Required Poet: John Donne

So, I finished reading the required works from John Donne, and while I am grateful that his poetry didn’t take very long to read, I am still not okay that this stuff is required. I barely understand any of it and I find it incredibly boring to read, discuss, or even think about. But that is just me. Nevertheless, selected works by John Donne are required and I will do my best to discuss them in detail here. If there is anything I missed please, please, please feel free to comment. I cannot stress enough that poetry is not, in any way, my strong point.

Genre

Donne wrote satire, love poetry, elegies, and sermons. He was considered the most undisputed leader of the Metaphysical School of Poetry, but I’ll discuss that literary movement more in the history section.

Seven of the works on the M.A. list fall under the category of Songs and Sonnets in the edition I am using (The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne by The Modern Library Classics). Elegy 19 (To His Mistress Going to Bed”) is obviously, well, an elegy, and “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward,” is considered a Divine Poem. The list then includes three Holy Sonnets, and then the very last entry on the list is “Meditation 17” from Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. Clearly, this guy was versatile and did not stick with one formula, giving us a lot to work with.

Themes

Donne’s work suggests a healthy appetite for life and its pleasures, while also expressing deep emotion. He was considered to be a master of the metaphysical conceit: an extended metaphor that combines two different ideas into a single one, often while using imagery. An example of this can be seen in “The Canonization.” And unlike Petrarchan conceits, which formed conceits between two similar subjects, metaphysical conceits go deeper by taking two mismatched ideas. This can be seen in “A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning.”

Donne was also a fan of using wit, paradoxes, abrupt openings, dislocations, argumentative structure, puns, and subtle analogies. His poetry is oftentimes ironic and cynical, especially when dealing with love, death, and religion. His poetry represented the shift from classical forms to more personal poetry.

History

The metaphysical poets were a group of British lyric poets of the 17th century who were interested in metaphysical concerns and a common means of investigating them. Interestingly enough, these poets were not formally affiliated, and a lot of them did not even know or read each other. Their poetry was influenced by the changing times, new sciences, and the debauched scene of the 17th century.

The chronology of Donne’s poetry is not known for sure, but scholars generally believe that the majority of his Elegies and Satires, and possibly the Songs and Sonnets, were written during his student years. Much of his youth was fraught with religious doubt as he went back and forth between the doctrines of Catholicism and the Anglican Church. By the mid 1590s, Donne had quietly abandoned the Catholic Church, and in 1615, he took up orders with the Anglican Church due to intense pressure from James I. He is commemorated as a priest in the calendar of the Church of England and in the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on March 31st.

Now, I will attempt to go through the poems on the list one by one and highlight the major key points. Let’s take a deep breath, and begin…

The Flea

Category: Songs and Sonnets
Okay, for me this poem gets the “icky” award, not only for being about a flea, but because of the entire general theme and tone. Donne flexes his metaphysical conceit muscle by likening a flea to a romance. The narrator is pointing out the flea to his beloved and basically attempting to convince her that because the flea bit them both, and is therefore mixing both of their blood in the same tiny body (uniting them in a way), it is as if they are already married, and therefore, there is no harm in them sleeping together. See? Icky.
Standout line: And in this flea, our two bloods mingled bee

Song. “Go and catch a falling star”

Category: Songs and Sonnets
Basically, according to Donne in this poem, it is impossible to find a woman that is both attractive and faithful to one man. The list of impossible tasks at the beginning is, for the narrator, just as impossible as finding a faithful woman. The tone switches around between magical, bitter, self-pitying, mocking, and even bossy.
Standout line: Teach me to hear Mermaids singing

The Canonization

Category: Songs and Sonnets
The speaker is apparently being criticized by the unknown addressee for being in love, and the narrator would like for said addressee to leave him alone and let him love. He even asks the unknown person to criticize anything else about him, but to at least let him love. The speaker argues that no one is being hurt by his love, and he even believes that poetry that will be subsequently written about him and his lover will cause them to be canonized and admitted to the sainthood of love.
Standout line: Call us what you will, we are made such by love

A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day

Category: Songs and Sonnets
The poem is a nocturnal – a reflective and somber meditation. It takes place at midnight on the day of the winter solstice (“Being the shortest day”). It appears the narrator’s lover has died and he is now reflecting on how that love has changed him. Actually, he is more reflecting on how the love has “ruined” him. This is definitely one of the poems that was the hardest for me to understand, but this is what I got.
Standout line: Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not

A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning

Category: Songs and Sonnets
The speaker is being forced to spend time apart from his lover, but before he leaves he explains to her that their goodbye should not be full of mourning and sorrow. Their love is refined enough to where they should not lament the loss and absence of “eyes, lips, and hands.” Donne then likens the two loves to the feet on a compass (there is that metaphysical stuff again).
Standout line: So let us melt, and make no noise

A Lecture upon the Shadow

Category: Songs and Sonnets
The shadows are cares and fears that the two lovers have. Just like shadows disappear and reappear with the movement of the people and the sun, so do the couples cares and fears. The shadows or fears of the afternoon are different from the ones in the morning. Some are fears that the two lovers created themselves, others sneak up on them from behind, and still others slowly grow longer through out the day.
Standout line: Love is a growing, or full constant light

Twickenham Garden

Category: Songs and Sonnets
The poet is sad because he is in love with a married woman who cannot reciprocate his feelings. He goes into the garden to cheer himself up, but he is too sad for it to work. He surmises that the only way to feel better is to become a part of the garden himself. He then asserts that if the tears of a lover are not like his, then they are not genuine tears.
Standout line: Or a stone fountain weeping out my years

Elegy 19. To His Mistress Going to Bed

Category: Elegies
This one gets an “icky” award too. It is bedtime, and by the end of the poem the narrator is naked and he asserts “What needst thou have more covering than a man.” I really don’t think I need to say anything more than that.
Standout line: Lincence my roaving hands, and let them go

Holy Sonnet 10 (Death be not proud)

Category: Holy Sonnets
It appears that the narrator is basically asserting that death is not that big a deal. The tone suggests more of a personal victory over death as opposed to death being the great conqueror. The narrator addresses death as if it were an equal or even an inferior, but definitely not a superior. It also almost seems as if the narrator is mocking death because he sees death as lasting only but a moment before the person goes off to heaven.
Standout line: One short sleep past, we wake eternally

Holy Sonnet 14 (Batter my heart)

Category: Holy Sonnets
This poem is about the union between God and man. The narrator wants God to come in and break his heart, and the only way for him to stand firm in his faith is if God come in and takes over completely. The narrator’s heart has been taken over completely the enemy, but he cannot let God take over again because he is still in union with sin and tends to take on traits of the enemy. He wants God to take him and imprison him, which would actually be more like freedom as opposed to slavery.
Standout line: That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow mee’, and bend

Holy Sonnet 17 (Since she whom I lov’d)

Category: Holy Sonnets

From what I can tell, the narrator’s lover has died (it just keeps happening doesn’t it?), so now his mind is constantly on heaven because that is where he believes her to be. Since his mind has been drawn to heaven, and it is also, consequently, drawn to God and to seeking him. He feels he ahs found God and that his thirst for him has been fed, but he still longs for something more (basically someone else to love). But he then questions his desire for another love as he still thinks about his about old one, and he now gives his love to Saints and Angels, not the flesh.

Standout line: And her Soule early into heaven ravished

Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward

Category: Divine Poems

Profound religious insights accompanied by sincere personal penance. It contains intricate religious logic and deals with the poets understanding of himself in relation to God. The devotion of human begins to God keeps them on the right path. In the end, the narrator reflects on being glad not to have witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus. He then implores God to punish him so that he may be more like Christ.

Standout line: Could I behold those hands which span the Poles

Meditation 17 (from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions)

This is the only work by Donne on the list that is not a poem. It appears to be more of an essay than anything else. The Devotions themselves are a series of reflections written by Donne as he recovered from a serious illness. The devotions are divided up into 23 parts, each describing a different stage of the sickness. The parts are then further divided in Meditations. Meditation 17 from the M.A. list is part of Devotion 17, in which the narrator is preparing for death. It is the origin of the phrase “No man is an island,” and it is where Ernest Hemingway got the title for his book, For Whom the Bell Tolls. The idea that no man is an island is the general theme for the entire meditation. The smallest action that happens to any member of a community affects the entire community. At this point in his illness, Donne felt like the bell was tolling for him, telling him that he was near death.

And there we have it. I can’t believe I did it, but I did. I guarantee you that as soon as I am done with this test, this collection of work by John Donne that I have been flipping through for the last two hours is going right back to Half-Price Books. I am sure there is someone out there who can appreciate it way more than me.

Required Work: To the Lighthouse

I made it! I have survived my first novel by Virginia Woolf, and while it wasn’t necessarily my particular cup of tea, I can appreciate the quality of the writing and what (I think) she was trying to do. Definitely a must read for anyone who likes stream of conscious novels and is okay with not a lot of action taking place. It is also fairly short (compared with a lot of the novels on this list), with my version clocking in at 209 pages. However, for me it was 209 pages of mental exercise. If the stream of conscious did not get me, then the constant point of view shifting between characters often did.

Genre

As already mentioned in the introduction, this novel involves a heavy amount of stream of conscious from almost every character, no matter how small their part is. The first part, “The Window,” features mostly the thoughts of Mrs. Ramsay as she relates to her children, husband, and the community around their summer vacation home. However, it touches on everyone else, and also features a good amount of narrative on the thoughts of Lily Briscoe. Part two, “Time Passes,” is the shortest of the three parts as it is sort of a summary of the ten years that pass between part one and part three. For Woolf, this section made the novel to be much like a capital “H,” and part two is the corridor that joins the two larger parts. Part three brings the reader back to the vacation home and includes the actual trip to the lighthouse. As (spoiler alert!) Mrs. Ramsay is now dead (her death is discussed in Part two), most of the thoughts explored are split between Lily Briscoe as she spends the majority of it at the house attempting to finish a painting, and the three family members who have ventured out on the boat in an attempt to visit the lighthouse. The boat trip involves Mr. Ramsay, James, and Cam(illa) as they are accompanied by the Macalisters. There is actually not much exploration of the thoughts going on inside the head of Mr. Ramsay. But the majority of what James and Cam are thinking involves their father and his tyranny and harsh manner of dealing with his children.

While things are happening while the characters are having these thoughts, they are not the primary focus of the novel. This causes To the Lighthouse to be classified as a modernist work, much like something that would come from Marcel Proust or James Joyce. The main focus is philosophical introspection (the existence of God, the goodness of man, the transience of man, etc.) and the prose proves to be winding and hard to follow. Much like there is little action, there is also little dialogue as the focus stays on what the characters are thinking instead of what they actually say.

Themes

The novel brings up the power of childhood emotions and how they are brought out by the adults the children interact with (mostly their mother and father). Another theme for the adults is the impermanence of adult relationships. The impermanence of these relationships is often caused by other prominent themes like loss (death), subjectivity, and the problem of perception. Of course, these three things also play a hand in the children’s emotions. For example, the fact that Mrs. Ramsay seems to dote on James, her youngest son, only adds to his problem with his father, who is clearly a harsh and stern man. Because his mother’s action differ so greatly from his father’s, it makes it that much easier for him to not him. Another example of the themes of subjectivity and the problem of perception come through Lily Briscoe. In both parts one and three, Lily seems to have a love/hate relationship with Mrs. Ramsay going on in her mind. On the one hand, she always comes to the vacation home with the Ramsay’s because she loves being with the children, but there are certain aspects of Mrs. Ramsay that she severely dislikes. It seemed to me anyway that Lily viewed Mrs. Ramsay as someone who always had to be in control, the center of attention, and things had to go her way. But we later learn that Mrs. Ramsay is a beautiful woman, while Lily Briscoe is on the road to becoming a homely old maid (and by part three, she officially is one). By the end, Lily experiences intense sadness when she attempts to come to terms with the fact that Mrs. Ramsay is dead and will no longer come to the vacation home. She even calls out the dead woman’s name in two different instances while she is painting in the house. It almost looks like Lily is experiencing survivor’s guilt as Mrs. Ramsay, the devoted wife and mother, is dead, while Lily, the single and childless painter, is allowed to live on.

History

Woolf began writing the book as a way to understand the unresolved issues concerning her parents, and there are similarities between the plot and her own life. She often visited the real St. Ives with her parents and considered it some of the happiest time of her life. Then her mother died when she was 13, and her father plunged into gloom and self-pity (much like Mr. Ramsay, who plunged into a sort of depression because his wife was no longer around to praise him through his own doubts about his career and writing). And while Lily Briscoe is a painter, so was Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell.

The family rented the Talland House on St. Ives in 1882, and they used it as a retreat during the summer for ten years. To the Lighthouse actually takes place on Hebridean Island, and the house the Ramsay’s stay in is an imitation of Talland House.

In the novel, the Ramsay’s return to the house after World War I (in which Andrew, one of the Ramsay sons, is killed), while by that time Woolf’s family had given the house up. But Woolf did visit the house again much later with her sister.

So there we have it…not bad right? But you know what will be bad? Next week’s post on some of the poetry and prose of John Donne (if I finish it in time). I am no good at understanding or exploring poetry, but I have to give it a try as there are a number of poets that are required on the reading list. I have to figure out how I am going to format it and everything, as I cannot post about poetry the same way I have done some of these novels. Anyway, it will be an interesting experience at least.

Optional Work: Troilus and Criseyde

This is it – possibly the last work I will ever have to read by Chaucer (or choose to read for that matter). Granted, I could have chosen any of the other optional works besides Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde in section A, but I decided to go ahead and go with an author whose language I hade already become accustomed to through The Canterbury Tales. Once again, I have chosen to go with a Modern English translation. In fact, the version pictured was so simple and easy to understand that I hardly realized that I was reading one long poem. I’m not saying that I enjoyed it that much, but the translation helped me get through it.

Genre

What is most apparent is that Troilus and Criseyde is a long poem. While The Canterbury Tales is more widely known, this is thought to be Chaucer’s best work as it is more self-contained and it was actually finished. It was composed using rime royale (a-b-a-b-b-c-c), a form that was introduced into English poetry by Chaucer.

Troilus and Criseyde is often considered a courtly romance (or chivalric romance), although this classification is often seen as being to general for Chaucer’s work. Also, this label was mostly used for stories that involved a knight going on a quest (the kind of story Miguel de Cervantes satirized in Don Quixote). When they were popular, courtly romances also often reworked fairy tales and legends to suite tastes. This actually is not that different from what Chaucer has done, as the story of Troilus and Criseyde had already been told. Chaucer’s version mad Criseyde more sincere instead of fickle, and he used humor along with sorrow.

Themes

Troilus and Criseyde is part the Matter of Rome: the literary cycle made up of Greek and Roman mythology that often focused on military heroes such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Because of this, it includes mentions of the Roman gods, as well as Fate. Also, there is a Trojan War going on in the background, so there some mention of that too. Troilus (along with his brother, Hector) is a fierce warrior and known for his abilities in battle. In the end (spoiler alert!) they are both eventually taken down by the mighty Achilles.

However, in the forefront of the novel is the romance between Troilus and Criseyde. There are lots of annoyingly long speeches; lots of lamenting; Criseyde’s uncle, Pandarus, does a lot of fancy footwork in order to get these two crazy kids together…basically it becomes very easy to forget that there is a war going on and that Troilus is one of the best fighters. For someone who is so accustomed to hardcore battle, he does a lot of groaning and wishing he were dead over the love of a woman. Think Romeo and Juliet, but a lot longer. Annoying right?

History

The character of Troilus is actually from Ancient Greek literature, but the story of him as a lover is of medieval origin. The first known version of the story is from a poem called Roman de Troie, but Chaucer seems to have used Boccaccio’s version as his main source, although the world he created for Troilus and Criseyde was much less misogynistic and more sympathetic toward Criseyde. Later writers would continue to tackle the story, some giving Criseyde a more tragic fate, while Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida is much darker in tone.

This is all I can currently pull from Chaucer’s story of young love gone wrong. I was forced to pick one optional work from section A, and I did so. I am sure there is much more that can be found in the way of themes, so it is incredibly possible that I will be posting on this book again. Next week I hope to have finished To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.

Slowly but surely, I will conquer this list.

Moby Dick (See, I told you it would be back...)

I know I said I was not going to post again until after the New Year, but I got bored one day and decided that this chart would prove useful. Enjoy, and Happy New Year!

Required Work: Song of Solomon

Ambiguous ending alert! Just thought I would go ahead and rip that band-aid right off. As someone who appreciates closure, I figured I would go ahead and forewarn you that Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon has an ending that remains (and will probably always remain) open to debate. But I will also go ahead and assert that it isn’t the result of sloppy writing, and it also is not an ending that Morrison tacked on simply because she needed an ending. I do believe it is intentional, and even for those of us who appreciate closure and become frustrated with unanswered questions in literature; I do believe she achieves the effect she was going for…whatever that was.

Genre

There are a couple of options we can go with here for Song of Solomon. Clearly, it falls into African-American literature. And here I am going to make a brief point that was brought up in the class I just finished: just because the author is of a certain race it does not automatically make their works “African-American literature” or “Jewish literature” or “Latino/a literature,” etc. The genre should be applied when considering the actual work, and not necessarily the author’s background. Both Robert Pinsky and Philip Roth are Jewish, but my professor would argue that Roth’s novels can be described as Jewish literature much more readily than can Pinsky’s poems. Although, and this is another issue, certain authors, such as Roth, do not appreciate these types of labels. They tend to be a result of readers and critics attempting to put authors in a box and keep them there, and no artist wants that. Song of Solomon, however, does qualify as African-American literature as it focuses on the experiences of an American-American community in early 1930s America.

This novel is also part slave narrative as it tells the story of Milkman’s great-grandfather, Solomon, and his escape from slavery by flying back to Africa. This also gives the novel the feel of an African folk tale as flying is a major theme in different ways. But more on that later.

The book can also be seen as a Bildungsroman as it does follow the moral and psychological growth of Macon “Milkman” Dead III from birth to adulthood (and arguably to death). Probably the biggest change that occurs within Milkman is his decision at the end to stop running from his best friend, Guitar, who is attempting to kill him (although I guess that would make him more of a former best friend). Instead of continuing to run, he turns and faces him, and the novel ends with the reader not knowing if Guitar succeeded, or if Milkman came out the stronger man, or if neither happened, or even if both happened. I will further discuss this event, as well as Milkman’s great-grandfather, in the Themes section.

Themes

Race is obvious, as is Milkman’s quest for identity as a black man in 20th-century America, so let us move on.

Flying becomes a central theme from the very first chapter, as the reader is shown the note of Mr. Smith, a North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Agent who is getting ready to attempt to fly from the Mercy Hospital building to the other side of Lake Superior. What he learns of course is that only birds and planes are meant to fly (and much like the ambiguous ending, I feel like it is never really clear whether Mr. Smith died or not, but I am not certain on that so don’t take my word on it). Even before this though, in the epitaph, flying is brought up: “The fathers may soar/and the children may know their names.” The narrator asserts that when Milkman learns at the age of four what Mr. Smith had already learned, that being able to fly was a gift that humans were not meant to have, that he became “saddened” and had subsequently “lost all interest in himself.” Later, Milkman will have dreams of flying, and still later when he visits the town of Shalimar with is aunt, Pilate, he learns of his great-grandfather’s escape from slavery by flying to Africa. In the final pages in the book, after Pilate is mistakenly shot and killed by Guitar (which is a heart-wrenching scene by the way), Milkman realizes that she too was able to fly “without ever leaving the ground,” making the idea of flight a much more symbolic or even spiritual thing than a physical one. And just a few short lines later, Guitar and Milkman have their final confrontation where Milkman finally gains his own freedom in much the same way his great-grandfather did. Whether he lives or dies, Milkman has learned that “If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.” Flight is presented as one of the only ways to achieve freedom on an otherwise suffocating existence.

Because of this open ending, this book reminds me of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. The poem within the novel is a 999-lined poem that is written entirely in heroic couplets…except that last line…which happens to rhyme with the very first line of the poem…therefore throwing the reader back to the beginning of the poem is this weird (but oddly fascinating) continuous loop. Morrison achieves the same thing because while Milkman learns to fly, the reader isn’t sure if is has resulted in his death. But if we go back to the beginning, the novel opened with a man attempting to fly from the hospital in which Milkman is born in shortly afterward, thus creating another weird and fascinating loop. Through flight, the novel continuously rejects the idea of closure. The three men that “fly” are the three men whose endings we are not sure of: Mr. Smith, the great-grandfather, and Milkman himself. Instead, all of these different narratives interweave into each other. And gaps within the narrative get filled in because the reader is compelled to circle back re-read certain narrative sections.

Another theme within the novel is that of biblical names. There are Milkman’s two sisters, First Corinthians and Magdalena called Lena. There is his aunt, Pilate, who is actually the most nurturing and almost divine character in the book, despite her name. There is Milkman’s mother Ruth, and Pilate’s granddaughter Hagar, who is in love with Milkman and is actually the first person who tries to kill him because of that love. Then of course, there is Solomon, who only exists in the past, but is the one who, as far as we know, first achieved flight.

History

The book was published in 1977, but the story begins in 1931 with Mr. Smith’s flight and Milkman’s birth. It is mentioned that Guitar is a member of the Seven Days group, a group of black men that commits revenge murders against white people in response to the brutal murders that were taking place against innocent blacks at the time. Every time a black person was murdered unjustly (or the murder is at least deemed unjust by the group), one of the members picks and kills an innocent white person. Now I have not been able to find anything on any real Seven Days group that existed in the mid 1900s in America, but that is not to say that groups like this didn’t exist at the time of such racial tension in this country.

As Milkman looks deeper into his family’s history, the reader is shown the effects that slavery could have had on the African-American family long after it has ended. One of the effects is Milkman’s quest for identity as a black man. The effect of geological displacement of African-Americans because of slavery is also explored.

Also, at the beginning of the novel, it is explained that Milkman will be the first black baby born at Mercy Hospital, and that the only reason it is being allowed is because Ruth is the daughter of a black doctor.

Although I did enjoy this book, I do have to wonder why this book was chosen as a required work over Morrison’s Beloved or The Bluest Eye. I am glad it was chosen over those two in the sense that it doesn’t make a reader’s soul cry in the way that the other two would (at least they did for me). If this is the first book by Morrison that someone picks up, at least they won’t be immediately turned off by the severity and despair that the other two are so heavily with.

Next weekend is of course Christmas weekend, so I will be taking another break while enjoying the holiday season with my family. The following week, however, I plan to have finished Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. So until them, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Required Work: The Canterbury Tales Part II

Well, I managed to at least finish the last four stories of The Canterbury Tales that are required for the M.A. exam. One fun thing I realized about the edition I am using is that it does not include the Parson’s Tale, and after managing to print off a Modern English version of it from www.luminarium.org, I realized why. The tale is incredibly long and not really a tale. Fortunately, the exam only requires that the Prologue be read. I will discuss it later, after I first talk about the Clerk’s Prologue and Tale, the Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale, and the Nun’s Priest’s Prologue and Tale.

Clerk’s Prologue and Tale

The Clerk tells the tale of Griselda, a young wife whose new husband puts her through bizarre and brutal circumstances in order to test her loyalty. The torture she undergoes recalls the Biblical book of Job. The Clerk is portrayed as a diligent and well learned scholar, but the moral of his story is unclear and may have been left open-ended by Chaucer on purpose. On the one hand, he advises women to ignore Griselda’s passive acceptance of her husband’s cruelty. But on the other hand, he encourages everyone to face adversity with her same amount of fortitude.

Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale

Descriptions of the Pardoner as well as certain clues in his tale suggest that although he is a man of religion, he suffers extreme spiritual as well as sexual poverty. He admits to abusing authority and selling fake relics to make money. He tells a folk-tale of Oriental origin that has many versions. It involves three drunken and debauched men who attempt to find Death, but because of their own greed and subsequent plots to kill each other, they find Death by actually dying themselves. Despite the sins of the Pardoner, his teaching is ultimately pretty good.

Nun’s Priest’s Prologue and Tale

The prologue to this tale links it with the preceding Monk’s Tale about criminals and fallen heroes that is interrupted by the Knight. Because the Monk refuses to alter his story, the Host allows the Nun’s Priest to tell a new one. The new story actually follows a similar theme, but is more of a parody and has a happy ending. He tells the story of a rooster who is captured by a fox due to his own pride. However, the rooster manages to escape the fox because he manages to play on the fox’s pride. The story ends with the moral to be careful regarding reckless decisions and of those who flatter you.

Parson’s Prologue

The Host asks the Parson for a fable, a form that achieved success with the Nun’s Priest. However, the Parson refuses and instead condemns fable stories as folly and decides to therefore tell an improving tale in prose since he can neither rhyme nor alliterate. The tale that follows is the longest of all of the stories by the Pilgrim’s, and is really more of a treatise on virtuous living. It is not clear to the reader why Chaucer would choose to end The Canterbury Tales in this way, but the Parson does appear to be a positive character, and the general theme surrounding him is that we all need to help others to achieve salvation.

So there it is, one more monster has been slain. I hope (and “hope” is the operative word here) that I will have finished Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde by next week. I figured that if I have to choose one optional work from the Pre-1500 period then it might as well be one by an author that already has a required work. Plus, I was able to find it in a Modern English translation. If I don’t manage it (and this is a real possibility), then I may be exploring Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon instead.

Required Work: The Canterbury Tales Part I

Now this is what I mean by a monster novel (or at least a monster collection of short stories). Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales was written in the late 1300s, in Middle English, and mostly in prose. It is one of those books that just seem much scarier than it actually is. After reading the first half of what is required from the book for the M.A. exam, I realize that even with the dominant prose style, this collection of stories is actually quite accessible. Of course, it helps that the version I am using, the Barnes & Noble Classics edition, has the Middle English text on one page and the translation on the facing page. Almost needless to say, I am paying pretty much little to no attention to the Middle English. It would not do me any good to even try as I would get nothing out of it. But even so, I do like the fact that the Middle English is still available to me in the same volume.

For the sake of this blog, I will approach The Canterbury Tales the same way I did Flannery O’Connor’s short stories. I will begin with the usual information about genre, theme, and history, and then move into a short description about each individual tale covered on the M.A. list. Today I will cover the half I have already read, and hopefully by next week, I will have already finished the remaining stories so I can post about them as well.

And now, on with the post…

Genre

The Canterbury Tales is often called the first book of poetry in English. It is also recognized as the first anthology of English short fiction. It falls into the same genre as other works of the day as a collection of stories put together into a frame narrative or frame tale (an introductory story is composed to set the stage for the stories that follow). The Canterbury Tales differs from other stories of its type in that the stories within it are greatly varied. While other collections focused on a central theme, such as religion or politics, Chaucer used the setting of a pilgrimage as reason to have a wide range of characters from different backgrounds tell very different and distinctive stories. This makes The Canterbury Tales more about the characters than a central theme, and allowed Chaucer to showcase his ability in multiple genres of fiction.

Theme

As mentioned above, there is not a central theme such as religion, which was the popular one in Chaucer’s time that holds all of the different stories together. Some stories are funny, some are more serious, some have a lesson, and some appear to be just a story. The overarching theme seems to be the pilgrimage, which is the reason all of these characters are even together in the first place. However, Chaucer ignores the actual progress of the trip. There are no mentions of the amount of time that is passing or of any specific locations or landmarks along the way. It is generally believed that Chaucer left this work unfinished, which I am willing to buy as it doesn’t appear that the group ever reaches their destination (please feel free to correct me if I am wrong on that one as I have yet to actually finish the book).

A competition is introduced as something to do along the way, so what follows is this collection of various tales. A lot of the time one story will be in response to another (like the Miller with the Knight’s tale), and sometimes a storyteller will be momentarily interrupted by another traveler (like the Wife of Bath). The storytelling that occurs is definitely more of an interaction and not at all anything formal.

History

The Canterbury Tales was written during a time in England when the Catholic church The Great Schism (two different men were claiming to be the true Pope, a disagreement driven more by politics than any real theological differences). Lollardy, an early English religious movement led by John Wycliffe, is also mentioned as a specific incident involving pardoners (who gathered money in exchange for absolution from sin) who claimed to be collecting from a hospital.

Also occurring during this time were the Peasants’ Revolt and events ending in the deposing of King Richard II.

The religious views of the different characters seem quite diverse, but they still all fall under the established Church of England. Both the Pardoner and Summoner, however, are portrayed as deeply corrupt, greedy, and even abusive. The tale of the Friar is about a summoner who works on the side of the devil. The Second Nun tells a tale about chaste women bringing people to the church by example. The Monk and the Prioress, while not as corrupt as the Pardoner or Summoner, still fall short of what they are supposed to be.

The ultimate pilgrimage destination was Jerusalem, but within England, the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury was a popular pilgrimage destination. Miracle stories connected to the remains of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights of Henry II during a dispute between church and crown, sprang up shortly after his death. The pilgrimage ties all of the stories together and allows a collection of Christians to strive for heaven despite weakness, disagreement, and diversity.

So that is what I have for genre, theme, and history. I will now continue with brief descriptions of the General Prologue, Knight’s Tale, Miller’s Prologue and Tale, and the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.

General Prologue

The collection opens with The General Prologue which basically sets the stage and introduces each of the characters the reader will encounter. The order the pilgrims are introduced places them in a social order with nobility, craftsmen, and then peasants at the end. It also sets up the competition and introduces the reader to the narrator.

Knight’s Tale

This tale deals with many typical aspects of knighthood such as courtly love and ethical dilemmas. It is written in iambic pentameter and uses 10 syllables per line. It is a story about how even two noble knights who are close like brothers can still be torn apart and have a vicious feud over the love of a woman.

Miller’s Prologue and Tale

The drunken Miller actually interrupts the Monk before he can tell his tale. The Miller even asserts that his tale as noble much like the Knight’s, but because he is drunk, he cannot be held accountable for what he actually says. It is a vulgar tale that is in direct contrast to the tale of the Knight. While the Knight told of courtly love, the Miller tells of a landlord being proved a cuckold as his young wife carries on an affair with someone else.

Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale

This is probably the most well known tale of the collection. Her prologue is actually twice as long as her tale, and it explores the role of women in the Late Middle Ages. The length of the prologue may just show how she likes to talk about herself and enjoys being the center of attention. She establishes herself (or at least tries to) as an expert on marriage because she has been married five times and has ready justifications and reasons for each of them. In short, a knight commits a rape, so the Queen punishes him by sending him on a year-long quest to find out what it is that women really want. If he can’t get the correct answer, he loses his life. While on his quest, he meets an old woman who agrees to give him the answer in exchange for a future favor. He agrees, returns to court with the old woman, gives the Queen the correct answer, and is therefore saved. As her favor, the old woman demands that the knight marry her despite his protests. While in their marriage bed, he confesses his unhappiness to his new wife and admits that it is because she is ugly and low-born. She gives him a choice between ugly and faithful, or beautiful and unfaithful. He gives the choice over to her, and is therefore rewarded with her transformation into a beautiful woman who remains faithful. Moral of the story: husbands are rewarded if they let their wives have mastery over them. Take that as you will.

For next week, if I finish the rest of The Canterbury Tales, then I will post on the remainder of the stories. If not…well…we’ll see.