Geoffrey Chaucer. [614509]

Geoffrey Chaucer.
The Canterbury Tales – an Overview
That he found what he wanted in the scheme of The Canterbury Tales , and that, though these
also are unfinished (in fact not half finished according to their apparent design: 22-24 out of 120
initially thought of), they are one of the greatest works of literature. Of the genesis of the scheme itself
nobody knows anything. As Dickens says, “I thought of Mr. Pickwick”: so, no doubt, did Chaucer
“think of” his pilgrims. It has been suggested — and denied — that Boccaccio, so often Chaucer’s
immediate inspirer, was his inspirer in this case also, by the scheme and framework of The Decameron.
It is, indeed, by no means unlikely that there was some connection; but the plan of collecting
individually distinct tales, and uniting them by means of a framework of central story, was immemorial
in the east; and at least one example of it had been naturalised in Europe, under many different forms,
for a couple of centuries, in the shape of the collection known as The Seven Sages. It is not necessary to
look beyond this for general suggestion; and the still universal popularity of pilgrimages provided a
more special hint, the possibilities of which it certainly did not require Chaucer’s genius to recognise.
These fortuitous associations offer almost everything that the artist, desirous of painting character and
manners on the less elaborate and more varied scale, can require. Though we have little of the kind
from antiquity, Petronius shows us the germs of the method; and, since medieval literature began to
become adult in Italy, it has been the commonest of the common.
To what extent Chaucer regarded it, not merely as a convenient vehicle for anything that he
might take a fancy to write, but as a useful one to receive anything of the less independent kind that he
had already written, is a very speculative question. But the general tendency has been to regard The
Knight’s Tale, that of the Second Nun and, perhaps, others, as examples of this latter process, while an
interesting hypothesis has been started that the capital Tale of Gamelyn — which we find mixed up
with Chaucer’s works, but which he cannot possibly have written — may have been selected by him
and laid by as the subject of rehandling into a Canterbury item. But all this is guesswork; and, perhaps,
the elaborate attempts to arrange the tales in a consistent order are a little superfluous. The
unquestionable incompleteness of the whole and of some of the parts, the irregular and unsystematic
character of the minor prologues and framework-pieces, alike preclude the idea of a very orderly plan,
worked out so far as it went in an orderly fashion. In fact, as has been hinted above, such a thing is
repugnant to Chaucer’s genius as manifested not merely here but everywhere.
Fortunately, however, he was able to secure a sufficient number of happy moments to draw the
main part of the framework — The Prologue, in which the plan of the whole is sketched, the important
characters delineated and the action launched—without gap or lapse. For it would be short-sighted to
regard the grouping of certain figures in an undescribed batch as an incompleteness. Some writers of
more methodical disposition would, probably, have proceeded from this to work out all the framework
part, including, perhaps, even a termination, however much liberty they might reserve to themselves for
the inset tales. But this was not Chaucer’s way. There have been controversies even as to the exact
number of tales that he originally promises or suggests: and the incident of the canon’s yeoman shows
that he might very well have reinforced his company in numbers, and have treated them to adventures
of divers kinds. In fact, the unknown deviser of the The Pardoner and the Tapicer, though what he has
produced is quite unlike Chaucer in form, has been much less out of the spirit and general
verisimilitude of the whole work than more modern continuators. But it is most probable that the actual
frame-stuff — so much of it as is genuine (for there are fragments of link in some manuscripts which
are very unlikely to be so) — was composed by its author in a very haphazard manner, sometimes with
the tale he had in his mind, sometimes to cobble on one which he had written more or less
independently. The only clear string of connection from first to last is the pervading personality of the

host, Harry Bailly, who gives a unity of character, almost as great as the unity of frame-story, to the
whole work, inviting, criticising, admiring, denouncing, but always keeping himself in evidence. As to
the connection of origin between individual tales and the whole, more hazardous conjectures in things
Chaucerian have been made than that the couplet-verse pieces were all or mostly written or rewritten
directly for the work, and that those in other metres and in prose were the adopted part of the family.
But this can never be known as a fact. What is certain is that the couplets of The Prologue, which must
be of the essence of the scheme, and those of most parts of it where the couplets appear, are the most
accomplished, various, thoroughly mastered verse that we find in Chaucer himself or in any English
writer up to his time, while they are not exceeded by any foreign model unless it be the terza rima of
Dante. A medium which can render, as they are rendered here, the manners-painting of The Prologue,
the comic monodrama of The Wife of Bath and the magnificent description of the temple of Mars, has
“handed in its proofs” once for all.
Whether, however, it was mere impatience of steady labour on one designed plan, or a higher
artistic sense which transcended a mere mechanical conception of unity, there can be no doubt of the
felicity of the result. Without the various subject and quality, perhaps even without the varied metre, of
the tales, the peculiar effect of “God’s plenty” (a phrase by John Dryden, itself so felicitous that it may
be quoted more than once) would not be produced; and the essential congruity of the tales as a whole
with the mixed multitude supposed to tell them, would be wholly impossible. Nothing is more
remarkable than the intimate connection between the tales and The Prologue. They comment and
complete each other with unfailing punctuality. Not only is it of great importance to read the
corresponding portion of The Prologue with each tale; not only does each tale supply, as those of the
Monk and the Prioress especially, important correction as well as supplement; but it is hardly fantastic
to say that the whole Prologue ought to be read, or vividly remembered, before reading each tale, in
order to get its full dramatic, narrative and pictorial effect. The sharp and obvious contrasts, such as
that of The Knight’s Tale with the two that follow, though they illustrate the clearness with which the
greatest English men of letters appreciated the value of the mixture of tragedy or romance with farce or
comedy, are less instructive, and, when properly appreciated, less delightful, than other contrasts of a
more delicate kind. Such is the way in which the satire of Sir Thopas is left to the host to bring out; and
yet others, where the art of the poet is probably more instinctive than deliberate, such as the facts that
nobody is shocked by the The Wife of Bath’s Prologue (the interruption by the friar and summoner is of
a different character), and (even more incomprehensible to the modern) that nobody is bored by The
Tale of Melibeus. Of the humour which is so constantly present, it will be more convenient to speak
presently in a separate passage. It cannot be missed, though it may sometimes be mistaken.
It is no exaggeration or flourish, but a sound and informing critical and historical observation, to
say that The Canterbury Tales supply a miniature or even microcosm, not only of English poetry up to
their date, but of medieval literature, barring the strictly lyrical element, and admitting a part only of
the didactic, but enlarged and enriched by additional doses, both of the personal element and of that
general criticism of life which, except in Dante, had rarely been present. The first or Knight’s Tale is
romance on the full, if not on the longest, scale, based on Boccaccio’s Teseide, but worked out with
Chaucer’s now invariable idiosyncrasy of handling and detail; true to the main elements of “fierce wars
and faithful loves”; possessing much more regular plot than most of its fellows; concentrating and
giving body to their rather loose and stock description; imbued with much more individuality of
character; and with the presence of the author not obtruded but constantly throwing a shadow. That it is
representative of romance in general may escape those who are not, as, perhaps, but a few are,
thoroughly acquainted with romance at large—and especially those who do not know the man of the
twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries regarded the heroes of the Charlemagne and Arthur stories,
and those of antiquity, as absolutely on a par.
With the high seriousness and variegated decoration of this romance of adventure and quality
contrast the two tales that follow, one derived from a known fabliau, the other, possibly, original, but

both of the strict fabliau kind — that is to say, the story of ordinary life with a preferably farcical
tendency. If the morals are not above those of the time, the nature and the manners of that time — the
nature and manners no longer of a poetic Utopia, localised, for the moment, in France or Britain or
Greece or Rome or Jerusalem or Ind, but of the towns and villages of England — are drawn with a
vividness which makes their French patterns tame. What threatens a third story of this same kind, The
Cook’s Tale, is broken off short without any explanation after about fifty lines — one MS. asserting
that Chaucer “maked namore” of it. The Man of Law’s Tale, the pathetic story of the guiltless and
injured Constance, returns to a favourite romance-motive and treats it in rhyme royal — the most
pathetic of metres — while The Shipman falls back on the fabliau and the couplet. But Chaucer was
not the man to be monotonous in his variety. The next pair, The Prioress’s Tale and Chaucer’s own Sir
Thopas, indeed, keep up the alternation of grave and gay, but keep it up in quite a different manner.
Approximately in every way, the beautiful and pathetic story of the innocent victim of Jewish ferocity
is an excursion into that hagiology which was closely connected with romance, and which may even,
perhaps, be regarded as one of its probable sources. But the burlesque of chivalrous adoration is not of
the fabliau kind at all: it is parody of romance itself, or, at least, of its more foolish and more
degenerate offshoots. For, be it observed, there is in Chaucer no sign whatever of hostility to, or
undervaluation of, the nobler romance in any way, but, on the contrary, great and consummate practice
thereof on his own part.
Now, parody, as such, is absolutely natural to man, and it had been frequent in the Middle Ages,
though, usually, in a somewhat rough and horse-playful form. Chaucer’s is of the politest kind possible.
The verse, though sing-song enough, is of the smoothest variety of “romance six” or rime couée
(664664/ aabccb); the hero is “a very parfit carpet knight”; it cannot be proved that, after his long
preparation, he did not actually encounter something more terrible than buck and hare; and it is
impossible not to admire his determination to be satisfied with nobody less than the Fairy Queen to
love par amours. But all the weak points of the weaker romances, such as Torrent and Sir Eglamour, are
brought out as pitilessly as politely. It is one of the minor Chaucerian problems (perhaps of as much
importance as some that have received more attention), whether the host’s outburst of wrath is directed
at the thing as a romance or as a parody of romance. It is certain that uneducated and uncultivated
people do not, as a rule, enjoy the finer irony; that it makes them uncomfortable and suspicious of
being laughed at themselves. And it is pretty certain that Chaucer was aware of this point also in human
nature.
Of The Tale of Melibeus something has been said by a hint already. There is little doubt that, in
a double way, it is meant as a contrast not merely of grave after gay, but of good, sound, serious stuff
after perilously doubtful matter. And it is appreciated accordingly as, in the language of Tennyson’s
farmer, “whot a owt to ’a said.” But the monk’s experience is less happy, and his catalogue of
unfortunate princes, again strongly indebted to Boccaccio, is interrupted and complained of, not merely
by the irrepressible and irreverent host but by the knight himself — the pattern of courtesy and sweet
reasonableness. The criticism is curious, and the incident altogether not less so. The objection to the
histories, as too dismal for a mixed and merry company, is not bad in itself, but a little inconsistent
considering the patience with which they had listened to the woes of Constance and the prioress’s little
martyr, and were to listen (in this case without even the sweetmeat of a happy ending) to the
physician’s story of Virginia. Perhaps the explanation is meant to be that the monk’s accumulation of
“dreriment” — disaster heaped on disaster without sufficient detail to make each interesting — was
found oppressive: but a subtler reading may not be too subtle. Although Chaucer’s flings at
ecclesiastics have been exaggerated since it pleased the reformers to make arrows out of them, they do
exist. He had thought it well to atone for the little gibes in The Prologue at the prioress’s coquettishness
of way and dress by the pure and unfeigned pathos and piety of her tale. But he may have meant to
create a sense of incongruity, if not even of hypocrisy, between the frank worldliness of the monk —
his keenness for sport, his objection to pore over books, his polite contempt of “Austin”, his portly

person — and his display of studious and goody pessimism. At any rate, another member of the cloth,
the nun’s priest, restores its popularity with the famous and incomparable tale of the Cock and the Fox,
known as far back as Marie de France, and, no doubt, infinitely older, but told here with the
quintessence of Chaucer’s humour and of his dramatic and narrative craftsmanship. There is
uncertainty as to the actual order here; but the Virginia story, above referred to, comes in fairly well,
and it is noticeable that the doctor, evidently a good judge of symptoms and of his patient’s powers of
toleration, cuts it short. After this, the ancient and grisly but powerful legend of Death and the robbers
strikes a new vein — in this case of eastern origin, probably, but often worked in the Middle Ages. It
comes with a sort of ironic yet avowed impropriety from the pardoner: but we could have done with
more of its kind. And then we have one of the most curious of all the divisions, the long and brilliant
Wife of Bath’s Prologue, with her short, and by no means insignificant but, relatively, merely
postscript-like, tale. This disproportion, and that of the prologue itself to the others, seems to have
struck Chaucer, for he makes the friar comment on it; but it would be quite a mistake to found on this a
theory that the length was either designed or undesigned. V ogue la galère seems to have been Chaucer’s
one motto: and he let things grow under his hand, or finished them off briefly and to scale, or
abandoned them unfinished, exactly as the fancy took him. Broadly, we may say that the tales display
the literary and deliberately artistic side of his genius; the prologues, the observing and dramatic side;
but it will not do to push this too hard. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, it may be observed, gives
opportunity for the display of reading which he loves, as well as for that of his more welcome
knowledge of humanity: the tale is like that of Florent by John Gower, but the original of neither is
known.
The interruption by the friar of The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, and a consequent wrangle between
him and the summoner, lead to a pair of satiric tales, each gibing at the other’s profession, which
correspond to the earlier duel between the miller and reeve. The friar’s is a tale of diablerie as well as a
lampoon, and of very considerable merit; the summoner’s is of the coarsest fabliau type with a
farcically solemn admixture. There is no comment upon it; and, if The Clerk’s Tale was really intended
to follow, the contrast of its gravity, purity and pathos with the summoner’s ribaldry is, no doubt,
intentional. For the tale, introduced by some pleasant rallying from the host on the clerk’s shyness and
silence, and by a most interesting reference of the clerk’s own to “Francis Petrarch the laureate poet,” is
nothing less than the famous story of Griselda, following Petrarch’s own Latin rendering of
Boccaccio’s Italian. Some rather unwise comment has been made (in a purely modern spirit, though
anticipated, as a matter of fact, by Chaucer himself) on the supposed excessive patience of the heroine.
But it is improbable that Griseldas ever were, or ever will be, unduly common; and the beauty of the
piece on its own scheme and sentiment is exquisite. The indebtedness to Boccaccio is still more direct,
and the fabliau element reappears, in The Merchant’s Tale of January and May — with its curious fairy
episode of Pluto and Proserpine. And then romance comes back in the “half-told” tale of the squire, the
“story of Cambuscan bold”; which Spenser did not so much continue as branch off from, as the minor
romances of adventure branch off from the Arthurian centre; of which Milton regretted the
incompleteness in the famous passage just cited; and the direct origin of which is quite unknown,
though Marco Polo, the French romance of Cléomadès and other things may have supplied parts or
hints.
The romantic tone is kept up in The Franklin’s Tale of Arviragus and Dorigen, and the squire
Aurelius and the philosopher-magician, with their strange but fascinating contest of honour and
generosity. This is one of the most poetical of all the tales, and specially interesting in its portrayal —
side by side with an undoubted belief in actual magic — of the extent of medieval conjuring. The
Second Nun’s Tale or Life of St. Cecily is introduced with no real link, and has, usually, been taken as
one of the poet’s insertions of earlier work. It has no dramatic or personal interest of connection with
the general scheme; but this is largely made up by what follows — the tale of the follies and rogueries
of alchemy told by the Yeoman of a certain canon, who falls in with the pilgrims at Boughton-under-

Blee, and whose art and mystery is so frankly revealed by his man that he, the canon, “flees away for
very sorrow and shame.” The exposure which follows is one of the most vivid parts of the whole
collection, and shows pretty clearly either that Chaucer had himself been fleeced, or that he had
profited by the misfortunes of his friends in that kind. Then the host, failing to get anything out of the
cook, who is in the drowsy stage of drunkenness, extracts from the manciple The Tale of the Crow and
the reason that he became black — the whole ending with the parson’s prose tale, or, rather, elaborate
treatise, of penitence and the seven deadly sins. This, taken from both Latin and French originals, is
introduced by a verse-prologue in which occur the lines, famous in literary history for their obvious
allusion to alliterative rhythm,
But trusteth wel, I am a southren man,
I can nat geste rum, ram, ruf by lettre,
and ending with the “retraction” of his earlier and lighter works, explicitly attributed to Chaucer
himself, which has been already referred to.
Of the attempts already mentioned t distribute the tales according to the indications of place and
time which they themselves contain, nothing more need be said here, nor of the moot point whether,
according to the host’s words in The Prologue, the pilgrims were to tell four stories each — two on the
way to Canterbury and two on the return journey — or two in all — one going and one returning. The
only vestige we have of a double tale is in the fragment of the cook’s above referred to, and the host’s
attempt to get another out of him when, as just recorded, the manciple comes to the rescue. All these
matters, together with the distribution into days and groups, are very problematical, and unnecessary, if
the hypothesis favoured above be adopted, that Chaucer never got his plan into any final order, but
worked at parts of it as the fancy took him. But, before speaking shortly of the general characteristics of
his work, it will be to notice briefly the parts of it not yet particularised. The Parson’s Tale, as last
mentioned, will connect itself well with the remainder of Chaucer’s prose work, of which it and The
Tale of Melibeus are specimens. It may be observed that, at the beginning of Melibeus, and in the
retraction at the end of The Parson’s Tale, there are some curious fragments of blank verse.