Engels literatuur
The Late Middle Ages
Geofrrey Chaucer (1343-1400). He served for the English king Edward III. Those were diplomatic missions.
King Richard II gave him the job to look after important buildings. He wrote in Middle English.
His most famous work is The Canterbury Tales. It tells the story of a pilgrimage to a murderd bishop,
Thomas Becket. A group of pelgrims meet in London and agree to tell eachother stories to pass the time. A
free meal fot the pelgrim with the best story. Two stories by each pelgrim on the way there and two on the
way home. He was going to write 120 tales (so 30 pilgrims) but he wrote 22 before he died.
It is a Frame Story (it simply links a lot of essentially seperate tales). The tekst starts with a General
Prologue (introduction), it explains who the people in the group are and how they come together. A
description of the pelgrims are presented by Chaucer.
In a Personal Prologue is the pilgrim the storyteller. They say something about theirselves and respond to
the previous tale.
One of the charmes of The Canterbury Tales is the individuality of the characters: they come from all levels
and sections of the medieval society and are not all alike.
The Knight:
A worthy man (General Prologue)
To modest so no Personal Prologue
A long intelligent story of war and love
Setting: ancient Greece
Characters: two brothers, Arcite and Palamon, who are being held at the court of the king and fall
in love with the same women
The Miller:
Fabliau (a short, lively and sometimes rather coarse (ruw) tale with ordinary people at its centre)
Rude, dishonest, ugly and big (General Prologue) who tells about rude and dishonest people
A student, Nicholas, takes to a married women (Alison). He seduces her with his words and
handsomeness
The wife of Bath:
She doesn’t like how her husband thinks about women. He is reading a book about wicked women
to her. Then she hits him and he hits her, feels remorse and let her be in charge from now on
(Personal Prologue)
A knight rapes a girl. He has to find out what women really desire. They want control over their own
lives. He tells the court, but the old women shows up and demands the knight to marry her. On the
weddingnight she turns young and gives the knight two choises: 1. Old and ugly -> humble
2. Young and pretty -> dishumble
The Pardoner:
A man who sells religious pardons for a living
The pardoner is an unpleasant character with thin spikey hair, bulging eyes and high voice (General
Prologue)
He decieves his customers and wants to make an impression
The Late Middle Ages
Geofrrey Chaucer (1343-1400). He served for the English king Edward III. Those were diplomatic missions.
King Richard II gave him the job to look after important buildings. He wrote in Middle English.
His most famous work is The Canterbury Tales. It tells the story of a pilgrimage to a murderd bishop,
Thomas Becket. A group of pelgrims meet in London and agree to tell eachother stories to pass the time. A
free meal fot the pelgrim with the best story. Two stories by each pelgrim on the way there and two on the
way home. He was going to write 120 tales (so 30 pilgrims) but he wrote 22 before he died.
It is a Frame Story (it simply links a lot of essentially seperate tales). The tekst starts with a General
Prologue (introduction), it explains who the people in the group are and how they come together. A
description of the pelgrims are presented by Chaucer.
In a Personal Prologue is the pilgrim the storyteller. They say something about theirselves and respond to
the previous tale.
One of the charmes of The Canterbury Tales is the individuality of the characters: they come from all levels
and sections of the medieval society and are not all alike.
The Knight:
A worthy man (General Prologue)
To modest so no Personal Prologue
A long intelligent story of war and love
Setting: ancient Greece
Characters: two brothers, Arcite and Palamon, who are being held at the court of the king and fall
in love with the same women
The Miller:
Fabliau (a short, lively and sometimes rather coarse (ruw) tale with ordinary people at its centre)
Rude, dishonest, ugly and big (General Prologue) who tells about rude and dishonest people
A student, Nicholas, takes to a married women (Alison). He seduces her with his words and
handsomeness
The wife of Bath:
She doesn’t like how her husband thinks about women. He is reading a book about wicked women
to her. Then she hits him and he hits her, feels remorse and let her be in charge from now on
(Personal Prologue)
A knight rapes a girl. He has to find out what women really desire. They want control over their own
lives. He tells the court, but the old women shows up and demands the knight to marry her. On the
weddingnight she turns young and gives the knight two choises: 1. Old and ugly -> humble
2. Young and pretty -> dishumble
The Pardoner:
A man who sells religious pardons for a living
The pardoner is an unpleasant character with thin spikey hair, bulging eyes and high voice (General
Prologue)
He decieves his customers and wants to make an impression
