Canterbury Tales - Alquin

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 4

English Literature

PTA exam in VWO 6
This year: The Middle Ages (period 4)

• Beowulf
• Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• Robin Hood: SKIP
• Canterbury Tales

Canterbury Cathedral

Pilgrims' destination from London

What's a pilgrimage?

Canterbury Tales

revision

- Who wrote The Canterbury Tales?

- Define 'frame story' and how Chaucer used it.

- Where do the characters meet in the General Prologue? Why do they agree to tell each other stories?

Who wrote The Canterbury Tales?

Define 'frame story' and explain how Chaucer used it in this work.

In the ' General Prologue', the characters meet each other. Where do they meet and why do they agree to tell each other stories?

The Knight

Alquin 44

The Miller

Alquin 45-46

The Knight: let's read out loud

QUESTION: The Knight is one of the few pilgrims who provide no personal Prologue. Why do you suppose that is?

• The tale of the Knight follows straight on from the General Prologue. Many of the pilgrims use their personal Prologues to pass comment on the tales that precede their own, but there is no tale before the Knight’s. Furthermore, the Knight is presented as an intelligent, but calm and reserved man. He is not the type to talk at length about himself, as some of the others do in their Prologues.

The Miller:

• fabliau
•  let's read out loud: p. 45 (description of the miller) & 46 (story by the miller)
• Answer the questions on page 46 (1-4): 10 minutes, then we will discuss in class.

What's a fabliau?

Homework check!

The Knight

The Miller

+ Questions

The Miller: answers

1. With an ugly warty nose, a big mount and a short, fat body, he cannot be said to be good looking, and his character is therefore likely to be as blemished as his appearance.
2. Yes. The Miller is not well behaved: he likes to fight, is argumentative and tells dirty stories. He also swindles his customers 
3. a. When her husband is away, he grabs her and tries to kiss her. When she resists, he says he will die if he can’t have her and promises her all kinds of nice things. b. Alison is married to a dozy old man and was interested in Nicholas from the start; there was little conviction in her initial resistance to his advances. She threatens to scream, but doesn’t actually do so.
4. In the Prologue we are told that the Miller likes to tell dirty tales (‘tavern stories, filthy in the main’). Furthermore, he has red hair, which in the Middle Ages was often seen as a sign of a lecherous character.