the canterbury tales賞析全精品名師資料

1、 the canterbury talescontributionsgeoffrey chaucerfather of english poetrychaucer, for the first time in english literature, presented to us a comprehensive realisticpicture of the english society of his time and created a whole gallery of vivid characters from allwalks of life in his masterpiece th

2、e canterbury tales.chaucer develops characterization to a higher artistic level, i.e. characters who are morallyand socially typical but exquisitely individual and realistic in detail.chaucer introduced from france the rhymed stanzas of various types to english poetry toreplace the old english allit

3、erative verse.chaucer used for the first time in english the rhymed couplet of iambic pentameter which isto be called later as the heroic couplet .chaucer greatly increased the prestige of english as a literary language and extended therange of its poetic vocabulary and meters. he is considered as a

4、 great master of the englishlanguage.chaucerscontributions to english languagechaucers language, now called middle english, is vivid and exact. his verse is smooth. heintroduced from france the rhymed stanzas of various types, especially the rhymed couplet ofiambic pentameter which was later called

5、the “heroic couplet” to english poetry. though drawinginfluence from french, italian and latin models, he is the first great poet who wrote in the englishlanguage. his production of so much excellent poetry was an important factor in establishingenglish as the literary language of the country. the s

6、poken english of the time consisted of severaldialects, and chaucer did much in making the dialect of london the standard for the modernenglish speech.the canterbury tales介紹the canterbury tales is a book of stories. this is an important book, because it is one of thefirst to be written in the englis

7、h language. the book is about a group of travelers who are goingfrom london to canterbury. as they travel along, each person tells a tale (a story). this is why thebook is called the canterbury tales.the canterbury tales, begun in about 1386, consists of stories told by some of the thirtypilgrims wh

8、o set off from the tabard inn in southwark, london, to visit the shrine of st. thomas abecket, the archbishop of canterbury murdered in his own cathedral in 1170. the aim was to tellfour stories each: two on the way, two on the way back. the teller of the best story would be givena free dinner by th

9、e cheerful host of the tabard. in fact, the collection is incomplete and only 24stories are told. two of the stories are written in prose and the others are written in verse.it opens with a general prologue where we are told of a company of pilgrims that gathered attabard inn in southwark, a suburb

10、of london. they are on their way to the shrine of st. thomas becket at canterbury. they set out together with the “jolly innkeeper,” harry baily, who becomestheir “governor” and proposes that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to canterburyand two more on the way back. the pilgrims being

11、31 in all the total number of tales, according tochaucers plan, was to exceed that of baccaccios decameron.these pilgrims include a knight, his son the squire, the knights yeoman, a prioress, a secondnun, a monk, a friar, a merchant, a clerk, a man of law, a franklin, a weaver, a dyer, acarpenter, a

12、 tapestry-maker, a haberdasher, a cook, a shipman, a physician, a parson, a miller, a manciple, a reeve, a summoner, a pardoner, the wife of bath, and chaucer himself.themeinfluenced by the early italian renaissance, chaucer affirmed mans right to pursue earthlyhappiness and opposed asceticism, prai

13、sed mans energy, intellect, and love of life. meanwhile, healso exposed and satirized the social evils, esp. the religious abuses.stylelively and vivid middle-age englishsatiric and humorousheroic coupletof unequal meritscharacterization- vivid portrayal of individualized characters of the society a

14、nd of all professions and socialstrata except the highest and the lowestshows respect for the two landed gentry, the plowman and the parson;satirized all the religious people except the parson;shows a growing sense of self-importance of the trades and towns people, reflecting thechanging social stat

15、us, esp. in towns and cities.general prologue:the general prologue is the key to the canterbury tales that narrates about the gathering of agroup of people in an inn that intend to go on a pilgrimage to canterbury (england) next morning.in the general prologue, the narrator of the canterbury tales,

16、who is one of the intended pilgrims,provides more or less accurate depictions of the members of the group and describes why and howthe canterbury tales is told. if we trust the general prologue, chaucer determined that eachpilgrim should tell two tales on the way to canterbury and two tales on the w

17、ay back. the host ofthe inn offers to be and is appointed as judge of the tales as they are told and is supposed todetermine the best hence winning tale. as mentioned before, the canterbury tales was neverfinished.the prologue provides a framework for the tales. it contains a group of vivid sketches

18、 oftypical medieval figures. all classes of the english feudal society, except the royalty and thepoorest peasant, are represented by these thirty pilgrims.every figure is drawn with the accuracy of a portrait. it is no exaggeration to say that theprologue supplies a miniature of the english society

19、 of chaucers time. looking at hisword-pictures, we know at once how people lived in that era. that is why chaucer has been called“the founder of english realism.”summary of the general prologueon april 17th toward the end of the fourteenth century nine and twenty pilgrims gather inthe tabard inn in

20、southwark, just across the river from london, at the beginning of the road tocanterbury. geoffrey chaucer talks to each one and joins their company for a pilgrimage tocanterbury to seek the blissful martyr, thomas becket. harry bailey, the host of the tabard,decides to join them and act as their lea

21、der; each pilgrim will tell four stories - two each on theway there, two each on the way back. the pilgrim who tells the best tale - with the best sentenceand most solaas will have a dinner at the others cost when the company returns to the tabard.the pilgrims agree and the next morning they set out

22、, stopping at the watering of st. thomas, justout of town, where they reconfirm their decision and, at harrys direction, draw straws to see who will tell the first tale. strangely, the lot fell to the knight and he tells the first story.introduction to the pilgrimsthe knight: perfect and gentle man

23、who loved truth, freedom, chivalry and honor. the mostsocially prominent person on the journey; the battles he fought were all religious wars of somenature.the squire: a candidate for knighthood; a lover who can sing lusty songs, compose melodies,poetryyeoman: dressed in green; an expert woodsman, a

24、n excellent shot with the bow/ arrow.prioress: madame eglantine; a gentle lady; well-educated though her french wasnt acceptedparisian french. coy and delicate; table manner; more a woman than a nun! without vocationbut with the dogs and jewelry that satirical literature always condemns nuns for. as

25、sociates of theprioress: 3 priests and another nunpilgrims image galleryfour main qualities of the knight.the first is the knights love of ideals“chivalrie” (prowess), “trouthe” (fidelity), “honour”(reputation), “fredom” (generosity), and “curteisie” (refinement) (general prologue, 4546).the second

26、is the knights impressive military career. the knight has fought in the crusades,wars in which europeans traveled by sea to non-christian lands and attempted to convert wholecultures by the force of their swords.the third quality the narrator remembers about the knight is his meek, gentle, manner.an

27、d the fourth is his “array,” or dress. the knight wears a tunic made of coarse cloth, and hiscoat of mail is rust-stained, because he has recently returned from an expedition.significancethe canterbury tales is chaucers masterpiece and one of the monumental works in englishliterature.it is one of th

28、e landmarks of english literature, perhaps the greatest work produced in middleenglishgive us a true to life picture of his time. the work stands as a historical and sociologicalintroduction to the life and times of the late middle agestaking from the stand of rising bourgeoisie, he affirms men and

29、opposes the dogma ofasceticism preached by the church.as a forerunner of humanism, he praises mans energy, intellect, quick wit and love of life.his tales expose and satirize the evils of his time, attack degeneration of the noble, theheartless of the judge, the corruption of the church and so on.li

30、ving in a transitional period, chaucer is not entirely devoid of medieval prejudices. he isreligious himself. there is nothing revolutionary in his writing, though he lived in a period ofpeasant uprisings.while praising mans right to earthly happiness, he sometimes likes to crack a rough joke andpai

31、nt naturalistic pictures of sexual life.chaucer has his weak points. but these are, however, of secondary importance comparedwith his achievement as a great poet and a story-teller.literary termsheroic couplet: iambic pentameter lines rhymed in pairs. it is called heroic because in england, esp. in

32、the 18th century, it was much used for heroic (epic) poems. the heroic coupletbecame so important and fixed a form for various purposes that its influence dominated englishverse for decades, until the romanticists dispelled the tradition in their demand for a new freedom.poetics the heroic coupletco

33、uplet: two consecutive lines of poetry that rhymean iambic pentameter: a poetic line consisting of five verse feet with each foot an iamb, that is ametrical foot consisting of one stressed syllable and one unstressed syllable as in dah-dum,dah-dum dah-dum dah-dum dah-dum.an iambic pentameter couplet

34、, e.g.at night there came into that hostelry isome nine and twenty in a company iiamb: a poetic foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. (e.g:alone; my heart is like a singing bird)pentameter: a line of verse containing five feet.meter: any regular pattern of rhythm or

35、pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.foot: a unit of meter.rhyme: the repetition of sounds at the ends of words is called rhyme. when words rhyme atthe end of lines of poetry it is called end rhyme.-characteristic of featuresdescription in the prologue （序言）the unique introduction at the begi

36、nning, as long as 860 lines, is a frame of the whole book, clarifying authors designation and conception. it has a close relationship with every later parts of the book, while we can also view it as a respectively dependent poem. hereby we will analyze the characteristic of features description in t

37、he prologue.the prologue is actually a gallery of all walks of people. chaucer widely selected his materials from english society of that age. except the top of royal and the lowest slaves, we can nearly find therepresentatives of all social classes. though reading the book, we can have a better und

38、erstandingand broaden our eyesight of english society in 14th century, as well as enjoy the feast of art.the prologue is rich in content. there is the knight who has participated in no less than fifteen of the great crusades of his era; the wife of bath who has been married five times and well pract

39、iced in the art of love; the pardoner who is associated with shiftiness and gender ambiguity; just name afew. they belong to different parts of the society, living in different background, thus had differentlife styles, habits and custom. they charted, joked, quarreled, and compromised; they discuss

40、ed, praised, criticized, and persuaded. they adopted their particular way to present their life experience,providing a vivid series of narratives which differ in content and style.there is a general narrator, who is full of curiosity and enthusiasm. he is an anonymous, nave member of the pilgrimage,

41、 who is not described. he suggests to tell stories and then organized them into the book. each of the tales, however, narrated by different pilgrims, is told from an omniscientthird-person point of view, providing the reader with the thoughts as well as actions of the characters. therefore, there is

42、 no surprise to find that the canterbury tales incorporates an impressive range of attitudes towards life and literature. the tales are by turns satirical, elevated, pious, earthy,bawdy, and comical.the narrator opens the general prologue with a description of the return of spring. the april rains,t

43、he burgeoning flowers and leaves, and the chirping birds; piercing, engendering, inspiring and pr icking, all those are of springs renewal and rebirth, conjure up images of conception:whan that aprill with his shoures soote the droghte of march hath perced to the roote and bathedevery veyne in swich

44、 licour of which vertu engendred is theflour(general prologue, 14) followed by is a brief introduction to the backgroundof the story.“when the sweet showers of april fall and shoot, /down through the drought ofmarchto pierce the root, /it happened in that season that one day /in southwark, at the tabard, as i lay/ready to go on pilgrimage and start