Chaucer

& # 8217 ; s Role In The Canterbu Essay, Research Paper

Chaucer s Role in the Canterbury Narratives:

A Narrator and a Poet

Is Geoffrey Chaucer an existent character on this ill-famed journey to Canterbury? This is a idea that seems to be slightly over looked when most read Chaucer s The Canterbury Tales. As the author of the Tales, Chaucer took the chance to contrive a character to stand for him. However, does this storyteller genuinely stand for what Chaucer is seeking to acquire a cross? Or is he a gambit to derive the attending of the readers without stirring a contention? This inquiry can be answered in legion ways, but the text seems to back up the thought that Chaucer, as witty and clever as he was, uses him as both.

To most readers, it would do sense that Chaucer expresses his ain positions by being the storyteller of his narratives, but this is non wholly true. During the clip period of which The Canterbury Tales takes topographic point, it was non a wise thing to make to compose plants that mock the church, or what the mean individual believes. Therefore, it is extremely possible that Chaucer used the storyteller to chant down his ideas, but still do the readers mind to turn. Meanwhile, Chaucer still has the ability to make a character that is above the other pilgrims who looks down at them in a satirical manner, without doing excessively much of a struggle with the beliefs of those who will most probably be reading it. It was his pose to see himself with a mild jeer. ( Nevill Coghill )

In the General Prologue, the storyteller ( Chaucer ) introduces some nine and 20 pilgrims who will be sailing to Canterbury. Chaucer ridicules all of these characters. The content of their characters, aristocracy, and honestness is questioned in each debut. It is made obvious that Chaucer gives an indifferent description of each by being honest with his statements and merely saying the facts. He is our eyes ; we rely on him to give us an accurate description of the characters without prejudice, ( Baylor, Jeffery ) . This is Chaucer the pilgrim. Chaucer the poet does non hold to hold with what he describes and in an puzzling manner mocks those that he described throughout the narratives. It is debated as to why Chaucer goes so far as to side with the monastic in the undermentioned lines, but he is non siding with the monastic s life manner at all. He is non in favour of what the monastic does with his power, but he agrees to the fact that the monastic should oppugn the Torahs of which he abides by, or attempts to stay by:

And I agreed and said his positions were sound ;

Was he to analyze til his caput went unit of ammunition

Concentrating over books in religious residences? ( Lines 188-190 The General Prologue )

These lines in no manner say that Chaucer is accepting the determinations of the monastic, but merely agrees that he should non pass his yearss analyzing in the monastery when there are new things to be learned outside of it, which no 1 has attempted to make before.

The description of the storyteller is another illustration of a witty self-parody in Chaucer s work. The poet himself appears in individual as a plump simpleton, ( Nevill Coghill ) . Chaucer has the Host describe him as a rebuff and mild character, surely non a flattering description. This shows that Chaucer wishes to stay in the shadows. He does non desire to be noticed and would instead sit back and ticker as the others bury and embarrass themselves without even detecting it. In that regard, Chaucer shows that while the reader is acquiring amusement out of it, so is the storyteller, Chaucer himself. The Host says to the storyteller:

What adult male are you? said he,

You look as if you were seeking to happen a hare,

Scaning the land with such a steady stare!

Come near, adult male, look up, look happily!

Make room there gentlemen, allow this adult male have topographic point!

He s shaped about the waste the same as me ;

He d be a likely poppet to encompass

For any adult female, little and just of face!

There s something elfin in his visage ;

He ne’er speaks a word in diallance. ( Lines 5-14 in The Words of the Host to Chaucer )

These words the Host says to Chaucer before his narrative, give the lone description of the storyteller s visual aspect throughout all the narratives. In these few lines one can in

fer that the storyteller is a simple adult male, who stays behind detecting. Most of the other pilgrims had forgotten he is at that place, if it had non been for the hatefulness of the Host, they would hold kept on burying. Although Chaucer seems to portray his character as quiet and deadening, there is much to him.

After the Host says these things to the storyteller, it is his bend to give a narrative. He chooses The Tale of Sir Topaz. This narrative has been said by many to be deadening and out of topographic point, nevertheless it adds to the development of Chaucer s character. The Tale of Sir Topaz is a comically awful narrative meant purely as a lampoon to Middle English love affairs. In its chantlike rhyme strategy it resembles unwritten literature told in vocal and in its content it efficaciously mirrors the mechanics of escapade narratives told in Chaucer s England. The narrative includes all of the elements of a love affair: a darting knight, mystical animals, and awful monsters. However, Chaucer takes these elements and makes them overdone and absurd. It is an act of clemency for the reader when the Host eventually interrupts the storyteller and forces him to reason.

In actuality, The Tale of Sir Topaz is a fantastical verse form that serves merely to rag the other pilgrims. That s good, he said good take your topographic point ; It should be mincing judgment by your face, ( lines 20-21 of The Host s words to Chaucer ) stresses the thought that the pilgrims were anticipating an gratifying narrative, based merely on his expressions. Chaucer seems to go angry with this, and gives a mind-numbing narrative merely to upset them. To believe of this cagey manner to show his abomination for the pilgrims he is forced to go with one time once more shows Chaucer s true purpose through this storyteller. After he is impolitely interrupted, by the Host, and told that his narrative was atrocious, Chaucer ( the storyteller ) goes on to state The Tale of Melibee, a narrative that goes on for some thousand lines or so. This narrative is an tremendous contradiction to the 1 he had antecedently started. It is an highly serious narrative of retribution and partner entry with no wit.

The Tale of Melibee is an extremely dull narrative told in a dry prose format that serves as an obvious reaction to the Host s antipathy for the aureate poesy of The Tale of Sir Topaz. It is in this quality to the narrative that is most interesting, for the narrative itself is barren of any narrative push or existent character development. The Tale of Melibee is an earnest and baronial relation of one adult female s capacity for forgiveness, but the narrative is bogged down in heavy treatments refering how Melibee should cover with his enemies. Even in the inquiry of how Melibee should cover with his enemies, there is no play, for the narrative transforms the determination into an academic argument instead than a narrative point. That the narrative is unsatisfying and non peculiarly notable is surely Chaucer s purpose, for the narrative tantrums in with the narrative push of the full construction of the narratives. Chaucer therefore sacrifices the literary qualities of this peculiar narrative to function the larger construction of The Canterbury Tales. In simpler words, he is crouching to the degree of the other pilgrims, in order to mock them in a cagy manner.

To reason this idea is non an easy undertaking, for the clever Chaucer had limitless illustrations of his self-parody throughout his Canterbury Tales. Chaucer has created several word pictures of himself in order to acquire his satirical point across. At the decision of his narratives, Chaucer prints a abjuration:

Now I beg all those that listen to this small treatise, or read it, that if there be anything in it that pleases them, they thank our Godhead Jesu Christ for it, from who proceeds all apprehension and goodness.

And if at that place be anything that displeases them I beg them besides to ascribe it to blame of my privation and ability, and non to my will, who would hold really lief have said better if I had the power.

It is in these lines that Chaucer admits his purposes ; to demo the corruptness of his society through a extremely fallacious work. He understands what it is that he has done, and asks for an about apology from those who are offended, but admits that he can non assist how he thinks. Chaucer s character is the courier of his positions and should non be over looked for it is through him that all of Chaucer s sentiments are reflected.