thecanterburytales赏析全

1、最新 料推荐The Canterbury talesGeoffrey Chaucer ContributionsFather of English poetryChaucer, for the first time in English literature, presented to us a comprehensive realistic picture of the English society of his time and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life in his master

2、piece The Canterbury Tales.Chaucer develops characterization to a higher artistic level, i.e. characters who are morally and socially typical but exquisitely individual and realistic in detail.Chaucer introduced from France the rhymed stanzas of various types to English poetry to replace the Old Eng

3、lish alliterative verse.Chaucer used for the first time in English the rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter which is to be called later as the heroic couplet .Chaucer greatly increased the prestige of English as a literary language and extended the range of its poetic vocabulary and meters. He is con

4、sidered as a great master of the English language.Chaucerscontributions to English languageChaucer slanguage, now called Middle English, is vivid and exact. His verse is smooth. Heintroduced from France the rhymed stanzas ofvarioustypes, especially the rhymed couplet ofiambic pentameter which was la

5、ter called the“ heroic couplet”ThoughtoEnglishdrawingpoetry.influence from French, Italian and Latin models, he is the first great poet who wrote in the Englishlanguage. His production of so much excellentpoetrywas an important factor in establishingEnglish as the literary language of the country. T

6、he spoken English of the time consisted of severaldialects, and Chaucer did much in making the dialectof London the standard for the modernEnglish speech.The Canterbury Tales 介绍The Canterbury Tales is a book of stories. This is an important book, because it is one of thefirst to be written in the En

7、glish language. The book is about a group of travelers who are going from London to Canterbury. As they travel along, each person tells a tale (a story). This is why the book is called The Canterbury Tales.The Canterbury Tales, begun in about 1386, consists of stories told by some of the thirty pilg

8、rims who set off from the Tabard Inn in Southwark, London, to visit the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury murdered in his own cathedral in 1170. The aim was to tell four stories each: two on the way, two on the way back. The teller of the best story would be given a free di

9、nner by the cheerful host of the Tabard. In fact, the collection is incomplete and only 24stories are told. Two of the stories are written in prose and the others are written in verse.It opens with a general prologue where we are told of a company of pilgrims that gathered atTabard Inn in Southwark,

10、 a suburb of London. They are on their way to the shrine of St. ThomasBecket at Canterbury. They set out together with the“ jolly innkeeper,” Harry Baily, who becotheir “ governor ” and proposes that each pilgrim should tell twotales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back. The pilgrim

11、s being 31 in all the total number of tales, according toChaucer s plan, was to exceed that of Baccaccio s Decameron.These pilgrims include a Knight, his son the Squire, the Knights Yeoman, a Prioress, a Second Nun, a Monk, a Friar, a Merchant, a Clerk, a Man of Law, a Franklin, a Weaver, a Dyer, a

12、Carpenter, a Tapestry-Maker, a Haberdasher, a Cook, a Shipman, a Physician, a Parson, a Miller, a1最新 料推荐Manciple, a Reeve, a Summoner, a Pardoner, the Wife of Bath, and Chaucer himself.ThemeInfluenced by the early Italian Renaissance, Chaucer affirmed mans right to pursue earthly happiness and oppos

13、ed asceticism, praised mans energy, intellect, and love of life. Meanwhile, he also exposed and satirized the social evils, esp. the religious abuses.Stylelively and vivid Middle-Age Englishsatiric and humorousheroic coupletof unequal meritsCharacterization- vivid portrayal of individualized charact

14、ers of the society and of all professions and social strata except the highest and the lowestshows respect for the two landed gentry, the plowman and the parson; satirized all the religious people except the parson;shows a growing sense of self-importance of the trades and towns people, reflecting t

15、hechanging social status, esp. in towns and cities.General Prologue:The General Prologue is the key to The Canterbury tales that narrates about the gathering of agroup of people in an inn that intend to go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury (England) next morning. In the General Prologue, the narrator of

16、 The Canterbury Tales, who is one of the intended pilgrims, provides more or less accurate depictions of the members of the group and describes why and how The Canterbury Tales is told. If we trust the General Prologue, Chaucer determined that eachpilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbu

17、ry and two tales on the way back. The host of the inn offers to be and is appointed as judge of the tales as they are told and is supposed todetermine the best hence winning tale. As mentioned before, The Canterbury Tales was never finished.The Prologue provides a framework for the tales. It contain

18、s a group of vivid sketches of typical medieval figures. All classes of the English feudal society, except the royalty and the poorest peasant, are represented by these thirty pilgrims.Every figure is drawn with the accuracy of a portrait. It is no exaggeration to say that the Prologue supplies a mi

19、niature of the English society of Chaucer times. Looking at hisword-pictures, we know at once how people lived in that era. That is why Chaucer has been called“ the founder of English realism.”Summary of The General PrologueOn April 17th toward the end of the fourteenth century nine and twenty pilgr

20、ims gather in the Tabard Inn in Southwark, just across the river from London, at the beginning of the road to Canterbury. Geoffrey Chaucer talks to each one and joins their company for a pilgrimage toCanterbury to seek the blissful martyr, Thomas Becket. HarryBailey, the host of the Tabard, decides

21、to join them and act as their leader; each pilgrim will tell four stories - two each on the way there, two each on the way back. The pilgrim who tells the best tale - with the best sentence and most solaas will have a dinner at the others cost when the company returns to the Tabard. The pilgrims agr

22、ee and the next morning they set out, stopping at the Watering of St. Thomas, just out of town, where they reconfirm their decision and, at Harrys direction, draw straws to see who2最新 料推荐will tell the first tale. Strangely, the lot fell to the knight and he tells the first story.Introduction to the

23、pilgrimsThe knight: perfect and gentle man who loved truth, freedom, chivalry and honor. The most socially prominent person on the journey; the battles he fought were all religious wars of some nature.The Squire: a candidate for knighthood; a lover who can sing lusty songs, compose melodies, poetryY

24、eoman: dressed in green; an expert woodsman, an excellent shot with the bow/ arrow.Prioress: Madame Eglantine; a gentle lady; well-educated though her French wasnt acceptedParisianFrench. Coy and delicate; table manner; More a woman than a nun! Without vocationbut with the dogs and jewelry that sati

25、rical literature always condemns nuns for. Associates of thePrioress: 3 priests and another nunPilgrim s Image GalleryFour main qualities of the Knight.The first is the Knight s love of ideals“ chivalrie” (prowess),“ trouthe” (fidelity),(reputation),“ fredom ” (generosity), and“ curteisie” (refineme

26、nt) (General46). Prologue, 45The second is the Knight s impressive military career. ThehthasKnigfought in the Crusades,wars in which Europeans traveled by sea to non-Christian lands and attempted to convert wholecultures by the force of their swords.The third quality the narrator remembers about the

27、 Knight is his meek, gentle, manner.And the fourth is his“ array,” or dress. The Knight wears a tunic made of coarse cloth, and hiscoat of mail is rust-stained, because he has recently returned from an expedition.SignificanceThe Canterbury Tales is Chaucer s Masterpiece and onemonumentalofthe works

28、in Englishliterature.It is one of the landmarks of English literature, perhaps the greatest work produced in MiddleEnglishgive us a true to life picture of his time. The work stands as a historical and sociologicalintroduction to the life and times of the late Middle Agestaking from the stand of ris

29、ing bourgeoisie, he affirms men and opposes the dogma ofasceticism preached by the Church.As a forerunner of humanism, he praises man s energy, intellect, quickofwitlifeand. loveHis tales expose and satirize the evils of his time, attack degeneration of the noble, theheartless of the judge, the corr

30、uption of the Church and so on.Living in a transitional period, Chaucer is not entirely devoid of medieval prejudices. He is religious himself. There is nothing revolutionary in his writing, though he lived in a period of peasant uprisings.While praising man s right to earthly happiness, he sometime

31、s likes to crack a rough joke andpaint naturalistic pictures of sexual life.Chaucer has his weak points. Butthese are, however, of secondary importance comparedwith his achievement as a great poet and a story-teller.literary termsheroic couplet: Iambicpentameter lines rhymed in pairs. It is called h

32、eroic because in3最新 料推荐England, esp. in the 18th century, it was much used for heroic (epic) poems. The heroic couplet became so important and fixed a form for various purposes that its influence dominated English verse for decades, until the romanticists dispelled the tradition in their demand for

33、a new freedom. Poetics the heroic coupletcouplet: two consecutive lines of poetry that rhymean iambic pentameter: a poetic line consisting of five verse feet with each foot an iamb, that is a metrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable and one unstressed syllable as in dah-DUM, dah-DUM dah-DUM

34、 dah-DUM dah-DUM.an iambic pentameter couplet, e.g.At night there came into that hostelry iSome nine and twenty in a company iiamb: a poetic foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. (e.g:alone; My heart is like a singing bird)pentameter: a line of verse containing five

35、feet.Meter: any regular pattern of rhythm or pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.Foot: a unit of meter.Rhyme: the repetition of sounds at the ends of words is called rhyme. When words rhyme at the end of lines of poetry it is called end rhyme.-characteristic of features description in the p

36、rologue （序言）The unique introduction at the beginning, as long as 860 lines, is a frame of the whole book, clarif ying author sdesignation and conception. It has a close relationship with every later parts of the b ook, while we can also view it as a respectively dependent poem. Hereby we will analyz

37、e the characteristic of features description in the prologue.The prologue is actually a gallery of all walks of people. Chaucer widely selected his materials fro m English society of that age. Except the top of royal and the lowest slaves, we can nearly find the representatives of all social classes

38、. Though reading the book, we can have a better understanding and broaden our eyesight of English society in 14th century, as well as enjoy the feast of art.The prologue is rich in content. There is the knight who has participated in no less than fifteen of t he great crusades of his era; the wife o

39、f Bath who has been married five times and well practiced i n the art of love; the pardoner who is associated with shiftiness and gender ambiguity; just name a few. They belong to different parts of the society, living in different background, thus had different life styles, habits and custom. They

40、charted, joked, quarreled, and compromised; they discussed, p raised, criticized, and persuaded. They adopted their particular way to present their life experience, providing a vivid series of narratives which differ in content and style.There is a general narrator, who is full of curiosity and enth

41、usiasm. He is an anonymous, na? ve me mber of the pilgrimage, who is not described. He suggests to tell stories and then organized them i nto the book. Each of the tales, however, narrated by different pilgrims, is told from an omniscient third-person point of view, providing the reader with the tho

42、ughts as well as actions of the charact ers. Therefore, there is no surprise to find that The Canterbury Tales incorporates an impressive ra nge of attitudes towards life and literature. The tales are by turns satirical, elevated, pious, earthy, bawdy, and comical.The narrator opens the General Prol

43、ogue with a description of the return of spring. The April rains, the burgeoning flowers and leaves, and the chirping birds; piercing, engendering, inspiring and pr4最新 料推荐icking, all those are of springsrenewal and rebirth, conjure up images of conception:Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote The

44、droghte of March hath perced to the roote And bathedevery veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is theflour(General Prologue, 14) Followed by is a brief introduction to the backgroundof the story. “ Whenthe sweet showers of April fall and shoot, /Down through the drought ofMarchto pierce the root, / Ithappened in that season that one day /In Southwark, at the Tabard, as I lay /Ready to go on pilgrimage and start/For C an