Alquin Middles Ages Pages 42-51

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

The Canterbury Tales

Work in groups on Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

Green activities: Work together. Write down your individual answer. Upload a picture of your answers into the LessonUp.

Red activities: only one student hands in the group assignment via the teams chat. 

Blue activities: Type your answer into the LessonUp. Open questions: if you prefer you can write and then upload your answer.

• The Canterbury Tales is the world's weirdest road trip.

• It tells the story of a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, who engage in a tale-telling contest to pass the time. 

• Besides the interactions between the characters, we get to read 24 of the tales the pilgrims tell = frame narrative. 

• It gives a life-like and engaging picture of a cross section of society during the 1300's.

Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Tale

A tale is a story. 

Your 8 facts about Geoffrey Chaucer
(page 42)

8 facts about the Canterbury Tales (pages 42+43)

Page 44
The knight is one fo the few pilgrims who provide no personal Prologue. Why?

RECORDING!

Page 44: Make one audio recording with your group in which you read the Modern English version of the knight (lines 43-50). One of you hands it in via teams. 

4 facts about The Miller (page 45)

RECORDING!

Page 45. Make one audio recording with your group in which you read Chaucer’s description of the Miller (lines 559-564). One of you hands it the recording via teams. 

Page 46: Question 1: In the Middle Ages, people believed that a person's appearance said a lot about their character. What does Chaucer expect us to conclude about the Miller's character?

The answer to this question is provided... 

Question 2: Is the initial impression given by the description in the General Prologue reinforced by the rest of the passage? 

• Yes. The Miller is not well behaved: he likes to fight, is argumentative and tells dirty stories. He also swindles his customers.

Page 46: Translate the first part of page 46 (The tale that … by the knight) into Dutch.

On the next slides you will find a modern English translation of the Miller's tale. 

Please read it... 

RECORDING!

Well now, it just so happened one day that Tricky Nicky was playing and teasing with Alison while the carpenter was away in the city of Osney on business. Those college boys can be pretty forward, you know, and in no time at all he had his hand on her crotch. He said, “I’m going to die if I can’t have my way with you, my love.” Then he grabbed her butt and said, “Make love to me right now, or, by God, I’m going to die!” She pulled away from him and twisted out of his grasp as she turned to him and said, “Stop it! I wouldn’t even kiss you, let alone do anything else! Quit it, Nicholas, or I’ll cry ‘rape!’ Now get your hands off me, you creep!”

RECORDING!

Nicholas begged her for forgiveness and calmed her fears with sweet words, but he continued hitting on her all the same so that in no time at all, she’d fallen for him too. She swore on St. Thomas of Becket himself that she’d let him have his way with her as soon as they could safely get away with it. “My husband is so jealous that he’ll kill me if he finds out,” she explained to him. “This has to stay between you and me, and we have to be careful.”

“Oh don’t worry about that,” Nicholas replied. “All that time I spent studying would be a waste if I couldn’t fool a simple carpenter.” And so they promised each other to bide their time and wait for the right opportunity to sleep with each other.

Page 46
Question 3a: How does Nicholas manage to persuade Alison to become his lover?

Page 46
Question 3b: Why is Alison so easily persuaded?

Page 46
Question 4: How is the description of the Miller in keeping with his tale?

1. Very much so: In the Prologue we are told that the Miller likes to tell dirty tales which indeed it is.
2. Not so much: the story is very romantic and not drity at all.

4 facts about The Wife of Bath (page 47)

4 facts about the tale of The Wife of Bath (page 48)

Page 48
Question 1a: What is the book about, which the Wife of Bath's 5th husband is reading to her?

1. The book is about beautiful women; he is reading it to her to make her jealous.
2. The book is about sinful women; he is reading it to teach her a lesson.
3. The book is about ugly women; he is reading it to her because he thinks it's funny.

Page 47/48
Question 1b: Why does it annoy her that her husband is reading this book to her?

1. She is exactly the sort of woman who is described in the story.
2. She knows how to read herself.
3. She is jealous of the women he is reading to her about.
4. She would rather do something else.

Page 47/48
Question 2a: How does the wife of Bath get her own way?

1. She tries to hide his book, pretends she is dying and accuses him of having killed her, then starts crying really hard.
2. She tries to destroy his book, pretends she is dying and accuses him of having killed her, then hits him in the face.

Page 47/48
Question 2b: What is the outcome?

1. The wife promises that she will never hit him again and from that time on she is in control.
2. Her wife promises that she will never hit him again and from that time on he is in control.
3. Her husband promises that he will never hit her again and from that time on she is in control.
4. Her husband promises that he will never cheat on her again and from that time on he is in control.

Page 48
Question 3: In Chaucer's time, society was extremely dynamic; Are there signs of this in the tale?

1. Yes: the Wife of Bath repeatedly succeeds in moving from a situation where she is subordinate to one where she is in control.
2. No: The Wife of Bath is clearly controlled by all of her husbands.

Page 48
Question 4a: How do the Wife of Bath's own ideas about marriage and the relationship between man and wife surface in the last part of the tale?

Page 48
Question 4b: Why does the knight eventually leave the choice up to his wife?

1. He realises that that is what she wants, and he is willing to let her have her way.
2. He realises that women are superior to men.
3. He thinks that she will then want to have sex with him.

Page 48

Question 4b: Why does the knight eventually leave the choice up to his wife?

He has also leant from his earlier error. Then he wanted a girl that didn’t want him; now he is stuck with a woman he doesn’t want. There is also a suggestion that he could not make a decision himself, since neither option was very attractive.

Page 48
Question 5: In the Middle Ages, women were often portrayed as wilful, sensual and a bad influence on men. Is this reflected in the passage above?

4 facts about the Pardoner (page 49)

Page 50/51
Question 1: What things does the Pardoner NOT have with him?

1. Certificates bearing the papal seal: defence against anyone who might give him trouble in the course of his work.
2. Certificates from popes, cardinals, patriarchs and bishops to produce at critical moments.
3. Certificates from the King that state that he is indeed a man serving God.
4. Glass bottles containing bones and fragments of cloth to pass off as relics.

Page 50/51
Question 2a: Identify two lines in the passage in which the Pardoner demonstrates his dishonesty.

Page 50/51
Question 2b: What methods does the Pardoner use to persuade his audience?

Page 51
Question 3a: Describe and explain the difference in which the Pardoner talks to his fellow pilgrims from the way he talks to the 'yokels' he refers to.

Page 51
Question 3b: At the end of his tale, the Pardoner coolly tries to sell pardons to his fellow pilgrims. Why should he imagine he has any chance of success?

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