Chaucer originally planned to write 120 stories. Each pilgrim told two stories on his way to Canterbury and two more on his way back. But he actually only finished 22, although there are still 2 in the clip. This work was probably first conceived in 1386 when Chaucer lived in Greenwich, a few miles east of London. From his house, he may see The Way leading to the famous English saint Thomas A. Beckett, the archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered in his cathedral in 1 170. The pilgrims in the Middle Ages were notorious storytellers. The sight and sound of the band riding to Canterbury probably made Chaucer think of using a fictional pilgrimage as the "framework" for many stories. This practice was common in the late Middle Ages. Boccaccio told 100 stories in his decameron, and each of the ten characters told a story every day for ten days. Another Italian, Joanne Selcamby, told a series of stories to the leader of a group of people traveling on horseback. But Chaucer doesn't seem to know the precedent of Italy; His artistic development of this device is entirely his own.
Structure:
Canterbury Tales is not just a collection of stories strung together by loose threads. It is a common practice of some European writers in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. They compiled a considerable group of stories into a single work with a certain scale, but Chaucer created a gallery of vivid characters from all walks of life in the "General Preface", and then assigned some appropriate stories to each of them. Reveal the unique personalities of their respective narrators, and then in the separate "prefaces" of some stories and in the "links" connecting some stories, the author makes further efforts to show the interaction between the characters and their respective characteristics and idiosyncrasies. Therefore, the overall effect of the whole poem is a comprehensive portrayal of the social reality of the poet's era, especially because pilgrims include men and women of all different occupations, high and low, secular and priest, learned and ignorant, rogue and upright, except for the highest social status (that is, kings and nobles) and the lowest (that is, very poor working people).
The characters included are:
(1) The monastery consists of a rich monk, a monk, an abbess and her priest, a nun and three priests; (2) secular clergy, including a priest, a pardon and a summoner, joined a Canon and his yeoman to devote themselves to alchemy; (3) The upper social ladder includes knights, squires, yeomen, rich Franklin, doctors, lawyers and Oxford scholars; (4) Industries represented by businessmen and crew; (5) Citizens or freemen, including clothing merchants, carpenters, weavers, dyers, brocade weavers, cooks and Bath's wife; (6) Rural residents, including miller, farmer, farmer and plowman.
advantage
The value of these 24 stories is unequal. As a whole, they represent almost all literary schools in medieval and early Renaissance Europe, including bards, knight legends, fables, stories, legends, legendary epics, animal epics, myths, moral fables and sermons. Although Chaucer's experiments with all the different popular literary media at that time were not always successful, he certainly had a wide interest in many literary traditions and innovations, not only in Britain but also in continental Europe.
Content introduction
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is not the first collection of short stories, and even the form of asking everyone in a group to tell a story is not a new idea. In "decameron" written by Bugattio, ten people fled to a manor in the suburbs in 1348 to escape the epidemic in Florence. They kill time by telling stories. There is also a group of people in The Canterbury Tales, and everyone tells a story. We are interested not only in the story itself, but also in the people who tell it. Every one of them is real. Chaucer introduced them one by one in the introduction. Then, we met them in the story. Soon, we felt that we knew something about each of them.
Chaucer (about1343-1400) is an English poet. Son of a London wine merchant. He entered the court as a policeman when he was a teenager. 1359 expedition to France with Edward III's troops, captured by the French army and redeemed soon. Chaucer has close ties with the court. He is a courtier, a customs inspector, a sheriff in Kent, and a member of the county house of commons. He has been to many countries and regions for foreign affairs, Belgium, France, Italy and other countries. He had the opportunity to meet Boccaccio and Petrarch, which had a great influence on his literary creation. Chaucer was deprived of his official position and annuity during the period when the asylum seekers fell out of favor, and fell into economic difficulties. He once wrote a doggerel to Henry IV, who had just ascended the throne, complaining about his poverty. Chaucer died at 1400 and was buried in the corner of the poet in Westminster Abbey, London.
Chaucer's poetic creation can be divided into three periods:
① French influence period (1359-1372): mainly translated and imitated the works of French poets, created Mourning for the Duchess, and translated the French medieval long narrative poem Legend of the Rose in London dialect.
② Italian influence period (1372-1386): The poet was exposed to the progressive thoughts of bourgeois humanism. The creative works of this period, such as The Hundred Birds Congress, Troy and Clayside, and The Story of a Good Woman, reflect the author's creative attitude and humanistic views in the face of life reality.
③ Maturity (1386-1400): Chaucer was engaged in the creation of Canterbury Tales in the last 15 years. He reached the peak of his creation in both content and skill. Heroic couplets initiated by him were widely adopted by later English poets and were known as "the father of English poetry".
Summary of Canterbury Tales
One day in April, a group of pilgrims made a pilgrimage to Canterbury and stayed at the Ba Tai Hotel. The next day, the shopkeeper and pilgrims set out with the author who stayed here. The shopkeeper suggested that everyone tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two more when they come back. Recognized as the best storyteller, he can eat a big meal for nothing when he comes back. Chaucer only completed 24 of the planned 120 stories (including two unfinished stories), of which 22 were poems and two were essays. Every story is preceded by an introduction, and this book has a general preface. In this way, the author connected the scattered stories into a whole.
There are several noteworthy points in The Canterbury Tales:
First of all, it shows a broad social picture. Pilgrims come from all walks of life: knights, monks, scholars, lawyers, businessmen, craftsmen, farmers, millers and so on.
Second, various literary genres in the Middle Ages were adopted comprehensively, including knight legends, biographies of saints, sermons, fables and so on.
Thirdly, the descriptions of the characters and the story itself in the preface and opening remarks are interesting and full of humor.
Fourth, language has the characteristics of a narrator, and the stories told by everyone reflect the identity, interests, hobbies, career and life experiences of the narrator.
The Story of Father Nuni in Canterbury Tales (Outline)
The rooster named Kelly and seven hens live in the yard of an industrious and thrifty widow. One morning, the rooster woke up from a nightmare. He dreamed that a wild animal was lurking in the grass, waiting to kill him. Pat Ritter, his favorite hen, laughed at his cowardice and thought that a man should dare to despise everything, have courage and insight, and advise him not to take his dreams to heart. But the rooster gave many examples to show that people have been warned in their dreams before they are unlucky. For example, because two people can't find a hotel, one person has to live in a cowshed. In the evening, another man dreamed twice that his friend in the cowshed asked him for help. He ignored it. In his third dream, his friend told him that he was murdered by a groom who was short of money, and begged him to stop a dung truck the next morning. His body was hidden at the bottom of the dung truck. The facts really confirmed the scene in the dream. Later, the murderer was exposed and hanged. Another example: two people are going out to sea by boat, and they are forced to delay for one day because of the wrong wind direction. That night, one of them was warned in his dream: don't go out to sea the next day, or you will drown. His companion didn't take it seriously and insisted on starting. Later, he was killed. The rooster comforted himself by saying these terrible words. At dawn, he foraged and played with the hens as usual, leaving the fear of last night behind him. Suddenly, he found the fox hiding in the grass and couldn't help but be frightened to disgrace. Just as the fox was about to escape, he stopped him and said that he had come to enjoy the rooster's singing. A flattery made the cock happy. As soon as he posed for singing, the fox rushed forward, grabbed his neck and hurried to the nest. The hen's cry attracted the widow and her two daughters. The crowd joined forces to chase with sticks. When the rooster saw this, he played a trick on the fox, struggled out of his mouth and narrowly escaped bad luck.
Story appreciation
This is an animal fable. It attracts readers with its unique genre and humorous language, which embodies the artistic characteristics of Canterbury Tales.
This fable comes from the mouth of a priest who consecrated the clergy. The narrator borrows a lot from others and quotes more than 20 ancient books, bibles and legends in a short space, which is logical and leads to success. The story not only points out the meaning at the end according to the traditional structural method, but also misses the key points in the narrative process and loses no time in adding epigrams. For example, when retelling the story of a rooster who was killed for money, the priest couldn't help saying, "Oh, God, how holy and just you are. /Even if no one knows about the murder, you will expose it ... even if you hide it for a year, two years or three years. /The murder case will eventually be revealed ... "This didactic tone can be seen everywhere in the text and has become an indispensable part of telling stories. While enjoying the story, readers can clearly understand the narrator's priest status from the sermon tone. This personalized language is one of the keys to the enduring artistic charm of Canterbury Tales.
In addition to the narrator's distinctive personality, the story also shows the author's ability to master the language. Cock cavity Cleveland is arrogant and supercilious, just like the attitude of the party leader, but also timid and suspicious. He likes to be flattered and easily deceived. He talks a lot from time to time, as if he could see everything; Sometimes nagging, afraid of bad luck; Sometimes sensitive, sometimes dull. Pat the hen is also very individual. She talks as if she were a beloved wife. He is sharp and willful, but he is infatuated with her husband. The author vividly shows this pair of cocks and hens with different personalities but similar interests through the language with rich personality.
The humorous and satirical features of Canterbury Tales are also vividly reflected here. The priest speaks in a scholar's tone, or fiddles with flowery words, or solemnly quotes classics, but only tells an animal story about roosters, hens and foxes, conveying only anecdotes in the streets. This disconnect between momentum and content has produced humorous artistic effects. For example, the cock's domineering is swept away in front of the fox; The fox cunningly lured the rooster to be deceived, and he was deceived himself; Cock and hen show a pair of noble sons and ladies in words, but inevitably show the true colors of poultry in action. Chaucer skillfully creates a humorous atmosphere that covers the whole article through the problems between the essence and appearance, the content and the form of this thing.
If we put this story in the background of the dawn of the Renaissance, it is not difficult to find that both the personalized language and the comic effect are stained with the brilliance of humanism. Naturally, a priest with a "wonderful and solemn face" can't change his professional habits, but the sermon to save people from suffering has become an animal fable; Of course, God and doctrine are still the magic weapons that priests never forget, but the story completely ignores the solemnity of religion and reveals a rich interest in the world, which boils down to the life motto of the secular world: don't close your eyes when you open your eyes, and don't open your mouth when you are silent.
The revelation of this secular and reappearing humanistic thought also adds a meaningful stroke to this magnificent and interesting animal fable.
Attachment catalogue
order
introduce
At the Tebad Hotel.
The story of the knight
Paramount and Assett
Scholar's story
Gehrig da resigned.
The story of madame basf
What is a woman's greatest desire?
Forgive the story of the monk
Three people looking for' death'
The story of free peasants
Three promises
The story of a wandering monk
Church officials and demons
The story of the nun's priest
Cock strong plum and fox
Canterbury Tales is a novel by Chaucer, an English writer. This painting depicts a group of pilgrims gathered in a small hotel in London, ready to make a pilgrimage to Canterbury. The shopkeeper suggested that pilgrims tell two stories on their way back and forth to see who told the best story. The collection of stories includes 23 stories, among which the most wonderful stories are: love tragedy stories told by knights, knight stories told by Basf people, fable stories told by atonement ticket sellers, animal fable stories told by priests, family disputes stories told by businessmen and touching love generosity stories told by farmers. The works widely reflect the British social life in the embryonic period of capitalism, expose the corruption of the church, the greed and hypocrisy of priests, condemn the asceticism that stifles human nature, and affirm the secular love life.
Canterbury Tales has a high artistic achievement, far exceeding the previous contemporary English literary works, and it is the first model of realism in the history of English literature. The work is a mixture of humor and satire, with a strong comic color. Most of the stories were written in rhyming poems, which had an influence on later English literature. The characters are vivid and the language is lively. Chaucer wrote in the vibrant London dialect, which also laid the foundation for the English literary language. His heroic couplets were widely used by later English poets, so Chaucer was known as "the father of English poetry".