 Review

  2. Why is CT so great? • Variety of people (character sketch). • Normal • Universality of experience • Emotions • Behavior • Etc. • Wrote in the VERNACULAR • Language of a group of people/common people.

  3. Poetic Rhyme Scheme • Told in couplets • 2 lines that end in a rhyme • Heroic couplets • 2 lines that end in rhyme & the meter is iambic pentameter • IAMB – 2 syllables /unstressed, stressed u • u/u/u/u/u = 2x5 = 10 syllables • 2 syllables – one metrical foot

  4. Type of Story • FRAME Story Format (a story within a story within a story within a story). • CT = Big Story about pilgrims on trip • Pilgrim = telling a story • Character inside the Pilgrim = tells a story

  5. “The Prologue to the CT” • Character Sketch – literary technique. • Painting a picture of a character through direct and indirect characterization.

  6. Direct Characterization • When the author/narrator TELLS the character traits (i.e. He is mean.) • Indirect Characterization • When the author/narrator HINTS/suggests through actions, thoughts, or words of the character • Through how others react to the character. • Through how the character dresses, etc. • The READER infers the character traits.

  7. SATIRE • Writing that ridicules in order to reform (change) something.

  8. CT Setting • When? • Spring (April) • Weather is warmer and a time for rebirth • (especially with Easter, resurrection). • Where? • To the Shrine of Thomas a Beckett in Canterbury, England. • The journey begins at the Tabard Inn, Southwark (near London). • Canterbury is 60 miles from Southwark • Takes three (3) days to travel.

  9. Characters • 29 Original Pilgrims • 1 Narrator • Total of 30 Pilgrims + the Host who is NOT a pilgrim.

  10. The Host • Owns the Tabard Inn • Proposed the game of telling stories along the trip.

  11. The Game • The Rules: • Each pilgrim tells two stories on the way there and two stories on the way (2+2=4) • All the pilgrims agreed. IF a pilgrim goes back on his word, he must pay for the entire trip. • The winner gets a banquet/feast at the Tabard Inn at the expense of all the losers.

  12. The Reason • Why would the Host come up with such a contest? • He says it is the pass the time … BUT the REAL REASONS is ….. • MONEY!

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