Canterbury Tales
"Those that Fight" & "Those that Work"
Knight's Tale
- Tale: Courtly Romance
- Chivalry - code of honor for the knight
- Justifiable battle and the rejection of plundering
- Rules and limitations imposed on war and battle
- Lordly compassion as a paradigm of leadership
- Tournaments
- Mock battles providing for the display of skills and worth
- Their frequency increases in the Gothic age as the actual need
for war decreases
- Courtly Love - code of love for the nobility
- Submission - as a vassal to a lord, a man was to submit
to his woman as a lord of love
- Unattainable - by definition the object of desire
was to be unobtainable
- The lady was won by the demonstration of worth and
courage
- Sexual tension by two competing and exclusive goals
- The ideal for woman was in her chastity and purity
- As the lord of love, she was not to be a tyrant by withholding
her favors from her vassal
- The Romance in song - Machaut's Douce dame jolie
- Rightness of the ending - everyone gets their just deserts
- 3 prayers to 3 gods fulfilled (Venus, Mars, and Diana)
- Death of a knight as fulfilling his purpose
- Love fulfilled and the happiness of their future
Miller's Tale
- Tale: Fabliaux
- A humorous tale with a snappy ending
- Often noted for their bawdy and earthy humor
- Miller's vs. Knight's Tale as ironic contrast
- Miller says he will "match" the Knight's Tale
- Ironic contrasts - "Everyone gets their just deserts"
- What's with all the cuckolds?
Wife of Bath
- Prologue
- The Virgin Paradox
- Where do virgins come from?
- Her spiritual dissertation of virginity as her fulfilling
of biblical expectations
- The Woman's Craft
- Description of her craft as a "wife" to gain
riches
- An ironic contrast to the Pardoner and his craft
- Tale: Exemplum
- "What do women want?"
- Not unlike the Pardoner, a tale to demonstrate the "lesson"
of her prologue
- The Knight, Miller and Wife present an ironic trio
Humanities
Resource of Mark Hunter