乔叟

Background information: Murder in the Cathedral

In Medieval England the Church was very powerful. The fear of going to Hell was very real and people were told that only the Catholic Church could save your soul so that you could go to Heaven. The head of the Catholic Church was the pope based in Rome. The most important position in the church in Medieval England was the Archbishop of Canterbury and both he and the king usually worked together. A king of England could not remove a pope from his position but popes claimed that they could remove a king by excommunicating him - this meant that the king’s soul was condemned to Hell.

Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was killed in December 1170. In 1162, Henry II, king of England, appointed Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury. No one was surprised by Henry’s choice as he and Thomas were very good friends. In 1164, the first sign of a split between Henry and Thomas occurred. Henry passed a law, which stated that any person found guilty in a Church would be punished, by a royal court. Becket refused to agree to this, and knowing of Henry’s temper, he fled abroad for his own safety

It took six years before Becket felt safe enough to return to England. However, they quickly fell out again when Becket asked the pope to excommunicate the Archbishop of York who had taken sides with the king. Henry was furious when he found out what Becket had done. He is said to have shouted out \"will no-one rid me of this troublesome priest?\" Four knights heard what Henry had shouted and took it to mean that the king wanted Becket dead. On December 29th 1170 they

killed Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.

Where Becket died quickly became a place of pilgrimage. The pope quickly made him a saint. Henry II asked the pope for forgiveness and he walked bare foot to Canterbury to pray at the spot where Becket was killed. Monks whipped him while he prayed.

People left valuables at the spot of his death. It became a shrine to him and people claimed that a visit to the shrine let them free of illness and disease. No one dared to touch the valuables there.

乔叟的《坎特伯雷故事集》不是第一本短篇小说集，甚至让一群人中每人讲一个故事这种形式也不是什么新主意。在卜伽丘的《十日谈》中就有十个人，为了躲避1348年在佛罗伦萨肆虐的温疫逃到城郊的庄园。他们就是通过讲故事来消磨时间的。 《坎特伯雷故事集》中也有一群人，每个人讲述一个故事。我们不仅对故事本身感兴趣，而且对讲述故事的人也感兴趣。他们中的每个人都是真实的。乔叟在引言中把他们一一作了介绍。然后，我们又在故事中与他们相识。很快，我们就觉得对他们每个人都有所了解。

一、它展现了广阔的社会画面。香客来自社会各个阶层：骑士、僧侣、学者、律师、商人、手工业者、自耕农、磨坊主等。

二、它综合采用了中世纪的各种文学体裁，有骑士传奇、圣徒传、布道文、寓言等。

三、总序和开场白中对人物的描写和故事本身饶有趣味，充满幽默感。

四、语言带上了讲述人自身的特征，每人所讲的故事都体现出讲述人的身份、趣味、爱好、职业和生活经验。

Springtime

The Canterbury Tales opens in April, at the height of spring. The birds are

chirping, the flowers blossoming, and people long in their hearts to go on pilgrimages, which combine travel, vacation, and spiritual renewal. The springtime symbolizes rebirth and fresh beginnings, and is thus appropriate for the beginning of Chaucer’s text. Springtime also evokes erotic love, as evidenced by the moment when Palamon first sees Emelye gathering fresh flowers to make garlands in honor of May. The Squire, too, participates in this symbolism. He is compared to the freshness of the month of May, in his devotion to courtly love.

Clothing

In the General Prologue, the description of garments, in addition to the narrator’s own shaky recollections, helps to define each character. In a sense, the clothes symbolize what lies beneath the surface of each personality. The Physician’s love of wealth reveals itself most clearly to us in the rich silk and fur of his gown. The Squire’s youthful vanity is symbolized by the excessive floral brocade on his tunic. The Merchant’s forked beard could symbolize his duplicity, at which Chaucer only hints.

 Why is the Knight first in the General Prologue and first to tell a tale?

The Knight is first to be described in the General Prologue because he is the highest on the social scale, being closest to belonging to the highest estate, the aristocracy. The Knight’s nobility derives from the courtly and Christian values he has sworn to uphold: truth, honor, freedom, and courtesy. The Knight’s Tale comes first because he has drawn the shortest straw of the group, although the narrator’s comment that the Knight drew the shortest straw “[were] it by aventure, or sort, or cas [whether by chance, luck, or destiny]” seems to suggest that he feels that it was not by chance at all that the Knight tells his tale first (General Prologue, 844).

夏雨给大地带来了喜悦，

送走了土壤干裂的三月，

沐浴着草木的丝丝经络，

顿时百花盛开，生机勃勃。

西风轻吹留下清香缕缕，

田野复苏吐出芳草绿绿；

碧蓝的天空腾起一轮红日，

青春的太阳洒下万道金辉。

小鸟的歌喉多么清脆优美，

迷人的夏夜怎好安然入睡——

美丽的自然撩拨万物的心弦，

多情的鸟儿歌唱爱情的欣欢。

香客盼望膜拜圣徒的灵台，

僧侣立愿云游陌生的滨海。

信徒来自全国东西南北，

众人结伴奔向坎特伯雷，

去朝谢医病救世的恩主，

以缅怀大恩大德的圣徒。

那是个初夏方临的日子，

我到泰巴旅店投宿歇息；

怀着一颗虔诚的赤子心，

我准备翌日出发去朝圣。

黄昏前后华灯初上时分，

旅店院里涌入很多客人；

二十九人来自各行各业，

不期而遇都到旅店过夜。

这些香客人人虔心诚意，

次日要骑马去坎特伯雷。

客房与马厩宽敞又洁净，

店主的招待周到而殷勤。

夕阳刚从地平线上消失，

众人同我已经相互结识；

大家约好不等鸡鸣就起床，

迎着熹微晨光干燥把路上。

可是在我叙述故事之前，

让我占用诸位一点时间，

依我之见似乎还很必要，

把每人的情况作些介绍。

谈谈他们从事什么行业，

社会地位属于哪个阶层，

容貌衣着举止又是如何，

那么我就先把骑士说说。

Chaucer's Wife of Bath's tale is different from the other stories shown here because it is the only one told by a woman (a woman from the town of Bath, in England, which was called that because there were old Roman baths there). It presents a very different view of medieval relationships between men and women.

In the time of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, the Wife of Bath begins, there was one knight who treated women very badly. One day he was found raping a girl in a field. To punish the knight, rather than kill him as the law says, Queen Guinevere tells him to go travel around the world and find out what women really want. She tells him to come back in a year and a day and report a

satisfactory answer, or die.

Well, the knight goes out and starts asking all the women he meets what women really want. But he can't seem to get a good answer. Some women say they want to be rich, and other women say they want lots of flattery from men, and he can't get any answers that seem like they would be true for all women.

When his year is almost over, he gives up and starts traveling back to Queen Guinevere, thinking sadly that he is going to be killed for sure now. But he meets an old woman on the way and asks her for help. She says she'll tell him the answer and save his life, if he'll promise to grant her wish when she claims it. So he promises, and she tells him that what women want most of all is to have power over their husbands, as well as love. Queen Guinevere agrees that this is what women want, and frees the knight.

Right away the old woman stands up and cries out that since she saved him, the knight has to marry her - that's her wish, and she claims it now. He doesn't want to, but he promised, and he marries her the next day.

That night, after the wedding, the old woman and the knight are talking about how unhappy he is, married to someone ugly and poor. She reveals that she's a magic fairy, and tells the knight that he can choose between having her ugly and faithful to him, or beautiful and unfaithful. The knight wisely leaves the choice up the fairy, telling her to choose whatever will make both of them happiest and most respected. The fairy is pleased to have this power over her husband, and decides

to give him everything he wants - she becomes beautiful and faithful, and they live happily ever after.

Some things to ask yourself: what does this story show about how medieval people thought about getting old? Why does the knight think it's so terrible that the old woman is poor? How does this concern with power relate to feudalism, the medieval system of government?