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Teachers' Resource Web Study Questions on Geoffrey Chaucer Canterbury Tales: General Prologue, Pardoner's
Tale, Wife of Bath The General Prologue: 1. What is the occasion of this poem? Who is the speaker? Look at lines 35-42. What thematic/political concerns does this need to catalogue the pilgrims announce I? 2. What does the Host suggest before the travel to Canterbury resumes? Why? What are the rules and terms of this game? 3. Given this insistence upon truth, why is it ironic that the game revolves around storytelling? How is it ironic that all of these "true" stories ("that whilom have bifalle" [line 79]) are retold by the narrator? Please account for lines 728-744 and the issue of fiction vs. truth. 4. In light of the previous question, we see that the status of language is questioned explicitly in this poem, especially in relation to truth. How does the narrative frame play into this? How is the narrator's role complicated? What other demand are placed on language? Consider the arbitrary element the narrator identifies: "He moot as well saye oo word as another" (line 739), the relation of word to action: "wordes mote be cousin to the deed" (line 744), and the incentive to win the game. 5. Money, food, and sex are conventional elements of generic accounts of medieval narrative. What are some primary instances here? 6. If irony is one of the most blatant poetic devices, here, how is this emphasized by the rhyming couplets? 7. The portrait of the Wif of Bathe (447-478) conveys some very specific information. Can you list her chief traits? Why can't the narrator "speke" of her "other compaignye in youthe" (463)? 8. The portrait of the pardoner takes great pains to describe the relics he sells. Why? Are they genuine? How is this related to the issue of truth vs. fiction? In what ways is the pardoner an ambiguous character? 9. At the close of the prologue, just before the tales themselves commence, the narrator seems to question the ultimate worth or purpose of narrative itself in light of the completion of the prologue: "What needeth wordes mo?" (851). Discuss this irony. 10. What are the relations of wholes and parts in this framed collection of tales? The Pardoner's Tale 1. What demands does the introduction make? How are these complicated? How Is it ironic that the Host cannot "speke in terme" (23)? Why are the other pilgrims so opposed to the choice of the Pardoner to tell a tale of "mirthe or japes" 2. The Pardoner's prologue is ironic as it deals in both truth and falsity since the Pardoner confesses (i.e., is true about) his own inauthenticity. How does this complicate what follows? What is the Pardoner's "theme" (137ff) 3. What is the Pardoner's "gaude" (lines 89-100) and how does it depend on language and acts of naming? 4. In his tale of the rioutous company of Flanders, the Pardoner says that their swearing "Our blessed Lordes body . . . totere" (186). See lines 343-372 and comment. 5. How is gluttony the chief vice and why is this ironic? (Consider the "almost mistake" in line 297). 6. The tale itself attempts to personify death. How is this personification played out? Is it successful? Why does Death proceed "withouten wordes mo" (390)? 7. How and why do the thieves die? 8. The tale closes with the Pardoner offering his services and wares to the pilgrims, saying "I wol you nat decieve" (630). Comment in light of his tale and confession. 9. What do you make of the exchange between the host and the Pardoner, especially lines 664-668? The Wife of Bath's Tale 1. The Wife's tale begins by denying the authority of authority itself, "though noon auctorites/Were in this world" (1-2) and by confirming her belief in experience. Is this a strong enough argument to ground her story or narrative in truth? See lines 175 181 and 197-198. Is this truthful experience or "playe" or somehow both? 2. Where and how does the Wife link money, commerce and power to sexuality and the woman's body? What is the significance of this? How is this ironic within a storytelling competition? 3. The Wife continually defends her decision to remarry. What arguments must she counter and how does she defend herself? See lines 125 ff. How does she ground her argument in the body? 4. What is the Wife's relationship to the written word or books? Why did she object to her fifth husband's reading habits? In a sense, she answers the question of "if wommen hadden written stories" by cataloging a list of men. Does she subvert the tradition she criticizes? (lines 699-702). 5. What is the Wife's relationship to her husbands? How is this related to her tale? 6. How does the old, ugly wife in the tale gain her husband's submission? 7. If this is a story of mastery, how are women mastered in the story? How are men? In what ways is this sovereignty configured? Where does power ultimately rest (or does it)? Support. |