- 3 men discovered gold under a tree and kill each other to get it
- He states that he spices up his sermons to encourage people to buy his relics
- He states that if women cheated on their husbands, he can do nothing for them. He invites the rest forward to buy his relics & he'll absolve them (ll59)
- He admits it's fraud (ll61)
- He preaches of avarice (the sin he commits) to guilt people into buying, and constantly reiterates "money in the root of all evil" (ll98)
- He says he will not live in filth, but rather live well off the last penny of those starving (ll123)
The Pardoner's Tale
- Three young men sit in a tavern drinking and gabling, making oaths of devilish repute (ll11)
- The pardoner first accuses the men of gluttony - Adam & Eve driven from Eden for that vice (ll45)
- Drunkenness is full of striving & wretchedness (ll88)
- Next he accuses them of gambling, which swearing & deceit from it follows (ll130)
- A man loses his honor - when the higher a man's status, the more he's held disgraced & desolate (ll136)
- Then, he discusses swearing - God forbade it (ll171)
- Idle swearing is wicked & his commandments states: thou shalt not take the lord's name in vain (ll180)
- The 3 men saw a coffin & find it was a friend of theirs who was struck down by a knife in the heart by Death (ll216)
- They decide to slay Death (ll237)
- They meet a man on there way who's very old - even death won't take him (ll265)
- He's waiting for someone of youth to trade him for his age (ll262)
- They ask where Death is & he directs them under a tree (ll301)
- Instead of Death they found gold - rather than continuing to look for Death, they sat by their find (ll313)
- They sent one of them to fetch food to bring back so that the treasure wasn't left (ll343)
- One suggests to the other that they split it between the 2 rather than 3-ways to kill the 3rd man (ll372)
- The 3rd on his way opted to buy poison so he can have it all (ll388)
- The 3rd man murdered (ll419)
- The 2 drank the poison and died (ll426)
- The pardoner tries to sell his relics and services to his fellow travelers (ll464)
The Pardoner's Prologue/Tale
- Frequently asserts that greed is the root of all evil
- Boasts his own corruption
- Lists gluttony, drunkenness and gambling (and swearing) are vices, but he has been guilty of them himself
- He's a true hypocrite, even taking the Lord's name in vain after telling us of swearing
- After telling us his tale, he tries to swindle his fellow travelers into buying relics, possibly trying to guilt trip them.
The Nun's Priest's Tale
- Chanticleer and the Fox
- Scholarly introcution to works, read the extra stuff.
- A poor window lives in a cottage with her daughter's and some livestock (ll11)
- One rooster, Chanticleer, has the best crow than any other rooster, he has many hens, but his favorite is Pertelote (ll50)
- He has a vision that scares him: a dog-like beast wants to eat him which makes Pertilote lose her love for him because he's spiritless (ll90)
- Women want, she states, a handy, wise, free, and trustworthy husband (ll95), not a coward
- She says she'll find herbs for him that will be good for him (ll133)
- Pertilote says dreams are just products of a weak form, but he provides examples of how they can be premonitions (ll289)
- A fox wants to attack Chanticleer (ll403)
- Women's counselors are often ill to need - Adam & Eve are example (ll439)
- Chanticleer says the fox (ll455) who says he's only there to listen to his song (ll470)
- Chanticleer began to sing and the fox pounced (ll515)
- Since Chanticleer died, Pertelote set herself on fire (ll548)
- The widow and her daughters heard the commotion, ran out, and saw the fox run off with Chanticleer (ll558)
- Chanticleer suggests the fox turn around and boasts of his catch - the fox does and Chanticleer escapes into a tree.
- The fox tries to trick him down which Chanticleer says won't happen again (ll612)
- Moral- never trust a flatterer.
- If read as an allegory, it could be tale about how we are easily swayed by the smooth talk of the devil, or the fall of Adam & Eve
- Has parts of an epic - Hero's dream of death & carting his love: using apostrophes (formal, imploring addresses)
- Chanticleer is shiny because he's like a knight representing new ways and trying to court his love
- Pertilote is educated middle-class, thinks of things in a new way & knows about medicine
- references the English peasant's Rebellion 1381 when the widow & daughter's chase the fox & the barnyard joins in the fray
Canterbury Tales Review
- Fabliaux: comical & often grotesque stories in which the characters most often succeed by their sharp wits
- Courtly love
- importance of company
- corruption of church
- springtime - opens in April at the height of spring: symbolizes rebirth & fresh beginnings. Evokes erotic love
- clothing helps define each character - they symbolize what lies beneath each character's personality
- Physiognomy - a science that judged a person's temperament and characters based on their anatomy. This is seen the most in peasants in the general prologue.
- Passage
- short piece 5-10 lines explain some larger theme in the work as a whole
- Such as Gawain's arm or what doesn't it mean literally, figuratively, and relevance to the whole tale and the ending of the story
- The knight's lament - literal, figurative, feminist?
- Power of self-determinators = fully fledged individual men had to ask to marry just like women so many people had no power of self deterinator
- Women's rights went up and down
- Medieval womens rights were better than the 19th Century
- Big topics - Relationship between men and women
- Marriage group
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