The Canterbury Tales: The English Language's First Masterpiece | Literary Classic | Absolute History

Geoffrey Chaucer, a poet of the late 1300s, experienced a period of significant change marked by the decline of feudalism and the rise of a new social order in England. Despite the Church's enduring power and corruption, England faced the devastation of the Black Death and the 100 Years War, leading to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Chaucer, born into the emerging middle class, leveraged his father's connections to secure a position at court and later served in various capacities, including diplomatic missions. His literary work, influenced by English, French, and Italian cultures, is categorized into periods reflecting these influences. His most renowned work, 'The Canterbury Tales,' was conceived during a semi-retirement period, featuring a collection of tales told by a group of pilgrims on their journey to Canterbury. The tales were meant to encompass a wide range of narrative genres, although the project was never fully completed or revised.

The Canterbury Tales, left unfinished and unrevised by Chaucer, consists of manuscript fragments that sometimes contain one or more tales. The order of these fragments is not entirely clear, but certain sequences are identifiable, such as the connection between the Knight's Tale, the Miller's Tale, and the Reeve's Tale. The General Prologue serves as an introduction to the collection, setting the scene for the tales and introducing the pilgrims and the tale-telling competition. The prologue also employs satire to challenge the pilgrims' outward appearances and encourages the reader to make moral judgments. The tales are designed to reflect a microcosm of society, with Chaucer using type characters to represent virtues or vices of social groups. The social hierarchy of the age is mirrored in the pilgrims, divided into three Estates: the military, the clergy, and the Bourgeois, with the host of the Tabard Inn acting as the Master of Ceremonies.

Chaucer's work is an exploration of social mobility and the breakdown of the old hierarchical order, reflecting the social confusion of the late 14th century. The tales are ordered to open and close with stories that highlight man's better qualities, as told by the idealized Knight and Parson. However, the tales encompass a wide range of genres, from comedy to courtly love, and are designed to interact with each other, revealing more about the characters and their views of one another. The Miller's Tale and the Reeve's Tale exemplify this interplay, with the latter responding to the former in a derogatory manner. The tales are intended to work together as a coherent whole, providing social commentary and addressing themes of justice, the meaning of human suffering, and the nature of nobility.

The Canterbury Tales was designed for oral presentation, with Chaucer's audience ranging from nobles to servants. The naturalistic dialogue and diverse characters would have required a theatrical element from the narrator. Chaucer was an experimental poet, influenced by French and Italian poets, and was one of the first to consciously imitate Dante's Divine Comedy. His mature poetry, such as The Canterbury Tales, utilized a five-stress line, a rarity at the time, which allowed for more complexity and sophistication in his ideas. This was further enhanced by ordering these lines in rhyming couplets, providing a fluid and flexible meter for extended narrative verse. The gradual advance in literacy and the advent of print technology ensured the continued reproduction of Chaucer's work, which was written in the Middle English dialect of the Court.

Chaucer's work, like most medieval literature, was intended to be read aloud, emphasizing the oral tradition. The Canterbury Tales were planned to have each pilgrim tell four stories, exploring various narrative forms, but the collection ends before the pilgrims reach Canterbury, leaving only 24 tales. Chaucer often had difficulties with endings, and it's suggested that his fear of reaching a definitive conclusion, as well as the passage of time, may have influenced the incomplete nature of the work. Despite this, there is an overarching design to the tales, which engage with social reality and morality, with the final tale told by the Parson, a truly good man, focusing on the Christian theme of penitence. The tales balance thought and humor, with the Miller's Tale noted for its intricate balance, and the Merchant's Tale favored for its hybrid of genres and cynical outlook.