Chaucer V

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 6

Welcome!

Road Map

• Discuss the test
• Reading List & Orals
• The Miller's Tale
• The Reeve's Tale ?

Test on Chaucer on 13  February 

Discuss the test

Reading list 

Please hand in your definitive reading list on or before 16 Feb 2024. 

List the titles of your books, their authors, their years of publication and their number of pages. Only after having handed in the list are you allowed to plan your oral exam. E.g.

• A Painted House by John Grisham (2001), 387 pages.
  
• The Circle by Dave Eggers (2013), 491 pages.
  
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1926/1974), 188 pages.

Lesson goal

At the end of this class you:

• can describe the character of the Miller
• indicate that you understand Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale' 
• can link the tale to its context
• indicate that you know what a fabliau is

The Miller

p. 20

The Miller

The Miller

• negative social stereotype

• 'all brawn, no brain'

'

The Miller's Tale

Battle with the Reeve

Fabliau: 

• a brief tale
• style:  simple, straighforward
• tense: present
• setting: real and familiar
• ordinary people
• involve incredible degrees of gullibility in the victims and of ingenuity and sexual appetite in the trickster-heroes and -heroines."

A fabliau

Characters

1. John

2. Allison

3. Nicholas

4. Absolon

Who are they and what is their role in the story?

Experts 

Context

Social class

Courtly love 

Morality  

Courtly love

A highly conventionalized medieval tradition of love between a knight and a married noblewoman, first developed by the troubadours of Southern France and extensively employed in European literature of the time. The love of the knight for his lady was regarded as an ennobling passion and the relationship was typically unconsummated.

Oxford Reference (2024)

Lesson goal

At the end of this class you:

• can describe the character of the Miller
• indicate that you understand Chaucer's 'Miller's Tale' 
• can link the tale to its context
• indicate that you know what a fabliau is

Do

Read the Reeve's Tale 

pp. 12 to 16

Focus: 

Who is the Reeve?

Who are the characters in his tale?