GEOFFREY CHAUCERS

GEOFFREY CHAUCERS

The Canterbury Tales

The Knight's Tale

The Knight's Tale is set in ancient Greece, and it's about Theseus, the king of Athens in Greek mythology. (So we can see that these medieval people knew all about Greek mythology!). In the story, Theseus is just coming back to Athens after a war with the Amazons, where he ended up marrying the Amazon queen. He's bringing the queen, Hippolyta, back to Athens, along with the queen's little sister Emelye (modern Emily).

As soon as Theseus gets to Athens, a group of crying women, dressed in black, beg Theseus to help them. A tyrant, Creon, has captured their city, Thebes, and killed their husbands, and Creon won't even let them bury their husbands.

Theseus immediately goes to Thebes, kills Creon, and captures the city. He has the ladies' husbands properly buried. But two princes from Creon's army, who are cousins, are only wounded. Theseus takes the princes back with him to Athens, to be his prisoners forever.

Several years later, the beautiful Emelye is walking in the garden below the tower where the princes are in prison. She sings and picks flowers, and one of the princes, Palamoun, falls in love with her. He prays to Venus that Emelye will help him and his cousin get out of prison.

Then the other prince, Arcite, also looks out the window, and he falls in love with Emelye too! The two princes fight over her.

After some months have gone by, Venus answers Palmoun's prayer - partly. One of Arcite's friends comes by and convinces Theseus to let Arcite go - but Palamoun has to stay in prison. The princes are both upset. Arcite is sad because he has to go and won't be able to look at Emelye out the window anymore, and Palamoun is sad because he has to stay in prison.

Then Palamoun also escapes from prison. He meets his brother, and they start fighting with swords over who is to marry Emelye. Theseus finds them fighting, and they confess the whole story. He is sympathetic to their love, and tells them that they will have to fight each other for Emelye's hand in a big tournament.

Before the tournament, Palamoun prays to Venus that he should get to marry Emelye. Arcite prays to Mars that he should win the tournament, and Emelye prays to Diana that she shouldn't have to marry either of these crazy strangers. Venus answers that Palamoun will get his wish, Mars answers that Arcite will get his wish, but Artemis tells Emelye that she should marry one of these men.

And sure enough, Arcite wins the tournament but dies of his wounds, so that in the end Palamoun gets to marry Emelye, and they live happily ever after.

The Miller's Tale

Once there was a carpenter, who lived with his wife Alison and a student, Nicholas, who rented a room in their house. Nicholas fell in love with Alison, and she fell in love with him. But how could they spend the night together, without Alison's husband knowing about it? Well, Nicholas convinced the carpenter that in his studies he had found out that there was a second Flood coming, like Noah's Flood. He said that to be safe from the Flood, all of them should sleep in wooden tubs, hauled up to the ceiling with ropes. They could take knives with them, and when the Flood came they would cut the ropes and float on the water. The carpenter agreed to this plan, and that night he and Alison and Nicholas each went to sleep in their own wooden tub, up near the ceiling of the house. After the carpenter fell asleep, Nicholas and Alison sneaked out of their tubs and ... you know, on second thought, I think you'd better wait until you're older to read the Miller's Tale...

The Clerk's Tale

Chaucer's Clerk's Tale is actually taken from one of Boccaccio's stories, and because of that the story's action happens in Italy. It shows the young monk's ideas about how women ought to behave. It's about Griselda, a poor woman who marries a rich man. Her husband, Walter, wants to make sure Griselda will love him unconditionally - no matter what he does to her. To test her, Walter sends a servant to take away her baby daughter, and pretends to kill the baby. (He claims that the people don't like the baby because its mother is from a poor family). Even though Griselda is miserable without her baby, she says that she knows if her husband did it, it must be right.

A few years later, Griselda has a baby boy. She's very happy, and she loves the baby very much. But again, her husband tests her. Walter sends a servant to take the baby away, and he tells her that he has killed the baby. Still Griselda says she knows he will always make the right decisions for their family.

Years go by, and finally Walter thinks of one last test. He tells Griselda that he is going to have their marriage annulled by the Pope (so it will be as if their marriage never existed). He even forges a parchment with a seal on it to make it look official. Walter tells Griselda that he's going to marry another woman, and he wants her to plan the wedding and get everything ready. Griselda, never losing her confidence in Walter, obediently makes all the plans, invites the guests, and prepares the wedding feast.

Secretly, Walter orders the servants to send the two children back from Bologna, where they have been hidden. Walter pretends that their daughter (who is twelve years old by now) is the girl he's going to marry. Griselda's fine with that, too. But finally Walter tells her the whole story, and praises her for being so loyal to him, and they live happily ever after, with their children.

The Wife of Bath's Tale

Chaucer's Wife of Bath's tale is different from the other stories shown here because it is the only one told by a woman (a woman from the town of Bath, in England, which was called that because there were old Roman baths there). It presents a very different view of medieval relationships between men and women.

In the time of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, the Wife of Bath begins, there was one knight who treated women very badly. One day he was found raping a girl in a field. To punish the knight, rather than kill him as the law says, Queen Guinevere tells him to go travel around the world and find out what women really want. She tells him to come back in a year and a day and report a satisfactory answer, or die.

Well, the knight goes out and starts asking all the women he meets what women really want. But he can't seem to get a good answer. Some women say they want to be rich, and other women say they want lots of flattery from men, and he can't get any answers that seem like they would be true for all women.

When his year is almost over, he gives up and starts traveling back to Queen Guinevere, thinking sadly that he is going to be killed for sure now. But he meets an old woman on the way and asks her for help. She says she'll tell him the answer and save his life, if he'll promise to grant her wish when she claims it. So he promises, and she tells him that what women want most of all is to have power over their husbands, as well as love. Queen Guinevere agrees that this is what women want, and frees the knight.

Right away the old woman stands up and cries out that since she saved him, the knight has to marry her - that's her wish, and she claims it now. He doesn't want to, but he promised, and he marries her the next day.

That night, after the wedding, the old woman and the knight are talking about how unhappy he is, married to someone ugly and poor. She reveals that she's a magic fairy, and tells the knight that he can choose between having her ugly and faithful to him, or beautiful and unfaithful. The knight wisely leaves the choice up the fairy, telling her to choose whatever will make both of them happiest and most respected. The fairy is pleased to have this power over her husband, and decides to give him everything he wants - she becomes beautiful and faithful, and they live happily ever after.

Some things to ask yourself: what does this story show about how medieval people thought about getting old? Why does the knight think it's so terrible that the old woman is poor?

From http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/medieval/literature.htm