Thoughts/ramblings on Chaucer

The pardoner is a many faceted being and as that common in the tales perhaps that’s what makes Chaucer’s Canterbury tales initially a little daunting. The pardoner is a clever character in many ways as he is almost double bluffing the pilgrims by being so open about his business whilst telling a story that surely no one in his business would dare too. He is letting them in on the secrets and lies that are his business, as foolish as a magician revealing his illusions. Yet because he, as a character is hiding his true colours and intent on being accepted, he lies to cover his debauchery and homosexual leanings that are alluded to in the prologue and his own prologue.

At first it may seem that the main issue in studying and learning Chaucer would be the language, but as we have found, middle English is a huge step forward in comparisons with modern English. After that it is the fact that there are so many characters and tales to be heard that the overwhelming size of the entirety of the Canterbury tales might alienate. Of course just from the sections we have seen so far, it is apparent that the parallels of the themes with modern day situations are there to be drawn upon and used to help understand Chaucer.
By taking such a range of social backgrounds, the tales covered all the bases whilst allowing interpretations to be read into the tales based upon the preconceptions of the time and the basis of the characters. With there being so much to read into any one of the completed tales, study of Chaucer would need to be broken down to just a few of the stories, though making note that they are constituent parts of a whole work (if incomplete). The exercise we did as a class really helped to bring the story telling aspect of the pardoner’s tale out and put it into a modern context.

Looking at the Wife of Baths tale, it can be seen that often the tale does not match the character that regales it. In her prologue (twice as long as her tale) she talks about marriage and that she is an authority on it and at times talks of dominance and withholding (on second thoughts may avoid this one as a little raunchy at times). Anyway my point is that the tales can less important to the story in comparison to the characters and their individual prologues that are more telling of the points/themes Chaucer is aiming to assert.
After looking at many teaching sites with plenty of dull and naff ideas I have found a great way of introducing the idea of the Canterbury tales, the premise of the tales lends itself to interpretation, and could be used as a competition of similar style with the best story winning. The idea makes the pilgrimage a journey to a wedding where all the travellers will be giving a toast/speech; each person on the bus has a different link or way of knowing either the bride or the groom.

They begin by telling the group who they are and how they know the couple. Then they tell a funny story (written in rhyme like Chaucer) about the bride and groom, or about how they have changed, how they met or just their thoughts on love and marriage.

This works better as a reflection/contemporary version of the main premise and incorporates the so called marriage tales of the wife of bath, clerk and merchant. But as a larger class project it strips down Chaucer to the storytelling base. This would work as a project to work on whilst learning the history and interpretation of the tales.