14th and 17th Century Poetry

Department of Distance and Continuing Education
University of Delhi
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B. A. (Hons.) English
Semester - II
Course Credits - 4
Discipline Specific Core Course (DSC-4)
14th and 17th Century Poetry
As per the UGCF - 2022 and National Education Policy 2020
Editorial Board
P. K. Satapathy, Nalini Prabhakar
Dr. Neeta Gupta
Content Writers
Dr. Neeta Gupta, Shriya Pandey
Anil Aneja, Meenakshi Sharma
Academic Coordinator
Deekshant Awasthi
© Department of Distance and Continuing Education

ISBN: 978-81-19169-06-1
Ist edition: 2023
E-mail: [email protected]
[email protected]
Published by:
Department of Distance and Continuing Education under
the aegis of Campus of Open Learning / School of Open Learning,
University of Delhi, Delhi-110007
Printed by:
School of Open Learning, University of Delhi
© Department of Distance & Continuing Education, Campus of Open Learning,

B.A. (Hons.) English
• Unit-I is an edited version of earlier study material from CBCS and Annual Mode; Unit-II is written
afresh; Unit-III is an earlier study material from CBCS.
• Corrections/Modifications/Suggestions proposed by the Statutory Body, DU/Stakeholder/s in the Self
Learning Material (SLM) will be incorporated in the next edition. However, these
corrections/modifications/suggestions will be uploaded on the website https://sol.du.ac.in. Any
feedback or suggestions can be sent to the email- [email protected]

Table of Contents
Title Prepared by Edited by Page
Unit-I
1. Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘General Prologue’ Dr. Neeta Gupta Dr. Neeta Gupta 01
and ‘Pardoner's Tale’ from Canterbury
Tales
Unit-II
2. Philip Sydney, ‘Sonnet 1’ Shriya Pandey Nalini Prabhakar 157
3. Walter Raleigh, ‘The Passionate Man's Shriya Pandey Nalini Prabhakar
Pilgrimage’
4. John Donne, ‘Sunne Rising’ Vibhuti Wadhawan Nalini Prabhakar
‘The Canonization’ Shriya Pandey
‘The Good Morrow’ Nalini Prabhakar
Unit-III
5. John Milton, ‘Book I’, Paradise Lost
Section-1 Anil Aneja P. K. Satapathy 197
Section-2 Meenakshi Sharma

Unit-I(1)
Geoffrey Chaucer
THE GENERAL PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES
AND
THE PARDONER’S PROLOGUE AND TALE
Dr. Neeta Gupta
STRUCTURE
1. Introduction
2. Learning Objectives
3. Chaucer’s Life and Works
4. Chaucer’s England
5. An Introduction to The General Prologue
6. Textual Analysis
6.1 The Beginning
6.2 The Pilgrims
6.3 The Conclusion
7. The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale
8. Summing Up
9. Some Examination Questions
10. Suggestions for Further Reading
1. INTRODUCTION
Chaucer (1343-1400) is one of the earliest known great poets to write in English. Best known
for his lengthy work The Canterbury Tales, he is often referred to as the ‘Father of English
literature.’ Writing in Middle English, Chaucer makes liberal use of Latin and French words
too. You may come across many words that are no longer in use in the English language as
we know it today such as the word ‘ful’ used by Chaucer’s means ‘very’ in modern English.
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You will find that even the spellings of words differs in Chaucer. Medieval English or
Chaucer’s English is surely a little difficult to understand at a first glance, yet it does not take
away from the delight and pleasure that Chaucer’s poetry has to offer and especially so The
Canterbury Tales.
From The Canterbury Tales you have The General Prologue in course this year. You
are required to read the text in the original. To make the task of reading Chaucer a bit easier it
would be advisable to use a good, annotated edition of the prescribed text. If, however, you
still feel the need to read a translated version of the same, the best choice would be Nevill
Coghill’s translation of The Canterbury Tales, published by Penguin Books.
The General Prologue is an introduction to Chaucer’s very long narrative poem The
Canterbury Tales. Here Chaucer introduces us to each of the twenty-nine pilgrims who have
gathered together at an inn in Southwark to set off on a pilgrimage to Canterbury the next
morning. Chaucer himself joins them and becomes the thirtieth pilgrim in the group. The
pilgrims are drawn from all walks of life and it has been observed that in The General
Prologue Chaucer gives us almost a cross section of fourteenth century society. The pilgrim
Chaucer takes upon himself the job of describing each pilgrim in the group.
What was society like in Chaucer’s times? What were the various professions that
people engaged in? What were the socio- economic conditions? Did religion and the Church
play a significant role in people’s lives? In the analysis of The General Prologue these are
just some of the issues that are discussed and explained in this Study Material.
2. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
• Introduce you to Chaucer, the poet, and acquaint you with his varied literary output.
• Help you comprehend the salient features of his poetry with special reference to The
Canterbury Tales.
• Acquaint you with the socio-historical background of the period.
• Help you understand the important aspects of The General Prologue and The
Pardoner’s Tale
• Provide a comprehensive textual analysis of the prescribed text with special emphasis
on Chaucer’s language.
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• Analyze Chaucer’s use of various literary devices to delineate his characters who are
individualized despite being representative.
• Acquaint you with Chaucer’s use of irony and humour and wit as he paints his
character portraits.
• Familiarize you with Chaucer’s art of story telling through an analysis of The
Pardoner’s Tale.
3. CHAUCER’S LIFE AND WORKS
3.1 Early Years

Chaucer’s birth is conjectured to be around the year 1340. Though born and bred in London,
Geoffrey Chaucer belonged to a family of wine merchants who can be traced to the town of
Ipswich. It is thought that the family was of French origin because of their name Chaucer
which in French ‘Chaucier’ means ‘hose-makers.’ They were, however, vintners having
property in and around London. Both Chaucer’s father and his grandfather are known to have
served the King at various times performing the duty of collecting the King’s customs.
No record survives of the poet’s early years and we can only conjecture about how
and when Chaucer received the education that fitted him for his career as a courtier and a
poet. The first concrete evidence shows him to be already employed as a page in the
household of the Countess of Ulster. Chaucer’s life as a page would have taught him many
things. The polite manners and elaborate etiquette of the gentlefolk would have been
observed and learned by him while waiting at the table. Keeping his eyes and ears open he
probably picked up many scandalous and comic stories as well. His interest in music can be
traced back to these years, but being a literate, he, while listening to the songs and romances,
also read them for himself, both in English and French. His remarkable memory for the
poems of the continental French poet Machaut, surfaces in The Book of the Duchess. It was
here that he was given instruction in military training. His life as a page offered him ample
opportunity to observe human behavior minutely and probably just like the pilgrim Chaucer
in The Canterbury Tales, he went about his job quite inconspicuously.
3.2 Professional life
Subsequent records show Chaucer serving three different Kings in non-poetic capacity. The
amount of tact, diplomacy and adaptability required to have equally good relations with three
different monarchs, is anybody’s guess and we can form a rough estimate of the kind of
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person Chaucer might have been to have succeeded in this difficult job. Records show that he
accompanied King Edward on his invasion of France; was a diplomat to the continent trying
to establish peaceful relations between France and England; went to Italy in 1372 - a journey
which was to influence his literary career; was appointed comptroller of customs in 1374 and
was legal guardian to young Edmund Staplegate of Kent and to the heir of the late John
Solys. He probably even went to France to negotiate a marriage between the French Princess
and Richard II, but was not successful. Chaucer’s own marriage was, however, with a certain
Phillipa Roet. His marriage was another step towards further advancement in court because
Philippa was in direct attendance to the Queen. She was the daughter of Sir Payne Roet, a
knight of Hainaut and King of Arms of Guienne in the reign of Edward III.
Having served as comptroller of customs, Chaucer was appointed one of the Justices
of Peace for Kent on October 12, 1385, and in 1386 he was elected Knight of the Shire for
Kent. It is around this time that we find Chaucer engaged in hectic literary activity since the
three of his greatest works have been dated to this period of his life. Troilus and Criseyde was
written between 1382 and 1385; the Legend of Good Women probably in 1385 or 1386 and
The Canterbury Tales was begun around 1387. It is quite likely that he voluntarily resigned
from his duties as a comptroller of customs to devote more time to his writing, for records
show that around this time he vacated his office as well as the house over Aldgate. He took
up residence in the country. During the latter part of the year 1387, Chaucer’s wife passed
away, but the poet did not marry again. On July 12, 1389, he was appointed clerk of the
King’s works. He held the post for two years and since it involved a great amount of risk to
life, he relinquished his job on June 17, 1391. The new position he now took up was as sub-
forester of King’s Park in Somersetshire.
Around this time however, Chaucer’s good fortune seemed to be ebbing slowly. There
are records to prove that he borrowed small sums of money and in April 1398, a certain
Isabella Buckholt sued him for a debt of £14. But the evidence is not adequate to prove that
in the last decade of his life Chaucer was in serious financial difficulties. Moreover, his
support at court was strong enough to have any of his petitions granted to him. In October of
the year 1398, his petition for a daily butt of wine was granted immediately by King Richard.
In 1399, Henry IV usurped King Richard’s throne but Chaucer received favours from this
new King as well. In December 1399, Chaucer made another change of residence to
Westminster Abbey and died in this house on October 25, 1400. He was buried at
Westminster Abbey.
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3.3 Literary Career

Chaucer began his literary career by translating Roman de la Rose, a French composition
begun by Guillaume de Lorris and completed by Jean Clopinel. By translating a French work,
Chaucer was only following the prevalent fashion but his next work, The Book of the
Duchess, which was an elegy on the death of Queen Blanche, the wife of John of Gaunt, was
his own composition. This was accompanied by three other short poems Pity, Complaint to
his Lady, and A.B.C. All these poems were modeled on French ideals of poetry. In the next
group of poems, we find Chaucer branching off into narrative verse for the first time. Life of
S. Cecilia and Stories of Griselda and Constance show an increasing confidence in the
language and also certain touches of humor which were later to form an integral part of
Chaucer’s poetry.
Twelve Tragedies and The Complaint of Mars intervene between the writing of his
second great work i.e., Troilus and Cressida. Meanwhile he translated De Consolation
Philosophiae of Boethius. Subsequently The House of Fame and The Parliament of Fowles
followed. Both of these were marriage poems written with a characteristic touch of
Chaucerian irony and humour. His next ambitious attempt was The Legend of Good Women,
but the tale of Palamon and Arcite is alluded to in the Prologue to the Legend and is perhaps
one of Chaucer’s finest works. The Legend of Good Women was abandoned after he had
written nine of the nineteen tales planned. The idea of having a number of tales linked by
some device had already taken shape in Chaucer’s mind. The Canterbury Tales, though left
unfinished, were a successful rendering of this same idea. This was his last important work
and its writing spread over many years. Chaucer wrote a few other short poems apart from
these - The Former Age, Fortune, Truth, Gentilesse, Lak of Stedfastness are minor poems.
Then there are the three ballads which are usually called The Complaint of Venus, the Envoy
to Scogan, the Envoy to Bukton and the Compleynt of Chaucer to his Purse which was most
certainly his last work, complete the long list of his literary achievement.
The Canterbury Tales is undoubtedly Chaucer’s most well-known and often read
work. With the General Prologue in part and with The Canterbury Tales overall, Chaucer
ushered into the world of poetry, new subjects and new methods of treatment. This was
perhaps his greatest achievement because when he began to write, the adventures and
romances of the knights and ladies had begun to lose their charm. Chaucer drew upon reality,
upon people he met daily and who were familiar figures to everyone because they were
English people and not figures drawn from French, Italian or Latin literature. Not only were
the subjects new, Chaucer’s method of treating them was new as well. He introduced the
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conversational tone into English poetry. His easy flowing metre succeeded in removing the
monotony and complications that were there earlier in the octosyllabic couplets and long
involved stanzas. Chaucer’s seven-line stanza and ten or eleven syllabled couplets were
refreshing. His gentle humour and seemingly serious but jesting manner makes Chaucer a
delight to read. As a teller of tales and as a painter of pen portraits Chaucer remains
unsurpassed even today.
3.4 His Poetic Vision
In his prolific poetic career Chaucer’s poetic vision took shape gradually and as it grew it
became more detailed, sharp and realistic by the time he came to write The Canterbury Tales.
As Nevill Coghill writes:
He began to notice – but always with apparent good humour – the many self-
contradictions between a man’s profession and his behaviour; he became aware – one
might almost say delightedly ironically aware – of certain blackguardism in humanity.
Certainly, there were some blackguards … but it would seem that for all his
awareness of their wickedness he had no real fear they would corrupt the world. They
would meet their reward in due course, and he had a fair comic idea of the kind of hell
in which some of them would meet it.
This, I think, underlies the cheerfulness of Chaucer’s poetical vision of the world; he
does not deny the evil in it, on the contrary he singles it out, often enough, and with
acuity and relish; but the general good health of society and the general agreement as
to the purpose of life, seen with lightest allegory as a pilgrimage, seems to have led
him to think that the evils he saw about him could be contained, as the pilgrimage
moved along, without too much trouble; he did not share the view of his great
contemporary, the author of Piers Plowman, that the Day of Anti-Christ was upon
them. (p.18).
In The Canterbury Tales the readers are constantly subjected to a kind of double vision,
which by implication puts things in correct perspective. The attitude of the poet, however,
continues to have a tolerance for all human frailties, therefore the satire never ever borders on
the invective and the world remains light-hearted.
Because of Chaucer’s cheerfully hopeful poetical vision, coupled with frequent touches of
humor and irony, The Canterbury Tales make for an interesting and delightful reading despite
laying bare the corruption rampant in fourteenth century England and exposing the rogues
who thronged its streets.
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4. CHAUCER’S ENGLAND
You may take one look at Chaucer’s poetry and wonder why you are expected to read it? Not
only is the English archaic and therefore almost beyond easy comprehension, but you may
even think why read a poet at all who lived and wrote almost six centuries ago? What can we
have in common with a man from the fourteenth-century? Granted that he was one of the first
great poets of the English language, but is that reason enough to worry our heads over the
antiquated spellings and the difficult vocabulary that mark Chaucer’s poetry? Poetry, which
should be pleasant and leisurely reading, is here made laborious and difficult when
accompanied by the constant activity of reading footnotes and referring to the glossary to
search for meanings. This exercise may be laborious and tedious but it is precisely one of the
very important reasons for reading Chaucer as it enables us to see how the English language
developed. There is no end to the delight that Chaucer’s poetry brings once we get used to his
language. In The Canterbury Tales, especially so The General Prologue, he never ceases to
amaze with his endless variety, his humour, his deft use of the couplet, his richly creative
picture of fourteenth century England and his in-depth understanding of human nature..
As a result of the Norman Conquest, French became the language of law and
administration in thirteenth century. English gradually lost its hold and prestige. Of course, it
was still the spoken language but was less used for educational purposes. Gradually it lost
even the standard spellings that had evolved in the late Anglo-Saxon times. It came to be
written more phonetically, according to the local dialects. To this English Chaucer grafted
many French words and a few words of Latin and Italian too. His English comes close to
Modern English, which begins taking shape around the sixteenth century. But Chaucer takes
the credit for being one of the first earliest known and great poets to write in English instead
of French and Latin which were supposed to be the language of the literates. Chaucer’s
contribution to the English language therefore becomes one of the most important reasons for
reading his poetry.
Once you do get down to reading Chaucer, and especially The General Prologue which
is prescribed in your course, you will realize that though not easy it is also not very difficult.
As you read on, another fact that emerges is the surprising extent to which you will be able to
identify with the satirical spirit of the work. Chaucer may be writing of medieval personages,
but the kind of things he criticizes, be it human behaviour or corruption in places high and
low, position of women or the increasing materialistic attitude, they seem to be all too
familiar. In fact, the strains of feminism that you will see in the Wife’s character will amaze
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you because of its modern relevance. Chaucer sure was one poet who could look very far
ahead of his times to give us one of the earliest feminists. So early in fact that feminism as a
movement was still many years away. This is true of the General Prologue as well, which is
a collection of pen portraits. In these portraits you will find that the atmosphere being
reflected is something close to what it is in our present times. The same kind of questioning
spirit, skepticism, loss of faith, increase in corruption, greed for material goods, desire for
upward mobility, is seen in Chaucer’s portraits. By now you must be curious to know more
about an Age which is so far back, yet so like our own. We all know that the literature of a
period reflects that age and if the work under consideration is a satire, as Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales is, it becomes necessary for us to find out more about the Age which is thus
being exposed and satirized.
4.1 The Middle Ages and ‘Change’
The one word that describes the Middle Ages is ‘change’. It was a change from the old to
the new, from medieval to modern, from feudalism to capitalism, from town to city, from a
king by Divine right to a king who proves himself most able. There were many
developments taking place; aristocracy was on the decline, the increase in trade had given
rise to capitalism, which made for greater social mobility of the classes. Serfdom was being
abolished. The spread of schooling had increased the number of literate people, and men
now being able to read the Bible on their own, had begun to question the Church. In fact, it
was an age of rapid transitions, of achievements as well as disasters.
4.2 The Political Front
On the political front, England’s victories began at Crecy, when the English routed the
French in the Year 1346. This was followed immediately by the crushing defeat of the Scotch
at Neville’s Cross and the tempo was kept up when after another ten years, on Sept. 19, 1356,
the Black Prince won another brilliant, victory over the French near Poitiers.
These were the years of amazing good fortune for England. It reigned supreme on
land as well as sea and the proud Englishman was exposed to the new feelings of nationalism
and patriotism. But it was too good to last and too difficult to maintain. The downfall began
in the year 1367 when England went to war with Spain. Though the Black Prince won the
battle at Najera, yet the victory was fruitless and the war with Spain dragged on for many
years incurring heavy losses. By the year 1385, there was such a reversal in the military
situation that the threat of the French invasion made the Englishman tremble with fear.
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4.3 The Setbacks

While on the one hand the picture of ‘Merry England’ is associated with Medieval England,
with happiness and prosperity all around, on the other hand it was one of the most strife-torn
times in the history of the country. Not only were there political setbacks, but there were also
ravages of Nature too in the form of disease and pestilence. The most dreaded of these was
the Plague or the Black Death, that struck England in the year 1348. Beginning in Dorchester
it spread rapidly from one town to another, claiming innumerable lives as it went. As though
the loss of lives in the first visitation of this appalling calamity was not enough, it returned to
strike three times in the century and swept with it nearly half the population of England.
4.4 The Labour class
At first prices fell sharply because people had forgotten to set much store by material goods.
But gradually, the pendulum swung to the other extreme and money once again recovered the
purchasing power it had in the former years. The rising prices made the gulf between the rich
and the poor even more wide and the worst sufferers were the laborers whose wages had not
been increased at all and were now not even enough to help them survive. After the year of
the Black Death, the labour class began demanding higher wages, and since there was
shortage of hands due to the heavy loss of life in the plague, these labourers got what they
demanded. It was with a mind to curb the unreasonable demands of these labourers that in the
year 1349, the king issued a proclamation, forbidding the payment of higher wages than had
been given before. The next Parliament passed the famous Statute of Labourers. Though this
statute attempted to fix the wages of the labourers as well as the prices of essential
commodities, the cunning tradesmen thwarted the latter aim. The labourers sought ways and
means to improve their lot. They disregarded their allegiance to their lord or manor and
moved from place to place in search of better wages. Thieving and robbing were on the
increase. Discontent grew and spread fast culminating in the famous uprising of 1381, also
known as the Peasant’s Revolt.
Trade unionism and the labour movements of the later years were foreshadowed in
this uprising. For three days England had a bitter taste of the fury of the discontented masses.
Many people were massacred. The poor peasants, being denied even the minimum
sustenance, attacked the house of the rich in a fit of rage. John of Gaunt’s palace was raised
to the ground. The king made a show of promise of granting them pardon but once the rebels
had returned home he revoked his orders and there followed widespread execution of the
rebels all over England. Chaucer’s Ploughman in The General Prologue is indeed an ideal
and not factual portrait of a member of the labouring class.
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4.5 The Rising Middle Class

While we see such abject poverty on the one hand, on the other there was a sudden influx of
wealth due to growing trade and commerce and due to the plundering brought from the
various wars that England won. People apart from the aristocracy or landed gentry, were now
becoming rich. The feudal set-up was breaking up thus leading to fluidity in classes and
greater social mobility. Now it was not necessary that a serf remain a serf. Trade had brought
with it the promise of wealth and the corresponding rise in capitalism gave rise to new
standards of living. Chaucer, too, in The General Prologue has included various people to
represent these rising merchant classes – there is the Shipman, the Five Guildsmen, the Wife
of Bath, the Manciple, and the Merchant and so on. But one interesting fact about these
people is that they seem to be indulging in a lot of extravagances. As far as the Five
Guildsmen are concerned, Chaucer is careful to point out that they are dressed above their
station having even their knives tipped with silver thus drawing our attention to a very
interesting development of the times. Extravagance in dress and of food had grown to
disgusting limits. In fact, the literature of the times is full of humorous and satirical
descriptions of the clothes people wore and the food they ate. To control this situation the
Parliament issued an ordinance regulating the kind of clothing for all ranks in society and for
regulating the diets of certain classes in society. Of course, one need not add that the system
did not work and so we find Chaucer’s Guildsmen flourishing their silver tipped knives quite
brazenly.
4.6 The Ecclesiasts and the Church
Society in Chaucer’s times was becoming increasingly materialistic and people did not fail to
use dishonest means. The Reeve and Manciple are just two of the many examples from
Chaucer’s gallery who can illustrate this point. But dishonesty and corruption at the level of
the Church had become so rampant that frequently the satirist aimed to bark at this institution
of fourteenth century England. Even Chaucer is most critical of the ecclesiastical characters
among his pilgrims, and not without reasons. The churchmen who preached a spirit of
sacrifice had become greedy and self-seeking. Those who were to be the epitome of
discipline, sharing and teaching others to have respect for authority were now themselves
showing a complete disregard and contempt of authority. The begging Friars were able to
extort money even from the needy; the wicked pardoner cheated the people by selling
fraudulent relics (just as Chaucer’s Pardoner does). The Monks were harsh landlords and the
parish priests were shirkers of duty. Chaucer’s poor Parson is an idealized portrait just as the
Ploughman was earlier.
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4.7 Spread of Literacy

Apart from the rise in commerce there was rapid growth in another direction as well. Literacy
was on the rise with a rapid spread of schooling, and it was no longer the privilege of the
clerics or clergy only. In the latter half of the fourteenth century, literate laymen were
abundant in number. But the shortage of books was keenly felt since printing was not
possible. The printing press, which was in a sense, the greatest invention of the age, was still
many years away. For the time being, books were circulated in manuscript form and copies
were made by hand. It was a tedious and laborious process where scribes were especially
employed for the purpose. Often they made mistakes and if a copy was made from a copy,
these mistakes were carried further. At times a mistake, even if noticed, was not corrected
because it would mean spoiling the looks of a whole page. Thus, an untidy manuscript was
far more reliable than one which was absolutely clean and beautiful. This process of copying
books by hand thus led to variations in each copy, and today, if we try to reconstruct say
Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, it will mean taking about eighty manuscripts into account.
We can understand therefore, why books were such priceless possessions in Chaucer’s
England and were even bequeathed in wills. Speaking of Education it is worth mentioning,
the two very important contributions that fourteenth century England made in this direction.
The new college system was introduced for the first time in England and the Inns of Court for
the study of law were opened where Chaucer is supposed to have studied for a few years.
In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer puts before us a picture of a society in which
medieval ideals were breaking down and as Dudley French writes these ideals “had become
so old fashioned that only a few quixotic persons any longer allowed them to interfere with
their materialistic purposes.” Excitement and apprehension about the coming age, and
nostalgia for the passing values are both mingled in The Canterbury Tales to make it a true
picture of fourteenth century England.
Check Your Progress

1. List some of the rapid transitions that took place in Chaucer’s times.
2. Why was Chaucer’s England known as ‘merry England’?
3. What were the major setbacks that ruined the picture of ‘merry England’?
4. How did the increasing materialism affect the Church and the middle class?
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5. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE GENERAL PROLOGUE

The plan of The Canterbury Tales might have been conceived earlier but was adopted around
the year 1386 and the General Prologue was probably written in the year 1387. Some of the
Tales have been dated till the year 1394 but not later than that and the work as it stands today
is still incomplete. Already while writing The Legend of Good Women, we see Chaucer trying
to link up several stories together. The theme of The Legend was however too monotonous
for the liking of a man whose distinctive genius was for variety. It is not surprising therefore
that the moment Chaucer thought of using a pilgrimage to string together a collection of a
variety of stories, he promptly laid aside the writing of The Legend and plunged straight
ahead into The Canterbury Tales.
5.1 The Framework Device
The device of a pilgrimage to link up a collection of tales is part of a general tradition of
frame-story or a series of tales enclosed within a narrative. The idea had been used by many
writers all over the world and perhaps the earliest example one can find is in the tales of the
Panchtantra from India. There were several such tales in circulation for example the Spanish
Conde Lucanor of the Infante Juan Manuel, the Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio to which
Chaucer’s own idea of a pilgrimage is often traced and the Italian Novelle of Giovanni
Sercambi, which shows an even greater similarity to The Canterbury Tales. There is no
concrete evidence to prove that Chaucer possessed any of the above-mentioned works or used
them at all for his stories. On the other hand, there is no reason that prevents us from
believing that the idea might have come to him as an entirely original one. The sight of
pilgrims, travelling along the road to Canterbury, making merry as they went, often
accompanied by sounds of bagpipes, must have been a familiar sight to him. Perhaps, as he
looked at these merry companies the idea might have come to him to link together his
scattered stories. As Pollard says, in this idea he also found ‘a peg on which to hang fresh
ones by depicting a company of such English travellers and assigning to them such tales as
would best suit their characters and professions or raise a laugh by their incongruity’ (p.
xxxii).
5.2 The Pilgrimage as a Framework Device
The occasion for the Tales is a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas a Becket who had been
murdered on Dec. 29, 1170, and canonized three years later and had by Chaucer’s time,
become almost the national saint. The shrine, to which his body was transferred in 1220, was
a venerated spot and visited by pilgrims from all walks of life. The popularity of this
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pilgrimage had still not waned by Chaucer’s time and so we find it becoming an apt subject
for his collection of tales. A definite point in time is chosen. The month of April to be exact
and the narrative is in first person lending credence to the idea that Chaucer himself had
participated in just such a pilgrimage. To pass their time on the way to Canterbury it is
decided that each pilgrim (there are thirty in all) will tell two tales, while going to and two
while coming from the shrine at Canterbury. If everything had gone according to plan, and if
the work had been complete there would have been one hundred and twenty tales in all.
5.3 A Cross-section of Society
We have seen how the device of the pilgrimage to link up a collection of tales is part of a
general tradition of a frame story, or a series of tales enclosed within a narrative. But
Canterbury Tales is different than most of the classical or medieval examples we can find,
because here the framework does not remain merely a mechanical device to link the stories.
In fact, it is a means of maintaining a smooth flow of action and also of keeping a certain
group of people engaged quite naturally in a certain form of entertainment. This ingenious
device of the pilgrimage not only creates a happy occasion but also an opportunity for
bringing together all sorts of people from various areas of life. Though the group of thirty
pilgrims is not schematically representative of English society, yet it covers well enough the
main social classes. Only the very rich or the very poor are excluded from the group,
otherwise we have a whole gamut of characters. There is a Knight, a Squire and a Yeoman
who reflect on the changes in the feudal set-up. The Monk, the Friar and the Prioress are used
to expose the corruption in the regular order of the Church. The five Guildsmen i.e., the
haberdasher, the carpenter, the weaver, the dyer, and the tapestry maker, accompanied by
their Cook and dressed in clothes above their station, flaunting their riches, represent the
growing industry and the rising middle-class of Chaucer’s England. The daring Shipman
brings in the sea, which had opened immense possibilities for trade; the Physician brings in
the state of medieval medicine. The Wife of Bath who is a cloth merchant, is once again
representative of the expanding trade of the fourteenth century as well as becomes a vehicle
for information on the position of women in fourteenth century England. The portraits of the
clergy (which form nearly one third of the company) are significant for the tolerance with
which Chaucer points out the foibles of the monastic orders in describing the Monk and the
Prioress. He is more severe in describing the worldliness of the Friar and openly attacks the
corrupt Summoner and the Pardoner. His ideal portraits of the Clerk of Oxford, the Parson,
the Knight and the Ploughman, perhaps reflect his own admiration of the basic ideals of
earlier medieval society, during these times of changing standards.
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5.4 The Pilgrim Chaucer

After a brief introduction, we meet Chaucer the pilgrim, as he rests at the Tabard inn at
Southwork, waiting to go on his pilgrimage to Canterbury the next morning. The nine and
twenty, ‘sondry folk’ who enter the inn at night are all discovered to be fellow pilgrims.
Chaucer having spoken to all of them during a few hours decides to describe them:
But nathless, while 1 have tyme and space
Er that 1 ferther in this tale pace
Me thynketh it accordaunt to resoun
To telle you al the condicioun
Of each of hem, so it semed me.
And whiche they werne, and of What degree
And eek in what array that they were inne. (Chaucer, Lines: 35-41)
At the end of the portraits, Chaucer recalls his intention and declares that he has fulfilled it
Now have 1 toold you soothly, in a clause
The estaat, th’array, the number and eek the cause
Why that assembled was the company. (Chaucer, Lines: 715-17)
It is interesting to note however, that Chaucer does not keep to the rigid standards he lays
down for himself and as if realizing this, he apologizes in the end:
Also 1 prey you to forgive it me
AI have I not set folk in her degree
Heere in this tale, as that they should stande
My wit is short Ye may well understand. (Lines: 743-47).
Two things ought to be noted in the lines quoted above. First is Chaucer’s admission of not
having followed any set pattern of description, and second the reason he gives for having
done so - namely his wit being too short for such a purpose. To take the latter first, even at
this stage we can he careful not to take Chaucer at his word. The picture he presents of
himself, as Chaucer the pilgrim, is one of a self-effacing, naive, and gullible observer who
takes things at face value and reports them as such. He seems to be a simpleton, who
approves of whatever he sees. Yet there is much lying beneath the surface of the portraits and
the mask is peeled off once we make a distinction between Chaucer the pilgrim and Chaucer
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the poet. The poet Chaucer, who is a clever and shrewd observer, is responsible for the deft
use of irony, the tongue- in-cheek manner in which the pilgrims are described. For the irony
to be more effective and for the sarcasm to be more scathing, it was necessary that Chaucer
create a gullible persona for himself who could claim that his wit is short.
5.5 The Plan of The Canterbury Tales
At the outset, Chaucer had declared his intention of describing each pilgrim according to a
certain set plan. Had he kept to this plan, the General Prologue might have been a string of
drab, dull monotonous and repetitive portraits. As it happens however, Chaucer deviates
markedly and we find no two portraits being painted in the same colours. Variety becomes
the guiding principle, not only in the different kinds of people described, but also because no
two characters are treated in the same way. No single method of presentation therefore
becomes dominant and we have portraits ranging from nine lines to sixty-two lines.
This group of pilgrims decides to pass the time on their long journey to Canterbury by
telling tales. Each pilgrim is required to tell two tales while going to and two while coming
from Canterbury and the best tale will earn the teller a meal at the expense of the rest of the
pilgrims. Pilgrimage and picnic thus go hand in hand for these pilgrims. The element of
‘pleye’ or ‘game’ forms an essential part of the tales. Had the initial plan been completed, we
would have had 120 tales in all. As the work stands, however, we are left with twenty
finished stories, two unfinished ones and two interrupted ones. Not all the pilgrims get a
chance to tell their tales but even in its unfinished stage the work includes a vast variety of
the art of storytelling. Nearly every type of medieval narrative is included – the romance of
chivalry, the allegory, the courtly lay, the fabliau, the beast epic, the story about saint’s lives,
the mock sermon, and the ethical discourse.
5.6 The Opening Lines
The opening lines of the General Prologue celebrate the coming of spring. Though we may
feel that this beautiful picture of the April showers and new life all around has been described
so for the first time, Chaucer is in fact following a convention. The very phrases and images
used here, show a striking parallel to a passage from Guido delle Colonnes’ Historia
Destructionis Troiae. A translation of the same passage further enforces the point:
It was the season when the sun, hastening under the turning circle of the zodiac, had
now entered its course under the sign of the Ram, in which the equinox is celebrated,
when the days of the beginning of spring are equal in length to the nights; then when
the season begins to soothe eager mortals in its clear air, then when as the snows melt,
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gendy blowing zephyrs wrinkle up the waters; then when fountains gush out into
slender jars; then when moistures breathing out from the earth’s bosom are raised up
within trees and branches to their tops, wherefore seeds leap forth, crops grow, fields
become green brightened by flowers of various colours; then when trees put on
renewed foliage everywhere; then when the earth is decked with grass, and birds sing,
sounding like the cithara in the euphony of sweet harmony." (Bowden, p. 20)
The similarity between the passage quoted above and the opening lines of the General
Prologue, is amazing. The sun is in the Ram; the sweet zephyrs inspires the tender crops; the
new sap or the moisture rises in the trees and leaves infusing them with new warmth and life;
even the birds who sing in sweet harmony are mentioned. The repeated use of the word
‘when’ also seems to be similar in both passages. The difference however lies in the style and
the rhetoric. Let us now take a brief look at how Chaucer’s description works:
Whan that April with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendered is the flour
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweet breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tender croppes and the younge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours Y - ronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye
So priketh hem nature in her corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge stronds. (Chaucer, Lines:1-13)
The actual expressions may be similar but what distinguishes Chaucer’s passage from other
similar descriptions, is the easy flowing verse which seems deceptively artless and effortless.
The rhymes of the couplets, instead of constraining the plan of words lend meaning to
thought without making the reader feel the skill that has rendered them so. And the
concluding couplet establishes the rhetoric of the passage which has worked on a pattern of
cause and effect, that when certain phenomenon are observed in Nature then certain other
things take place as a consequence.
The emphasis of the passage is on the renewed life of spring. There is no hint of the
famous Chaucerian irony. It is a sheer exultation, on the part of the poet, in the rejuvenating,
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vivifying power of Nature. At this point there is no indication that the poet is different from
the narrator. The images and symbols used in the passage, all point towards a life reborn from
deadness. The April showers have pierced the ground and reached the roots and leaves. The
cold dead winter is over and a regenerative power which stirs new life into everything, is felt
all around. The wind zephyrs from the south is sweet and the sun, as it begins its new course,
is young still. This physical regeneration of Nature has a corresponding effect in man and
stirs in him a desire for a spiritual renewal as well thus leading to the idea of a pilgrimage.
It is amazing to note that the first eighteen lines of the General Prologue form a single
long sentence, barely making any concession to syntactical inversions or other such poetical
licences. The opening sentence of Paradise Lost has often been compared to the opening
sentence of the General Prologue. Both are equally confident, equally lengthy, equally
demonstrate the mastery of each poet on his craft yet with so much of difference, As Derek
Pearsall puts it. “The opening of Milton’s poem is like the launching of a great ship down the
slipway, the opening of Chaucer’s is like the imperceptible edging away from shore..”
(Pearsall, p. 24). In these eighteen lines, Chaucer brings us a long way from a conventional
description of spring-time renewal of Nature to a spiritual renewal in man. At the end of the
passage, Nature and super-nature exist in harmony.
5.7 Characterization
John Dryden in his Preface to the Fables, observed about Chaucer’s characters in the
Canterbury Tales that ‘here is God’s plenty.’ Here indeed is God’s plenty! We have almost
all social classes being represented here barring the nobility and the paupers. Both would be
unlikely members of such a group of pilgrims. The feudal class or the world of chivalry is
represented by the Knight, the Squire and the Yeoman; the Clergy is represented in the
regular orders as well as the lower orders; the rising middle class, the medical profession, the
law, the tradesman, are all represented here.
There is a moral grouping as well, so we have the ideal characters like the Knight, the
Parson the Ploughman and the Clerk who are virtuous and beyond reproach. Then we have
the lesser mortals with their follies and foibles like the Wife, the Squire or the Prioress and
the Franklin. In addition we have the avaricious Miller, the lawyer or the Doctor who loves
gold in special. We also have the vicious villains of the piece like the Summoner or the
Pardoner who seem to be beyond redemption. What is interesting is that these characters may
be representative of a class, a profession or a moral trait or lack of it, but such is Chaucer’s
art of characterization that he individualizes each one of them.
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At the outset, Chaucer had declared his intention of describing each pilgrim according
to a certain set plan. Had he kept to this plan, the General Prologue might have been a string
of drab, dull, monotonous, and repetitive portraits. As it happens however, Chaucer deviates
markedly, and we find no two portraits being painted in same colours. Variety becomes the
guiding principle, not only in the different kinds of people described, but also because no two
characters are created in the same way. No single method of presentation therefore becomes
dominant, and we have portraits ranging from nine lines (the Cook) to sixty-two lines (the
Parson). Beginning with a Knight who represents the landed gentry, coming down to the
Ploughman who belongs to the labouring class, Chaucer gives an impression of describing
the pilgrims in a descending social order. The men of profession and the men of trade and
commerce come in between. The ecclesiastical portraits are described along with the secular.
Yet Chaucer deviates from this ordering too when a group of five rogues is appended to this
list. These five men, belonging to different walks of life, however, have one thing in
common. They are all rogues of first order and adept at cheating These five men, belonging
to different walks of life different walks of life, however, have one thing in common. They
are all rogues of first order and are adept at cheating men and women they came across in
their respective areas of work.
Chaucer has presented his characters in groups and here too he does not follow any
systematic order. As Derek Pearsall observes:
The general impression of hierarchy and the traditional ordering of the estates is
further disturbed by the counter pointing against it of other kinds of grouping,
suggestive of the multiplicity of ways in which man as a social being can be viewed.
The Parson and the Plowman are linked by brotherhood, of both blood and spirit, the
Knight, Squire and Yeoman by kinship and service; the five Guildsmen and their
Cook by service alone; the Prioress, Monk and Friar by religious profession; the Man
of Law and Franklin by common interest; the Summoner and the Pardoner by
something probably unspeakable (Pearsall, p.58).
This absence of any set pattern in the ordering of the pilgrims is carried over into the
description of each one of them, when again Chaucer gleefully breaks all formal standards.
Not only does the technique differ from one portrait to another, even within a single portrait
there is no ordering of detail. Chaucer describes a person as though his eye is wandering over
him. He might notice one detail here, one there. He might be reminded of something by
association and would proceed to tell us about it. The descriptions are almost haphazard, and
therefore refreshing and more effective. Thus Chaucer brings in a breath of fresh air into the
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world of formal portrait-in-words which goes back to classical Antiquity and which had rigid
standards. Medieval rhetoricians such as Matthew of Vendome and Geoffrey of Vinsauf
wrote treatise on rhetoric in the thirteenth century and gave several models or patterns, as it
were, to be followed by the portrait painter. These patterns were so rigid and followed so
rigorously that almost nothing was left to the imagination of the reader.
If we approach the General Prologue with some knowledge about these set patterns,
we can at once note, and with pleasure, how Chaucer deliberately avoids using any
systematic methods of portraiture. His method is the absence of all method. His ordering of
detail is quite arbitrary. Sometimes he may begin by describing the dress of the person where
so much is implied that one can almost see the character through the kind of clothes he wears.
For example the Knight’s portrait begins with a description of his dress and Chaucer tells us
that his ‘gipoun’ or tunic, still carries the marks of his armour and his horses are good. We
may think this is mere factual information yet if we read between the lines Chaucer has told
us much more about the Knight than it seems. The fact that his gipoun is still stained with
marks of his armour tells us that the Knight has just returned from one of the crusades and
has wasted no time at all to go on his pilgrimage. We also come to know that he is not
bothered about his external appearance and has therefore not cared to change. Chaucer has
been careful about this essential equipment. A lack of means is however not the cause for the
Knight’s poor appearance. Chaucer is careful to point out that he rides a good horse.
At times the details of dress may come at the end of the portrait almost as an
afterthought, and the description may begin with a general comment on the character, for
example:
A Monk ther was, a fair for the maistrie. (Chaucer, Line: 165).
A Frere ther was, a wantown and merye (Chaucer, Line: 208)
A Sergeant of the lawe, war and wys (Chaucer, Line: 309).
Sometimes, the portrait may begin with a detail that seems most striking to the narrator, such
as:
A Good Wif was ther of Biside Bathe,
But she was som-del deef, and that was scathe. (Chaucer, Lines: 445-46)
There are times when the narrator is so impressed with the person he is describing that he
eulogises about him/her:
With us there was a Doctour of Phisik;
In all this world ne was ther noon hym lik. (Chaucer, Lines: 411-1)
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The readers have to be watchful however, because this good impression may not be
consistent, and the remaining portrait may prove that the statement was made ironically. On
the other hand, the portrait may be consistently good as in the case of the Parson, devoid of
any irony whatsoever:
A good man was ther of religioun,
And was a Poure Persoun of a Toun;
But richie he was of hooly thoght and work;
He was also a lerned man, a clerk. (Chaucer, Lines: 477-80)
At other times, absolutely unrelated detail may be juxtaposed as for example in the case of
the Cook:
But greet harm was it, as it thoughte me,
That on his shyne a mormal hadde he.
For blackmange, that made he with the beste. (Chaucer, Lines: 385-7)
Chaucer merely observes and leaves it to us to make the connections. The implications of
having a ‘mormal’ or a running sore would have been very obvious to Chaucer’s readers.
Thus, while the narrator has merely observed and reported it is the poet who insinuates in the
detail that the Cook is a man given to gluttony in both drink and sex.
Thus we see that no two portraits are alike, there is no overtly discernible pattern in
any one of them. What might have been a series of monotonous, repetitive descriptions turns
out to be a gallery of vivid characters that come alive because of the distinctive genius of
Chaucer. Each of the pilgrims who is described is revealed in such sharp and clear details that
we feel personally acquainted with him or her as an individual. At the same time we
recognize him as a representative not only of a social class but of a type of character that may
be recognized in any country and in any age. This accounts for the perennial appeal of the
General Prologue. Within the space allotted to each character, not a word is wasted, details
of physical appearance, dress and equipment, social rank and moral character evoke the
whole man or woman by powerful suggestive strokes. The haphazard manner of giving these
details is deliberately planned to produce the effect of spontaneity that creates a sense of
intimate acquaintance with each pilgrim.
Often readers have wondered whether Chaucer was describing real, actual people in
these portraits? Was there a Tabard Inn at Southwark in Chaucer’s day? Was it owned by a
certain Harry Bailly, as the host in the Prologue is named? Was there such a Shipman, Friar,
Franklin, and the rest. Was there a real Wife of Bath ‘byg in armes’? The questions are
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endless and various critics have tried to make connections between fact and fiction. A very
interesting study by J.M. Manly, entitled Some New Light on Chaucer. (New York: Henry
Holt & Co., 1926), deals extensively with this aspect of the Canterbury Tales.
Yet this desire to find real-life equivalents for Chaucer’s pilgrims emphasizes the
realistic nature of the portraits. Chaucer might have borrowed ideas from his observations of
real people but to think that he actually modelled his pilgrims on real flesh and blood figures,
would be carrying matters a bit too far.
5.8 Irony
Another aspect, that needs special mention, is Chaucer’s skilful use of irony which is so
elusive that it is often missed by an unwatchful reader. Chaucer is pulling the mask off the
fourteenth-century society, in his own special way. He does not use invective or lampoon as
his contemporaries did. He treats his subjects in a tolerant, good-humoured, genial manner,
making a consistent, pervasive, and subtle use of an irony which has earned the distinction of
being called ‘Chaucerian’. The framework of the pilgrimage in which all these worldings are
placed, is a constant point of reference and works almost as a springboard for the ironical
tone. These men and women, starting off in quest of Divine Love, strangely enough have no
place for it in their hearts at this moment. All of them are in some way or other characterized
by their attitude towards money. Whether it be an indifference to it as in the case of the four
ideal portraits of the Knight, the Clerk, the Parson and the Ploughman, or a desire to acquire
it by fair means or foul, as is the case with the rest of them.
Chaucer’s clever use of the persona operates as a necessary functional device for the
irony. As mentioned earlier, Chaucer, the pilgrim is presented as a naïve, gullible,
unsuspecting observer who accepts things at face value. He approves whole heartedly of the
Prioress’s behaviour and so also of the Monk’s disregard for discipline laid down by his
orders. He has never seen such another Miller, Reeve, Manciple; there has never been another
man so virtuous as the Friar; the Merchant is worthy, the Lawyer was excellent, the Wife of
Bath is a ‘worthy woman’ and so he goes on about all of them. The explicit manifestation of
evil in the figures of the Summoner and the Pardoner is however too blatant to befool even a
simpleton like this pilgrim Chaucer. In these last two portraits therefore we find a downright
condemnation of the wicked ways practised by both. For the rest of the portraits however,
Chaucer the Pilgrim goes on observing details and believing whatever he sees, to be good.
However, we must not forget that it is the poet Chaucer who is unmasking these worldlings
by showing the discrepancy in the profession and action of each one of them. The Monk may
prove to be a good master, but the moment we remember his placing in life, all the qualities
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which the pilgrim Chaucer approves in him, now prove to be misplaced. The same applies to
the Prioress, to the Lawyer, to the Physician and almost all the rest of them. At times the poet
Chaucer creeps in unobtrusively in comments which juxtapose seemingly unrelated things,
for example, he says of the Wife of Bath:
She was a worthy womman al her lyve
Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde fyve (Chaucer, Lines: 459-60)
What could be the connection between her worthiness and the number of husbands she had
had? We are forced to question ourselves and thereby read between the lines. Sometimes a
deft twist of meaning is given to the entire portrait by just one line appended to its end. For
example, after having described the Physician as unparalleled in the world, Chaucer
concludes the sketch thus:
For gold in phisik is a cordial
Thercfore he lovede gold in special. (Chaucer, Lines: 443-44)
Irony often gives rise to humour, and we cannot help smiling when the pilgrim Chaucer quite
innocently comments on the intelligence of the Manciple who could fool the thirty men-of-
law for whom he works:
Now is not that of god a ful fair grace
That swich a lewed mannes wit shal pace
The wisdom of an heepe of lerned men? (Lines: 573-745)
Certainly we are not expected to believe that the cunningness of the Manciple is a grace of
God. The naive narrator may speak approvingly but it is the poet who is making us aware of
the sneaky ways of the Manciple. A moral yardstick is surely being applied here and we can
catch the irony only if we read between the lines.
The readers are constantly subjected to a kind of double vision which by implication
puts things in their correct perspective and we see the pilgrims in their true colours. The
attitude of the poet, however, continues to have a tolerance for all human frailties, therefore
the satire never even borders on the invective and the world remains cheerful.
5.9 The Debate about the Actual Number of Pilgrims
Before we move on to a discussion of individual pilgrims, I would like to point out two facts
in the General Prologue that seem inconsistent with the initial plan. The first of these occurs
in Line 164 in where Chaucer mentions three priests in attendance on the Prioress. Later
when the Host speaks to the Nun’s priest, it seems that instead of three there is only one.
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Moreover, if there are three priests then it upsets the whole calculation of ‘nine and twenty’
and it becomes instead 31:
Knight, squire, yeoman 3
Franklin 1
Prioress and her chaplain 2
Prioress’s priests 3
Clerk and parson 2
Monk, Friar 2
Summoner, Pardoner 2
Five Gluildsmen and their Cook 6
Merchant, Manciple, Shipman 3
Milier, Reeve, Ploughman 3
Wife of Bath 1
Chaucer, the narrator 1
Thus the ‘three’ priests do not fit in this scheme. Therefore, either there is a mistake here or
there is a change of plan.
The second inconsistency lies in the difference between the initially stated plan of the
tales and the change it later undergoes. In the General Prologue the plan is stated quite
simply. As the Host tells the company:
That each of yor, to shorte with your weye
In this viage shal telle tales tweye
To Caunterburyward, I mean it so,
And Homeword he shal tellen othere two, (Chaucer, Lines: 791-94).
If this plan is to be followed then it clearly implies that each pilgrim will be telling four tales.
This means 116 in all if there are twenty-nine pilgrims. If the thirtieth member of the
company i.e. Chaucer, also gets his share of tales then it would make it 120 in all. But here
too the poet deviates from the plan. Later in the Prologue to the Parson’s tale, the Host tries to
persuade him:
Ne breke there nat oure pley,
For every man save thou hath told his tale, (Chaucer, Parson’s Prologue Lines 24-25)
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If the above statement is to be followed then it would mean that each pilgrim is required to
tell only two tales, one while going to Canterbury and other while coming back. The
unfinished nature of the tales prevents us from arriving at any conclusion regarding, the
whole plan. But one fact is clear, that the work, as it stands today, has no two tales allotted to
one pilgrim. On the other band, we do have the extra Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale. One can say
the pilgrim Chaucer does relate two tales: the interrupted tale of Sir Thopas and the prose tale
of Melibee. But we must remember that the prose tale of Melibee is told only after the Host
disapproves of the tale of Sir Thopas and makes Chaucer leave it unfinished.
With the General Prologue in part, and with the Canterbury Tales on the whole,
Chaucer ushered into the world of poetry, new subjects, and new methods of treatment This
was perhaps his greatest achievement because when he began to write, the adventures and
romances of the knights and their ladies, had begun to lose their charm. Chaucer drew upon
reality, upon people he met daily and who were familiar figures to everyone because they
were English people and not figures drawn, from French, Italian or Latin literature. Not only
were the subjects new, Chaucer’s method of treating them was new too. With him, comes the
conversational note, into English poetry. His easy flowing metre succeeded in removing the
monotony and complications which were there earlier in the octosyllabic couplets and long
involved stanzas. Chaucer’s seven-line stanza and the ten or eleven syllabled couplets were
refreshing. His gentle humour and seemingly serious but jesting manner makes Chaucer a
delight to read. As a teller of stories and as a painter of portrait in words, Chaucer remains
unsurpassed even today.
Check Your Progress

1. How does Chaucer link together his collection of stories? What is this
device called?
2. Briefly describe the plan that the pilgrims have in mind to pass their time.
3. Why does Chaucer create a gullible persona for himself?
4. Comment on the opening lines of the General Prologue.
5. Examine at least two portraits to comment on the techniques used by
Chaucer to describe his pilgrims.
6. List a few ways in which Chaucer’s irony works.
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6. TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF THE GENERAL PROLOGUE
6.1 The Beginning

6.1.1 The Opening Lines
Lines 1- 18
When that April with his showers soote
The drought of March hath perced to the roote …
………………………………………………………….
The hooly blissful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke
6.1.1.1 Detailed Paraphrase
When April with its sweet showers has pierced the drought of March to the root and every
vein of the plants in such liquid or sap that has the power to bring about the flowering of the
plants; when the West Wind/ Zephyr, also with its sweet breath has in every wood and field
breathed life into the young plants and the young sun has run half its course in the zodiac sign
of Aries, and the small birds are making melody, those that sleep all night with their eyes
open because Nature prompts them in their hearts to do so, then people/folk long to go on
pilgrimages and pilgrims wish to seek foreign shores, to distant shrines, known in various
lands; and especially from every shire’s end of England, to Canterbury they travel to seek the
holy and blessed martyr who had helped them when they were sick.
6.1.1.2 Critical Comment
In these first eighteen lines of the General Prologue, Chaucer has built a very effective case in
favour of a pilgrimage. He sets the scene in springtime – month of April to be exact, and
structures the passage on a pattern of cause and effect – when certain conditions develop in
the natural world then certain corresponding events take place in people’s world. The
regenerative power of spring that is felt in Nature and can be seen in the flowering plants and
the singing birds, finds its equivalent in a desire in human beings for a regeneration that is not
physical but spiritual. The logical sequence is built up in the first few lines using the words
‘whan’ and ‘and’ repeatedly, linking various examples to illustrate the pattern of cause and
effect. Thus ‘when’ this happens and this and this too …. then …. this also happens ….. the
poet seems to be saying.
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B.A.(Hons.) English
The long harsh winter is over and so also the deadness associated with it. The sweet showers
of the month of April have stirred new life into the natural world. The sap or liquid in the
veins of the plants, the flowers, the Westwind, the singing birds all together point to a world
which is waking up from a deep winter slumber. The imagery is drawn from Nature quite
effortlessly and places emphasis on life being renewed in the natural world. Equally effortless
is the rhyming couplet which will be used by the poet in the entire work. The couplet holds
the idea in two lines that rhyme and yet carries it over beyond the rhyme at times to include
other relevant illustrations.
The sun is called young because it has just begun its journey into the twelve signs of
the Zodiac. It is in the first sign of Aries. It is almost as though the sun too has just been
reborn. This physical regeneration in the Natural world urges a corresponding spiritual
regeneration in the world of people.
The holy blissful martyr is Saint Thomas ´a Beckett whose shrine at Canterbury was a
popular spot for pilgrimages.
The first eighteen lines form one long sentence beginning with a cause and ends with
a consequence. When …..then …… Chaucer has quite skillfully drawn a parallel between
physical regeneration in Nature and a metaphorical regeneration in the world of men. (Please
refer to Section 5.6 for more details).
Glossary and Explanatory Notes Lines 1 – 18
Whan when
Shoures soote Sweet showers
droghte drought
perced pierced
roote root
veyne vein
Swich liquor Such liquid or moisture or sap
Of which vertu By virtue of which
Engendered is the The flower is generated or created
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flour
Zephirus The west wind
eek also
breeth breath
Tendre croppes Tender/soft shoots of young plants
Yonge sonne The sun that has just begun its journey into the zodiac
Ram Ram is the sign of Aries that runs from mid-March to mid-April
The sun has run half its course in the sign of Aries or the Ram. This
Half cours yronne means that the sun is in the second half of its course. i.e., in the month
of April
Smale foweles Small birds
Maken melodye Make music
Slepen al the nyght Sleep all night
Open ye Open eyes
Priketh hem Pricks them or incites them
Hir corages Their hearts
palmeres pilgrims
seken seek
Straunge strondes Foreign lands/shores
Ferne halwes Distant shrines
kowthe known
Sondry londes Various /different lands
Every shire end Every country’s end
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B.A.(Hons.) English
They wende Make their way

hooly holy
Blissful martir Blessed martyr (Saint Thomas a Beckett whose shrine is at Canterbury)
Hem hath holpen Had helped them
seeke sick
6.1.2 The Narrator Enters

Lines 19 – 34
Bifil that in that seson n a day
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay …
………………………………………………………….
And made forward erly for to ryse,
To take oure way ther as yow devyse
The first person speaker tells us that it so happened that one night as he lay at the Tabard Inn
in Southwark ready to go on his pilgrimage to Canterbury with a very devout spirit, that same
night about nine and twenty people came into that hostelry. It was chance that had brought
such widely different people together in one group. They were all pilgrims and were also
waiting to ride to Canterbury the next morning. The bedrooms and the stables of the Inn were
spacious and comfortable and they were all accommodated in the best way. After a short
while, when the sun had set, the narrator tells us that he had managed to speak with each one
of them so that he was part of their group straightaway. They made an agreement to rise early
next day and set off on their way.
In these lines we are introduced to the narrator. We know now that we are going to see the
events from the eyes of a first-person speaker. At this stage we can assume that it is the poet
Chaucer who joins the group as a pilgrim himself. As the narrative progresses however, we
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realize that it is a persona that the poet has created for himself. The persona is that of a naïve
and gullible observer, diametrically opposite to the discerning and skillful poet who has
created him. The narrator is a sociable person because in the span of one single night he is
able to mingle well with the group and becomes a part of it. He makes it amply clear to us
that from now on he is going to narrate the events as they take place.
In the above lines we are given the exact location from where the pilgrimage will
start-- Southwark which was a popular meeting place for the pilgrims in Chaucer’s time. We
are also informed about the exact destination to which they are all headed – namely
Canterbury. Such vivid and concrete details are part of Chaucer’s style. For contemporary
listeners/readers it made for authenticity and makes it easier for us today to imagine the
geographical context.
Bifil It so happened
The district in London just south of London bridge on river Thames.
Southwerk Chaucer provides a concrete detail here with which his contemporary
readers would be all too familiar.
A short armorial coat often embroidered. The inn bears this name and
Tabard
probably has a sign outside with a tabard on it.
wenden To go
As I lay While I was there
Ful devout corage With very devout spirit; [Chaucer is implying that he is a true pilgrim].
hostelrye inn
There is much debate about the number of pilgrims. See section 5.9 for
Nyne and twenty details. If we count the pilgrim Chaucer and the Host too, there would
be thirty-two pilgrims in all.
sondry Various sorts
By aventure By chance
Wolden ryde Wished to ride
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B.A.(Hons.) English
chambres bedrooms
wyde spacious
Esed ate beste Accommodated in the best way
Sonne was to reste The sun had set
Hem everichon Every one of them
Felaweship Anon Their company at once
Made forward Made an agreement
Erly for to ryse To rise early
Ther as I yow devyse In the way that I shall explain/describe to you.
6.1.3 The Narrator Continues

Lines 35 – 42
But nathless, while I have tyme and space
Er that I ferther in this tale pace …
………………………………………………………….
And eek in what array that they were inne;
And at a knight wol I first begin.
The first-person narrator continues. Now he lays out a plan. He says that while he has time
and space and before he moves any further in this tale he is going to describe these pilgrims.
He will tell us how they appeared to him. He will tell us who they were, what was their social
rank and also how they were dressed. He decides to begin with the Knight.
The narrator, whom we may also call the pilgrim-Chaucer, has laid out a plan according to
which he is going to describe each and every pilgrim. He lists the things he is going to
include in the descriptions – who they were, their rank or social standing in life and their
clothing. Had the poet Chaucer stuck to the above plan we would have had a series of
repetitive and monotonous portraits thus taking away from the interest of the work. As we
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proceed in the Prologue further we find that he deviates from his own plan and gives us
descriptions that are all different. The above-mentioned details are, however, also included in
the portraits. It thus makes for a lot of variety.
A distinction between the poet-Chaucer and the pilgrim-Chaucer has begun to
emerge. The pilgrim-Chaucer is genial and friendly and at the same time extremely
observant. However, he is not judgmental He manages to talk to all the pilgrims and find out
enough about them to give us a description of each one of them. Behind it all of course is the
poet-Chaucer who constantly selects and determines what this persona will observe and how
he will present it to the readers. Thus, there is always an underlying meaning in what is stated
obviously. All is not what it seems and this makes for the famous Chaucerian irony that is
constantly at work in the General Prologue. The narrator may innocently believe whatever
the pilgrims tell him but each word is carefully chosen by the poet and is filtered through his
intelligence. Each detail is included with a purpose and we have to be constantly on our guard
to understand the real intent behind the words of the pilgrim Chaucer.
natheless nonetheless
Tyme and space Time and space
Me thynketh I think
Acordaunt to resoun In accord with reason or according to reason
condicioun circumstances
Ech of hem Each of them
It semed me It seemed to me
Whiche they weren Who they were
What degree What social rank
eek also
array Clothing or dress
knyght knight
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B.A.(Hons.) English
6.2 The Pilgrims

Of the Company of nine and twenty ‘sondry folks’, Chaucer describes twenty-one pilgrims
individually, five of them, the Guildsmen, he describes as a group and four of them (five if
you count Chaucer himself) he only mentions but does not describe. Though he simply says
that he has not put the pilgrims in any order of rank or degree, he does begin at the top with
the Knight who is accompanied by his son the Squire and his attendant, the Yeoman.
Muriel Bowden’s A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, has been
referred to extensively in the following analysis of the pilgrims. A detailed reference of the
same can be found in the list of suggested books for further reading.
6.2.1 The Knight
Lines 43 – 78
A Knyght ther was,and that a worthy man
That fro the tyme that he first bigan …
………………………………………………………….
For he was late ycome from his viage,
And wente for to do his pilgrimage .
Chaucer begins the portrait by telling us that there was a Knight who was a worthy man who
from the time that he first began to ride out, loved chivalry, truth, honour, freedom, and
courtesy. He had proved himself worthy in his lord’s wars and had fought wars in such far-
off places that no man had gone farther than him. A long list of his expeditions and
achievements follows. Chaucer tells us that the Knight had fought in Christian as well as
heathen lands and was honoured for his worthiness.
Chaucer tells us that the Knight was ‘worthy’ and wise too. Of his manner he was as
meek as a maid. He never spoke a rude word in all his life to any sort of person. He was a
truly perfect gentle Knight. But to talk about his clothing Chaucer says that though his horse
was good the Knight himself was not merrily dressed. He wore a tunic of coarse cloth all
stained by the marks of his armour for he had recently come back from his expedition and
came straightaway to do his pilgrimage.
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In this group of pilgrims the Knight occupies the highest social status. He is the first
member of the Military group in the Prologue. He is a professional soldier and
represents the world of chivalry. Chaucer, the narrator, begins his description with a
general observation on his character as a whole, calling him a ‘worthy’ man. The
word worthy occurs almost five times in the entire portrait and never once is it used
ironically. The Knight personifies all the virtues associated with the nobility and has
to be seen as an ideal figure. The narrator calls him a ‘Verray parfit, gentil knyght’
(72). To understand the concept of knighthood and also of chivalry, it is worthwhile to
glance back to its origins. As Muriel Bowden explains, it was Pope Urban II who
created the Christian ideal of the order of knighthood in 1095 when the first crusade
was proclaimed. Men aspired to the high standards set by Urban. Henceforth, the
knight was ‘to be the champion of the church, the righteous and implacable enemy of
the infidel, the compassionate protector of the weak and oppressed, the defender of all
Right and Justice --- By the fourteenth century everyone knew how the true knight
should conduct himself, and everyone knew how seldom he was encountered in the
world of actuality. . .’ (Bowden, 45).
Chaucer’s Knight is a personification of all the above listed virtues and hence is called
perfect by him in so many words. An impressive list of his campaigns (though not put in
chronological order) nevertheless shows that the Knight has performed his role of a crusader
well. Yet he is not just a soldier. Apart from valour his values include truth, honour, liberty
and modesty. This true and perfect knight is also wise and has never shown ‘vileyne’ to any
manner of human being. Occupying the position that he does, he inspires others to follow his
example.
His clothing is simple. Further details reveal a lot about his professionalism and
sincerity He does not believe in ostentation unlike many other pilgrims Chaucer describes
subsequently. The marks of his armour on his tunic reveal that he is an active soldier and at
the same time sincere in his religious pursuit of spiritual regeneration. He rides a good horse,
which is a necessity of his profession, yet his outward appearance is not smart which could
only mean that he does not care for it. Nothing is ornate about him. Moreover, he has lost no
time from the moment he returned from the wars, to come for this pilgrimage. In the whole
company gathered here, perhaps he is the only one who has the religious object of the
pilgrimage uppermost in his mind. He is widely travelled.
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B.A.(Hons.) English
It should be noted that in the figure of the Knight Chaucer has completely refrained
from satirizing the institution of chivalry which in the fourteenth century, was on its decline
and had a very negative side to it. Instead, in the figure of the Knight he gives us an ideal
representation of that order. The Knight is perhaps one of the few survivors of the old order.
worthy deserving
fro from
Riden out Ride out, go on campaigns
chivalrie chivalry
trouthe fidelity
fredom generosity
curteisie Courteous behaviour
werre war
therto moreover
ferre further
cristendom Clothing or dress
hethenesse Knight
Alisaundre Alexandria (Egypt)
wonne won
Ofte tyme Many a time
Bord bigonne Sat at the head of the table/ at a place of honour
Aboven alle nacions Above all nations
Pruce Prussia
Lettow Lithuania
reysed campaigned
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Ruce Russia
So ofte of his degree So often of his rank
Gernade Grenada
seege siege
Hadde he be Had he been
Algezir Algeciras
Belmarye Benmarin (Southern Morocco)
Lyeys Ayas in Armenia (modern Turkey)
Satalye Attalia
Grete See Mediterranean Sea
armee Military expeditions
Mortal batailles mortal combats/battles fought till death
Foughten for our
Fought for our faith i.e. Christianity
feith
Tramyssene Tlemecen (Western Algeria)
Lystes thries Tournament thrice
Ay slayn his foo Each time slain his foe
Ilke worthy knyght Same worthy knight
somtyme At one time
Palatye Balat
agayn against
Everemoore Evermore/all the time
Sovereyn prys Outstanding reputation
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B.A.(Hons.) English
wys wise
His port His behaviour
Meeke as a mayde Humble or gentle as a maid
Vileynye Discourtesy / rude word
ne sayde never spoke
unto to
No maner wight Any sort of person
Parfit perfect
Tellen yow Tell you
hors horse
Nat gay Not gaily
fustian Coarse cotton
Wered a gypon Wore a tunic
Bismotered stained
habergeon armour
Late ycome Very recently
From his viage From his expedition
Wente for to doon Went to do
6.2.2 The Squire

Lines 79 – 100
With him ther was his sone, a yong Squier,
A lovyere and a lusty bacheler …
………………………………………………………….
Curteis he was, lowely, and sevysable,
And carf before his fader at the table .
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Chaucer moves on to the second portrait in the gallery – that of the Squire. He tells us that
accompanying the Knight was his young son, the Squire who was a lover and a lively
bachelor and the first thing that strikes Chaucer about the appearance of this man is that his
locks (hair) were curled so perfectly that it seemed as if they had been pressed in a curler.
Chaucer guesses that he must have been around twenty years old. He was of moderate height
and wonderfully agile and of great strength. He had been for a time on a cavalry expedition in
Flanders, in Artois and in Picardy and he conducted himself well even in this short span of
time in the hope that he would stand in his lady’s good graces.
Moving on further while noticing another detail about the Squire’s appearance,
Chaucer tells us that his coat was embroidered as if it were a meadow, full of fresh flowers,
white and red. All day he was singing or playing the flute and looked as fresh as is the month
of May. He next describes his gown which was short with long and wide sleeves. We are told
that the Squire knew how to sit on a horse and could ride it well. He also knew how to
compose songs and could joust and dance as well as draw and write. He loved so passionately
that at nighttime he slept no more than a nightingale. He was courteous, humble and willing
to serve and also carved before his father at the table.
The young Squire is next in line in social hierarchy. He is training to become a Knight but
while his father’s life is devoted to his religious and military obligations, the young son’s life
revolves around love. His desire to impress his lady love lies behind all that he does. Thus he
can write lyrics, play music and even draw. In fact he is so much in love that he can hardly
sleep at night. There is a wide difference between father and son. Where one is sober,
mellowed, simple and dignified, the other, the Squire, is gay, high-spirited, fashionably
dressed in bright and modish clothes. The simile used by Chaucer describes this young man
in a nutshell - he is “as fresh as is the month of May” - a lusty bachelor. The word bachelor
had more meaning attached to it than what we understand from it today. As Bowden explains:
“when a Squire was ready to graduate to knighthood in the chivalric organization, he was
called a “bachelor”, and often the term continued in use for a recently made or young knight”
(Bowden, p. 75).
The Squire is smart, handsomely dressed, and variously accomplished in singing,
dancing, jousting for his lady, writing poetry and so on. His physical description measures up
to the description of any hero of the romances in vogue. He is of great strength’, having a
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B.A.(Hons.) English
proportionate physique, wonderfully agile and worthy to be received in the order of chivalry.
The virtue of humility also finds proper manifestation in this bright and gay figure:
Cuteis he was, lowely, and servysable
And carf biforn his fader at the table. (Lines: 99-100)
To carve the roast is one of the frequently mentioned obligations of a squire. The art of
carving was a much-prized art in the Middle Ages and had various techniques which were
difficult to master.
The Squire’s Military exploits are nearer home as he would have only recently begun
his fighting career.
The only area where one can detect a slight hint of the characteristic Chaucerian
irony, is in the superfluities of dress of the Squire as against the simplicity of the Knight.
Military sports such as jousting and tournaments had also come under some criticism because
of the unnecessary deaths that resulted from them.. Chaucer merely mentions the facts yet the
fourteenth century reader, and we with a little knowledge of the age can read much between
the lines.
sone son
lovyere lover
bacheler a young man training to become a knight
lokkes crulle locks curled
leyd in presse laid in the pressing machine
evene lengthe average height
wonderly delyvere wonderfully agile
greet strengthe great strength
somtyme sometime
chyvachie Cavalry expedition
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In Flanders, Artois and Picardy – as compared to his father’s extensive

Flaundres, in Artois,
expeditions, the Squire’s exploits have been closer to home - only to
and Pycardie
France and northern Europe.
born hym weel conducted himself well
So litel space So little space of time
Stonden in his lady

Stand in his lady’s good graces or favour
grace
embrouded embroidered
meede meadow
Whyte and reede White and red
syngynge singing
floytynge Fluting or playing the flute
short was ….wyde the short coat with long wide sleeves was fashionable at the time
wel endite could write lyrics for his songs
juste and eek daunce joust and also dance
weel putreye draw well
nyghtertale Nighttime
lowely modest
servysable Willing to serve
carved -- Being in the service of his father he performed the duty of

carf
carving the meat before him
fader father
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B.A.(Hons.) English
6.2.3 The Yeoman

Lines 101 – 117
A Yeman hadde he and servantz namo
At that tyme, for hym liste so, …
………………………………………………………….
An horn he bar, the bawdryk was of grene
A forster was he, smoothly, as I gesse .
The third portrait that completes the Military Group in the pilgrims’ gallery is that of the
Yeoman. Chaucer tells us that the Knight had a Yeoman and no more servants. In other
words, the Yeoman too was in service of the Knight and at that time it pleased him to ride
with him in this manner. He was clothed in a coat and hood of green and carried a sheaf of
peacock arrows under his belt very properly. He knew well how to take care of his equipment
and none of his arrows fell short of their target because of drooping feathers. In his hand he
carried a mighty bow. His hair was closely cropped and he had a brown face. He knew the
skills of woodcraft. Upon his arm he wore a bracer or an armguard to protect his arm against
the bowstring, and on one side he carried a sword and a shield while on the other an elegant
dagger which was well ornamented and as sharp as the point of a spear; he wore a bright
silver medal on his breast, representing St. Christopher. He carried a horn and the shoulder
strap was green. Chaucer guesses that he must be a forester.
The Yeoman is the second attendant upon the Knight, after the young Squire. In Chaucer’s
age a yeoman usually meant an attendant or assistant to an official. The modern meaning of
small landowner came into use only in the fifteenth century. We are told very little about his
physical appearance – only that he has a brown face and closely cropped hair, indicating the
outdoor nature of his profession. Rest of the emphasis falls on his equipment and we learn a
lot about the yeoman’s professional skill thereby. Chaucer seems to be all admiration for this
disciplined, and efficient man who could even ‘dress his takel yeomanly’ (106). With his bow
and arrows and the sword the shield and the dagger, he is well equipped not only as a forester
or a game keeper but also as a fit attendant to the Knight.
The horn, which was an essential equipment for a forester, is worn by the Yeoman,
supported by the ‘bawdryk’ or belt worn diagonally across the body. The gleaming silver
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image of St. Christopher that he wears was not only the patron saint of foresters but also of
all artisan classes, and was supposed to guard against accident.
There is very little satire in this portrait but it recalls an important addition to the
variety of arms used in war. The invention of the long bow had revolutionized the English
warfare. The long range of this bow had even posed a challenge to the mounted soldiers e.g.
the Knights and the Squires. With its help, the soldier on foot could shoot down from a
greater distance and could kill even a man mounted on a horse. In fact, the whole hierarchy of
the army had been challenged by the introduction of this long bow.
Servantz namo Servants no more

Hym liste ride so It pleased him to travel in this manner
cote coat
Pecok arwes Peacock arrows
Bar ful thriftily Carried very properly
Dresse his takel
Cared for his equipment as a yeoman should
yemanly
Arwes drouped
Arrows did not fall short
noght
Fetheres lowe Drooping feathers
Baar a mighty bowe Carried a mighty bow.
Not heed Closely cropped hair
Broun visage Brown face
bracer armguard
Swerd and a bokeler Sword and a shield
Harneised wel Well mounted
St Christopher was the patron saint of foresters and was supposed to
Christopher
ward off against accidents
bawdryk Shoulder strap or belt
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B.A.(Hons.) English
Check Your Progress

1. Why do you think Chaucer begins describing the pilgrims with the portrait of
the Knight.
2. How is the Knight’s portrait an ideal one?
3. Describe the Squire’s attire in your own words. What does it tell us about
him?
4. What are the duties of a yeoman?
5. Why is there not much criticism of the three figures representing the chivalric
world here. Give reasons for your answer.
6.2.4 The Prioress

Lines 118 – 162
Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioress,
That of her smylyng was ful simple and coy; …
………………………………………………………….
On which ther was first write a crowned A,
And after Amor vincit omnia .
There was also a nun, says Chaucer, a Prioress, who was very simple and modest, and her
greatest oath was by Saint Loy and her name was Madame Eglantine. She sang the divine
service very well intoning in her nose in a graceful manner. She also spoke French very well
and elegantly in the accent of the school of Stratford at the Bow, because she is not familiar
with the French spoken in Paris. At meals she conducted herself well for she had excellent
table manners and never let a morsel fall from her lips nor did she wet her fingers in the
sauce. She knew well how to carry a morsel to her mouth and be careful that not a drop fell
upon her breast. Her greatest pleasure in life was adhering to good manners and etiquette. She
wiped her upper lip so clean that she left no greasy marks on her cup after she had drunk
from it. She reached out for her food in a very seemly manner. Surely says Chaucer, she was
of excellent behaviour and very pleasant and amiable in her manner. She took pains to imitate
the manners of the court and to be considered worthy of reverence.
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But to speak of her conscience or sensibility, she was so charitable and so

compassionate that she would weep if she saw a mouse caught in a trap and if it were dead or
bleeding. She had some small dogs that she fed with roasted meat or milk and white bread.
But she wept bitterly if one of them were dead or if someone hit it smartly with a stick. Then
she was all full of feeling and tender heart.
Her wimple was pleated in a very becoming manner, her nose was well formed, and
her eyes were grey as glass, her mouth was very small and soft and red and she also had a fair
forehead which Chaucer thinks was almost a span broad and he also adds that she had a good
figure.
Her cloak was very well made, and she wore around her arm a string of coral beads
with large green gaudies in between and from it hung a brooch of gold with the letter ‘A’
written on it followed by Amor Vincet Omnia “Love conquers all”.
The Prioress belongs to the second group of pilgrims, that along with her includes the Monk
and the Friar. These three are all members of the regular orders of the Church as opposed to
the seculars e.g. the bishops, priests, deacons etc. who are involved in the day-to-day
administration of the Church. The Prioress heads a convent and since nuns in Chaucer’s day
were mostly drawn from the upper classes, it is fitting that her group should follow that of the
Knight. Let us now briefly take a look at the making of these nuns to understand better the
description of our Prioress.
It was almost always the daughters with no money to their name, that were forced to
choose the convent as the only alternative to marriage. There were not many professions
available for women of such placing in society. Governesses came into being much later. As
they could bring no dowry with them, such gentlewomen could never hope to marry. In fact
they were worse off than the women of the lower class who had their invaluable services of
physical labour, to offer as their dowry. So there were almost never any women of the lower
class choosing the nunnery. Because of their ability for manual labour, these women were
never a burden on their family even if they remained unmarried. The dowerless gentlewomen
on the other hand could see no other solution to this problem except to step into a convent.
Thus we can safely assume that Chaucer’s “Lady Prioresse” does in fact have an aristocratic
background and as we examine her portrait, she proves to fit the bill perfectly. The irony and
the underlying criticism in this portrait emerges from the discrepancy that lies between the
expectations of a profession and the actual behaviour which falls sadly short of it.
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B.A.(Hons.) English
As the pilgrim Chaucer narrates the various attributes of this pretty Prioress, it seems
he is approving of her whole-heartedly. But the pointers are there in things never said,
assertions not made. So when he tells us approvingly of her smile which was ‘ful symple and
coy’ (119), her gentle oath ‘by St. Loy’; her name Madame Eglantyne, her nasal accent, her
fetish French etc., we may get taken in and start believing that she is indeed a fine nun. But
the moment we remember her placing and profession in life, we are checked in our responses
and realize how much Chaucer, the poet, has revealed just by making the pilgrim Chaucer
report external facts. Her physical features as well as her name are all characteristic of the
courtly heroines.
Ful semyly hir wympul phynched was .
Hire nose tretys, her eyen greye as glas,
Hir mouth ful smal and therto softe and reed;
But sikerly she hadde a fair forheed;
It was almost a spanne brood I trowe;
For, hardily, she was not undergrowe. (Lines: 151-56).
On the face of it, Chaucer is merely listing the details of the Prioress’s physical appearance.
She is indeed a beautiful lady, with her shapely nose, grey eyes, small soft red mouth, broad
forehead and a full figure! but Chaucerian irony is doing its work subtly and unobtrusively
even in these lines. When we recall that Madam Eglantyne’s fair broad forehead should, as a
rule, have been covered in company; that her full figure which draws a remarkably restrained
comment from the pilgrim Chaucer, should have been hidden in her shapeless clothes, we can
notice the sharp wit which is constantly satirizing this charming Nun. The satire however is
sympathetic and never compromises the dignity of the Prioress.
The description goes on in the same vein and Chaucer tells us of her affected French,
her exquisite table manners, her tender heart that bleeds for the animals rather than her fellow
beings, her concern with her appearance. Even her oath of St. Loy reminds us that nuns are
not supposed to swear. We can see how the humour and the irony can be located in the
incongruity between profession and action. The Prioress endeavours to be a lady at all times
rather than be a nun. All the physical characteristics which would have been appealing in a
lady of aristocratic standing are here misplaced in a prioress of the convent. Nuns were
forbidden to keep pets, yet she has ‘smale hounde’ whom she feeds with roasted meat and
milk. Though, the inscription on her broach is ‘Amor Vincet Omnia’ meaning ‘Love
conquers all’ we do wonder how she interprets it? Is it sacred love or profane. Though
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Chaucer is tolerant of the Prioress’s feminine foibles, yet he cannot help an explicit criticism
of her conscience that bleeds for a dead mouse but not for the sufferings of her fellow being.
Had it not been stated in the first line itself, that this lady is ‘a Nonne, a Prioresse’ (118), we
might have been misled into approving of her. This beautiful, charming, romantic, and
worldly figure is far removed from what she is supposed to be. It is her small weaknesses
however that individualize this Prioress. In this entire description Chaucer is also indirectly
criticizing the social and economic circumstances that were forcing such women to take to
the Nunnery.
The Prioress is accompanied by another Nun, a chaplain, and three priests. These four
pilgrims are just mentioned and not described individually. (Please refer to section 3.0 for the
controversy about the number of priests accompanying the Prioress).
prioress The female head of a nunnery

symple simple
coy modest
gretteste greatest
ooth oath
but only
By Saint Loy – St. Eloi, Elegius, patron saint of goldsmiths . The
By Seinte Loy Prioress should not be swearing at all but even when she swears she
chooses a very mild oath.
cleped called
Eglentyne Rose briar. A name suited to the romances
Ful weel Very well
soong sung
Entuned in hir nose Intoned through her nose
Ful semely Very becomingly
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Spak ful faire and

Spoke very well and gracefully
fetisly
scole school
Location of a Benedictine convent, at Stratford Bromley by Bow near
Stratford ate Bow
Middlesex, London.
Frensh of . . hire
French of Paris was unknown to her.
unknowne
At mete At table /meals
Wel ytaught Well taught
With alle indeed
leet let
Ne wette hir fyngres Nor wet her fingers
In curteisie was set Her courtly manners
Ful muchel hir lest Very much her pleasure
coppe cup
Ful semely In a very decorous manner
After hir mete she
Reached for her food
raughte
sikerly Surely, certainly
Greet desport Full of geniality
Amyable of port Amiable in her behavior
Peyened hir She took pains
Countrefete cheere Imitate the manner
estatlich dignified
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Digne of reverence To be considered worthy of respect

conscience sensibility
pitous Full of pity
She had small pet dogs whom she fed. The line comes as an anticlimax.
Of smale hounds . . . The narrator begins to talk of her sensibility, her charity and her pity
fed but instead of all of it being for her fellow human beings it is for her
pet dogs.
Wastel breed White bread
Soore wepte Wept sorely
Oon of hem One of them
Smoot it Smote/beat it
Yerde smaerte Smartly with a stick
Ful semyly hir
Het wimple (covering for the neck) was pleated in a very seemly
Wympul pynched
manner
was
Nose tretys Nose was well formed
Eyen greye as glas Eyes gray as glass
sikerly Indeed
It was almost a span broad (about nine inches measuring from the
A spanne brood, I thumb to the little finger) I believe. Chaucer is being critical here
trowe because nuns were supposed to cover their forehead and not reveal it in
the latest fashion.
hardily certainly
cloke cloak
I was war I was aware
A peire of bedes Set of beads
Gauded al with In a rosary every eleventh bead was of a larger size and was called
grene ‘gaudy’ Here these gaudies are green in colour. While telling the
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rosary, the gaudies remind the user to say an ‘our Father’ or a ‘Hail
Mary’.
Nuns were not supposed to wear accessories like brooches and rings.
A brooch of gold Once again Chaucer is being ironical while observing and merely
reporting facts.
Ful sheene Very bright
a crowned A An A with a crown. A could stand for ‘Amor’
Amor vincit omnia ’Love conquers all’ The love referred to here is divine love.
chapeleyne assistant
Preestes thre Three priests
Check Your Progress

1. What were the reasons for a person like the Prioress joining the nunnery.
2. Bring out the irony in the portrait of the Prioress.
3. How do we know that Chaucer is being critical of the Prioress?
6.2.5 The Monk

Lines 165 – 207
A Monk ther was, a fair for the maistrie,
An outridere, that lovede venerie, …
…………………………………………
A fat swan loved he best of any roost.
His palfry was as broun as is a berry.
There was a Monk says Chaucer, who was an extremely fine one at that and he was an
outrider and loved hunting. He was a manly man and thus qualified enough to be an abbot.
He had many fine horses in his stable and when he rode people could hear his bridle bells
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jingling in the whistling wind as clear and as loud as do the chapel bells. The rule of Saint
Maurus or of Saint Benedict was not followed by this Monk because it was old and somewhat
strict. He let the old things pass away and followed the more relaxed or liberal customs of
modern times. He gave not a plucked hen for the text that says that hunters are not holy men,
nor that a monk out of his cloister is like the fish out of water This same text he considered
not worth an oyster and the narrator agrees with him and says his opinion was good. Why
should a man study and make himself mad by always poring over books in his cloister or
work with his hands and labour as Augustine bid? How shall the world be served? Let
Augustine have the hard labour reserved for him. Therefore he was indeed a good horseman:
He had greyhounds as swift as birds in flight; Of tracking and hunting the hare was all his
pleasure and he would by no means stop himself from doing it.
Continuing in first person Chaucer the narrator observes that the sleeves of the
Monk’s coat were lined with fur and that too finest in the land and to fasten his hood under
his chin he had a very finely crafted pin made of gold in the shape of an elaborate love knot.
His head was bald and shone like glass as did his face like it had been rubbed with oil. He
was quite plump and his eyes were prominent and rolling in his head and gleamed like a
furnace of lead. His boots were supple and his horse in excellent condition. Now certainly we
can say that he was a handsome church official. He was not pale as a tormented ghost. A fat
swan loved he best of any roast. His horse was a brown as is a berry.
‘A Monk there was’ begins Chaucer, and we would expect a serious, uninteresting religious
old man vowed to a life of poverty, obedience and chastity as was expected of monastic
orders. What we see in fact is a flouting of all these vows thus making for an exposure on
Chaucer’s part of the reality behind the façade. Here we have a figure full of life, who more
than his religious duties ‘lovede venerie’ i.e. hunting – and Chaucer’s contemporary readers
knew that hunting was forbidden to Monks. He is an ‘outrider’, a manly man who loves to
ride out on his ‘brown palfrey’ even though his ‘old and somdel streit’ rules forbade a monk
to leave his cloister. This hunting Monk however is a strong virile man, and when he goes
riding, men can hear his hunting bells jingling in the distance, clear and loud ‘as dooth the
chapel belle.’(171)
Notice how in this seemingly innocent description, a reminder of the Monk’s correct
placing in life has been implied in the reference to the chapel bells and our response is
checked and qualified.
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The pilgrim Chaucer approves of this Monk who has radical views about the outdated
monastic observances:
This ilke Monk leet olde thynges pace,
And held asier the newe world the space. (Line: 175-6)
He does not care for the text which says that hunters cannot be holy men or that a monk out
of cloister is like a fish out of water. It is a stroke of devastating irony which brings the whole
fabric tumbling down when the pilgrim Chaucer agrees with the Monk’s views: ‘And I seyde
his opinioun was good.’ (183) and proceeds to argue the case of the Monk. Why should he
study and force himself to always be pouring over a book, or toil with his hands and perform
physical labour as Saint Austen bid? Why should he stick to his cloister and observe the dull
routine of prayer, study, fasting and labour? Ironically, while the pilgrim Chaucer argues in
favour of the Monk, the poet Chaucer has listed the actual duties which should be performed
by him and so lays bare the discrepancy between profession and action once again. Our Monk
loves the outdoor life and instead of having the pale looks of a man always confined indoors
and put to rigours of fasting, he is: ‘a Lord ful fat and in good poynt;’ (200) He has no
qualms about gratifying his taste for fine clothes, choice of food, good horses etc:
His bootes souple, his hors in greet estaat
Now certainly he was a fair frulaat.
He was not pale, as a forpyned goost:
A fat swan loved he best of any roost. (Line: 203-6)
He is a perfect picture of a successful man who thoroughly enjoys good life. His expensive
clothes and his habits show him to be a worldly man. It should be noted however that this
figure changes character when he comes to tell his tale and we have instead a sober, serious
man who seems exceedingly bookish. Chaucer chooses to be inconsistent once again.
A fair for the

A surprisingly fine one
maistrie
One who looks after the outlying properties belonging to a large
outrydere
monastic order
Lovede venerie Loved hunting
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To be an abbot able To be a fine abbot

deyntee fine
rood rode
Brydel heere Bridle hear
gynglen jingling
Kepre of the celle In charge of the house
reule Rule (here monastic rule)
Seint Maure Saint Maurus, a disciple of St. Benedict
Seint Beneit Saint Benedict who was the founder of Western monasticism
Somdel streit Somewhat strict
This ilke This same
Leet old thynges
Let old things pass away
pace
Heeld . . . space Upheld the freedom of modern times
yaf gave
A pulled hen A plucked hen that is worthless
recchelees careless/heedless (with respect to his duties as a monk)
cloystre monastery
Thilke text Same text
swynken labour
St. Augustine bid or commanded that men of religion should do
Austyn bit
physical labour
A hunter on horseback who follows the path of the hare by its pricks or
prikasour
footprints
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Prikyng and of
Tracking and hunting
huntiyng
Was al his lust Was all his pleasure
I seigh I said
Lined or trimmed at the edge ( another reference to the monk’s
purfled
materialistic nature)
grys Grey squirrel fur
Fyneste of a lond Finest of the land
festne fasten
ywroght Wrought or made
Curious pin extraordinary
Love-knotte Brooch in the shape of a knot
Gretter ende larger end
balled bald
Shoon as any glas Shone as any glass
enoynt anoint
His eyen stepe and
His eyes were prominent and rolling in his head
rollynge in his heed
Stemed as a Gleamed like a
Forneys of a leed Furnace under a cauldron
Greet estaat Excellent state or condition
Fair prelaat Fine cleric
Forpyned goost Starving and suffering ghost
Palfrey horse
Broun as a berye Brown as a berry
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Check Your Progress

1. What are the rules that Chaucer’s Monk is flouting?
2. How do we know that the poet Chaucer is being critical of the Monk even
when the pilgrim Chaucer is approving of whatever he does.
3. Why are the details of the Monk’s dress important? What do they tell us about
him?
6.2.6 The Friar

Lines 208 – 269
A Frere ther was, a wantowne and a merye,
A lymytour, a ful solempne man. …
…………………………………………
As doon the sterres in the frosty night.
This worthy lymytour was cleped Huberd.
There was a Friar, a wanton and merry one, a limiter, a very solemn man. In all the four
orders of the friars there was no one that knows so much of flattering talk and elegant speech.
He had made many a marriage of young women at his own cost. Of his Order he was a noble
supporter. He was very well beloved and on good terms with Franklins everywhere in his
country, and also with worthy women of the town; for he had the power of confession, as he
said himself more than a parish priest, for his Order gave him a license to do so. Very sweetly
he heard confession and pleasant was his absolution. He was an easy man to give penance
there where he knew he would get a good donation. For to give to a poor order (of friars) is a
sign that a man has confessed truly; if a man gave then the friar dared to assert that he knew
the man was repentant; For many a man is so hard in his heart that he cannot weep even
though he suffers painfully. Therefore, instead of weeping and prayers, one may give silver to
the poor friars.
His hood was stuffed full of knives and pins to give to fair wives. And certainly he
had a merry voice. He knew well how to sing and play on a rote (string instrument). Of
singing ballads he absolutely took the prize. His neck was white as the lily flower’
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furthermore he was strong as a champion. He knew the taverns well in every town and also
every innkeeper and barmaid better than he knew a leper or a beggarwoman.; for a worthy
man as he it was not suitable due to his position to have acquaintance with sick lepers. It is
not respectable; it may not be profitable to deal with such poor people. But all with rich
people and sellers of victuals. And especially, wherever a profit was to be made, he was
courteous and humble.
There was no man anywhere so capable as him. He was the best beggar in his house.
And gave a certain fee for his grant that none of his brothers (fellow friars) came to his
begging area. For though a widow did not have a shoe, so pleasant was his ‘In principio’ that
he would get a farthing from her before he went. His profit or income (from begging) was
much more than the rent he paid to his Order.
He could flirt and frolic as if he were a young puppy. He knew how to help settle
disputes on love days for there he was not like a cloistered monk with a threadbare cloak like
a poor scholar but he was like a Master of Arts or a pope. His short cloak was woollen and
rounded as a bell fresh form the press. In his affectation he lisped somewhat to make his
English sweet upon his tongue; his eyes twinkled in his head exactly as do the stars on a
frosty night. This worthy friar was called Huberd.
The third member of the first group of ecclesiastical characters is the Friar who besides being
worldly, is also wicked. His portrait is the lengthiest in the Prologue as it has sixty-two lines
to it. In addition, he is one of the most strongly individualized portraits which is at the same
time typical. Apart from the Prioress, he is the only other member of the company who is
named in the General Prologue. Brother Hubert, as he is called by Chaucer, may have had
some actual real-life counterpart which could have led Chaucer to name him so early in the
work. Apart from this however, the name has not appeared in any records and there is nothing
in it to support the Friar’s nature as there was in the case of the Prioress.
For a full understanding of this character, we should turn back to history, to the
beginnings of the mendicant Orders some two hundred years before Chaucer’s time. Bowden
explains:
When Chaucer was writing, four great orders of friars had long been established in
England. The friars were at first religious men who were dedicated to active service in
the world, in contradiction to the monks who were dedicated to cloistered
contemplation. The Dominicans, founded by St-Dominic in Spain in the early
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thirteenth century, were the first in England, coming there in the year 1221. Because
they were organized primarily to combat heresy through preaching, the Dominicans
were often called the Preaching Friars;; they were also sometimes called either Black
Friars, because of their garb, or Jacobins, because of the situation of a House of theirs
in Paris on the Rue St. Jacques. The Fransiscans, founded by St. Frances in Italy about
the same time as the Dominicans, came to England in the Year 1224. Because St.
Francis placed great emphasis on humility and poverty, the Fransiscans were often
called the Minor Friars or Minorities; they were also sometimes called the Grey Friars
because of their grab. The third order of friars to come to England was that of the
Carmelites, or white Friars, in 1245. The Carmelites laid pretentious claims to having
been instituted by Elijah, but their rule was not formulated until the thirteenth century.
Finally, the Augustine or Austin Friars established themselves in England sometime
after 1256 when they were formally recognized. The Austin Friars said their true
founder was the fifth-century, St. Augustine of Hippo. But by the fourteenth century
any one of these four orders differed from any other, only in name and dress, for all
had come to be dominated, at least in what they professed, by the ideals of St. Francis,
and all were classed together as “Mendicants” because they theoretically “begged
their support from the world.” (Bowden, p. 119-20)
By Chaucer’s time however, this ‘begging’ which was permitted only as a necessity, became
the exceedingly profitable business of the Order leading to much corruption. Chaucer’s Friar
is a typical representative in that sense. He is a ‘lymytour’ which in the fourteenth century,
signified a begging friar to whom was assigned a certain district or limit within which he had
the right, sometimes the sole right, to beg.
The limiters were notorious for their illicit, immoral relation with women and
Chaucer comments on this aspect when he says:
He hadde maad ful many a marriage
Of Youge wommen at his owene cost. (Lines: 212-13)
We are not to suppose even for one moment, that the Friar’s intentions behind getting these
girls married were disinterested and good. In all probability, these young girls had first been
seduced by him and had been his mistresses. Chaucer gives us a detailed account of his
seductive powers: his ‘typet’ (long pouch) is always full of the little trinkets that young
women love; he can delight them with ‘a murye note’ (235) when he sings as he plays on the
‘rote’ (a small harp), His ‘yeddynges’ or popular songs, were good enough to merit a prize
according to the narrator. In addition to this he is a strong, virile man, having the strength of a
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champion and a pleasing appearance with a neck as white as the lily. The poet Chaucer here
juxtaposes two absolutely dissimilar images -- strength of a champion and the delicateness of
a lily, probably with an intention of suggesting the comfortable, luxurious style of the Friar’s
life. The physical description befits such a lifestyle:
But he was lyk a maister or a pope;
Of double worstede was his semy cope,
That rounded as a belle out of the presse. (Lines: 261-63)
His lisping, his sweet English, his harpings and his eyes that twinkled like stars on a frosty
night, all serve to attract the women towards him for the evil gratification of his carnal
desires.
Our Friar is a frequent visitor to the taverns of every town and knows well each
innkeeper and every barmaid better than he knows the poor lepers of his area. Once again the
contrast implies a criticism. He certainly does not know or even care to know about the
people he should be caring for. In a tongue-in-cheek manner the poet Chaucer makes the
narrator agree that such a worthy man as the Friar should not be having any acquaintance
with the lepers. Therefore he deals only with the rich and is courteous and humble towards
them.
In a characteristic style the narrator praises the begging powers of Brother Hubert.
Notice the subtle and pervasive irony.
Ther was no man nowhere so vertuous.
He was the beste beggere in his hous;
For thogh a wyde hadde noght a sho
So plesaunt was his In Principio,
Yet wolde he have a ferthyng er he wente::
His purchas was wel bettre than his rente. (251-6)
The seemingly innocent account begins with an assertion of the Friar’s virtue. What follows
however further exposes this ‘virtue’ for what it is because the Friar never hesitates to draw
out a penny even from a poor widow who has no shoes on her feet. Chaucer, the pilgrim, is
all praise for his begging abilities in choosing to include this detail the poet Chaucer exposes
the wickedness of the deed.
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To increase his earnings, the Friar has found another easy way out. He takes money
from the penitent in order to absolve them of their sins:
For many a man so harde is of his herte
He may not wepe although him soore smerte,
Therefore in stede of wepynge and preyeres
Men moote yeve silver to thc poure frers. (Lines: 229-32)
The apparently logical argument is stood on its head because we cannot grant the initial
premise itself. What kind of penitence is it which fails to wring out prayers and tears. Men
have found a comfortable way out and the Friars continue to line their own pockets. The poet
Chaucer is here exposing the evil practice of such an absolution that had become quite
common in his times. This is the first portrait where we see a complete lack of sympathy on
Chaucer’s part. The Friar comes across as a complete scoundrel. Yet the poet’s vision is too
humane to condemn him outright. We get a glimpse of it in the vivid and individualizing
detail of his eyes that twinkle like stars on a frosty night as the Friar goes about singing his
love ditties.
Wantowne Lively, playful

merye merry
lymytour Licensed to beg in a limited area
solempne Pompous, impressive
The four orders of the friars: The Franciscans (the Grey Friars), the
Orders four Dominicans (The Black friars), The Carmelites ( White Friars) and the
Austin Friars.
Noon that kan None that can
muchel much
daliaunce Flattery that is flirtatious
His ordre His order of Friars
Noble post Noble pillar
frankeleyns Householders, landowners
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contree district
Power of The Friar claimed to have been given the power to hear people’s
confessioun confession and absolve them of their sins
Moore than a curat More than a parish priest
He was licenciat He was licensed
Herde he Heard he
absolucioun absolution
Good pitaunce Good donation
Povre ordre The order of the begging friars
yive give
Wel yshrive Shriven or absolved of sin
dorste dared
Make avaunt assert
wiste knew
Soore smerte Deeply pained
moote may
tipet long pocket in a cape
Farsed ful Stuffed full
Yeven give
Murye note Pleasant voice
rote String instrument
yeddings Songs, ballads
Flour-de-lys lily
tappestere barmaid
lazar leper
beggestere beggar
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swich such
Accorded nat Accorded not, did not suit him
facultee position
sike sick
It is nat honest It is not respectable
It may nat avaunce It may not be advantageous to him
delen Deal with
Swich poraille Such poor people
vitaille food
Over al, ther as Above all, wherever
Lowely of servys Humble in offering his service
Certeyne ferme Certain rent
graunt Licence (to beg)
In his haunt In his area or territory
sho shoe
ferthing farthing
er Before
His purchas … rente His gain or profit was much more than the rent he paid to his Order
rage frolic
Right a whelp Like a puppy or young dog
Days set aside for out of court settlement of disputes. This was done
Love days
through arbitration by the clergy.
Cloisterer One who lives in a cloister like a monk
cope cloak
maister Master of Arts
Double worsted woollen
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Semi-cope Half cloak

Belle out of the
Curved out like a bell out of a press or mould
presse
lipsed Lisped
wantownesse Out of affectation
In his heed aright In his head certainly
doon do
sterres stars
cleped called
Check Your Progress

1. What was the job of a friar in Chaucer’s times? How did they earn their
living?
2. How does Chaucer individualize the portrait?
3. Give two examples from the portrait to bring out Chaucer’s underlying
criticism of the Friar.
4. How is Chaucer exposing the evil practices of the Church in his times?
6.2.7 The Merchant

Lines 270 – 284
A Marchant was ther with a forked berd
In mottelee, and hye on horse he sat …
…………………………………………
For sothe he was a worthy man with alle
But sooth to seyn, I not how men hym calle..
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There was a Merchant with a forked beard wearing multi-coloured clothes and he sat proudly
on his horse. Upon his head he wore a Flemish beaver hat, and his boots were buckled
handsomely and elegantly. He spoke out his opinions quite impressively always pronouncing
the increase of his profits. He wanted the sea to be guarded at all costs Between
Middleborough and Orwell. He knew well how to deal in foreign exchange. This worthy
man, says Chaucer, used his wit very well for no one could make out that he was in debt, he
was so dignified in his conduct with his buying and selling and his money lending. Truly he
was a worthy man indeed, but to tell the truth Chaucer says, he did not know what he was
called.
The Merchant is probably the wealthiest member of the rapidly rising middle class of
fourteenth century England. With his portrait begins that group of pilgrims which consists of
people who are all characterized by their attitude lo material possessions. Though numerous
and varied, difficult to classify as one group, they nevertheless share a love for money. The
fashionably dressed Merchant, heads the list. Chaucer calls him a ‘worthy’ man but the word
does not carry moral connotations here. The merchant is not worthy in the same sense as the
Knight was. The word is intended to imply criticism here for this man who is so blatantly
dishonest and devious.
The pilgrim Chaucer does call him ‘worthy’ but the last line of the portrait almost
seems to convey contempt for the merchant class:
But, sooth to seyn, I noot how men hym calle. (Line: 284)
He does not even give him a fictitious name: Of course, the reasons may have been prudent
but the offhand manner in which Chaucer says it, implies indifference and contempt more.
The omission of his name has been interpreted as deliberate on the poet’s part indicating the
condescending attitude that the courtly figures had towards the rising middle classes and we
must remember that Chaucer was a court poet. The portrait however is a typical
representation of a wealthy section of fourteenth century society. Bowden points out another
probable reason for omitting his name:
“Medieval merchants, those men engaged in the whole-sale traffic of wool, hides,
cloth, iron and tin, were also bankers and moneylenders of the nation. Chaucer might
easily have had dealings with such a man and would probably have thought twice
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before ridiculing a merchant and then identifying him. Rich and poor, proud and
humble, even the king himself, all felt the power of the men who exploited the wealth
of England, and now indirectly controlled the national purse strings. Merchants in the
later Middle Ages enjoyed a social position which for all that it was tacitly and
sometimes impermanently held, exceeded that of many a noble” (Bowden, p. 146).
Chaucer describes the physical attributes first. This man with a forked beard, is dressed in
motley i.e. cloth woven with a figured design and often having many colours. He sits high
and dignified on his horse wearing a beaver hat on his head with his boots clasped neatly. He
is anxious, just as all merchants were, that his trade route, the sea, should be guarded at all
costs. Especially the sea between the two posts of “Middelburgh and Orewelle.” His anxiety
is all the more relevant because at this particular time there was a constant threat of a French
or Flemish invasion.
Defying all civil laws, the Merchant deals in foreign exchange speculation and sells
French ‘sheeldes’ (crowns) for a profit. He quite wittily hides the lamentable fact that he is in
debt so that he can live in luxury instead of paying the creditors. Quite typical again is his
“Chevyssaunce” or lending money for a price. The word however has connotations of
dishonesty attached to it because it had now become a custom that the Merchants would
charge from the borrower, more money than was actually lent. Their argument was of course
valid. Had they invested the same money in a business deal they would have stood to gain
and made a profit. Having lent the money they forego this opportunity of earning some more.
So why should they not charge interest. We as modern readers are quite accustomed to this
system of borrowing and lending on interest, but the fourteenth century condemned it as
usury.
berd beard
mottelee Cloth with multi-colored pattern
hye high
Flaundryssh Flemish
bever beaver
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clasped buckled
fetisly handsomely
resons opinions
spak spoke
sownynge declaring
Th’encrees of his
The increase of his profits
wynnyng
He wolde the see. . . He wanted that the sea between Middleburg and Orwelle be guarded
Orewelle against pirates at all costs
eschaunge Foreign exchange
Sheeldes French coins
Ful wel his wi

Used his wit/intelligence very well
bisette
Wiste no wight Knew no person
dette debt
estatly dignified
governaunce conduct
bargaynes bargains
chevyssaunce Money lending
sothe truly
seyn say
noot Know not
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Check Your Progress

1. What is the difference in the use of the word ‘worthy’ for the Knight on the
one hand and for the Merchant on the other, by Chaucer?
2. Which class of medieval society does the Merchant represent in the gallery of
portraits?
3. Is Chaucer critical of this character? Why?
6.2.8 The Clerk

Lines 285 – 308
A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also,
That unto logyk hadde long ygo. …
…………………………………………
Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche
And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teach.
There was also a Clerk from Oxford who had begun his study of logic long ago. His horse
was as thin as a rake and he too was not very fat I affirm, says the narrator. He looked
emaciated and moreover sober. His short overcoat was very threadbare for he had not yet
obtained an ecclesiastical living, nor was he worldly enough to take up a secular employment.
For he would rather have at the head of his bed, twenty books bound in black or red, of
Aristotle and his philosophy, than having rich clothes or a fiddle or a gay psaltery. Even
though he was a philosopher he had but little gold in his coffer. Whatever he could get from
his friends he spent it all on books and on learning. He prayed diligently for the souls of those
that gave him the means to attend the schools. He took most care and paid most attention to
his studies. He did not speak one word more than was necessary and that too was said with
due respect and formality and was short and quick and full of high content. His speech was
consonant with moral virtue and he would gladly learn and happily teach.
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The Clerk of ‘Oxenford’ is the second ideal portrait after the Knight’s. The term ‘Clerk was
applied to any ecclesiastical student and Chaucer’s Clerk has devoted his time to the study of
‘Logic which was the principal subject in the Arts course at all medieval universities. He is
poor, thread-bare, being thin himself and mounted on a horse which is as thin as a rake. The
reason for his poverty is his inability to have procured a benefice for himself. “The benefice,
as contrasted with a secular post, may be defined as an ecclesiastical living, it demanded that
the recipient be in orders, particularly in English universities, where the impoverished student
was to be maintained by the authorities only until such time as he secured a living” (Bowden,
p. 155). Moreover, Chaucer’s Clerk is not worldly enough to earn his living through some
secular employment. The last sentence of the portrait does indicate that he takes up teaching
or tutoring to supplement his meagre means. Whatever money he earns or receives as gift, he
spends on books of which he possesses a few:
Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed, .
Of Aristotle and his philosophie, (Lines: 294-5)
If you go back to section 1.0 you will remember that books were quite a luxury in fourteenth
century England and were considered to be prized possessions valuable enough to be
bequeathed in wills. Possessing twenty books does make a man rich-but not in a material
sense. The Clerk likes to gratify his taste for books and learning rather than spend on “robes
riche; or fithele, or gay sautrie” (296).
Though he was a philosopher he had little gold in his coffer -a pun intended on the
word philosopher. In Chaucer’s time the word philosopher could also be used for an
alchemist who had collectively claimed that they could transform all metals into gold. But
certainly our clerk does not have any gold as his appearance itself suggests. He is a man of
few words but whenever he speaks it is with decorum and reverence. Though his words are
short and quick they are full of meaning “of hy sentence” and “sownynge in moral vertue”.
(306-7), The Clerk is grateful to his friends who lend him money, and in return he prays
fervently for their souls. He is a true scholar, devoted to learning and sacrifices all material
pleasures for knowledge.
Chaucer here gives us an ideal portrait rather than a realistic one. The facts do not
bear out the truth of this character. Clerks in Chaucer’s time were notorious for their crimes
of violence and would often disturb the peace of their neighbourhood by indulging in fights
armed with swords, bucklers, bows, arrows and other such weapons. There is enough
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evidence in the records to prove this. But Chaucer chooses to give us a picture of a true
philosopher, a true earnest scholar. There is not a hint of irony and the poet Chaucer as well
as the pilgrim Chaucer, both approve of him whole-heartedly.
clerk A university student

Oxenford Oxford
logyk logic
Longe ygo Long before
leene Lean, thin
Nas right fat Was not very fat
I undertake I swear
holwe hollow
Therto sobrely Also soberly
thredbare frayed
Overeste courtepy Topmost short cloak
Getten hym Got him
No benefice No living (from the Church)
To have office To have secular/administrative employment
Was levere Would rather
Beddes heed At the head of the bed
Twenty books would cost a lot and the Clerk would love to possess
Twenty bookes
them than any wealth
Clad in blak or reed Bound in black or red
Aristotle Greek philosopher
fithele fiddle
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sautrye Psaltery – a string instrument

Although he was a philosopher he had little gold in his coffer. There is
Al be . . . litel gold in a pun here on the word philosopher because philosopher’s stone was
his cofre believed to turn whatever it touched into gold but our philosopher
possesses no gold at all.
Freendes hente Get from his friends
bisily Diligently, earnestly
Wherewith Wherewithal/ the means
scoleye study
cure care
Night o word Not a word
Moore than was
More than was necessary
neede
seyd said
In forme Due formality/proper manner
In reverence With respect
quyk concise
Ful of hy sentence Full of elevated content or high meaning]
Sownynge in leaning towards
Check Your Progress

1. Is the Clerk’s portrait an ideal one?
2. What is the significance of the fact that the Clerk owns many books.
3. Explain the pun on the word ‘philosopher’ in lines---------
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6.2.9 The Sergeant of the Lawe

Lines 309 – 330
A Sergeant of the Lawe, war and wys
That often hadde been at the Parvys,
…………………………………………
Girt with a ceint of silk, with barres smale;
Of his array telle I no lenger tale.
A Sergeant of the Law was also there who was wary and prudent and had often been at the
Parvis or the porch of St Paul’s cathedral, very rich in excellence. He was discreet and
dignified – at least he seemed to be so since his words were so wise. He was often a judge in
the local courts, by letter of appointment and with full commission. For his knowledge and
his high renown (reputation), he had many a fees and robes given to him by his clients. There
was nowhere such a great purchaser of land. In fact all was unrestricted possession to him, his
purchasing could not be invalidated. There was nowhere so busy a man as he and yet he
seemed busier than he was. He knew how to express in legal terms all the cases and decisions
that had occurred since the time of King William (almost three hundred years ago).
Furthermore, he knew how to draw up a legal document so that no one could find a flaw in
his writing. He knew every statute by heart. He rode simply in a multi patterned coat tied
with a belt of silk with small stripes. Chaucer stops here saying he can tell us no more about
his clothing.
6.2.9.2 Comment
To understand what is meant by a Sergeant of the Law, we will have to go back to history. To
quote from Bowden once again:
A man of Law” could be any insignificant lawyer, but a sergeant of the law, was, in
Chaucer’s time and for nearly five hundred years afterwards, one of a superior order
of barristers, men from whom were chosen all the common law judges until 1873
(Bowden, p. 165)
Let us now see whether Chaucer’s Sergeant of the Law measures up to the above sketch or
not. The first two adjectives used for him are ‘war and wys’ i.e. wary and prudent, but this
time Chaucer does not associate prudence or wisdom, with worthiness, as he had done in the
case of the Knight who was wise as well as worthy. Here, the lawyer’s prudence borders
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more on cunning. His professional career, which is later described in some detail, bears proof
to the fact.
‘Parvys’ or ‘parvis’ has been described as “the enclosed area or court in front of a
building, especially of a cathedral or a church, in some cases surrounded as a cloister with
colonnades or porticoes” as was the parvis of St. Paul’s in London” (Bowden, p. 166-7).
Chaucer’s Sergeant is seen often at the Parvys, which means that he is probably often seen at
the investiture ceremonies performing the duty of introducing the newly created sergeants.
Therefore, this Sergeant of the Law is important enough to be entrusted with this duty.
The Sergeant is discreet and ‘of great reverence’ (312) but Chaucer checks our
responses here by inserting a qualification: “He semed swich, his wordes weren so wise”
(313). Meaning thereby that his words were so wise that he seemed worthy of reverence, but
as far as his character is concerned, Chaucer chooses not to answer for it. The clever use of
the word ‘semed’ at once implies a difference between appearance and reality. One can easily
read between the lines and notice that Chaucer is being quite critical of this man. Yet the
Sergeant’s importance is undiminished. He has been a justice in assizes both by ‘patent’ and
by pleyne commission’ (315). A brief explanation is needed here. The assizes were “sessions
held periodically in each country of England for the purpose of administering civil and
criminal justice by judges acting under special commissions. The term “by patente” indicates
that the justice ‘in assize” bore an open letter of appointment from the king, “by pleyn
commission” indicates that the justice bore a letter giving him jurisdiction in all kinds of
cases.” (Bowden, p. 167).
Chaucer proceeds to tell us that he fully deserves his eminent position for so far as his
knowledge of the law is concerned there was nobody who could beat him. He knows of all
the cases and judgements right from the time of King William. He knows every statute by
heart and there is not a person on earth who can find faults with his writing. Because of his
vast knowledge and his success in the cases he fights, he is paid handsomely by his clients.
He has often received a full set of clothing (“robes”) as payment for his services. When it
comes to his own purchases and investments, he is so shrewd at it that he can even buy a
piece of land with defective title (“infect”) and quite smoothly by-pass all restrictions and
hold it with a clear title. (in “fee symple”). By buying land he is slowly turning himself into a
landowner. In feudal England it was not easy to buy land since it was often given by the king
for services rendered and could not be bought and sold. The Sergeant however was crafty
enough to buy land that was freehold so that it stayed with him and his heirs forever. He can
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turn things to his advantage by writing out the documents in a way that nobody can find fault
with them.
The pilgrim Chaucer is impressed by this learned and efficient lawyer who would be
much sought after for his services. It goes without saying that he must be a very busy man.
The skilful use of the word ‘semed’ points at the ironic undertone of the whole sketch:
Nowher so busy a man as he ther nas
And yet he semed bisier than he was. (Lines; 321-2).
In his characteristic ironic manner Chaucer the poet exposes the pretentious nature of this
man who seemed to be busier than he actually was in his pomposity and self-importance .
He is not pompous in his dress though. Chaucer points out that he is dressed... ‘but
hoomly in medlee cote, Girt with a ceint of silk with barres smale’. (328-329).
The silk belt with its pattern of small checks (barres smale’) is a graphic detail and
stands out in the description individualizing the Sergeant.
What marks this particular portrait, is the constant difference between appearance and
reality. The discerning poet can see through the façade which has impressed the simpleton of
a persona that he is using, the pilgrim Chaucer. The poet’s irony here unmasks the Sergeant
of the Law as being a thoroughly materialistic man. Even his success is measured only in
material terms. Therefore every statement is double edged. Outwardly Chaucer is praising
this busy and successful man. He may even have a grudging respect for his experience and
his knowledge and skill. But there is an unmistakable undercurrent of criticism for this
lawyer who has no moral yardstick for his own character and for whom making money is his
top most priority.
War and wys Wary/alert and wise

The porch at St. Paul’s cathedral which was a point of meeting for the
Parvys
lawyers
Greet reverence Great dignity
Semed swich Seemed such
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assise Local courts - assizes

By patente By letter of authority from the King
Pleyn commissioun Full jurisdiction
His science His knowledge
Fees and robes Cash and kind
purchasour Buyer of land
Al was fee symple All was freehold/unrestricted ownership
bisy busy
caas cases
doomes judgements
Were fall Had occurred
therto moreover
Endite and make a
Draw up a legal document
thyng
No wight No one
Pynche at his
Find a flaw in his writing
writyng
Koude he pleyn by
Knew he completely by heart
rote
hoomly simply
Medlee cote Multi patterned coat
ceint belt
Barres smale Small stripes
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Check Your Progress

1. What is the profession of the Sergeant of the law?
2. How do we know that the Sergeant is good at his profession?
3. Explain what is meant what Chaucer means when he tells us that he has been a
justice in assizes both by ‘patent’ and by pleyne commission’.
4. Bring out the irony in the following lines: ‘Nowher so busy a man as he ther nas/
And yet he semed bisier than he was.’
5. Describe the Sergeant’s physical appearance in your own words.
6.2.10 The Franklin

Lines 331 – 360
A Franklin ther was in his compaignye
Whit was his berd as is the dayesye. …
…………………………………………
A shirreve hadde he been, and a contour
Was nowher swich a worthy vavasour..
There was a Franklin in the company of the Sergeant of Law and his beard was as white as is
a daisy. Of his complexion (temperament) he was cheerful. In the morning he loved to have
bread dipped in wine. His habit was always to live happily, for he was the son of (follower
of) Epicurus who held the opinion that living for pleasure was the path to happiness. He was
a householder and that too a great one. In his district he was like St. Julian who was the
patron saint of hospitality. His bread, his ale, was always of the same good quality; nowhere
was there a man who was so well stocked with wine.
His house was never without baked pies and the fish and meat was so plentiful that in
his house it snowed with food and drink. Of all the dainty food that men could think about
according to the various seasons of the year, he made for variety in his midday meal and
supper. He had many fat partridges in his coop and many breams and pikes in his fishpond.
His cook was in trouble unless his sauce was hot and spicy and his cooking gear or
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equipment was ready. His table was always laid out in the hall and stood ready covered with
a tablecloth.
He presided as lord (Justice of the Peace) at sessions of the country courts and was
also Member of Parliament many times. A dagger and a purse of silk hung from his
girdle/belt as white as morning milk. He had been a sheriff and an auditor or accountant of
his shire. Nowhere was there such a worthy landowner.
6.2.10.2 Comment
‘A Frankeleyn was in his compaignye.’ (331) - begins Chaucer, and the detail which probably
strikes him first of all about this interesting character is his white beard and sanguine
complexion:
Whit was his berd as is a dayesye.
Of his complexioun he was sangwyn; (Lines: 332-33). ·
Imagine a flawlessly white beard around a well-fed, rotund, face! Makes quite an impression,
so does the rest of the description about ‘this fun-loving character who because of his delight
in life is called Epicurus’s own Son. (Epicurus, we are all aware, was a Greek philosopher
who laid down the doctrine that pleasure is the chief good). Chaucer’s use of the word
‘sanguine’ has more implications than we as modern readers can understand. In his times, a
sanguine complexion i.e. a ruddy face, was only a part of the meaning of the whole term. As
Bowden explains: “the medieval physiologist classified human beings according to four
temperaments, determined by the supposed preponderance of one or more fluids (“humours”)
in the individual’s body” (Bowden, p. 174). The other three rival humours were melancholy,
choleric and phlegmatic. The sanguine complexion meant a combination of the hot and moist
humours and produced a large desire and capacity for all kinds of self-indulgence. The first of
these pleasure-seeking habits is mentioned by Chaucer, when he observes that the Franklin
loves ‘by the morwe a sop in wyn’ (335).
The Franklin’s self-gratification, his love for good wine and food make him a very
good householder. And he is so famous for his hospitality that he is called the “Saint Julian”
of his ‘contree.’ (Saint Julian was the Saint of hospitality). His bread, his wine were always
of the best quality, in fact, Chaucer, the pilgrim, is so impressed that he says he has never
seen a better stocked man. Chaucer clearly admires his organizational skills and also his
concern for quality. His fishponds are well stocked with fish as well as his pens with fowl
that are fatted properly. His cook too is always kept on his toes and has to maintain certain
standards.
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The Franklin’s considerable intelligence and skill that goes into maintaining his
household are also evident in the various duties he has taken up and performed well. We are
informed about the position he occupies in his community. Franklins in fourteenth Century
England were wealthy landowners of the gentry class. Chaucer’s Franklin, in addition to
being wealthy, has even held various important public offices. We are given an impressive
list:
At sessiouns ther was he lord and sire;
Ful ofte tyme he was knyght of the shire. . .
.…………………………………..
A shirreve haddle he been, and a countour;
Was nowher such a worthy vavasour. (Lines: 355-360)
The narrator seems to be thoroughly impressed by this man who has acted as Justice of the
Peace, has often been a Member of the Parliament, he has even been a sheriff and a pleader in
court (“contour”). All these positions were responsible positions and Chaucer’s Franklin
seems to have fulfilled his responsibilities quite well. He is not only generous and fun loving
but serious and responsible at the same time. Chaucer the narrator, is so overwhelmed that he
describes him in hyperbolic terms and ends the description by observing that ‘was nowher
swich a worthy vavasour’. (360). ‘Vavasour’ is a term that was synonymously used with
‘franklin’ both terms meaning a landowner. Knowing full well by now how the meaning and
interpretation of a word is used flexibly when applied to different characters by Chaucer, we
must understand that he is not assessing him morally when he calls him ‘worthy’. The
Franklin’s ‘worthiness’ lies in the way he has been successful in life and in his various
offices.
We are told almost nothing of the Franklin’s dress. Probably because he was clad in
the uninteresting ordinary clothes of a country gentleman, but of course, Chaucer’s roving
eye does catch the glint of the “anlaas” and the beauty of the “gipser” both of which hang
from the girdle. The Franklin’s “gipser” or pouch, is of silk and is “whit as more milk” thus
striking against a gown which was probably of a dark shade. The “anlaas” was a large
hunting dagger having a broad blade, sharp at both ends, and tapering to a point. Both these
items mentioned here were worn either by wealthy civilians, or distinguished men of law.
When Chaucer observes that the Franklin has both these items on his person, he is making a
further connection between him and the gentry.
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At the end of this description we may feel that for a change Chaucer the poet, has
stopped being critical. Here is a portrait of a genial, hospitable man who shares his table with
everyone. So far so good. But what about the detailed account of the variety of food prepared,
consumed and many times probably thrown away at the house of the Franklin? Chaucer here
is obliquely protesting against the sheer wastage implied in the expensive food habits of this
man, detailed for the readers.
The Franklins were country gentlemen who were landowners. They

were free men who held land directly from the King as against the
Frankeleyn
Knights who were given land for military services rendered to the
Crown.
Company. The franklin rides in company with the Sergeant at Law who
compaignye
is a purchaser of land thus another landowner
Whit was his berd White was his beard
dayesye daisy
temperament. There were four complexions: melancholy, choleric,
phlegmatic and sanguine. These were determined by a combination of
complecioun
‘humours’ (hot, cold, moist and dry coming from the four fluids of the
body phlegm, black bile choler (yellow bile) and blood. In
The sanguine temperament was determined by blood and hence the
sangwyn
ruddy face and the generous and fun-loving nature of the Franklin.
By the morwe In the morning
Sop in wyn Bread soaked in wine
delit Delight/pleasure
wone habit
Epicurus Greek philosopher who advocated a life of pleasure
Verray felicitee
Truly perfect happiness
parfit
greet great
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Seint Julian Saint Julian, a legendary saint famous for his hospitality
contree district
breed bread
Always after oon Always of the same (fine) quality
envyned Well stocked with wine
Bake mete Baked pies
Fish and flesssh Fish and meat
Mete and drynke Food and drink
Alle deytees All the delicacies
sondry various
Changed he He made for variety
muwe coop
Breem and many a
Bream and many a pike (both words meaning types of fish)
luce
stuwe Fish pond
Poynaunt tangy
Redy al his geere Ready all his equipment
Table dormant Opened and laid out not folded and stood up against the wall
Redy covered Covered with tablecloth
sessiouns Sessions of the district courts
Knyght of the shire Member of Parliament for the country
anlaas dagger
Gipser purse
Heeng at his girdel Hung at the belt
Whit as morne milk White as morning milk
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shrieve sheriff
Contour Auditor or accountant
vavasour landowner
Check Your Progress

1. Describe the physical appearance of the Franklin in your own words including
all the details.
2. What did the profession of a Franklin entail?
3. What is implied by the use of the word ‘sangwyn’ by Chaucer in his
description of the Franklin.
4. To which class does the Franklin belong? Give reasons for your answer.
5. Is Chaucer being at all critical of the Franklin or does he approve of everything
about him?
6.2.11 The Five Guildsmen

Lines 361 – 378
An Haberrdasshere and a Carpenter
A webbe, a Dyere, and a Tapycer …
…………………………………………
And goon to vigilies al before
And have a mantel roilliche ybore
This is the portrait of the five guildsmen who are grouped together by Chaucer. He tells us
that there was a retailer of small goods, a carpenter, a weaver, a dyer and a tapestry maker
and they were all clothed in one kind of livery or uniform which was of a serious
brotherhood. Their gear or equipment was freshly trimmed, and their knives were not
mounted with brass but entirely with silver. Their belts and their purses were wrought very
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neatly and well. Each of them seems a dependable citizen to sit on a dais in the guildhall.
Every one of them was suitable to be an alderman for the wisdom that he had. For they had
enough property and income and also their wives would well agree to it or otherwise
certainly they would be to blame. It is very well to be called ‘madame’ and go before
everyone to feasts on the eve of the guild festivals and have their veil be carried like a queen.
A Haberdasher, a Carpenter, a Weaver, a Dyer and a Tapestry maker- these five men
belonging to different professions, are collectively, referred to as the five guildsmen. They
are all dressed in one kind of clothes and belong to one “greet fraternitee” (364). A word of
explanation is needed before we go any further. Alfred W. Pollard, in his edition of The
Prologue writes:
The Fraternities or guilds of the fourteenth century, were of two kinds, those whose
objects were purely religious and social, and those of which each was restricted to
members of a particular craft or trade, for which they made regulations. These five
pilgrims apparently also belonged to their craft guilds, but as they were of five
different occupations, the fraternity, of which they all wore the living, was obviously
only social and religious. (p. 65-66)
Thus these five men, probably belonging to the same parish, therefore wearing the same
livery, provide an opportunity for mentioning the various different areas that the rising
middle-classes were taking up as profession. The Haberdasher, originally meaning a cloth-
merchant, dealt in other different kinds of goods, eg. hats, ribbons, spectacles, caps, threads,
pins etc. The carpenter, the weaver, the dyer and the tapestry maker all have their profession
described in the name itself. One important fact that the pilgrim Chaucer notes about these
guildsmen, is their show of wealth. Not only are their clothes fresh and new and adorned with
some kind of decoration, but more importantly, their knives were mounted not with brass but
silver:
Hir Knyves were chaped noght with bras,
But al with silver, wroght ful clene and weel. (Lines: 366-67)
You may recall that in section 1.5 the important relevance of the above statement has already
been discussed. The sumptuary laws were laws that were formulated to control the excesses
in diet and apparel in Chaucer’s time and these laws forbade any tradesmen or mechanics to
carry silver-mounted knives. Hence Chaucer’s guildsmen are breaking a law as well as
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flaunting their wealth by having their knives tipped with silver. The rest of their description
only emphasises their riches:
Wel semed ech of hem a fair burgess
To sitten in a yeldehalle, on a deys.
Everich for the wisdom that he kan
Was shaply for to been an alderman, (Lines: 369-372)
Chaucer the pilgrim here makes a tall claim for these five guildsmen. He finds each of them
worthy to sit on a dais in a guild hall, thereby implying that they are all fit to be the Mayor or
the Alderman as these were the only people who sat on the dais. The point is re-emphasized
in line 371-2 and the reason given is their knowledge and wisdom. If these are not enough for
a claim to a political office then the subsequent lines inform us that they possess the
necessary property and income:
For catel hadde they ynogh and rente (Line: 373).
The four concluding lines of this group character sketch are surprisingly concerned with the
wives of these five guildsmen. It is amusing to note that Chaucer here paints a true picture of
the social climbers in any age, at any time, at any place. First of all he says that the wives
would readily agree with him when he claims that these five men are worthy of a high
political office. If they fail to do so then they are certainly to be blamed. They find it
delightful to be addressed as ‘Madame’ and love to go to the guild festivals (‘vigilies’) where
they precede everyone else and make a royal entrance by having their mantel carried for
them. Pretentious and affected, these ladies are aspiring for a much higher place in the social
ladder than the one that fourteenth century society intended for them. The satire though mild
is unmistakably present. We know only too well that such social climbers can be found in any
place at any point in time. The external trappings may differ but the need to boast about their
riches and their social position remains the same. Such insights into human nature make for
Chaucer’s perennial appeal.
haberdasher Cloth merchant or retailer of sewing materials or hats and ribbons

Alle in o lyveree All in one uniform
Greet fraternitee Great fraternity. The fraternity here is social or religious because
professionally they do not belong to the same guild. In other words,
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they are from different professions.

Gere apiked Equipment trimmed
Chaped noght with Not trimmed with brass but with silver. This is a sign of their social
bras. . . . silver status due to their newly acquired wealth.
everydeel Every bit
Fair burgeys Good citizen
yeldehalle guildhall
On a deys dais
everich everyone
kan knows
Was shaply Was suitable
Was shapely . . .
They were fit enough to be an alderman or the head of a guild
been an alderman
For catel hadde . .
For they had enough property and income
.rente
Wel assente Well agree
ycleped Be called
vigilies Ceremonies held on the eve of feast days
Al bifore Before everyone
mantel The long veil or train of the gown
roialliche royally
ybore carried
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Check Your Progress

1. Which class of society do the five Guildsmen represent?
2. What does Chaucer mean when he says that they belonged to one fraternity?
3. Why are the Guildsmen carrying silver tipped knives? What is the
significance of this?
4. What is Chaucer criticizing in these five Guildsmen?
6.2.12 The Cook

Lines 379 – 387
A Cook they had with them for the nones
To boil the chiknes with the marybones. …
…………………………………………
That on his shyne a mormal hadde he.
Or blankmanger, that made he with the beste.
The Guildsmen have a Cook with them for the occasion, to boil the chickens with their
marrow bones, and flavour them with a tangy powder and spices. He knew well how to judge
a draught of London ale and he also knew how to roast and boil and broil and fry, make a
stew and bake a pie. But it seemed to me says the narrator, that it was a great harm that he
had an open sore on his shin. But as far as white pudding goes, he made it the best.
The Cook forms a part of the group of the Five Guildsmen, but interestingly he is singled out
and described as an individual. It is another sign of affectation on the part of the Guildsmen,
to have a Cook with them:
To boille the chiknes with the marybones,
And poudre-marchant tart and galyngdale. (Lines: 380--81)
By any standards, the Cook is good at his job. He can recognize a draught of London ale
which was famous by Chaucer’s time. He could roast and boil and broil and fry and could
make a good stew (“montreux”) as well as bake a pie.
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So far, the only disqualifying comment is in the hint that the Cook is probably a strong
drinker as he is said to be familiar with London ale- the most potent of the prevalent alcoholic
beverages. But what follows after this description further disparages the Cook’s character
though only by implication. The pilgrim Chaucer, who is obviously impressed by the Cook’s
skill in the culinary art, feels it to be a pity that such a good Cook should have a ‘mormal’ a
running sore on his shin:
But greet harm was it, as it thoughte me,
That on his shyne a mormal hadde he. (Lines: 385-86).
To understand the wider implications of this observation one needs to go back to an
explanation of the word ‘mormal’. According to Professor Curry this ulcer is to be identified
with Malum mortuum of the medieval medical treatise. The causes of this disease are
summed up thus: ‘uncleanly personal habit” “the eating of melancholic foods and the
drinking of strong wines,” and “disgraceful association with diseased and filthy women”
(Bowden, p. 185-86) Thus what may appear to be a casual observation at first sight, is in fact
a devastatingly revealing statement that exposes the Cook to be an unpleasant character. Yet
Chaucer ends the sketch by reminding us once again of his skill at his profession:
For blankmanger, that made he with the beste, (Lines: 387).
The recollection of that ugly sore on the Cook’s shin is too strong, however, to be replaced by
the description of the delicious blancmange pudding that seems to be the Cook’s speciality. It
is Chaucer’s skilful art of characterization that has exposed the Cook’s immoral propensities
through just one observation.
For the nones For the occasion

chiknes chickens
marybones marrowbones
Poudre-marchant Flavouring powders or mixture of spices
tart sharp
galyngale Similar to ginger
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knowe Recognize
Rooste roast
sethe boil
broille broil
frye fry
Maken mortreux Make stew
pye pie
shyne shin
mormal Open or running sore
blancmange pudding (blanc means white and mange means dessert. It
blankmanger
is made with rice, milk and sugar)
beste Best quality
Check Your Progress

1. Who is the Cook employed by in this company of pilgrims?
2. What does the Cook have on his shin/ What does this tell us about his habits?
3. What is Chaucer’s reason behind telling us that the Cook makes the
blancmange pudding very well? Why is the image disgusting?
6.2.13 The Shipman

Lines 388 – 410
A Shipman was ther, wonyne fer by weste;
For aught I woot, he was of Dertemouthe. …
…………………………………………
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And every cryke in Britaigne and in Spayne.

His barge ycleped was the Maudelayne.
A Shipman was there dwelling far in the West; for all I know, says the narrator, he was from
Dartmouth. He rode upon a carthorse as best as he could in a gown of woollen cloth that
reached to the knee. He had a dagger hanging on a cord that went about his neck and down
under his arm. The hot summer had made his hue all brown and certainly he was a good
fellow. He had drawn many a draft of wine while coming from Bordeaux while the merchant
slept. He cared little for a clear conscience. If he fought and had the upper hand (with pirates)
then he sent his prisoners home by water to every country. But to talk of his skill – he could
reckon well or knew well his tides, his currents, and all the dangers around him. He knew
well his harbours and the positions of the moon and his navigation and Chaucer the narrator
says that there was no one like him from Hull to Cartagena. He was strong and prudent in
taking risks; His beard had been shaken by many a storm. He knew all the harbours as they
were from Gotland to the cape of Finistree, and every stream in Brittany and in Spain. His
ship was called the Maudelayne.
The presence of a Shipman in this group is quite significant because he is a representative of
that class of English society that had made England a known and feared rival contender for
trade by sea. The sea had been used by England as a trade route since the reign of Edward III.
The life of these sea merchants was one of hardihood and daring. Piracy was common on the
sea and at any time any trading ship could come under attack of a foreign vessel. Therefore
an armed shipman was a common sight for contemporary public. Chaucer’s rough and tough
Shipman is a typical representative of his class.
Chaucer tells us that his Shipman certainly hails from the West and probably from
Dartmouth. The detail individualizes him but at the same time has been included for a
specific reason. As Bowden explains “The men of Dartmouth, besides holding from the king
a blanket privateering commission, took the lead as freebooters, and were known as such
throughout England.” (Bowden, p. 193).
The Shipman has a rough and tough exterior. He rides as well as he could on a
“rouncy” i.e. a clumsy, heavy-footed horse. Being a sailor he is not familiar with riding
techniques which akes for an amusing sight. He is dressed in a short gown of a coarse
woollen cloth (“faldyng”); he wears a dagger hanging on a cord (‘Laas’) across his chest
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‘about his nekke, under his arm adown’ (l. 393); as for his skin, it has been scorched brown
because of the hot summer sun. From his looks the narrator at once arrives at the conclusion
that “certainly he was a good felawe.” (395). This observation is very interestingly placed
right in the middle of the sketch. So, while it forms a conclusion to the Shipman’s physical
description, at the same time it is a prelude to the immoral activities of the man the account of
which soon follows. Therefore we are left in no doubt at all that the so called ‘goodness’ of
the Shipman is questionable.
The Shipman is not at all averse to pilfering and indulging in petty robberies
whenever he gets a chance. The wine of Bordeux seems to be his weakness for if he has a
cargo of it on board he helps himself while the merchant sleeps. His sins do not end here.
Chaucer tells us about the manslaughter he indulges in:
If that he faught, and hadde the hyer hand
By water he senle hem hoom lo every lond. (Lines: 399-400)
Thus if he has an upper hand in a fight then whoever is taken prisoner is mercilessly thrown
into the sea and sent to a watery grave.
The Shipman may be a rogue, but he knows his craft well. What Chaucer admires
most in this character is his skill at his profession. The description that follows now eulogises
his efficiency as a very able sea-captain. There is no doubt that he is good at his job. He
knows well how to reckon tides; he is familiar with all the streams, currents and other
dangers that can cause him harm; he knows all the ports, he can navigate well even by the
moon, and he is a master at pilotage. In fact the narrator has not seen another Shipman like
him from Hulle to Carthage. He is quite hardy as his profession required him to be and also
wise enough to undertake many dangerous trips. We are told that his beard had been shaken
by many a tempest. He is so experienced that he feels at home in all the harbours be it
Gotland, Cape Finistree, or the small inlets (‘crykes’) of Brittany and Spain. Chaucer gives a
last individualizing touch when he tells us that this brave Shipman’s barge was called
‘Maudelayne’. Records prove the existence of this name, in the fourteenth century.
wonynge dwelling
Fer by weste Far in the West
woot know
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rouncy carthorse
faldyng Coarse woolen cloth
laas cord
adoun down
Hoote somer Hot summer
hewe colour
broun brown
felawe companion
Ful many . . . This could mean either that he had carried wine as cargo in his ship or
ydrawe that he had stolen wine while the merchant slept.
chapman merchant
Nyce conscience Clear conscience
Hyer hond Higher hand
By water . . . lond He sent them to a watery grave; he drowned them
craft skill
herbrewe harbour
moone moon
lodemenage Navigation, pilotage
Noon swich None such
berd beard
Alle the havenes All the harbours
cryke Creek or inlet
barge Ship
ycleped Was called
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Check Your Progress

1. Write a note on the profession of the Shipman.
2. Why is the Shipman armed?
3. How doe we know that the Shipman is a rogue?
4. What does Chaucer admire about him?
6.2.14 The Doctor of Physik

Lines 411 – 444
With us ther was a Doctour of Phisik;
In al this world ne was ther noon hym lik, …
…………………………………………
For gold in phisik is a cordial,
Therefore he lovede gold in special.
With us, says Chaucer the narrator, there was a Doctor of Medicine and in all this world there
was no one could speak of medicine and of surgery like him. He was well versed in
astronomy. He watched over his patients many times to find out the astronomically suitable
hours for them by use of his scientific and astrological knowledge. He knew well how to
calculate the favourable planetary position for his talismans to work on his patients. He knew
the cause of every malady, whether it was hot or cold or moist or dry and where it was
generated and of which humour. He was a very perfect practitioner. As soon as he knew the
cause and the root or source of his patient’s sickness, he straightaway gave him his remedy.
He had his apothecaries ready to send him drugs and his syrups, for each of them made the
other profit – their friendship was not new or recently begun.
The Doctor knew well his Esculapius and Dioscorides and also Rufus, old
Hippocrates, Haly and Galen, Serapion, Rhazes and Avicenna,Averroes, John the Damascan
and Constantine, Bernard and Gatesden and Gilbertyn. Of his diet he was moderate and it
was never in excess but greatly nourishing and digestible. His study of the bible was very
little. He was clothed in red and blue, lined with taffeta and with silk; and yet he was
judicious in spending. He kept what he earned in the time of plague. Since gold in medicine
is good for the heart therefore he loved gold in special.
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Chaucer begins this portrait by making an exaggerated claim for the Physician and calling
him unparalleled:
In all this world ne was ther noon hym lik
To speak of phisik and of surgery: (Lines: 412 - 413)
Modern readers might wonder what is the connection between ‘phisik and surgerye’ and
‘astronomye’ in which this doctor is well grounded? To understand their relevance we will
have to take a look at medieval medicine which was still in its infancy. A qualified Doctor
even in medieval England had to study medicine for almost about six to seven years before he
could be called a doctor. The courses of study were wide and there were various known
authorities for it. Chaucer gives us a long list of all medical authorities of his time thus
displaying his awareness about it too. He takes one name after another. Chaucer the narrator
might have found out about these names from the Doctor but it is Chaucer the poet who is
putting his knowledge to good use here. Esculapies, Deyscorides, Rufus, Yporas, Haly,
Galyen, Serapion, Razis and Avycen. Averrois, Damascicn and Constantym, Bemard,
Galesden and Gilbertyn have all been studied by the Doctor. Apart from knowledge about
these authorities, medieval medicine laid importance even on the science of Astronomy and
its relevance to medicine. As Bowden explains: “Astronomy in the Middle Ages included the
study not only of the nature and motions of heavenly bodies, but also of what we now term as
“astrology.” The key to man’s physical well-being was thought to be contained in the
mysteries of science and it was essential for a competent physician to know how to bring
about the proper coincidence of treatment with favourable aspects of the stars and planets”
(Bowden, p. 203).
Chaucer’s Physician therefore seems to be an admirably erudite man and treats his
patients with his combined knowledge of the various sciences. We are given a description:
He kepte his pacient a ful greet deel
In houres, by his magyk natureel.
Wel koude he fortunen the ascendent
of his ymager for his pacient. (Lines: 415-18)
Natural magic was the science of astrology that worked by an observation of the heavenly
bodies, as opposed to black magic which dealt with spirits. The Physician uses his natural
magic to determine the exact time when the stars would be in a favourable position for him to
apply his remedies. To do this he has to keep a constant watch over his patient. In addition to
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this he was even skilful in making talismans for his patients, at the exact times when they
would be most efficacious.
Chaucer’s Doctor of Physic is therefore a man of immense learning and skill having a
thorough knowledge of the various areas of medicine. We are told that he can tell the cause of
every illness, whether it was due to a hot humour or cold, moist or dry. Knowing the cause of
the disease and the roots of it too, he would then give the sick man his remedy. The narrator,
quite impressed by this successful doctor, calls him a “verray parfit praktisour” (422). You
may recall that Chaucer had described the Knight in an exactly similar phrase, but there was
not even a slight hint of any irony then. In the Physician’s portrait however he gives it a
considerable satiric tilt. In between the long list of the Physician’s impressive qualifications,
the poet inserts four lines which expose the man to be a thorough materialist, one who has
made a business out of a profession that should have been based only on a desire to serve.
The Doctor has an understanding with his chosen apothecaries (the modern-day chemists), to
send him the drugs he prescribed:
Ful redy hadde he his apotehcaries
To sende him drogges and his letuaries. (425-26)
To drive his point home, Chaucer is more explicit in the next line:
For ech of hem made other for to wynne;
Hir frendshipe nas not newe to bigynne. (Lines: 427-28).
The Doctor and the apothecaries, thus help each other to profit from the patient’s illness and
this has been going on for quite some time because as the poet says, their friendship is not
new.
Chaucer next comments on the diet of the Physician and finds it balanced, nourishing
and digestible and not superfluous like that of the Franklin. Details, however, are not given.
Another ironic touch is seen when we are told that this immensely learned man knows ‘but
litel on the Bible’ (437), implying thereby that he was probably, like other physicians of the
time, not a believer in God. It is obvious that he s not on this pilgrimage for any spiritual
regeneration.
From what is described of his dress, the Physician seems a wealthy and fashionable man. He
is dressed, from head to toe, in a rich cloth of red and blue colour. His robe is lined with
taffeta and fine silk (‘Sendal’). For all his expensive tastes, the Doctor is not a spendthrift and
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keeps safe all the profits that he makes in the time of diseases and epidemics. With a stroke of
genius, Chaucer puns on the Physician’s love for gold:
For gold in phisik is a cordial
Therefore he lovede gold in special. (Lines: 443-44)
The medicinal properties of gold had made it an invaluable material in ‘phisik’, therefore
says Chaucer, it is natural that a ‘doctor of phisik’ should love gold. We as readers are by
now intelligent enough, not to take the statement at face value. The greed and avariciousness
of this character stands exposed.
Phisik medicine
Noon hym lik None like him
Speke of Speak of
astronomy astrology
Kepte his pacient Watched over his patient
Ful greet deel Many times
In those hours when the planetary influence would work in favour of
In houres
his patient
Natural magic (astrology) as against black magic which dealt with
Magyk natureel
spirits
The Doctor would make his talismans at a time when the conjunction
Fortunen the
of the planets would be astrologically in favour of his patient and he
ascendent
would keep the patient’s dominant planet also in a favourable position
Ymages talismans
Everich maladye Every sickness or disease
This relates to the theory of humours. The four humours that
Hoot . . . drye determined the temperament of a person were hot, cold, moist and dry .
These were a combination of four elements earth, air, fire and water.
The temperaments they produced were melancholy, choleric,
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phlegmatic and sanguine and were linked to the four body fluids i.e.
blood (air), Choler or yellow bile (fire), phlegm (water) and black bile
(earth). A balance of these humours was essential for good health.
engendered generated
humour The four humours explained above
Parfit practisour Perfect practitioner
yknowe known
Of his harm the
The sourse of his patient’s harm
roote
boote remedy
apothecaries druggists
drogges drugs
letuaries syrups
Esculapius Aesculapius also known as the father of medicine in Greek mythology
Dioscurides, a Greek physician and author of the Materia Medica a
Deyscorides
book about medicinal plants.
Wrote in the second century and named the various parts of the human
Rufus
body
Hippocrates, the founder of Greek medical science, flourished in the 5th
Ypocras
century B C. The
Haly Persian
Wrote in the second century about his idea of the four elements and the
Galen
four humours
Arabian medical writer of the 11th century who wrote on herbal
Serapion
medicine
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Razis Rhazes of Baghdad from the end of the 9th century

Avicenna or Ibn Sina, of Bokhara, a renowned Arabian philosopher
Avicen
and physician
Averrois Averros, another Arabian authority on medicine
this was a name attached to the writings of two authors – a Christian
Damascien
and an Arab medical authorities of the 9th century.
He was a monk who brought Arabian learning to Salerno in the 11th
Constantyn
century
Bernard Bernard Gordon, a 14th century Scot professor of medicine
John Gaddesdon , a physician from 14th century, author of Rosa
Gatesdyn
Medicinae and doctor to King Edward II.
Gilbertus Anglicanus lived in the 13th century. Known for his work The
Gilbertyn Compendium of Medicine that gave a comprehensive view of the best
practices in medicine and surgery at the time.
diete diet
superfluitee excess
norissyng nourishing
Knew little about the Bible. Doctors were often considered to be
Litel on the Bible
atheists
Sangwyn and in pers Red and blue
taffata taffeta
sendal silk
Esy of dispence Moderate in his expenditure
Wan in pestilence Won in the time of plague.
Cordial curative
In special In particular
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Check Your Progress

1. Why is it important for the doctor to be well versed in astronomy and
astrology?
2. Which are the books he knows well, and which one does he know very little?
What does this tell us about the doctor?
3. What is meant by the four humours?
4. What is the nexus between the doctor and the apothecaries?
5. Explain the pun on the word ‘gold’ and bring out the irony in these lines: “For
gold in phisik is a cordial/ Therefore he lovede gold in special.”
6.2.15 The Wife of Bath

Lines 445 – 476
A good Wif was ther of biside Bathe,
But she was somdel deef , and that was scathe …
…………………………………………
Of remedies of love she knew per chaunce,
For she koude of that art the olde daunce.
There was a good Wife of Bath, tells the narrator, but it was a pity that she was a little deaf.
She was however skilled in cloth making in which she surpassed everyone from Ypres to
Ghent. In the entire parish there was no wife who could go to the Offering before her, and if
anyone did then certainly the Wife would be so angry that she forgot all about being
charitable. Her kerchiefs that she wore upon her head were very fine in texture and I dare
swear, observes the narrator, that they weighed ten pounds. Her stockings were of fine scarlet
red, tied closely and her shoes were soft and new. Her face was bold and fair and red in hue.
All her life she had been a worthy woman and had been married five times. This is not
counting the other company that she had kept in her youth. But there is no need to speak of
that now, says the narrator.
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Thrice the Wife had been to Jerusalem and had passed many a strange and foreign
seas. She had been to Rome and Boloigne, in Galicia at St James and at Cologne. She knew
much about wandering by the way. She was gap-toothed, truly to say. She sat easily upon an
ambler (a pacing horse), wearing a large wimple (veil), and a hat as broad as is a shield. She
wore an overskirt about her large hips and a pair of spurs on her feet. In fellowship she knew
well how to laugh and chatter. She knew about the remedies of love, as it happened for she
knew the tricks of the trade (from experience).
When Chaucer introduces the Wife of Bath, he introduces her as a ‘Wife’ rather than as a
professional cloth maker. For all other pilgrims Chaucer began their portraits by first
mentioning their profession, so we have “A knight ther was...’ ‘Ther was a Nunne, a
Prioress...’ or ‘A Monk ther was...’ or ‘Ther was a Doctor of Phisik...’ and so on. With the
Wife of Bath, however, he chooses to place an emphasis on her status as a wife (even though
at the time she is a widow). He chooses to make her status as a cloth-maker secondary to her
marital status. Of course, she is a much-married women, we are told, already married five
times and now is on the lookout for a sixth husband. Is Chaucer then trying to say that
‘marriage’ and not cloth-making is the profession of this ‘loud’ woman? Maybe so, but there
could be another reason for this too. The theme of the Wife of Bath’s Prologue as well as her
Tale is also Marriage and so the emphasis we find in the portrait is carried over into the Tale
and thus the tale and the teller are linked.
In a company of thirty pilgrims there are just two more women beside the Wife of
Bath. Both these women are from the Church, the convent to be more precise. One is the
Prioress who fits the bill for a heroine of any conventional romance, being beautiful and
sophisticated and the other who is also a nun is merely mentioned and not described. The
Wife of Bath, Dame Alison as she is called, is poles apart from the delicate feminine
attributes of the Prioress. Rather than being a beautiful and sophisticated figure like the
Prioress, the Wife of Bath is a coarse and ostentatious figure modelled more on the lines of a
female figure from a fabliau. She barges into this group of almost entirely male pilgrims,
refusing to be dictated to by any conventional standards of good moral and social behaviour
and also refuses to be the custodian of any conventional feminine virtues. Rather than being
submissive and demure she is boldly assertive and flashy in her dress and acknowledges with
an effrontery her liking for the physical pleasures of life.
Her partial deafness us what strikes the narrator next. In observing this fact he
immediately individualizes her:
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“A good Wif was ther of biside Bathe/ But she was somdel deef , and that was scathe
…”
She is a ‘good’ wife but has the misfortune of being a bit hard of hearing. We have to
be on our guard of course, to not take the use of the word ‘good’ at face value or for it to have
any moral implications. Her portrait reveals her to be a forthright woman, with a great sense
of humour, full of warmth, friendly, though with a little want of decorum, a little lack of
restraint. But on the whole a lively and amusing character who makes an unforgettable
impression on our minds. Let us see how the poet goes about this particular sketch.
The ‘good’ Wife is generally assumed to be from Bath, but Chaucer is less specific as
he places her not exactly in Bath but ‘biside’ or somewhere near it. She is so good at cloth
making that she even surpasses the expertise of the well-known weavers of ‘Ypres’ and
‘Gaunt’. Of course, you should be careful to note the subtle irony in this exaggerated praise.
The poet is telling us that this is how the Wife values her own skill. So forceful is her
personality that she makes her presence felt:
In al the parisshe wif ne was ther noon
That to the offrynge bifore hire sholde goon;
And if ther dide, certeyn so wrooth was she,
That she was out of alle charitee (Lines: 449 – 52).
The order of precedence in making the offering at church was of considerable importance in
the Middle Ages. The Wife of Bath is therefore very particular about not being preceded in
this matter, and if any other good wife dares to go before her, it will make her so angry that
she would then be out of all charity. Once again this is a tongue-in-cheek remark from the
poet, commenting on how the church was treated by these people. Religion or devotion was
far from their mind when they attended the church.
As befits a woman of her standing, the Wife is dressed lavishly. Her ‘coverchiefs’ or
headcovers are so elaborate and heavy that the narrator is sure that they weigh ten pounds.
She wears these particularly on Sundays. Her ‘hosen’ or stocking are of a fine scarlet red
colour and always tightly drawn not lose and hanging, and her shoes are soft and new. She
has a bold look on her face and is of fair complexion with a red tinge to it. Once again there is
a qualified use of the word ‘worthy’ because while the poet calls her so, he startles us in the
next line by telling us about her marital and extra marital adventures. To begin with she has
had five husbands and is now on the lookout for a sixth, not counting the other company she
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has had in her youth. But now is not the time to recount all this, and so saying the poet
switches over to other matters:
She was a worthy woman al hir lyve,
Housebondes at chirche dore she hadde fyve,
Withouten oother compaignye in youthe
But ther-of nedeth nat to speke as mowthe, (Lines: 459 – 462).
One wonders if there can be any connection between the Wife’s worthiness and the number
of husbands that she has had? Certainly, the word ‘worthy’ in this context does not carry any
moral connotations.
We are next told of her love for travelling in gay company and are given a long list of
the various places she has been to. She has visited Jerusalem thrice and has crossed many a
strange streams. She has been to Rome, Boloigne; she has visited the great altar of St. James
in Spain and has been to Cologne probably to visit the tomb of the Magi. There is perhaps no
exaggeration when Chaucer tells us that the Wife knows a good deal about ‘Wandrynge by
the weye’ (467). What is interesting, however, is the way Chaucer links up the fact of the
Wife being ‘gat toothed’ with her accounts of travelling. This particular physical
characteristic had many associations for the Middle Ages and it could be interpreted in
several ways. Such women were thought to be diversely passionate, envious, rich, luxurious,
bold, faithless, deceitful, suspicious, and in addition to all this Chaucer interprets it as a sign
of much travel. It is obvious how the Wife’s character bears out some of the other
interpretations as well. She is rich, successful, bold, amorous, must be passionate too, is
envious and could have been suspicious of her various husbands.
The Wife rides comfortably on an ambler i.e., an easy paced horse and is covered up
to the neck with a wimple. On her head she wears a broad hat which is amusingly likened to a
buckler or a small shield. She also wears a foot mantle or an outer skirt, around her ample
hips and her feet are clasped in a pair of sharp spurs. The portrait ends with a general
comment on her character:
In feloweships wel koude she laughe and carpe;
Of remedies of love she knew per chaunce,
For she koude of that art the olde dance. (Lines: 474-76)
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Being thus able to laugh and sing with her companions, she must surely have proved to be
interesting and amusing company. Being an old hand at the game of love, she is quite adept at
knowing all the various remedies for this illness, that afflicts all mankind.
You must notice that though the Wife of Bath has been to many pilgrimages and is
going to another one on this journey Chaucer never once gives any indication of her being
pious or devout. Her love for life, her love for physical pleasures is what is emphasized
throughout.
Her deafness will be linked later to an incident in her life when she recounts how she
came to losing her hearing in one ear. She was hit by her fourth husband when she snatched a
book he was reading about the sinfulness of women. At the same time her deafness has also
been seen to be symbolic of a refusal to accept the conventional interpretation of the
scriptures and rather make a selective choice from them to support her own theories about
marriage and sex in her Prologue to her tale. Her own interpretations of the scriptures run
counter to those provided by the Church Fathers. The latter most surely and quite
understandably carry the stamp of the patriarchal point of view and are almost always critical
and dismissive where women are concerned.
Glossary and Explanatory Notes Lines 445– 476
Biside Bathe Somewhere near Bath

Somdel deef A little deaf
Was scathe It was a pity
Clooth makyng Cloth making
Hadde swich an
Had such a skill
haunt
Ypres and Ghent, both places in Flanders and known for their skillful
Ypres and Gaunt
weavers.
Was ther noon There was none
Offertory – that part of the Mass when people offer gifts or make their
Offrynge ‘offerings’. These days money is offered but in medieval times people
often offered things of their own manufacturing. They go to the altar in
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order of social precedence.

before hire Before her, precede her
Sholde goon Should go
So wroth was she She was so angry
Out of alle charitee Beyond any thoughts of being charitable.
coverchiefs scarves
Ful fyne Very fine
Weren of ground textured
Dorste swear Dare swear
weyeden weighed
heed head
hosen stockings
Ful streite ytyed Tightly laced up or tied
Moyste Moist, supple
Reed of hewe Red of hue
At chirche dore In front of the church door where all marriages took place.
nowthe Right now
Straunge strem Foreign seas
muchel much
Gat-toothed Gap-toothed
Soothly for to say Truly to say
Amblere Amler, an easy paced horse
ywympled Wimple or chin band was tied well
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Bokeler or a targe shield

Foot-mantel Outer skirt
Spores spurs
Carpe chatter
Per chaunce As it happened
Koude knew
Olde daunce Old dance (tricks of the trade)
Check Your Progress

1. Why does Chaucer introduce her not by her profession but as a ‘wife’?
2. What physical disability does the wife suffer from?
3. Describe her physical appearance in your own words.
4. How many husbands has the wife had?
5. What does Chaucer mean by the comment ‘not counting other company in
youthe’?
6. What is Chaucer implying by the fact that the Wife is ‘gap-toothed’?
7. When Chaucer tells us that ‘she koude of that art the olde dance’ what is he
referring to? What is the wife well versed in?
6.2.16 The Parson

Lines 477 – 528
A good man was ther of religioun
And was a povre Person of a toun, …
…………………………………………
But Cristes lore and his apostles twelve
He taught; but first he folwed it hymselve.
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A good man was there of religion, and he was a poor Parson of a town, but he was rich in
holy thought and work, observes the narrator. He was a learned man, a scholar who would
truly preach Christ’s gospel and would devoutly teach his parishioners, continues the
narrator. He was benign, and wonderfully diligent and very patient in times of adversity, and
this had been proven many times. He was unwilling to’ curse’ (excommunicate) people for
non-payment of his tithes. There is no doubt that he would rather give some of his offering
and income to his poor parishioners. He knew how to find sufficiency in little or few things.
His parish was wide and houses were far apart but he did not leave visiting his parishioners in
sickness or in trouble, even those living farthest away in his parish, both high and low in
social ranking. With a staff in his hand and going by foot he set a noble example to his sheep
(parishioners), that first he wrought (practised) and only afterwards he taught. He took out
those words out of the gospel and added a metaphor to them, that if gold rusts then what will
iron do? For, if a priest, on whom men place their trust, be foul (corrupt) then it is no wonder
that a layman or an ordinary person would rust or go the wrong way. And it would certainly
be a shame if the shepherd is dirty while the sheep (parishioners) are clean. A priest ought to
set an example by his purity and show how his sheep (parishioners) should live.
The good Parson says the narrator, did not give his benefice on rent to leave his
parishioners stuck in the swamp and run off to London to Saint Paul’s to seek an appointment
as a chantry priest or to be hired by a guild. Rather, he stayed at home and took care of his
parishioners so that the wolf would not carry them away (so that they may not be led into
sin). He was a shepherd and not a mercenary. Though he was holy and virtuous he did not
despise sinful men, nor was he haughty or disdainful towards them in his speech. In his
teaching he was discreet and benign. It was his constant aim to draw folks to heaven by
fairness, by setting a good example. If, however, a person was obstinate, whoever he was, of
high rank or low, he would snub him sharply for that reason. There was nowhere a better
priest than him, says the narrator. He did not wait for or expect any pomp or reverence, nor
made himself excessively meticulous about conscience. He taught Christ’s teachings and
about the twelve Apostles but first whatever he taught he followed it himself.
This poor parish priest is an idealized figure whose portrait, like that of the Knight is devoid
of any satire or criticism. He is a good man of religion and though not rich in the worldly
sense he is rich in holy thoughts and work. He is also a learned man, a clerk, meaning thereby
that he has been to the university. In true spirit he preaches the Christ’s gospel and devoutly
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teaches his parishioners. Chaucer describes him in terms of his virtues. The Biblical image of
the priest being a good shepherd who would lead his sheep by setting a good example is
adhered to in the entire portrait. We are not told at all about his appearance or dress because
for him it did not matter and probably the narrator is so much in awe of the virtuous man that
external trappings have become irrelevant for him as well.
The poet Chaucer’s selection of details places an emphasis on things that the Parson
did not do as compared to the other ecclesiastical characters that we have met so far such as
the Monk, the Prioress and the Friar. These three characters, despite being connected directly
to the church are worldly to the core. Not so the Parson. He neither craves comfort nor money
or any material gains. For example, unlike other churchmen he would never leave his
parishioners and go chant prayers in London for a patron just to make some extra money. He
sets an example rather of frugal and clean living. He is an unusual man of virtue, such that his
like is not commonly seen. He is benign and wonderfully hardworking; lets nothing stop him
from fulfilling his duty; is patient in times of adversity and he hates to curse those who were
unable to pay the tithes i.e. the ten per cent income tax that every parishioner was expected to
pay. He is indeed an exceptional priest of his times. Instead of claiming from his poor
parishioners, he gladly gives them whatever offerings he receives or whatever ‘substance’ he
has because for himself he required very little: ‘He koude in litel thyng have suffisaunce.’
(Line: 490).
The narrator’s expectation is that such a thoroughly holy and virtuous man would be
contemptuous of the sinners. But it is not so at all. This Parson is not scornful of the sinful
man, nor is he unreasonably severe in his admonitions. Instead, he is discreet and benign in
his teaching and because of his fair treatment folks are inadvertently drawn towards him. If,
however, there was any obstinate man, whether he be rich or poor, he snubbed him sharply,
regardless of his status in society. Thus he is an exception in treating all men as equals and
making no distinction between the rich and the poor. We can believe the narrator when he
says that he had never seen a better priest.
The catalogue of virtues is not over yet. The Parson believes in practical teaching. and
never runs after pomp or reverence, nor is he bothered about fine theological issues which
might make him lose sight of important fundamentals. He is a true Christian and gladly
teaches Christs’ love and the twelve apostles, but it is re-emphasized that he first followed
himself whatever he taught others.
Chaucer the narrator almost revers this virtuous priest and Chaucer the poet gives us
an ideal portrait of what a man of the Church should be like. There are enough rogues in this
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gallery who have been used by the poet to expose the corruption in the Church. The Parson
stands in sharp contrast to all these figures showing the way things ought to be and can be.
When Chaucer the narrator sums up by saying ‘a better preest I trowe that nowher noon ys’
(Line: 524), there is absolutely no underlying satire on the poet’s part.
Povre persoun Poor parson

werk work
clerk scholar
preche preach
parisshens parishioners
benign gracious
pacient patient
swich such
Ypreved Was proven
Ofte sithes Many times
Ful looth Very reluctant
Excommunicate for tithes. People were supposed to give one tenth of
Cursen for his tithes
their income or produce to their parish priest. This was known as tithes.
Out of doute There is no doubt
substaunce income
Fer asonder Far apart
Reyn ne thonder Rain or thunder
meschief trouble
ferreste farthest
Muche and lite High ranking and low
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wroghte Took action

figure metaphor
iren iron
lewed Layman, uneducated
shiten Dirty, filthy (morally corrupt)
clennesse purity
Benefice to hyre Rent out his living
Leet his sheep Let his parishioners
Encombred in the
Stuck in the mud
myre
Chaunterie for If he so desired a priest could get himself (from a patron) the job of
soules chanting a daily mass for the peace of the soul of a dead person
bretherhed Brotherhood (religious)
Be appointed (a parish priest for a religious guild or brotherhood which
Been withholde
would be a wealthy Order)
His fold His parish
despitous scornful
Daungerous ne
contemptuous nor haughty
digne
benygne kind
bisynesse aim
snybben rebuke
nonys At that moment
Spyced meticulous
loore Teachings
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Check Your Progress

1. Before telling us about the Parson’s travels the narrator notes that in the
Parson’s parish the houses were ‘far asunder’ thereby meaning it was spread
over a large area. Ho does this characterise the Parson?
2. What does the Parson do before teaching his parishioners?
3. Explain the metaphor ‘when gold ruts what shall iron do’ in the context of
this portrait.
4. What is meant by tithes? What does the Parson do if any of his parishioners
is not able to pay the tithes?
5. Why does the parson refuse to go to London?
6.2.17 The Plowman

Lines 529 – 541
With hym ther was a Plowman, was his brother,
That hadde ylad of dong many a fother; …
…………………………………………
Bothe of his proper swynk and his catel.
In a tabard he rood upon a mere.
With him there was a Ploughman, his (the Parson’s) brother, who had carried many cartloads
of dung. He was a true worker and a good one, living in peace and perfect charity. He loved
God best with all his heart and at all times be they good or bad. And then he loved his
neighbour as he loved himself. He would thresh and also ditch and dig for the sake of Christ
for every poor person without taking any payment for his labour if it lay in his power. He
paid his tithes regularly and completely both of his labour and of his property. He rode in a
sleeveless jacket upon a mare.
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The Parson is accompanied by the poor Ploughman, (a small farmer), who is not only related
to him, being his brother, but is also similar to him in character. Thus, another idealized
portrait follows, which is quite far-removed from the actual facts surrounding the labour class
of the fourteenth century England, already discussed in section 1.4. Chaucer’s Ploughman is a
good and true labourer who has carted many a load of dung, living always in perfect peace
and charity. All the details of his life prove him to be an honest worker and a devout and true
Christian just as the Knight is. His portrait is in sharp contrast to the corrupt members of the
church that we have seen earlier like the Monk and the Friar. These men who should have
been true men of religion only use it for their self-gratification whereas the Ploughman, being
just an ordinary citizen yet lives up to the ideals of a true Christian.
He is dressed in a tabard which was a garment resembling the smock worn by country
labourers and rides upon a mare. Chaucer’s unqualified admiration for both these men, the
Parson and the Ploughman is strongly felt.
him The Parson

yclad Carried, hauled
dong dung
fother Cart-load
pees peace
Gamed or smerte Pleased or pained him
thresshe thresh
therto also
dyke ditch
delve dig
Povre wight Poor person
Withouten hyre Without payment
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His proper swink His own labour

catel property
tabard Short sleeveless jacket
mere mare
Check Your Progress

1. How Is the Plowman related to the Parson?
2. Describe the Plowman’s nature of work.
3. How is he dressed?
6.2.18 The Miller

Lines 542 – 566
Ther was also a Reve, and a Millere,
A Somonour and a Pardoner also, …
…………………………………………
A baggepipe wel koude he blowe and sowne
And therwithal he broghte us out of towne..

Lest we may feel the list of pilgrims to be endless Chaucer tells us that there are only a few
left now and he names them all together. There was a Reeve and a Miller, a Sommoner and a
Pardoner, a Manciple and Chaucer the narrator himself. There were no more. Then he begins
with the description of the Miller.
The Miller is a stout fellow indeed. He was strong of muscle and also big of bone. His
physical strength had been proven because at wrestling he would always take the prize. He
was stocky, broadly built and a large-framed fellow. There was no door that he could not pull
off its hinges or break it by ramming it with his head. His beard was as red as any sow or fox
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and moreover it was as broad as though it were a spade. On the top of his nose he had a wart
on which stood a tuft of hair, red as the bristles of a sow’s ears. His nostrils were black and
wide. He had a sword and a shield by his side. His mouth was as big as is a furnace. He was a
loudmouth and a bawdy talker, and his talk was mostly of sin and harlotry. He knew well
how to steal corn and take payment for it three times, and yet he had a thumb of gold indeed.
He wore a white coat and a blue hood. He knew well how to blow and play a bagpipe and
with that, says the narrator, he brought them all out of town.
This group of five pilgrims, appended as if it were as an afterthought, consists of thoroughly
and scathingly realistic portraits of cheats and rascals. Each one of them is a rogue to the
core, quite adept at cheating innocent people in their respective professions. Let us begin with
the first one -- the Miller.
In the Miller’s portrait, there is a focus on physical details. The narrator’s keenly
observant eye sizes him up and down and records the particulars as he observes them filling
them in with some additional information like the Miller always winning the wrestling
matches due to his physical strength or that metaphorically speaking he had a thumb of gold.
So impressive is the physique of the ‘stout carl’ that the narrator at once begins by describing
it in detail:
Ful byg he was of brawn and eek of bones; (Line: 546).
So strong is he that at the place where he came from, he would always win the ram in
wrestling matches. He was short-shouldered, broad, thick set (‘thikke knarre) fellow who
could pull off any door from its hinges or break it with his head if he ran into it. He is all
brawn and no brain it seems.
The narrator seems to be almost eulogising about the Miller’s strength. Just having
read the two ideal portraits of the Parson and the Plowman, we may begin to take the Miller’s
portrait at face value. The poet Chaucer however intervenes and we realize that the irony is
not so subtle now. The disparaging comparison of the colour of the Miller’s beard with a sow
and a fox immediately checks our reaction. The implications that are there in the physical
details would have been all too clear for the medieval audience. The camera now covers, as
though in a close up, a big wart that the Miller has on his nose, individualizing him
mmediately:
Upon the cop right of his nose he hade
A werte, and theron stood a toft of herys,
Reed as the brestles of a sowes erys; (Lines: 554-56).
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Once again in a thoroughly derogatory manner, the colour of the bristles on the wart is
compared to the colour of a sow’s ears. It cannot be a coincidence that twice, the same man is
compared to a pig and once to a fox. What are the implications? Well the associations are
with treachery, sloth, violence and also shameful fornication. The Miller has big dirty black
nostrils and a mouth as wide as a great furnace. Employed always in babbling, lying and
telling indecent stories:
He was a janglere and a goliardeys
And that was moost of synne and harloties. (Lines: 560-61)
Body and spirit thus show an interesting correspondence. He looks what he is. Now we come
to his skill in his business of cheating his customers:
Wel koude he stelen corn and tollen thries,
And yet he hadde a thombe of gold, pardee. (Lines: 563-64)
The narrator observes that though the Miller well knows how to steal corn and take his toll
thrice, he still has a thumb of gold. If interpreted literally this would mean he was an honest
miller, which is rare, and Chaucer is careful to tell us alongside that he is a clever thief, thus
he uses the proverb ironically and implies that he is not honest at all. You might like to know
who he was stealing this corn from? Well, glance back at fourteenth century England to
understand better, the job and duties of a miller. As Pollard explains:
There was little free trade in milling in those days and restrictions survived as late as
the eighteenth century. Everyone raising corn on a manor would have to take it to the
manor mill to be ground, and thus, free from any check of competition medieval
millers became famous for their knavish thefts. In the Reeve’s Tale Chaucer tells how
two Cambridge clerks tried to protect the college corn by standing one where the corn
went in, and the other where the meal came out. But the Miller turned their horse
loose and made it run away, and while they were trying to catch it, he stole more than
ever. (pp. 85-86).
It is obvious that such a man was required to be strong and stout, just as our Miller is, so that
he could silence any complaints and could enforce fine on those who went elsewhere to get
their corn ground to cornmeal..
As for his apparel, he is dressed in a white coat and a blue hood, wears a sword and a
buckler, and carries a bagpipe that he plays and in this manner leads the merry company out
of the town.
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Stout carl Sturdy fellow

For the nones For the occasion
wrastlynge wrestling
Alwey the ram The prize in a wrestling match
Thikke knarre Thickset fellow
Nolde heve of harre Would heave off its hinges
Breke it Break it
rennyng Ramming it
Cop tip
werte wart
herys hair
erys ears
nosethirles nostrils
bokeler shield
Greet forneys Large furnace
janglere gossiper
goliardys Vulgar talker
harlotryes Bawdy stories
Stelen corn, and Millers were allowed to take a portion of the corn they ground. This
tollen thryce dishonest miller cunningly took thrice of what his share was.
This was a proverb that an honest miller has a thumb of gold but the
Thumb of gold implication is that there are no honest millers. Millers used their thumb
to test the corn and the meal.
sowne play
therwithal With all that
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Check Your Progress

1. Describe the Miller’s physical appearance.
2. To which animal is the colour of his hair or beard compared to? What is the
implication?
3. Which disturbing physical detail individualizes the Miller?
4. What does the narrator mean when he says that the Miller had a gold thumb?
5. Which instrument does the Miller play?
6.2.19 The Manciple

Lines 567 – 586
A gentil Maunciple was ther of a temple,
Of which achatours myghte take exemple …
…………………………………………
In any caas that myghte falle or happe.
And yet this Manciple sete hir aller cappe.

There was a fine Manciple of a Temple i.e. a law school, who was an example for those who
buy provisions or foodstuff, for he knew how to be wise in buying of victuals; for whether he
paid cash or bought goods on credit, he always watched out for his purchases so that he was
always ahead and in good condition. The narrator observes that certainly this was only by the
good grace of God that such an uneducated man’s wit shall surpass the wisdom of a heap of
learned men.
He had more than three-times-ten masters who were experts of law and also skilful in
it. Out of these there were a dozen in that house worthy to be stewards (managers of estates)
of rent and land for any lord that is in England and enable him to live by his own wealth with
honour and without any debt (unless he was out of his mind) or live economically if he so
desired. Also they were capable enough to help in any emergency or accident that may occur.
Yet this Manciple fooled them all.
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Chaucer defines the Manciple completely by his occupation and how extremely good he is at
it. Let us try and understand what a Manciple’s job was. “A Manciple in the fourteenth
century was, as he still is today, a buyer of provisions for a college, an Inn of court, or the
like. Chaucer’s Manciple is ‘of a temple,’ that is, he caters for the lawyers and students at one
of the Inns of court” (Bowden, p. 256). This portrait begins with a direct attack on the
cheating capabilities of the Manciple:
A gentil Maunciple was ther of a temple,
Of which achatours myghte take exemple
For to be wise in byynge of vitaille; (Lines: 567-69)
The narrator notes that the Manciple is so good at deceiving people in the buying of
provisions that all buyers (achatours’) ought to take a cue from him. Whether he buys in cash
or on credit (“by taille”) he always comes out a winner and way ahead of anyone else. The
speaker is thoroughly impressed and observes:
Now is not that of god a ful fair grace
That such a lewed mannes wit shal pace
The wisdom of an heepe of lerned men? (Lines: 573-75).
Of course this is a sly remark from the poet Chaucer. One’s ability at cheating can surely not
be due to God’s grace. For the narrator however, it is a skill as any other and he admires the
Manciple for it. One cannot miss the underlying irony in the portrait.
More than half the sketch is devoted to the skills of the men whom the Manciple
serves. He has more than thirty masters who are expert in matters of law and a dozen of them
are worthy enough to be stewards to any lord in England and help him live well. These
worthy masters of the Manciple are capable of helping a whole shire in case of any mishap.
They may be learned men and exceptionally skilful, yet it speaks volumes for the
manciple’s skill at cheating when the narrator notes that he is able to hoodwink them all. So
extremely clever is he at managing his show that he even gets the better of those who are
superior to him in every way! This surely makes him more dexterous than them despite being
an unlearned man himself. The humour is quite direct in this portrait. The criticism that is
implied in the Manciple’s practices exposes him as a cheat. Chaucer’s irony that has been so
subtle throughout, now seems to be getting increasingly explicit and the satire and criticism
surface more often in the humour.
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The variety in Chaucer’s art of characterization is evident in the fact that in the
Manciple’s portrait he avoids giving us any details of the Manciple’s physical appearance. He
doesn’t adhere to any fixed plan when describing the pilgrims.
gentil excellent
temple The lawyer’s Inns of Court
achatours purchasers
Byynge of vitaille Buying of provisions
Paid in cash or took by tally. A tally was a wooden stick that was used
Payde or took by
to buy goods on credit. Notches made on the stick recorded the goods
taille
bought
algate always
wayted Watched carefully, paid attention
For his achaat To his purchases
He was ay biforn He was always ahead
In good staat In good condition
Lewed man’s wit
An uneducated man’s intelligence shall outdo/surpass
shal pace
heep heap
maistres Masters, qualified lawyers
More than thries ten More than three times ten
curious skillful
duszeyne dozen
stywardes Stewards/ managers of estate
hym The lord
His proper good His own wealth
dettelees debtless
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but unless
He were wood He was mad
scarsly economically
Hym list Pleased him
Al a shire A whole county
Any caas Any situation/ emergency/accident
Falle or happe Come about or happen
Sette hir aller cappe Set the caps of them all – made fools of them all
Check Your Progress

1. What is a Manciple? What does he do?
2. Why is the narrator impressed by this man?
3. Is the poet Chaucer being critical in this portrait? What us he criticizing and how?
6.2.20 The Reeve

Lines 587 – 622
A Reeve was a sclendre colerik man.
His berd was shave as ny as ever he kan;
…………………………………………
Tukked he was as is a frere aboute
And ever he rood as is a frere aboute.
The Reeve was a thin choleric man. His beard was shaved very close, and his hair was also
closely cropped around his ears. The hair in his front was cut short like a priest’s. His legs
were very long and lean like sticks, there was no calf to be seen. He knew well how to take
care of a granary and a corn bin, and no auditor could get the better of him. He could always
tell, in times of drought as well as rain, what would be the yield of his grain. His lord’s sheep,
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his cattle, his dairy cows, his pigs, horses his livestock and his poultry were completely in the
Reeve’s control. And in accordance with his contract he maintained the accounts since the
time his lord had been twenty years of age. There was no man who could find him in arrears.
There was no farm manager, no herdsman, no other farm worker whose trickery and
treachery he did not know. They were all afraid of him as of the Black Death or the plague.
His dwelling was very well situated upon a heath with green trees providing shade.
He could buy property better than his lord could purchase. He was secretly very well
provided. He knew well how to please his lord subtly by giving and lending him some of his
lord’s own possessions and was rewarded with thanks from him and also a coat and a hood.
In youth he had learned a good trade, he was a very good craftsman a carpenter. He
sat upon a very good horse that was dapple grey and was called Scot. He wore a long outer
coat of dark blue and by his side he wore a rusty sword. This Reeve was of Norfolk from near
a town men call Bawdeswelle. He had hitched up his coat and belted it like a friar, and he
rode as the last of the company.
There is enough evidence in the Miller’s Prologue and the Reeve’s Prologue to point to the
fact that these two men have known each other for quite some time and there seems to be a
long-standing enmity existing between them. Robin, the Miller, addresses Oswald the Reeve
by name and the Miller’s Tale seems to be based on factual occurrences of the past in which
both he and the Reeve have participated. Chaucer has therefore been quite clever in placing
the Manciple between these two enemies.
What were the duties of a Reeve? To quote from Bowden, once again: “The office of
reeve on a medieval manor farm lay theoretically between that of bailiff, who was in turn
subordinate to the chief manager, or seneschal, and that of provost, but in practice the three
offices often became one. The activities of Chaucer’s Reeve seem to indicate that he serves as
both bailiff and provost, and even as seneschal” (Bowden, p. 250).
As far as his physical attributes go, Chaucer chooses to begin the portrait by giving us
a detailed account of them. The Reeve and the Miller are opposite extremes even in the
matter of appearances. Where the Miller is a stout, heavy, thickset man, exuding strength, the
Reeve is so thin that there is no calf seen on his legs which therefore look like staves. He is a
slender ‘colerik’ man, with a close shaved beard and a close-cropped head that gives him a
somewhat clerical appearance. His long blue overcoat which he tucks up like a friar and his
rusted sword are all indications that he belongs to an inferior level in society. But what about
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his duties? Does he perform them well? It seems one cannot find a fault with him there. As
the narrator says, no auditor could find errors in his accounts. Be it a time of drought or rain,
he always knew exactly when to sow and when to reap so that the yield is never affected. He
looks well after his lord’s sheep, cattle (“neet”) and his dairy. Also his lord’s swine, horses,
stock and poultry. In other words he is completely in charge of all this. Since his lordship was
twenty years of age, this model bailiff, by agreement, has managed the whole accounts. No
man could ever find him in arrears and there was no bailiff, no herdsman, (“hierde”) no farm
labourer (“hyne”) who could be cunning or deceitful with this Reeve, without him coming to
know of it. He can even make better purchases than the lord of the manor himself. Everything
seems to be going on smoothly till this point. The Reeve is performing his duties extremely
well. But suddenly there is a change of tone:
They were adrad of hym as of the deeth. (Line: 605)
“They”, here refers to the other workers on the manor. The Reeve inspires in all these men, a
fear that can be likened to the fear of death. Why are they so afraid of him? Is he a cruel,
relentless manager? Possibly so. This is not all, though. There are other negative aspects to
this perfect husbandman. He is also a cheat, a swindler who can sell the lord’s own goods
back to him and even be rewarded with thanks and gifts:
His lord wel koude he plesen subtilly
To yeve äid lene hym of his owene good
And have a thank, and yet a gowne and hood. (Lines: 610-612)
In addition to this he is extremely clever about lining his own pockets. He has his secret barns
stocked full. This Reeve, however, is master of the craft of carpentry:
In youthe he lerned hadde a good myster;
He was a wel good wrighte, a carpenter. (Lines: 613-614)
This one single detail immediately personalizes this man. Readers have often tried to look for
real life parallels for Chaucer’s pilgrims and it is personalizing details like these that prompt
such endeavours. He sits upon a good ‘Stot’, (which is probably a stout horse of a low breed),
of grey colour and who is called Scot. He hails from Norfolk, from near a town colled
Baidswelle. The narrator is quick to observe that this man always rides the “hyndreste of oure
route.” (622).
Where the Miller had been the one to lead them out of town, playing on his bagpipe,
the Reeve is his opposite and forms the tail of the group. Does it not indicate some kind of
shyness, inferiority, shiftiness in a man who always likes to walk, behind? The poet has
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placed many pointers to make his opinion of this particular character quite clear. But the
satire is still genial. It is not vituperative or vindictive. Nor is it an explicit denouncement.
The last two characters however, who now appear on the scene, are so openly wicked and
evil, that even the narrator who all along has posed as a simpleton, is not naïve enough to be
taken in by them. He too recognizes them for what they are and fails to find any excuses for
their behaviour. These two are treated with extreme disgust and loathing. They are both
connected with the church.
sclendre thin
colerik angry
Ny as ever he can Close as ever he can
heer hair
erys ears
yshorn Closely cropped
dokked Cut short in front
Ylyk a staf Like a staff
Garner and bynne Granary and corn bin
Auditour koude on
No assessor could get the better of him
him wynne
Wel wiste he Wel knew he
By the droghte . .
By the drought and the rain
reyn
yeldynge The yield
neet cattle
dayerye dairy
stoor livestock
pultrye poultry
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hooly wholly
Reve’s governynge Reeve’s control
Brynge hym in
Who could find him in arrears
arrerage
Nas baillif No bailiff
Ne hierde No herdsman
No other hyne No other farm hand
Sleighte and his
Trickery and treachery
covyne
Adrad of him Afraid of him
wonyng dwelling
Astored pryvely Secretly well-stocked
Plesen subtilly Please him subtly
Yeve and lene Giving and lending
cote coat
myster Craft/trade
Wel good wright Very good craftsman
stot A stout horse
pomely dappled
Highte called
Surcote of pers Long outer coat of dark blue
Rusty blade Rusty sword
tukked Coat hitched up and belted
A frere aboute Like a friar
hyndreste Hindmost, the last
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Check Your Progress

1. Chaucer calls the Reeve a choleric man. Explain what he means by it.
2. Describe the Reeve’s physical appearance.
3. What was the job of the Reeve? Why are other workers on the manor afraid of
him?
4. How do we know that the Reeve is a cheat and a swindler?
6.2.21 The Sommoner

Lines 623 – 668
A Somonour was there with us in that place
That had a fyr reed cherubynnes face,.…
…………………………………………
As greet as it were for an ale-stake.
A bokeleer hadde he maad hym of a cake..
A Summoner was there with us in that place, says the narrator and goes on to tell us that he
had a fire red face like a cherub for it was full of pimples and he had narrow eyes. He was as
lustful and lecherous as a sparrow, with black scabby brows and a scanty beard. Children
were afraid of his face. There was no mercury, lead monoxide nor sulphur, borax, white lead
nor any oil of tartar nor any ointment that would clean and scour and cure him of his white
pimples, the knobs sitting on his cheeks. He loved to eat garlic, onions and also leeks and to
drink strong wine red as blood; then he would speak and cry out as if he were mad. And when
he had drunk the wine well, then he would speak nothing but Latin. He knew a few legal
terms, some two or three, that he had learned out of some decree – it is no wonder that he
knew that because he heard it all day and the narrator is quick to point out that we know all
too well how a jay can call out ‘Walter’ as well as a Pope can. But if anyone knew how to
examine him any further they would find that his learning was all used up. He would always
cry “The question is, which point of law applies?”
He was a fine rascal and a kind one; men may not be able to find a better fellow. For a
quart of wine he would allow a ‘good fellow’ to have his mistress for twelvemonths and still
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excuse him completely. Secretly he also knew how to seduce a girl and if he found anywhere
a good fellow he would teach him to not be in awe of the archbishop’s curse
(excommunication), unless a man’s soul were in his purse for he would then be punished
through his purse only. “Purse is the archdeacon’s hell” he always said but the narrator
intervenes and tells us that here he knew the Summoner was lying. Each guilty man should be
afraid of excommunication for excommunication will slay just as forgiveness will save. And
let him also beware of a ‘Significavit’ – the written order for imprisonment. He had under his
control the young people of the diocese because he knew their secrets and was advisor to
them all.
He had set a garland upon his head that was as large as if it were meant to be hung on
a pole outside a tavern. He had made a shield for himself out of a round cake.
The Sommoner or apparitor, “was not a cleric but a minor official of the Church who was
connected with the ecclesiastical courts” (Bowden, p. 262). His most important activity was
“to bear summons from the ecclesiastical court to the person cited to appear. By the end of
the century the apparitor had become a kind of “criminal investigator” for bishops or
archdeacons, who were the two officials commonly presiding in the ecclesiastical courts. For
them the summoner nosed out evasions of the law and any crimes which might come under
church jurisdiction: apparently his remuneration was a percentage of what he collected in
fines for the courts. It would seem inevitable under such a system that some apparitors would
become extortioners, and there is documentary evidence that that was the case” (Bowden, pp.
265-66).
The duties of the Summoner, therefore afforded him ample opportunities for taking
bribes. But before Chaucer tells us about this disgusting perversion of office, he begins by
giving us the Summoner’s physical description which is equally loathsome. His face is
covered with spots and pimples (“saucefleem”) and is therefore red as fire. He is hot and
lecherous, has narrow eyes, scruffy black brows, and a plucked beard. He is so repulsive and
frightening to look at that children are afraid of him. “Of his visage children were afraid”
(628). He has not left any stone unturned and has tried all kinds of remedies to get rid of his
“whelkes white” and of the “knobbes sittynge on his chekes” (633). Quick-silver, white lead
(“lytarge”), brimstone, borax (‘boras’) and oil of tartar, have all been used and found
ineffective. Of course the cause of his ailment is hinted at when the poet calls him “As hoot
he was, and lecherous, as a sparwe” (626), but we get some more details now. His food-
habits are repulsive for he loves garlic, onions and leeks and strong wines which are ‘reed as
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blood’. And once he is drunk, then he would speak nothing but Latin. Lest we may be slightly
impressed, the poet Chaucer at once proceeds to give us an account of how much Latin he
knew and why:
A few termes hadde ne, two or thre
That he had lemed out of som decree,
No wonder is, he herde it al the day;
And eek ye knewen wel how that a jay
Kan clepen Watte as wel as kan the pope. (Lines: 639-643)
So like a parrot (“jay”), he keeps repeating the few Latin terms he has learned.
Till this point, Chaucer, though not condoning any aspect of the Summoner, has not even
condemned anything. Only hints have been placed at various places, to enable the readers to
be wary of this character. What follows now however is loaded with sarcasm which reveals
the poet’s own indignation with this servant of the church:
He was a gentil harlot and a kynde;
A bettre felawe sholde men noght fynde,
He would suffre, for a quart of wyn,
A good felawe to have his concubyn
A twelf monthe, and excuse hym atte fulle; (Lines: 647-652)
To put it in a simpler form, the narrator observes that he has seen no gentler or kinder rascal
(“harlot”) because, for a mere quart of wine he would allow a man to have his mistress for a
full year and not say a word about it. Most certainly because the narrator observes in the same
breath that the Summoner would be enjoying the woman’s favours himself and indulging in
the same sin (“a fyrıch eek koude he pulle”). It does not end here though. We are further
informed that if he finds a fellow who is willing to loosen his purse strings, the Summoner
assures him not to have any fear of the Archdeacon’s Curse:
For in his purs he sholde y-punysshed be:
Purs is the Ercedekenes helle, “seyde he. (Lines: 657-58).
Money can wash a man clean as far as the Summoner is concerned. He can thus easily extort
money from people. The rich could always wriggle out of any sort of crime. The poor on the
other hand were always bearing the brunt of the Summoner’s duties and being punished
often.
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The narrator is filled with indignation at this blatant disregard for the rules of the church. The
poet and the pilgrim become one here in their condemnation of this man:
But wel I woot he lyed right in dede,
Of cursyng oghte ech gilty man him drede,
For curs wol slee, - right as assoillyng savith;
And also war him of a Significani. (Lines: 659-62)
The narrator/poet comes out with an outright denunciation of the Summoner’s disregard of
the curse. Money can never wash off guilt and if the Summoner is announcing so, he is
definitely lying, says the poet. Every guilty man should be afraid of excommunication for a
curse can slay (“slee”) the soul just as absolution (“assoilyng”) can save it- and certainly one
should beware of the Significavit. To understand the full import of this line it is necessary
first to understand the meaning of Significavit. A significavit was the writ according to which
a certain communication was sent to the king. As Pollard explains: “The purpose of the writ
was that the Bishop had signified to the king (i.e. the civil authorities) that a man had
remained obstinate after being excommunicated for forty days, and he was therefore
forthwith to be put into prison till he made submission” (p.93). Thus Chaucer qualifies his
earlier stand by implying that no curses or absolutions are worth anything unless the penitent
is truly contrite. The least ironic statement is therefore about the significavit which a guilty
man should fear most.
The Summoner’s control over the young people of the diocese, especially the young
girls, is an unhealthy one. He has them under his thumb because he knows all their secrets
(‘conseil) and is free with his advice (“reed”). What kind of advice can it be except wrong
and corrupt, we wonder!
This monstrous, lecherous, loud mouthed, repulsive and avaricious character is
crowned with a garland of flowers and leaves, similar to the sign outside any alehouse. As a
shield he bears a round flattened loaf of bread, a cake, which he will probably eat later.
Calling it a shield is not only a parody of the protective equipment used by soldiers but is also
a parody of the scriptures in the context of the pilgrimage. The shield of faith as mentioned in
Ephesians 6:16, was supposed to protect the believer from all that was evil and wicked. The
Summoner’s shield however is only for physical sustenance.
The poet does not allow the Summoner to have any redeeming features. In fact, so
disgusted is he with the man’s blatant contempt for the Church and the misuse of his powers
as a church official that the entire portrait is a downright condemnation of his character, both
in the physical description as well as the moral one.
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Summoner – so called because it was his duty to summon wrongdoers

Somonour
to the ecclesiastical courts. He served summons to them.
Fyr-reed Fire-red
Like a cherub or an angel. Chaucer id being ironic here because there is
cherubynnes
nothing angelic about the Summoner
saucefleem pimpled
Eyen narwe Eyes narrow
hoot lustful
Scalled scabby
Piled berd Sparse beard
visage face
aferd afraid
nas Was no
Quyk-silver,
lytarge,ne Quick-silver, lead monoxide, nor sulphur
brymstoon
Boras, ceruce, Borax, white lead
Ne oille of tartre No oil of tarter
Clense and byte Clean and bite/burn
Whelks white White pustules
lekes leeks
wood mad
termes Legal terms
Som decree Some text of canon law
jay parrot
Watte Walter
Whoso . . . grope Whoever knew how to cross question him or examine him in other
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matters
Questio quid iuris ’the question is what law applies’ – this
Rascal (the word harlot was applied to both men and women in
harlot
Chaucer’s time.
suffre allow
Ate fulle completely
Prively a finch eek Pluck the feathers of a finch i.e. a bird thereby meaning he could easily
coude he pulle seduce a girl
owher Anywhere
The ercedekenes
The archdeacon’s curse which was the curse of being excommunicated
curs
significavit Written order of imprisonment
In daunger In his control
At his own gise In his own way
Knew hir conseil Knew their secrets
Al hir reed Advised them all
Ale-stake A pole outside a tavern on which a garland was hung to identify it
Shield (an obvious parody of the shield of faith that protects the
bokeler
believer from evil as mentioned in Ephesians 6:16)
Check Your Progress

1. What is a Summoner?
2. What does his physical description tell us about him?
3. Which part of the Summoner’s dress is a parody of the scriptures? How?
4. Why does the narrator call him generous and friendly? Is he really so?
5. Explain the lines: For in his purs he sholde y-punysshed be:/Purs is the
Ercedekenes helle, “seyde he.
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6.2.22 The Pardoner

Lines 669 – 714
With hym ther rode a gentil Pardoner
Of Rouncivale, his freend and his compeer, . . .
…………………………………………
To wynne silver, as he very well knew how;
Herefore he song the muriely and loude.
With him there rode a fine Pardoner of Rouncivale, he was his friend and his companion who
had come straight from Rome. He sang very loudly “Come hither, love to me!” and the
Summoner accompanied him in a strong bass voice, even a trumpet was never half so great in
sound.
This Pardoner had hair as yellow as wax and smooth it hung as does a bundle of flax.
His locks hung in small strands and were spread over his shoulders, but very thinly, each
strand one by one. He wore no hood for fun, and kept it bundled up in his bag. He thought he
rode all in the latest style with untidy loose hair and except for his cap he rode all bare
headed. He had glaring eyes like a hare. He had sown a Veronica on his cap. In his lap before
him he had his bag which was brim-full of pardons all fresh from Rome. He had a voice as
small as is a goat’s and he had no beard nor should ever have. His face was smooth as if it
had been recently shaven. I think says the narrator, that he was either a castrated horse
(gelding) or a female horse (mare).
To speak of his craft however, there was no such pardoner from Berwick to Ware. In
his pouch he had a pillow case which he claimed to be his Lady’s veil. He said he had a piece
of the sail that St. Peter had when he went upon the sea until Jesus Christ saved him. He had a
cross made from a brass-like alloy and all covered with stones and in a glass jar he had pigs’
bones. With these relics he was able to make more money in one day from a poor person
dwelling in the countryside than that the Parson would get in two months. And so, with
feigned flattery and tricks he made a fool of that person and the people in general.
But to tell you at last, says the narrator, he was a noble official of the church. He
knew well how to read a lesson or a story but best of all he sung the Offertory. For he knew
well that when that song was sung, he must preach and smoothen his speech to win silver as
he very well knew how. Therefore he sung merrily and loud.
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The monstrous Summoner is paired off with a fraudulent Pardoner, who is his friend and
comrade. We are told that he had come straight from Rome. Chaucer’s disgust is apparent at
every point in this portrait. The more we are told of the Pardoner the more fitting we find his
pairing with the Summoner. They are really two of a kind and the first thing Chaucer hints at
is the possibility of them having an unnatural, perverted relationship. As the narrator
observes:
Ful loude he soong “Com hider, love to me!
This Somonour bar to him a stif burdown
Was never grompe of half so greet a soun. (Lines: 672-74).
In other words, the Pardoner’s love ditty is addressed to the Summoner, who lends it a strong
bass accompaniment. Evidently he is not averse to the Pardoner’s perverted, unnatural
advances. The former’s physical description too shows him to be effeminate: his hair is ‘as
yellow as wex’ and smooth and straight and hang down his shoulders in locks. Almost like a
girl he spreads his yellow hair over his shoulders. He wears no hood for it was packed up
(trussed’) in his bag and he goes bare headed save for a cap, in his absurdly foppish desire to
be fashionable:
Hym thoughle he rood al of the newe jet;
Dischevelee, save his cappe, he rood al bare. (Lines: 682-83).
His description thus points not only towards an effeminacy of body but also of mind. All this
while the narrator is merely observing and giving us the details. It is the poet Chaucer who is
choosing these details to tell us by implication about the kind of person the Pardoner is.
Glaring eyes such as the Pardoner’s, indicate according to certain authorities “a man
given to folly, a glutton, a libertine and a drunkard” (Bowden, p. 275). As we read on, the
Pardoner justifies this assumption. Chaucer devotes a few more lines to emphasize the
Pardoner’s effeminate nature. His voice is thin as a goat’s, he has no beard and ‘ne never
sholde have’ and his face is as smooth as though it has just been shaved, and lest we may still
miss the point he explicitly states ‘In trowe he were a geldyng or a mare’. (691). Even the
gullible narrator can make an inference from all these details. All the earlier suggestive
remarks, observations, hints etc., are now lent absolute credence. The friendship of the
Summoner and the Pardoner is certainly a perverted relationship. Chaucer is thoroughly
scornful of the two.
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But what of his profession? Does he perform his duties well? Before we look for an
answer to this question, a brief explanation is required as to the legitimate duties of a
Pardoner. Pollard explains thus:
A Pardoner was a trafficker in papal pardons or indulgences. In the early church a
penitent as a condition of receiving absolution would have to fast (i.e. abstain from
meat), or do other penance, for so many days, according to the gravity of his sin. Later
on, a payment of money to an approved charitable purpose was accepted as an
equivalent for so many days’ penance, and a certificate of such payment was called a
pardon or indulgence. The indulgence was a remission of ecclesiastical penances, not
a remission of sins, but its true character was easily obscured, and a theory of a
‘treasury’ of super abounding merits of the Virgin and saints ‘promulgated by Pope
Clement V. in 1350’ introduced new confusion. In order to raise money for building
or repairing a church or other good objects, men were sent all over Europe offering
indulgences to all who contributed. Moreover these authorized alms-gatherers were
out-rivalled by irregular ones, who having obtained, or forged, a license from a Pope
or Bishop, exhibited relics, to the veneration of which, so they pretended, special
indulgences had been attached in the cases of those offering money for the privilege.
Popes, Bishops, and Kings all tried at various times to suppress these irregular
Pardoners, but the traffic in both authorized and unauthorized indulgences went on till
the Reformation. (p.93-94).
As is evident from the above explanation, the office of a pardoner afforded ample
opportunities of dishonesty, swindling and fraud. Chaucer’s Pardoner we see is a typical
representative of these irregular pardoners. He carries with him many false relics which he
sells to the unsuspecting innocent people. In his trunk (“male”) he carries a pillowcase
(“pilwe-beer”) which he claims is St. Peter’s sail when he went to the sea. He even carries a
crucifix made of ‘latoun’ (which is a metal like brass), studded with stones. In a glass jar he
has a few pigs’ bones. Armed with these relics he is always on the lookout for some poor
innocent man. Once he gets hold of one he is able to convince the gullible fellow and extract
more money from him more than a Parson could ever hope to earn in two months. Thus:
.... with feyned flaterye and japes
He made the person and the peple his apes. (Lines: 705-706).
This greedy, avaricious, lying, shameless, fraudulent Pardoner can prove a noble ecclesiast in
Church:
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Well koude he rede a lessown or a storie,

But alderbest he song an offertories: (Lines: 709-710)
And when that song is sung, he preaches in his polished (‘afile’) tongue, but the aim is “To
winne silver, as ful wel koude.’ It is only for the money that he sings so merrily and loud.
Thus his preaching, his sermonising, his songs and relics are all meant to deceive the people
and not to show them the right path. Such an absolute distortion of office deserves and gets
an outright condemnation from the narrator. The tone which had been so genial throughout is
now bitter and full of disgust. There is no cloaking of true meaning, even the naïve narrator
can see the truth.
Significantly, the Pardoner is the last pilgrim to be described possibly because he is an
outcast in more ways than one. Not only because of his physical impotence but also because
of his dark, perverted, unrepentant, unreformed heart and soul; his spiritual blindness or we
can say moral and spiritual impotence. As each of the pilgrims relates his/her tale, we get to
know them increasingly better and so also is the case with the Pardoner.
One more fact which would have had special relevance for contemporary readers,
needs to be mentioned. At the beginning of the Pardoner’s portrait Chaucer tells us that he
comes from Rouncivalle. This means, he is connected to the convent of Roncesvalles in
Spain. Pardoners who worked for institutions governed from abroad were especially difficult
to control and just when Chaucer was writing there had been many scandals connected with
the Pardoner’s Rouncivalle. Therefore, contemporary public could already connect the
Pardoner with these scandals and Chaucer could thus have an added advantage.
compeer companion
Bar to hym Accompanied him
Stif burdoun Strong bass
trompe trumpet
heer hair
heeng hung
A strike of flex A bundle of flax
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His shuldres
Spread over his shoulders
overspradde
By colpons oon on
Bystrands one by one
oon
For jolitee For fun sake
Trussed up Bundled up
walet bag
Newe jet In latest style
dischevelee disheveled
Glarynge eyen Glaring eyes make him to be a shameless person and the comparison to
hadde he as an hare a hare is also disparaging as it indicates his effeminate nature
Veronica – St Veronica offered her veil to Christ so he could wipe his
face. The impression of Christ’s face was transferred to the veil. This
Vernicle veil was kept at St. peter’s in Rome. Copies of it were available and
ogten worn by pilgrims. The Pardoner professes to have a piece of this
veil or a copy of it in his bag full of relics.
Bretful of pardons Brimful of pardons
geldyng A castrated horse
male bag
Pilwe beer Pillow case
Our Lady’s veyl Virgin Mary’s veil
Gobet of the seyl A piece of the sail
croys crucifix
latoun Metal like brass
glas Glass jar
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japes tricks
trewely truly
chirche Church
Noble ecclesiaste Te pardoner was probably not a clergyman.
storie From the Bible
alderbest Best of all
offertory The part of the Mass when people offer gifts
wiste knew
affyle Smoothen
murierly merrily
Check Your Progress

1. What is a pardon? What is the job of a pardoner?
2. What do certain details in the Pardoner’s physical description tell us about him?
3. What does he carry in his wallet?
4. Why does the poet call him a gelding or a mare?
5. Describe some of the fake relics that the Pardoner carries with him.
6. How is the Pardoner abusing his profession?
Apart from these pilgrims who are described in some details, there are two more who
undertake the pilgrimage. The Host of the Tabard Inn and Chaucer himself. The Host is
described briefly as a large man with sharp eyes, bold and honest in his speech and also wise.
‘A semely man’ he is also jovial and as opposed to the Pardoner, the Host is quite positively
masculine:
And of manhood hym lakkede right naught’, (Line: 756).
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It is his suggestion that to pass their time on the way to Canterbury, each pilgrim shall tell
two tales and two while coming back. Of course the plan changes as already discussed in
section 3.0. but they do set off with his scheme in mind.
The pilgrim Chaucer, however, tells us nothing about himself except some short
remarks here and there. We as readers have to build up his character as it comes out through
his descriptions of the various pilgrims. He has a very important role to play, as the innocent,
naive, gullible, unsuspecting persona who takes things at face value. Some aspects of his role
have already been discussed in section 3.4. E.T. Donaldson’s essay ‘Chaucer the Pilgrim’
deals extensively with the topic.
6.3 The Conclusion
Having described all the pilgrims, the narrator proceeds to tell us a little about what happened
during the night as they all waited to set off on a pilgrimage the next morning. From what the
narrator has told us we are supposed to imagine that he has gone around talking to all these
people and has gleaned all the information he has provided us with about each one of them.
In the ensuing lines he informs us about the story-telling game that they all have planned;
gives us a description of the Host of the Inn at Southwark; describes how they draw lots to
decide who will tell a tale first and how the lot falls to the Knight and how they all finally set
off the next morning with a lot of fanfare. Let us read and see how it happens.
6.3.1 The Narrator
Lines 714 – 746
Now have I toold you smoothly, in a clause,
Th’ estaat, th’array, the nobre, and eek the cause . . .
…………………………………………
Heere in this tale, as that they sholde stonde.
My wit is short, ye may wel understonde.
The narrator sums up for us that he has told us briefly about the rank, the dress, the number
and also the reason why this company was gathered here in Southwark at this fine hostelry
that was called the Tabard, situated close by the Bell. But, he says, now the time has come to
tell us how this group of pilgrims conducted themselves during the night and he includes
himself in the group. After that he declares he will tell us about their journey and all the rest
of the pilgrimage. But first he appeals to our courtesy and prays that we should not attribute it
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to his rudeness, that he spoke plainly in the matter when he repeated their exact words and
their behavior, because he reported accurately whatever was told to him. He emphasizes it
further by saying that whoever repeats a story after someone, he must repeat it as truthfully
and closely as possible. Every single word must be close to the original if it be in the
narrator’s power, although he may seem rude and free, or else his tale would be inaccurate
‘untrewe’. He may then have to make up things or find new words. So, he must speak the
truth and not spare the person even though he may be his brother. He is obliged to repeat their
words. Christ himself spoke very plainly in Holy Writ, says the narrator and also Plato said
that words must be closely related to the deed. The narrator now appeals to us to forgive him
because he has not set folks in their order of rank in this tale and the reason he gives is that
his wit is short so we must understand.
In these lines Chaucer the narrator takes us back to the point from where we had started
reminding us of how he had planned to describe each of the pilgrims. He brings us full circle
here telling us that he has done what he set out to do. He followed his plan and told us what
sort of person each pilgrim was and also about his/her social rank and attire. Having read
these portraits we are well aware that the plan has not been observed rigidly or else the
portraits would have turned out to be drab and uninteresting, all following the same pattern.
As it happens and as we have witnessed ourselves in our reading of the Prologue, no two
portraits are alike. There is endless variety here and abundant humour and satire as well.
It is an ingenious move on the poet’s part to make the narrator apologize for being
impolite and rude while reporting all that he has been able to uncover about these pilgrims
from his interaction with them. He is only being truthful he says, which of course is amusing
since the entire work is a work of fiction. The narrator also apologizes for not having listed
the portraits in their order:
Also I prey yow foryeve it me,
Al Have I nat set folk in hir degree
Here in this tale, as that they sholde toned;
My wit is short, ye may wel understonde ( Lines: 743-746)
Claiming to fall short of intelligence (my wit is short) is a master stroke of irony. We know
only too well how much skill and intelligence has gone into each and every description on the
poet’s part. Irony works so well only because the poet has created the persona of a gullible
narrator who approves of whatever he sees. The poet standing behind him, however,
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constantly chooses words and details that make us see the reality of these characters. The poet
is being modest here.
Making the narrator apologize for not having listed the pilgrims according to their
social rank is an attempt on the part of the poet to draw attention to the fact that he has done
just that. He begins with the Knight who in this company of pilgrims belongs to the highest
social order – the feudal class, then moves on to the ecclesiasts and then to the rising middle
classes and finally finishes with the rogues.
soothly truthfully
clause In brief
estaat rank
array clothes
highte Was called
Faste by Close by
Belle Probably another inn
How we baren us How we bore ourselves/ what we did with ourselves
alight Alighted/settled
viage journey
remenaunt remaining
N’arette do not ascribe
vileinye rudeness
hir their
cheere behavior
properly exactly
moot must
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reherce repeat
As ny As closely
rudeliche rudely
large broadly
feyne Feign things
spare avoid
Moot as wel seye Must say accurately
Ful brode Broadly/ clearly
Ye woot You know
No vileinye It is not a disgrace
Mote be cosin Must be cousin
Al although
degree Social rank
My wit is short I am not clever enough
6.3.2 The Host

Lines 747 – 783
Greet chiere made oure Host us everichon
And to the soper sette he us anon . .
…………………………………………
But ye be myrie, I wol yeve yow myn heed!
Hoold up youre hondes, withouten moore speche”
Our Host welcomed each one of us, says the narrator and he set us to supper right away. He
served us with food of the best sort. The wine was strong and we were all very happy to drink
it. Our Host was an impressive man indeed, the narrator tells us. He was fit to be a marshal
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i.e., a master of ceremonies, in a lord’s hall. He was a large man with prominent or bulging
eyes. There was no better businessman in Cheapside. He was bold in his speech and sensible
and well-mannered and lacked nothing in manhood. Moreover, he was a jolly man and after
supper he began to be merry. When we had paid our bills, the narrator tells us, the Host spoke
of mirth among other things and said thus: “ Now gentlemen, truly, you are heartily welcome
to me. For by my word and I shall not lie, I have not seen this year so merry a company at
one time in this lodging as is at this moment. I would gladly make you merry if I knew how
and I have just thought of an amusement that would give you pleasure and it will cost
nothing.”
In this section of the Prologue we are introduced to the Host. He is described as a large manly
man, domineering, sociable, fun loving but a shrewd businessman. The detail about his
bulging eyes immediately individualizes him. He is an excellent innkeeper and runs his
tavern well. He looks after the guests nicely and serves them the best sort of food and wine.
As expected the narrator is impressed by him and approves of whatever he does. According
to him he is good enough to be master of ceremonies at any lord’s table. While the gullible
narrator observes, it is the poet working behind him who tells us what a smart businessman
the Host is. He introduces his plan only after all of them had paid their bills. He gets in their
good books by praising them all saying that he has never seen such a merry company before.
Having gained their confidence he proceeds to introduce his plan but not before emphasizing
that it will cost them nothing. He is a materialistic man and understands the importance of
money for each of these pilgrims and uses it appropriately in his plan. They look forward to
entertainment that is also free of cost. He thus creates a sense of eagerness for pleasure
amongst the pilgrims. His leadership qualities are evident.
Greet chere Great welcome

everichon Each one
soper supper
anon At once
leste glad
semely Seemly/ suitable
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withalle moreover
marshall Master of ceremonies
Eyen stepe Prominent eyes
burgeys ciizen
Chepe Cheapside
wys wise
Wel -ytaught Well mannered
Eek therto He was also
pleyen entertainment
mirth Fun/amusement
rekeninges Payments/ paid our bills
atones At once
herberwe inn
bithought Struck by a thought
To doon yow ese To entertain you
6.3.3 The Host’s Suggestion

Lines 769 – 809
Ye goon to Canterbury – God yow spede
The blissful martir quyte yow your mede …..
…………………………………………
Tel me anon, withouten words mo,
And I wol erly shape me therefore.
Addressing the pilgrims the Host says “you go to Canterbury – may God give you success
and may the blessed martyr pay you your reward! And I know well that as you go by the way,
you plan to tell stories and amuse yourselves; but truly it is neither comfort nor mirth in
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riding by the way as dumb as a stone; Therefore, I will create an entertainment for you, as I
told you before and provide some pleasure. And if it pleases you all to accept my judgement
and to do as I tell you, tomorrow when you ride by the way, Now by the soul of my father
who is dead, if you are not merry, I will give you my head! Hold up your hands without more
speech.”
The narrator informs us that it did not take long for the pilgrims to decide. It did not
seem worthwhile to think too much about it and the Host’s request was granted without more
discussion. He was asked to pronounce his verdict as he wished. Once again addressing the
pilgrims the Host begins: “Gentlemen,” he says, “now listen to me for the best course of
action. But I pray you do not be scornful. This is the point, to speak briefly and plainly, to
make our way seem short, one must tell two tales in this journey to Canterbury, I mean on the
way to Canterbury, and then while coming homeward he shall tell two more stories of
adventures that have happened to him in old times. And whichever of you does the best of all
– that is to say, whoever tells in this case tales of best moral meaning and provide the most
entertainment – shall – have supper at the cost of us all, here in the same place sitting by this
post when we come back from Canterbury. And to make you all the more merrier I will
gladly ride with you entirely at my cost and be your guide; And whosoever will not accept
my judgement shall pay all that we spend on the way. And if you all agree to it tell me
straightaway without further discussion and I will get ready early for this.”
Two things are happening in the lines mentioned above. It only gets reinforced that the Host
is a born leader as he appoints himself their judge and chalks out a plan for a competition. It
is also very evident that he has an eye on his own profit because in the plan that he lays out
the pilgrims are supposed to return to his inn and reward the winner with a meal at everybody
else’s expense. So, from the point of view of business the Host stands to gain in the
competition. To ensure that they return he even decides to join them in the pilgrimage.
The other and more important thing happening in these lines is that we are given the
entire plan that will string diverse tales together. This is the competition that the Host plans.
Each pilgrim will tell two tales while going towards Canterbury and two tales while coming
back. Whoever tells the best tale in terms of edification and entertainment will be feasted at
the expense of the other twenty-nine pilgrims. There being thirty pilgrims in all including the
narrator this gave scope to include one hundred and twenty tales. The work as it stands,
however, is incomplete and has twenty finished stories, two unfinished ones and two
interrupted ones.
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God yow spede May God give you success

The blissful martir The blessed martyr (St. Thomas a Beckett)
Quyte yow your
Give you your reward
mede
woot know
Ye shape yow You plan to
talen Tell stories
To pleye To play / have fun
Doumb as a stoon Dumb as a stone
Maken youw disport Entertain you
Seyde erst Said before
Y oon assent By everyone’s agreement
Stoned at my
Stand by my judgement/accept
jugement
But ye be merye If you do not enjoy it
I wol yeve yow I will give you
Myn heed My head
Hoold up . . . more
Hold your hands I agreement without discussing it further
speche
Oure counseil was
It did not take long for us to decide.
nat . . . to seche
Make it wys Discuss it too much
Withouten more avys Without much consideration
Bad him Told him
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Voirdit . . . leste Pronounce his decision as he wished

Herkeneth for the
Listen carefully
beste
But . . . desdeyn But do not treat it with disdain
To shorte with oure
To shorten our way
weye
Viage journey
tweye two
To Caunterbury-
On the way to Canterbury
ward
Whilom han bifalle Had happened in the past
Bereth him best of
Manages /performs best of all
alle
In this cas On this occasion
Tales of best
Tales of serious meaning
sentence
Most solace Most entertaining and comforting
Oure aller cost At the expense of rest of the plgrims
Agayn back
goodly Gladly
My jugement
Contradicts or disputes my judgement
withseye
vouchesauf Agree/grant
Tell me anon Tell me immediately
Erly shape me Get ready for the journey early
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6.3.4 The Acceptance and Setting Off

Lines 810 – 858
This thing was graunted and oure othes swore
With ful glad herte, and preyden hym also…
…………………………………………
Whoso be rebel to my juggement
Shal paye for al that by the wey.
The narrator tells us that everybody accepted the Host’s proposal and swore to abide by it.
The pilgrims requested the Host that he would consent to be their governor and would judge
and keep score of their tales and set the supper at a certain price. The pilgrims all agreed to be
governed according to his wish in every respect and thus unanimously the pilgrims agreed to
accord to his judgement. After that the wine was fetched immediately and everyone drank
and went to rest without delaying any longer.
In the morning when the day began the Host arose, tells the narrator and awakened all
the pilgrims and gathered them all together in a flock. And they set off on their way walking
briskly at a pace more than a walk till they reached the Watering of St. Thomas; and there the
Host stopped his horse and addressed them again: “ Gentlemen, listen if you please. You
know our agreement and I remind you of it. If what you said last night agrees with what you
say this morning then let’s see now who will tell the first tale. As ever I may drink wine or
ale, whoever rebels against my judgement shall pay for all that is spent on the way. Now let’s
draw lots before we proceed any further. He that has the shortest will begin.”
The Host then addresses the Knight and calling him his master and his lord, asks him
to draw the lot. He calls the Prioress and asks her to come near and also calls the Clerk asking
him to leave aside his modesty. He calls out to all of them to not think too much and come
forward. The drawing of lots began, tells the narrator, and as it happened, whether by fate or
chance, the truth is that the cut fell to the Knight. Everyone was glad about it and it was right
that he must tell his tale as promised and agreed. When this good man (the Knight) saw it was
so and he was wise and obedient, he said “Since I shall begin the game, Why! Welcome be
the cut in God’s name! Now let us ride and listen to what I say.” And with that word, says the
narrator, we rode forth on our way. And he (the Knight) began his tale in a happy manner and
what he said you may now hear.
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In these lines, under the Host’s leadership, the plan of the competition is followed through.
The Host proves himself to be the right kind of person to draw such a diverse group together.
He is chosen to be the judge unanimously, which speaks volumes for his tact and geniality. In
order to make them adhere to the plan he even makes use of a mild threat saying that whoever
contradicts his judgement will have to pay for everybody’s expenses along the way. The next
step is to decide who will tell the first tale.
In this group of pilgrims, it is the Knight who occupies the highest place in order of
social rank. The Host manipulates the drawing of lots in such a way that the cut falls to the
Knight to tell the first tale. The poet, however, lets it remain ambiguous whether it happened
by chance or was it a conscious attempt.
The last thing we see of the pilgrims is all of them riding out together in a merry spirit
and a cheerful manner enjoying themselves thoroughly.
Oure othes swore Our oaths were sworn

vouchesauf Agree
governour president
Juge and reportour Judge and reporter
And set . . . prys And arrange a supper at a certain price
Reuled been Be ruled
At his devys At his direction/pleasure
In heigh and lowe In great things and small
By oon assent By everyone’s agreement
Accorded to Agreed to
Wyn was fet Wine was fetched
To reste went echn Each one went to rest
taryinge delay
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amorwe In the morning

cok Cock, the rooster
gadrede gathered
Litel more than pas Little faster than the walking pace
watering Watering place – where the pilgrims stop to water their horses
Bigan his hors
Stopped or pulled u his horse
areste
If yow leste If you please
Ye woot youre
You know your promise
forward
I it yow recorde I remind you of it
If even song . . . If evening song and morning song agree i.e. if you haven’t changed
acorde your decision
mote must
Draw lots – the Host holds some straws in his hand of different lengths.
Draweth cut
The lot will fall to the one who draws the shortest straw.
Er that we ferrer
Before we go any further
twinne
accord decision
Lat be youre
Set aside your modesty
shamfastnesse
ne studieth noght Stop dreaming or thinking too much about it
Every wight Every person
By aventure, or sort
By luck or fate or chance
or cas
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The sothe is The truth is

The cut fil The cut / lot fell
blythe happy
As was resoun As was right
composicioun agreement
Han herd Have heard
What nedeth words
What more needs to be said
mo
That wys was That was wise/sensible
We riden forth We rode forth
Merry chere Happy manner
Check Your Progress

1. What does the narrator apologise to the readers about after having described all
the pilgrims?
2. What distinguishes the Host as a leader of the company of pilgrims?
3. What sport or game does he suggest for passing the time? What are the rules of
this game?
4. How is it decided who will tell the first tale?
7. THE PARDONERS’S PROLOGUE AND TALE

In our discussion of the Pardoner’s character in Section 6.2.22 we have already seen what a
corrupt official of the Church he is. His Prologue and Tale reinforce the point, so much so
that it becomes almost a kind of self-exposure. He structures his Tale as a sermon basing it on
the text ‘Radix malorum est cupiditas’ meaning ‘Avarice is the root of all evil.’ The irony
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here is unmissable. In essence he is preaching against that very sin of which he himself is
guilty.
In terms of narrative art, The Pardoner's Tale is a masterful example of Chaucer's skill as a
storyteller. The tale is rich in symbolism and allegory, and Chaucer employs a variety of
literary techniques to create a vivid and engaging narrative. The use of foreshadowing, and
dramatic irony, create suspense and tension and together they all contribute to the tale's
impact. The ambiguous ending leaves the reader with much to ponder.
7.1 THE PROLOGUE: SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS
In his Prologue the Pardoner begins with a boastful account of his preaching prowess and of
the deceptions he has practiced so successfully all along:
Lordinges,’quod he, ‘in cherches whan I preche
I peyne me to han an hauteyn speech...’ (43-44)
He is obviously very impressed with himself, and unashamedly launches into singing
his own praises. He always knows his text by heart, he says, and always preaches on the same
theme: Love of money is the root of all evils, thus stating the theme of his tale right at the
outset. He then proceeds to give a list of the fraudulent tricks he practices on ignorant, simple
country people. He first establishes his credentials by showing them the bulls, or official
documents that entrust him with his particular duties. At first he shows them the seal of their
local bishop (‘oure lige lordes seel’), who has licensed the Pardoner, and then goes on to
produce fake documents from the Cardinals, Popes etc. He even uses a few Latin words to
further impress the simple people.
Having established his authenticity, the Pardoner now describes how he sells bogus
relics and earns a lot of money. He carries ‘cristal stones’ i.e. glass boxes with pieces of old
rags or bones in them. People take them to be relics of some saints. He then describes one or
two of his relics more specifically. He has a sheep’s shoulder bone, which he passes off as
belonging to a holy Jew. Then begins his clever, effective sales-talk. This bone, he says, if
placed in a well, has the power to make the water of the well almost magical. Any sick
animal drinking that water would be cured. Sheep will also be cured of their various skin
diseases. But most important of all, if the man who owns the well, drinks its water every
week, early in the morning, he will find that the number of his cattle will rapidly increase. His
eyes probably alighting on the ladies of the company, he adds another magical power to this
relic. If any wife serves her jealous husband, a soup made out of that well’s water, her
husband will never suspect her. Thus, he claims it will cure jealousy.
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He next takes out a mitten which he asserts can be used to advantage by a farmer if he
wears it while sowing seeds in his field. The yield of grain will decidedly increase.
This consummate hypocrite now boasts proudly of his final shot. He tells it plainly to
the simple people that those men who have committed sins so terrible that they dare not
confess them, and those women who have been unfaithful to their husbands will not be able
to buy pardons from him. All people who are innocent of such sins however, can readily
come forward and buy his relics.
With this he turns to the Canterbury pilgrims and boasts unashamedly how much he
has earned just from this business of selling fraudulent relics.
By this gaude have I wonne, yeer by yeer,
An hundred mark sith I was Pardoner. (101-102)
He is the perfect, smooth operator, confident of his professional skill and gift of
oratory. He then proceeds to give a flattering description of himself preaching a sermon.
What strikes one most is his utter contempt for the ignorant people who are stupid enough to
be taken in by his sales-talk:
I’ stonde lyk a clerk in my pulpet/ And whan the lewed peple is down y-set
I preche, so as yc han herd bifore,
And telle an hundred false japes more. (103-106)
Not being a cleric yet posing like one he is once again able to use his fraudulent
means successfully, but part of his success lies in the stupidity of the people too. Quite
confident of his powers of eloquence and ability to convince people he decides to relate a few
hundred ‘false japes more.’ All the time he is conscious of being a performer and we see him
excelling in his own performance:
Than peyne me to strecche forth the nekke
And est and west upon the peple I bekke,
As doth a dove sitting on a berne.
Myn hondes and y tonge goon so yere
That it is joye to see my bisiness. (107-111)
He thoroughly enjoys his business. Comparing himself to a dove he describes how he
stretches out his neck and moves his head rapidly, along with the speed of the tongue and the
hands. There is a convincing show of outward energy. One would expect the preacher to be
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inwardly agitated as well, if not equally then to some extent at least. But the Pardoner is
completely indifferent. He preaches against avarice but only so that the people may give their
money to him. The sole purpose of his preaching is not any correction of sin but to make as
much money as he can. For all he cares, his listeners’ souls may go blackberrying once they
are dead and gone:
Of avaryce and of swich cursednesse
Is al my preching, for to make hem free
To yeve hir pens and namely unto me;
For my entente is not but for to winne,
And no thing for correccioun of sinne.
I rekke never, whan that they ben beried,
Though that hir soules goon a-blakeberied. (112-118).
We are shocked to witness such callousness, such cruel indifference, such avaricious
self-interest. All his energetic and forceful preaching is seriously undermined by the
perverted aim it has. He preaches against avarice only for his own gain. The irony is that he is
practising the very sin that he is preaching against.
The only time we see the Pardoner totally involved in his preaching is when he
preaches against his opponents who attack him and other pardoners for their fraudulent
behaviour:
For whan I da, non other wyes debate
Than wol I stinge him with my tongue smorte
In preching, so that he shal nat asterte
To been defamed falsely, if that he
hath trespased to my brethren or to me. (124-128)
Probably it is his fear of being caught that rouses him to such an energetic
condemnation and defamation of those who seek to expose him. Though he refuses to divulge
any names, yet he is sure that there are indications which will reveal the culprit. Thus, he
admits, under cover of holiness, he spits out his venom.
What is disarming is the Pardoner’s frank avowal of his fraud and hypocrisy. He
preaches against nothing but avarice and therefore his text is always the same:
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‘Radix malorum est cupiditas’ i.e. love of money, is the root of all evil. But then he
goes on to declare quite openly that he practices the very vice against which he sermonises:
Thus can I preche agayn that same vyce
Which that I use, and that is avaryce. (139-140-)
Though he is himself guilty of the sin, yet he boasts proudly, he can get many men to
repent on it. The Pardoner’s self-awareness is however limited. Ironically he has a very good
understanding of the various sins he preaches against but only to convert others, not himself.
Thus, he goes about quite happily in his business. Why should he labour and work hard when
there is so much easy money to come by? Why should he even bother to imitate the lives of
Christ’s apostles? He will have money, wool, cheese, and wheat, even if it comes from the
poorest page or:
...Of the pourest widwe in a village
Al sholde hir children sterve for famyne.(162-63)
He is certainly embarrassingly frank. But this is not all. This spiritually, physically
sterile man, a eunuch, a gelding or a mare as Chaucer had called him, boasts of having a
wench in every town:
Nay! I wol drinke licour of the vyne
And have a holy wenche in every town.(164-65)
Finally, he addresses the pilgrims at the end of this long boastful confession and
hopes to tell them a good tale now that he has had his drink and hopes also to please them all.
His own wickedness does not prevent him from telling a moral tale and he requests the
audience to be quiet so that he may begin.
The tale is a constant reflection of the Pardoner. Thus the process of self-exposure
does not end with the prologue. The Tale become an extension of character.
Check Your Progress

1. What does the Pardoner’s profession involve?
2. What does he preach against?
3. What is text of his sermon? What is the irony behind it?
4. How does Chaucer the poet expose the Pardoner in his Prologue?
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7.2 THE PARDONER’S TALE: A CRITICAL SUMMARY

The Pardoner begins his tale by telling of some people in Flanders who were given to a
riotous living. They indulged in the various sins of drinking, gambling, and blaspheming in
the taverns. He stops at this point to preach against each of these sins he has mentioned,
drawing examples from ancient times to support his arguments. Thus, when he preaches
against the evils of drunkenness he uses the examples of Loi, Herod and Attila and later also
Lemuel. It was gluttony, he says, that drove Adam from Paradise. Then he preaches against
gambling, relating the experiences of Stilboun (Chilon) and Demetrius. Finally, he preaches
against the sin of blasphemy. As in a medieval sermon, he too quotes various authorities -
Seneca and Paul on drunkenness and gluttony; Mathew and Jeremiah on swearing and so he
goes from one sin to the other. The interdependence of all these sins and their relevance to the
tale is exhibited in the way they are carried over in the three rioters who are an embodiment
of all of them. The moral perspective for the tale is thus set.
Returning to the tale he tells of the three revellers who while sitting in a tavern hear
the funeral bell tolling. One of the revellers asks a boy-servant to find out the name of the
dead person. The child however already knows that it was an old friend of these three and
was killed as he sat drunk. Who killed him? The boy explains:
Ther came a privee thief men clepeth deeth,
That in this contree al the peple sleeth,
And with his spere he smoot his herte a two
And wente his wey withouten wordes mo. (387-90)
The child thus personifies Death in his description and warns the three revellers
against such an adversary who had slain thousands of people in a pestilence. The boy’s
mother had advised him in a like manner. The tavern owner supports the boy’s story and
relates how Death had killed many people in a nearby village. That village surely must be
Death’s dwelling place and it would be wise to be prepared.
The revellers swear to seek out Death and make light of the danger they were being
warned against. They swear to be one in this search for Death and pledge themselves
brothers. Drunk as they are, they set out in their search in a furious mood, swearing violent
oaths and thus metaphorically tearing Christ’s body to pieces.
They have not even crossed half a mile when they meet an old man who greets them
humbly. Characteristically they are rude to this old man and ask him why he is covered so
much that only his face can be seen. Also, since he seems to be old, one rioter asks him why
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he has lived so long. The old man, before answering, looks long at the young man’s face and
then says, he has lived so long because there was no one willing to exchange his youth for the
old man’s age. And so, he has to live on as long as God wishes. Even Death does not choose
to take his life even though he keeps knocking at the earth with his staff, imploring her to
take him in. He would willingly give all his clothes just to be wrapped in a shroud. But
mother earth has not yet heard his plea. So, his face is pale and withered (‘welked’). He then
admonishes the young men for their rude behaviour and advises them not to behave so,
especially with old people. He is about to go when the revellers once again rudely stop him
and demand to know the whereabouts of Death. They even accuse him of being a party to
Death’s wish of killing young people.
The old man guides them to a crooked path where he has just left Death, sitting under
a tree. Finally, he blesses them and prays to Christ to save and redeem them. The old man
now leaves, and the three rioters go running to the tree. All they discover there is a heap of
gold florin coins. The sight of gold makes them forget their own pledge and they sit down by
the pile of glittering coins.
The ‘worst of them’ is the first to speak and says that he may be joking all the time,
yet he is clever and considers this discovery a gift of fortune. Since the money has come to
them so easily, so shall it be spent. But they must move this treasure secretly by night, to one
of their houses or else they will be accused of being thieves and may be executed for their
own treasure. Two must stay and guard the money while the third goes and buys some bread
and wine to last them till nightfall. To decide this, they draw lots and it falls to the youngest
to go to the town, and so he leaves.
As soon as his back is turned, the other two revellers agree to stab him when he comes
back so that the gold may be divided only between the two of them, Meanwhile, the youngest
reveller has decided to kill the other two, so he poisons their wine and keeps his own pure.
When he returns the other two stab him and kill him. But as they sit down to celebrate their
treasure, the remaining two revellers are also killed by the poisoned wine. At the end of the
tale, they are all dead.
The tale is not original and many versions of it may be found in classical and
medieval writings. The earliest such tale however is traced back to the Indian Jatakakatha.
The emphasis however varies in most of the versions. When Chaucer decided to begin with a
declaration of killing Death, it makes for much more irony than would have been there
otherwise. Chaucer’s revellers are victims of extreme literalism. They take the personification
to be a person and so fail to recognize it in the shape of the glittering gold. Their blindness is
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absolute. The tale is also a comment on the avaricious nature of mankind which can often
lead him into perils.
In this Tale, Chaucer has put all his rhetorical skills to use. Examples, illustrations,
comparisons, interpretations, digressions, all contribute to creating the right kind of attitude
for the Tale. After having preached against the various sins, suddenly the three rioters are
thrust at the readers, thus creating a strong impact. Chaucer deviates from the sources to
make this Tale more enjoyable and exciting. He personifies Death, thus making a quest for
death’ possible. He shows how the three rioters are unable to distinguish between the literal
and metaphorical meaning. Then he even introduces an irony of situation by describing how
the rioters do not know in which direction they are moving. They go to seek death, find it,
and it is Death which kills them and not vice versa. The detailed descriptions of the
Apothecary and the Old Man may seem superfluous but they have their share in making the
Tale exciting.
As far as characterization is concerned, Chaucer has been careful not to individualize
the Characters. Instead, he keeps them anonymous, naming only ‘Death’ thus placing the
emphasis where it was required most. By now it is evident that the characters here represent
ideas and forces in the mind of the Pardoner. Their impact therefore depends on their
thematic importance. The rioters personify the various sins, the child is a personification of
innocence, youth as contrasted with the old man who, apart from other interpretations, can be
seen to represent Old Age as such. But in the Tale, the Child and the Old Man also represent
dramatic choices and turning points for the rioters.
Finally, a double perspective and a unifying irony is maintained throughout the Tale.
All events can be explained rationally yet everything can also be seen in terms of allegory
and Personification. The ever-present underlying irony, which weaves in and out of the story
finally surfaces when Death slays the rioters instead of being killed by them.
The old man in the tale is mysterious figure and has been seen to have symbolic
significance. Is he a character in his own right? Is he another personification of Death? Is he
the allegorical figure of Old Age, the harbinger of Death? Is he only a contrast to the young
revellers or is he the voice of religion? There are many ways of looking at him.
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Check Your Progress

1. Who is the Pardoner’s Tale about?
2. What do the three rioters personify?
3. What features of a medieval sermon does the tale contain?
4. What prompts the three rioters to search for death.
5. What does the old man personify?
6. What is the irony behind the rioters’ search for death?
7. How is the tale an allegory?
7.3 THE EPILOGUE

After he has finishes his tale, the Pardoner begins to exploit his own story, he exclaims
against the sins that have figured in his tale - treachery, murder, gambling, greed, swearing,
gluttony etc. How can it happen, he asks:
That to thy Creatour which that thee worghte,
And with his precious herete-blood thee boghte,
Thou art so fals and so unkinde, allas! (613-15)
It is the perfect moment for him when his audience is reeling under the impression
and the implications of the tale. He proceeds to pray for his audience that they may be saved
from avarice and then, quite confident of himself, he blatantly tries to cash in on their present
emotional and mental state:
Now goode men, God forgeve you your trespass
And ware you fro the sinne of avaryce.
Myn holy pardoun may yow alle waryce,
So that ye offre nobles or sterlings
Or elles silver broches, spones, ringes (616-20)
There is, however, a sudden change of tone. Perhaps realizing he has gone too far the
Pardoner retreats and pretends that he was only demonstrating how he usually ends his
sermon:
...and lo sirs thus I preche.
And Jesu Crist, that is our soules leche,
So graunte yow his pardon to receyve;
For that is best; I wol you not deceyve. (627-30).
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It is however difficult to believe that the Pardoner is repentant or sincere at this

moment. Many readers have felt this to be a terrible moment of sincerity for the Pardoner, but
there is nothing in the previous developments to support such a hypothesis. Moreover, we
have already seen too much of his insincerity to believe him now.
The Epilogue bears out the truth of the fact that he was in fact insincere. He now
actually tries to sell his pardons and relics to the pilgrims who have witnessed all his
confessions. Had he succeeded it would have been the supreme moment of triumph for him.
But the Host, who is his first target, launches a counterattack going straight to the two most
vulnerable points in him: his homosexuality and his fraudulent relics. The Pardoner is so
taken aback and so extremely angry that he refuses to say a word. The Knight has to
intervene to bring the congenial atmosphere back into the pilgrimage.
Chaucer’s final word seems to be that however effective rhetoric may prove in
persuading people against all odds, yet there are limitations to it. All men cannot be fooled at
all times.
Check Your Progress

1. What does the Pardoner do the moment he concludes his tale?
2. Comment critically on the following lines:
...and lo sirs thus I preche./ And Jesu Crist, that is our soules leche,/ So graunte
yow his pardon to receyve;/ For that is best; I wol you not deceyve.
3. Who stops the Pardoner from succeeding in his attempts to swindle the pilgrims?
8. SUMMING UP
The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales gives us a glimpse into fourteenth century
England where all classes of society are represented except the very rich or the very poor.
Chaucer’s vivid characterization makes these figures come alive for us and they leave an
indelible mark. Be it the chivalrous Knight, the coy Prioress or the crafty Pardoner or even
the dirty Cook, they live on in our memory. The Prologue provides a fitting framework for
the tales that Chaucer’s pilgrims tell. His creation of the gullible persona makes for the
underlying irony which is a masterstroke that gives Chaucer the freedom for the good
humoured but critical appraisal of the pilgrims.
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In The Pardoner’s Tale we get an excellent example of Chaucer’s art as a storyteller. It is a

complex narrative that touches on several themes, including greed, storytelling, death,
religion, and betrayal. Through the story of the three young men, Chaucer highlights the
dangers of excessive greed and the importance of living a virtuous life. The tale also explores
the power of storytelling and the role of religion in people’s lives. Finally, the story
emphasizes the importance of trust and loyalty in relationships and the destructive
consequences of betrayal.
The Pardoner is a skilled storyteller who uses his tale to manipulate and control his
audience. He employs various rhetorical techniques, such as using vivid imagery and
invoking the audience’s emotions, to create a compelling narrative. Through the Pardoner’s
tale, Chaucer explores the idea that storytelling can be used to shape people’s beliefs and
values, as well as to manipulate and control them.
9. SOME EXAMINATION QUESTIONS
I. Reference to Context questions

1. Contextualize, paraphrase and critically comment on the lines given below
Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun
To telle yow al the condicioun
Of ech of hem, so as it semed me,
And whiche they weren, and of what degree,
And eek in what array that they were inne;
2. Identify and critically comment on the lines given below:
And he was clad in cote and hood of grene.
A sheef of pecok arwes, bright and kene,
Under his belt he bar ful thriftily
(Wel koude he dresse his takel yemanly;
His arwes drouped noght with fetheres lowe),
And in his hand he baar a myghty bowe.
3. Paraphrase the lines given below and analyze them critically:
But for to speken of hire conscience,
She was so charitable and so pitous
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She wolde wepe, if that she saugh a mous

Kaught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde.
Of smale houndes hadde she that she fedde
With rosted flessh, or milk and wastel-breed.
But soore wepte she if oon of hem were deed,
Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte;
And al was conscience and tendre herte.
4. Identify and add critical comments bringing out the irony in this description:
This ilke Monk leet olde thynges pace,
And heeld after the newe world the space.
He yaf nat of that text a pulled hen,
That seith that hunters ben nat hooly men,
Ne that a monk, whan he is recchelees,
Is likned til a fissh that is waterlees --
This is to seyn, a monk out of his cloystre.
But thilke text heeld he nat worth an oystre;
And I seyde his opinion was good.
5. Paraphrase the following lines and analyze them critically:
A good WIF was ther OF biside BATHE,
But she was somdel deef, and that was scathe.
Of clooth-makyng she hadde swich an haunt
She passed hem of Ypres and of Gaunt.
In al the parisshe wif ne was ther noon
That to the offrynge bifore hire sholde goon;
And if ther dide, certeyn so wrooth was she
That she was out of alle charitee.
6. Identify and critically comment on the lines given below:
But first I pray yow, of youre curteisye,
That ye n’ arette it nat my vileynye,
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Thogh that I pleynly speke in this mateere,

To telle yow hir wordes and hir cheere,
Ne thogh I speke hir wordes proprely.
For this ye knowen al so wel as I:
Whoso shal telle a tale after a man,
He moot reherce as ny as evere he kan
Everich a word, if it be in his charge,
Al speke he never so rudeliche and large,
Or ellis he moot telle his tale untrewe,
II. Long Answer Questions
1. Write a short note on the opening of the General Prologue.
2. Do you agree with the view that the General Prologue is a cross section of
fourteenth century England?
3. Critically analyze the portrait of the Prioress in the General Prologue.
4. Write a short note on Chaucer the narrator.
5. Do you agree with the view that all is not as it seems in the General Prologue?
Justify your answer.
6. Comment critically on the framework device used by Chaucer in The Canterbury
Tales.
7. Comment on any two ideal portraits in the General Prologue.
8. The rising middle class was an important section of Medieval England. Discuss
any two portraits from this group.
9. Comment on Chaucer’s use of irony in the General Prologue.
10. The satire in the description of the Pardoner and the Summoner condemns them
directly. Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer.
11. “The Pardoner’s Tale is a sermon that goes out of control.” Discuss.
12. “Chaucer never points an accusing finger at his characters, even when dwelling
on their faults.” Consider with reference to The Canterbury Tales.
13. “The Pardoner is an adept performer.” Discuss The Pardoner’s prologue and Tale
in the light of this remark.
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14. Do you think that Chaucer has violated dramatic propriety by putting into the
pardoner’s mouth one of the most beautiful as well as one of the best told tales in
the whole collection? Give a reasoned answer.
15. “He abuses the word of God for worldly ends.” Comment on this remark about
the pardoner in the light of your reading of Chaucer’s The Pardoner’s Tale.
16. “To describe The General prologue to The Canterbury Tales as the greatest
portrait gallery is inadequate, for the Prologue is much more than a collection of
character sketches.” Critically examine the statement. Analyse Chaucer’s skill in
characterization with reference to The General Prologue to The Canterbury
Tales.
17. Show how the Pardoner’s Tale substantiates the text on which the Pardoner
preaches, viz., that greed is the root of all evil.
10. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
Primary Reading
Benson, Larry D., ed. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. 1987, rpt. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1988.
Coghill, N. (trans). The Canterbury Tales. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1951.
Coghill, N. And Tolkein, c. (ed): The Pardoner’s Tale, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1958.
Pollard, Alfred W., Chaucer’s Prologue, Macmillan & Co. Ltd., London, 1962
Robinson, F. N. ed. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957.
Robinson, F.N. ed. The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1997.
Ranganathan, Harriet. The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Delhi: Worldview
Publications, 2014.
Background To Chaucer
Aers, David. Chaucer Brighton: Harvester Press, 1986.
Brewer, D.S. Chaucer in His Time. London: Longman, 1973.
Coulton, G.C. Chaucer and his England. London: Methuen, 1908.
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French, R. Dudley. A Chaucer Handbook., New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1927.

Robertson, D.W. A Preface to Chaucer. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1962.
Secondary Reading
Anderson, J.J. The Canterbury Tales: A Casebook. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1974
Boitani, Piero and Jill Mann. Ed. The Cambridge Chaucer Companion. Cambridge: The
University Press, First published 1986, Reprinted, 1993.
Bowden, Muriel. A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 1948, 2nd
ed. London: Macmillan, 1967.
Brown, Peter and Andrew Butcher. The Age of Saturn: Literature and History in the
Canterbury Tales. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991.
Knapp, Peggy. Chaucer and the Social Context London: Routledge, 1990.
Hussey, S.S. Chaucer: An Introduction. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1971, second edition
1981.
Pearsall, Derek. The Canterbury Tales. London: Allen and Unwin, 1985.
Traversi, Derek. The Canterbury Tales: A Reading. London: The Bodley Head Ltd, 1983.
Works Cited
Bowden, Muriel. A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 1948, 2nd
ed. London: Macmillan, 1967.
Brewer, D.S. Chaucer in His Time. London: Longman, 1973.
Coghill, N. (ed). “Introduction” The Canterbury Tales. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1951.
Coghill, N. And Tolkein, c. (ed): The Pardoner’s Tale, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1958.
Pearsall, Derek. The Canterbury Tales. London: Allen and Unwin, 1985.
Pollard, Alfred W., Chaucer’s Prologue, Macmillan & Co. Ltd., London, 1962
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Unit-II(2)
SONNET-1 ASTROPHEL AND STELLA
Philip Sidney
Shriya Pandey
This lesson will enable you to understand:

• Philip Sidney (1554-1586) and his times
• Renaissance and Reformation
• Petrarchan Sonnet
• Astrophel and Stella
• ‘Sonnet I’
2. INTRODUCTION
Philip Sidney was born on November 29, 1554, in Penhurst, Kent. He belonged to the literary
period of the 'Renaissance and Reformation’ (1510-1620) and was an Elizabethan courtier.
The three major Elizabethan works that Sidney authored are Arcadia (1593), a pastoral
romance; Astrophel and Stella (1591), the first Elizabethan sonnet cycle; and the literary
essay, The Defense of Poesy (1595) which was published under two titles ‘The Defence of
Poesie’ or ‘An Apology for Poetrie'. Herein, is the original copy of the manuscript of
Astrophel and Stella which was published by Thomas Newman in 1591. The original
manuscript is from ‘The
University of Edinburgh’s’
archive, “This is perhaps the
most important early manuscript
of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnet
sequence, a defining work of
Elizabethan English love poetry.
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Sidney (1554-1586) wrote his original manuscript in the 1580s; this copy was made by Sir
Edward Dymoke, an associate of Sir William Fowler, uncle of William Drummond, from
whose collection it came to Edinburgh University Library in the 1620s.” (collection.ed.ac.uk)
The second picture is the front page of Astrophel and Stella published in 1591 from ‘The
British Library’s’ catalogue.
Education
This part will enable us in recognizing the influences on
Sidney that are present in his writing. For instance,
Sidney's definition of creativity in The Defense of Poesy
(1595) states that creativity is the ability to imagine
something with the aid of the natural world. Thus that it
does not only dictate dates, metaphysics, and beliefs like
historians, philosophers, and rhetoricians do. It is
understandable that the perspective of art during the
Renaissance period influenced his views because the
primary goal of poetry is to please rather than to instruct.
To keep his place in Queen Elizabeth I's court, he
expands it in response to the needs of the time. Thomas
Aston, Sidney's instructor at Shrewsbury in 1564,
provided him an introduction to classical Greek and Roman thought. He was a Calvinist and
humanist minister who ministered in English. Humanists thought that art was purely a
subjective impression produced by the intellect. Calvinists are protestants who believe
pleasure is sin and only a few souls are predestined to attain God’s grace. Protestantism, on
the other hand, did not believe in predestination and held that the only way to obtain God's
grace is through faith.
Later, in 1568 Sidney enrolled at Christ Church, Oxford. Here, he became familiar
with the discipline of rhetoric and logic. He was disappointed by the focus placed on logic
and rhetorical analysis in the curriculum. According to Sidney, the desire to communicate, as
is in Astrophel and Stella, is complicated by the eloquence of language (Renaissance’s
understanding of the term rhetoric). Because, it placed too much emphasis on memorization,
the pompousness achieved by showing off the learning made the poetic language devoid of
true emotions. As, Sidney is directly speaking about love, and the stock comic figure of a
lover, hence deductive reasoning is harmful for the purpose of delighting. A few months
before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, Sidney left Oxford and moved to France to finish
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his education in 1572. From 1572 to 1575, Sidney travelled the continent and got involved in
the establishment of Protestant League and his political efforts were directed to this cause.
Career
Sidney started a diplomatic career in 1575, but it was short-lived because of his
staunch Protestantism. Hence, Sidney went to live with his sister, Mary Herbert, the Countess
of Pembroke, in 1580. Sidney began writing Arcadia, Astrophil and Stella, and The Defense
of Poesy. He returned to the court in 1580. He contributed to the development and
implementation of strong Protestant policies while working in the administrative affairs of
England, which was preparing for the inevitable confrontation with Spain in 1581. The
relationship between England and Spain during the 1580s worsened due to religious
differences and business expedition. He married Frances, the daughter of Sir Walsingham,
the secretary of state, in 1583, the same year that the Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) knighted
him. Sidney was a valuable member of the Queen's court even though he occasionally
disagreed with her views. Sidney was even known as favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1585,
the Queen Elizabeth I sent her troops to the war with Spain was inevitable. Sidney was
wounded in the thigh during a brief military battle; 22 days later, just before turning 32, he
passed away n 1586 and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.
Check Your Progress

1. What are the three major works of Sidney?
2. Why did Sidney start the ‘Protestant League’?
3. RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1510-1620)
Italy began the Renaissance in 13th century Europe which lead to a period of Reformation in
16th century England. The Renaissance was a period of intellectual innovation that aimed to
revive the tradition of ancient Greece and Rome while also creating something new and
different from Medieval literature. It sought new perspectives on Plato, Aristotle,
Epicureanism, and ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. The 15th century spread ideas of
Renaissance to the northern European, such as, England and France, primarily due to
Johannes Gutenberg (1406-1468) who invented movable printing press (1440) which began
to print ‘Latin Grammar’ (Ars Minor), ‘Gutenberg Bible’ (1454-55) and increased the book
trade in Europe. Interest in the completeness of human nature increased during the Period
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influenced by Petrarch's writings, for example, courtly love tradition in Rime Sparse or Il
Canzoniere (1374) which emphasized on turning away from misery in order to celebrate
human virtue. As, the English merchant William Caxton (1422-1491) had introduced printing
press into England in 1476. Petrarch’s Rime Sparse was translated into English in 1380 by
Geoffrey Chaucer, and became well known when Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard
translated (1527-?) several Rime in English in the court of Henry VIII (1491-1547). It is
likely that this is how Philip Sidney came to know of Petrarch and his works.
During the 16th century, the English Reformation began in 1533 with King Henry
VIII's ‘Act in Restraint of Appeals,’ thus formally separating England from the Roman
Catholic Church. The court's official language was established as English. This created a new
branch of Christianity, Protestantism. A great number of ‘English Bible’ (1535) and William
Tyndale’s (1494-1536) ‘Great Bible’ (1540) were printed during this time. In many ways,
Reformation's key ideas were peace as well as fame, honour, and glory. During the reign of
queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) the prominent thought ‘via media’ saw emergence. ‘Via
Media’ means the middle road. The establishment of 72 new grammar schools (The Royal
Grammar or Lily’s Grammar) and the use of modern science (arithmetics, physical science et
al) in universities during the 16th century were other significant changes. For example, in
Astrophel and Stella, ‘Sonnet I’ Astrophel yearns for Stella in the same way he does for
‘Invention’ of a genuine poetic language. In ‘Sonnet 63’ the poet writes, “But Grammar’s
force with sweet success confirm”.
Check Your Progress

1. What are main characteristics of Renaissance and Reformation?
4. PETRARCHAN SONNET
Petrarchan Sonnets are in the form of 14 lines divided into octave and a sestet stanza. It was
first introduced by Italian Renaissance poet, Petrarch (1304-1374) in the poetry collection
Rime Sparse (1374). Petrarch's influence resulted in the abolition of old mediaeval forms, the
adoption of the sonnet and other Italian forms, and the ten-syllable (or twelve-syllable) line as
the standard in England, France, Germany, Spain, and other countries. It resulted in new
readings of Virgil and Ovid as well as a fresh perspective on the kind of music that can be
created in verse. The sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella is composed in Petrarchan
tradition; it has 14 lines divided into eight line stanza (octave) and a six line stanza (sestet).
The sonnets follow the rhyme scheme of English sonnets abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The meter used
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by Sidney varies from Iambic Pentameter to Iambic Hexameter (Alexandrines). The Rime
Sparse and the Trionfi (1374) had a profound impact on the development of Renaissance
style across all of the Europe, “In the rhyme scheme he used the popular ABBA ABBA, only
sometimes employing ABAB ABAB or ABAB BAAB. The sestet, he varies between CDE
CDE and CDCDCD.” (Ramdev, 2012, p. vx)
A sonnet is a 14-line lyric poem with formal rhymes that expresses various facets of a
single idea, mood, or feeling before concluding it in the final lines. In the 1530s, Thomas
Wyatt (1503-1542) brought the sonnet tradition to England. In Tottel’s Miscellany (1557),
with their translations of Italian sonnets and a few of their original sonnets, Sir Thomas Wyatt
and Henry Howard (1516-1547), Earl of Surrey, are credited with introducing the sonnet to
England. Among the greatest examples in English are Sir Philip Sidney's sonnet sequence
Astrophel and Stella (1591), which established the Petrarchan sonnet form in England. The
main subject of the 16th-century sonnet was love.
In Petrarch's works, the interpenetration of passion and virtue is a fundamental theme.
These themes are also followed by the English poets who continued the Petrarchan tradition.
The contradiction of freedom and servitude is another intriguing theme found in Petrarch's
poetry. The lady's presence gave the male lovers a purpose in life, validated their honour and
value, and established their nobility and identity. As a result, the service is seen as both a trap
and a means of liberation, due to the fact that rewards are not always connected with the
lady's service.
Check Your Progress

1. What is a Petrarchan sonnet?
2. How did it gain popularity in England?
5. ASTROPHEL AND STELLA (1591)
There are 108 sonnets and eleven songs in the collection Astrophel and Stella, which is more
than just a love tale. Sidney discusses a range of subjects related to poetry, creativity,
invention, various poetic views, and poetic methods. He also draws the reader's attention to a
number of conflicts, including those between wit and emotions, duty and love, desire and
reason, and virtue and passion.
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Alan Sinfield in Sidney and Astrophil (1980) writes that the sonnet sequence is in the style of
a dramatic monologue where the narrator infuses it with an ethical perspective as well as
dramatic irony with the help of first person and third person narrative to show a shift in point
of view. The effect of Astrophel's outright denial of virtue on the love tradition is not
something he learns as the events unfold; rather, it comes up as a direct confrontation at the
beginning, setting the tone for all that comes after. There is no sincere pretense that love can
be justified because it is understood to be self-centered, repressive, and at conflict with
decency.
The first-person perspective encourages readers to accept the speaker's historical
resemblance even while there are indications that the speaker is entirely fictitious. Sidney
attempts to amplify this ambiguity by simultaneously playing up both possibilities. To keep
us from mistaking the speaker for a real person, he gives the speaker a name, places him in an
ethical context, and occasionally addresses us in the third person. According to A.C.
Hamilton in Sidney’s ‘Astrophel and Stella’ as a Sonnet Sequence (1969), Astrophel
experiences a crisis as a poet and a lover as a result of his courtship's minimal success. He
had envisioned Stella as an ideal in his first sonnet, someone who would enjoy hearing his
admiration and, out of love, would extend a favour to him. She tragically proves to be a
listener who becomes less and less interested as she advances up his literary ladder. She
initially revels in his suffering, but no longer; she then accepts his virtue while rejecting his
passion.
Check Your Progress

1. Explain the central conflict in Astrophel and Stella.
2. Explain the use of first person and third person narrative voices in Astrophel
and Stella.
6. ASTROPHEL AND STELLA – SONNET I
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show

That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
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Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:

Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn’d brain
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay,
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet still seem’d but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite-
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”
6.1 Critical Analysis

‘Sonnet I’ follows the rhyme scheme - abababab, cdcd, and ee. The lines are written in
iambic hexameter; it has six feet (12 syllables), and the first syllable is unstressed while the
second is stressed, for example,
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show
Lôvíng || în trúth, || ând faín|| în vérse|| mÿ lóve|| tô shów
The hexameter Echo verses with iambic beats, which Sidney himself refers to as Anacreon-
like verses, is ^ / || ^ / || ^ / || ^ / || ^ / || ^ /. Anacreon was a 7th century ancient lyric poet who
wrote in praise of love. Sidney came across ‘anacreon meter’ while translating another
ancient 7th century Greek lyric poet Sappho’s Ode to Aphrodite in the second eclogue of
Arcadia (1585).
The Octave (Lines 1-8)
The first sonnet of Astrophel and Stella sets the tone of the sonnets, which is, passion and
virtue. The first-person narrative voice (Astrophel) wants to convince his mistress Stella of
the genuineness of his love. Astrophel wants Stella to ‘read’ the truthfulness of his affection,
and the weakening passion he feels for her. He is hopeful that expressing the passion he feels
for attaining Stella might make her return his affection. The language is straightforward, and
the contradiction between, passion and virtue, is presented dramatically. Stella is a
representation of a variety of significant feelings that have been magnified and intensified,
sometimes very dramatically brought on by Sidney's need to express them. While simplicity
and directness are the foundations around which the other attributes are built, Astrophel and
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Stella possess much more than these qualities. The conflict between virtue and passion,
which is a crucial component of the subject matter in Astrophel and Stella, is what gives the
presentation its inherent drama in addition to the outward style.
In the lines 4-6, Astrophel tells the readers that he sought to express his woe with
knowledgeable words to obtain Stella’s grace. Sidney uses the language of speech repetition,
“pity”; and the figurative device, personification, “blackest face of woe” for melancholy. He
internalizes the rhyme in the line with “win” and “obtain” giving it an alliterative quality.
Roger Kuin in Sir Philip Sidney: The Courtier and the Text (1989) highlights the word
"Sprezzatura" to characterise the texture of Sidney's work. In The Book of the Courtier(1528)
Castiglione defines Sprezzatura as “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make
whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about
it.” Hence, the ‘passion’ expressed for Stella demonstrates to the onlookers the values of a
wonderful courtier. The courtier is “self-fashioning”, as Stephen Greenblatt states in
Renaissance Self Fashioning: from More to Shakespeare (1980) to charm Stella who
becomes a symbolic sign for the Queen Elizabeth I. This is more apparent in lines 6-8 where
Astrophel describes Stella as his muse;
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain:
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn’d brain.
The first three words of Sidney are “inventions,” “wits,” and “entertain.” Astrophel refers to
Stella as the “sun”- a star, himself as a "star-lover". Stella has “wit” and also is
metaphorically represented as “fresh and fruitful shower”. The Renaissance men saw ‘nature’
and ‘art’ as having a vast and all-encompassing dominion over the world, though the precise
meanings of these terms varied greatly from writer to writer depending on the individual's
beliefs about the particular state of ‘fallen nature’, “the evil in sexual act was due to the
submergence of the rational faculty” (Kapadia, 2012, p.9). And, his assumptions about the
reliability of human reason as the source of all art. Sidney argues that ‘nature’ inherently
encompasses all empirically observable phenomena, both past and present, while art is only
the systematic presentation of these facts.
In the line, “Oft turning others ’leaves, to see if thence would flow” Astrophel claims
that in order to show his love through words and appease to her wit and fine stature he
borrowed from other great poets “Oft turning others’ leaves” as a transferred epithet for
books. “To see if thence would flow” but did not find the satisfaction in such imitations.
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The Sestet (Lines 9-14)

In the sestet Sidney goes on to address the second subject of ‘Sonnet I’, which is, Invention
or imagination. Invention is personified as ‘Nature’s child’ and is the most important aspect
of the creative process, but wanting it to ‘stay’ becomes difficult when he is still imitating
from other’s ‘leaves’. The words which elude him will become real and possible only if he
looks into his ‘heart’ and writes. He is reprimanded by his muse when he is in “helpless
throes” and is cautioned against the “truant pen”. Sidney uses personification, symbolism and
irony to reject anything less than the utmost devotion to true emotions.
Check Your Progress

1. Describe the development of poetic subjectivity in ‘Sonnet I’.
2. Explain the use of personification in ‘Sonnet I’.
3. How does the poet express his internal conflict in ‘Sonnet I’?
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hamilton, A. C. “Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella as a Sonnet Sequence.” ELH, vol. 36, no. 1,
1969, pp. 59–87. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2872143.
Ramdev, Rina. Sidney, Spenser, and Donne, A Critical Introduction. Worldview Publication,
2012.
Sinfield, Alan. “Sidney and Astrophil.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 20, no.
1, 1980, pp. 25–41. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/450099.
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B.A.(Hons.) English
Unit-II(3)
‘THE PASSIONATE MAN’S PILGRIMAGE’
Walter Raleigh
Shriya Pandey
• Walter Raleigh (1554-1618): Brief biography

• Late 16th century Elizabethan Lyrics
• ‘A Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage’ (1604)- Critical Analysis
2. INTRODUCTION
Walter Raleigh (1554-1618) was an English courtier, explorer, and historian who also
composed poetry. Edmund Gosse in Sir Walter Raleigh (1903) describes him as a geographer
and patron of geographical writing who approaches his subject in the purest light of
imagination. As a courtier of Queen Elizabeth I, Raleigh made many attempts to establish
colonies between 1584 and 1603. Raleigh arrived at court in the year 1581; he was knighted
by Queen Elizabeth I in 1585. With time and his political influence as the Member of
Parliament for Devon and Cornwall, Raleigh amassed vast estates in the southwest, the
Midlands, and Ireland. He constructed a vessel with his fortune, which he eventually
presented it to Queen Elizabeth I, who gave it the name Ark Royal. Later, this ship served as
the English fleet's flagship in the Spanish Armada (1588). When Elizabeth I passed away in
1603 without having had an heir, her cousin James VI of Scotland succeeded her as James I
of England. In 1603 Raleigh was sentenced to prison by the enraged king James I after
Raleigh’s failed expedition to Guyana (1596) which worsened crown’s relationship with its
rival Spain.
Raleigh’s Apology (1618) was a series of letters written to Queen Anne, Lord George
Carew, and King James I. These were formal letters to communicate his earnestness to be
pardoned while he was imprisoned in the ‘Tower of London’. Raleigh was executed in 1618.
His most acclaimed poems are The Lie (1592), The Nymph’s Reply to the Shephard (1600)
and The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage (1604).
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Check Your Progress

1. In which year was Walter Raleigh knighted by Queen Elizabeth I?
2. Describe the role of Raleigh as Elizabeth I’s courtier.
3. THE ELIZABETHAN LYRIC VERSE
According to Reginald Waddy in Elizabethan Lyrics and Love-Songs (1911), Elizabethan

lyric was influenced by mediaeval song, ballad music, folk song, and a variety of Italian and
Renaissance poetry. The lyrics improved in diction after the extreme asceticism and
restriction of the Middle Ages, as men realized lyrics were an expression of life, nature, and
man in their most amiable and joyful states. An Elizabethan lyric's main theme is love. This
theme extends to the love of nature, including the love of birds and flowers, pastoral scenes,
spring, country living, simplicity, and serenity.
The 16th Century Lyric in England: A Critical and Historical Reinterpretation: Part I
(1939) explains the primary distinction between the Petrarchan sonnets and Lyric poetry of
16th century as the simplicity of language or poetic rhetoric. The most important contribution
of the lyric poetry of 16th century is to ‘sprung rhythm’. It is a type of unnamed rhythm
devised in 16th century where there are two-three accented syllables (which at times might be
lightly stressed) followed by unaccented syllables, for example, the first line of A Passionate
Man’s Pilgrimage (1604);
Gíué mé mÿ Scāllōp shêll óf quiét (í- accented, î-unaccented, ī-lightly accented)
The two key developments in lyric verse from the Elizabethan to the Jacobean eras are: first,
the courtiers had an ironic perspective on the pastoral imagery of the early Elizabethans
because there was a disconnect between utopian ideals and aspirations for upward mobility.
Second, the religious attitude in the lyrics was a cynical reaction to the pacifism of Stuart
King James I. The nobility was given more prestige by the Tudors' and London became the
center of English life. Trade increased, and new capital from American colonies surged in last
two decades of 16th century. As a result, the poetry of the age was a reflection of a largely
urban culture;
The eclogue was the pastoral genre inherited and imitated by Renaissance poets. But
Elizabethan pastoral is characterized by a proliferation into other genres…within larger
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narrative and dramatic forms…lyrics, romances, satires, comedies and tragicomedies,

erotic Ovidian narratives, pageants and masques, all of which may be wholly or
partially pastoral. It is this explosion of pastoral possibilities that makes the last decades
of the sixteenth century and the first decades of the seventeenth century the golden age
of English pastoral literature. (Montrose, 1983, p. 420)
Montrose in Of Gentlemen and Shepherds: The Politics of Elizabethan Pastoral Form (1983)
discusses that the poetry focused on creating an elite community within rural settings in order
to portray a world where privilege and virtue meet. The lyrics frequently highlighted the
comparison between religious and secular forms of courtly worship and supplication through
the employment of language of self-presentation.
Check Your Progress

1. Describe Elizabethan lyric verse.
2. How did the colonial expansion during the last decade of the 16th century
influence lyric verse?
4. A PASSIONATE MAN’S PILGRIMAGE (1604): CRITICAL

ANALYSIS
Supposed to be written by one at the point of death.

The poem was composed in 1603 and published in 1604, when Raleigh was sentenced to
prison by the enraged king James I after Raleigh’s failed expedition to Guyana (1596) which
worsened crown’s relationship with its rival Spain. The first six lines of the poem reveal the
Elizabethan knight’s shame on being wrongly accused by the court. Th poem begins with an
echo of his earlier impassioned defense of Elizabethan policy of expansion. The dramatic
language situates the poetic diction of Raleigh as a pilgrimage towards glory.
Lines 1-6
‘Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation
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My gown of glory, hope’s true gage,

And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.’
(Rhyme scheme: ABAB CC)
The narrator uses the possessive pronoun ‘my’ which according to Montrose, is a language
strategy of late 16th century writers to calculate the relationship between individual labour
and its contribution in glorification of the crown. The use of religious imagery capitalizes on
the moral piety of the English people. The desire for salvation, glory and immortality are the
key signifiers of a good soul. In the above lines, narrator, pleads for quiet and uses the
metaphor of “scallop shell”. The despair of narrator does not defeat his hope of attaining
salvation and glory. The lines use metaphor to associate the feelings of narrator with his
imagination and senses. The rhyming pattern of the lyrics is ABAB CC. The coupled rhyme
used by Raleigh have a varying beat style, these were later known as ‘Sprung Rhythm’ (one-
two stressed and indefinite number of unstressed syllables with sudden stressed syllables) and
could be traced back to the alliterative verse of old English poetry; eg. ‘Givé mé mÿ Scāllōp
shēll ôf quiet’
Check Your Progress

1. Comment on the religious imagery used in these lines.
2. What is ‘sprung Rhythm?
3. What is the context of this poem?
Lines 7-18
‘Blood must be my body’s balmer,
No other balm will there be given,
Whilst my soul, like a white palmer,
Travels to the land of heaven;
Over the silver mountains,
Where spring the nectar fountains;
And there I’ll kiss
The bowl of bliss,
And drink my eternal fill
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B.A.(Hons.) English
On every milken hill.

My soul will be a-dry before,
But after it will ne’er thirst more;’
(Rhyme scheme: ABAB CC DD EE FF)
These 12 lines, can be divided into the Elizabethan sonnet form of three quatrains (four line
stanzas), or the Ballad form with eight line stanza (Octave) and 4 line stanza (envoi). The
lines if viewed as a point of reflection and pietistic devotion profess the love of the poet for
the pilgrimage of the soul. The narrator confesses his innocence with the use of simile ‘like a
white palmer’. The image of the biblical garden is claimed to be the final resting home, with
the use of allusions to Socrate’s bowl ‘The Bowl of bliss’ and the eternal fill of milken hill
will end the soul’s restlessness ‘never thirst more’. Raleigh’s failed expedition of Guyana in
search for ‘gold’ and charges of sedition lead to his trial and imprisonment in ‘The Garden
House’ of the ‘Tower of London’.
The irony of the situation here is that, when he was most likely writing his lyrical
verse after being convicted of conspiracy against the crown resulting in a death sentence, the
same was changed to life imprisonment in the same year. Ballad, which is a long song telling
a story may also have been used by Raleigh to express his amusement as well as fear. It
might be targeted at the conspirators who intended his fall and as an apology to James I to
plead his innocence. The narrative shifts from the banal to the mystical in the envoi. If we
analyze the meter of the poem we can see, that the beats are irregular, sometime in form of a
trochee (one stressed and another unstressed syllable).
Check Your Progress

1. How does the narrative shift from the banal to the mystical?
2. Explain ‘Bowl of bliss’ and ‘White palmer’.
3. What is the irony in the writing of this poem?
Lines 19-28
‘And by the happy blissful way
More peaceful pilgrims I shall see,
That have shook off their gowns of clay,
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And go apparelled fresh like me.

I’ll bring them first
To slake their thirst
And then to taste those nectar suckets,
At the clear wells
Where sweetness dwells,
Drawn up by saints in crystal buckets.’
(Rhyme scheme: ABAB CC DE ED)
This stanza has 10 lines. ‘Terra Rima’ was invented by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) in his
Italian narrative poem Divine Comedy (1321). The poem is based on three premises, human
reason, divine revelation and contemplative mysticism. It narrates the state of soul after death
which is due for verdict. The rhyme scheme of a ‘Terra Rima’ is altered in these lines but the
allusion is more similar thematically than in form. The narrator uses metaphor to compare the
mortal body with ‘gowns of clay’ and replaces the human ego with a more egalitarian tone of
servitude, ‘Ile bring them first… Drawn up by Saints in Crystal buckets.’
Check Your Progress

1. Explain the thematic similarity to the Divine Comedy.
2. Explain the metaphor ‘gowns of clay’.
Lines 29-34
‘And when our bottles and all we
Are fill’d with immortality,
Then the holy paths we’ll travel,
Strew’d with rubies thick as gravel,
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors,
High walls of coral, and pearl bowers.’
(Rhyme scheme : Irregular)
Anna Beer in “Textual Politics: The Execution of Sir Walter Raleigh” writes that after the
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arrest and verdict of 1603, Raleigh began to defend himself brilliantly; “The failure of these
intercessions reveals Raleigh's increasing inability to control the language of address. The
Apology is a long, tortuous, and tortured work, which degenerates into confusion, both
syntactically and ideologically. Raleigh mixes humility, in the form of admissions of his
failure and his unpardoned status, with aggressive attacks on both the men who failed him in
the voyage, the ‘very scum of the world’, and the ‘knaves and liars’ who now slander him.
This confusion of tone disables the more lucid passages, which, in their use of historical
analogy, their careful expositions of events, and their dialogic expressions, echo the
techniques in his other late works. When Raleigh succeeds in stating his case clearly, it is
formulated in the aggressively antithetical mode of The History of the World.” (p. 22)
‘And when our bottles and all we…High walls of coral, and pearl bowers.’
The inability to control the syntactic language of his lyric is visible in these lines
which do not have a rhyme scheme or a definite rhythm. During his days of imprisonment in
‘The Garden House’ Raleigh prepared ‘Balsam of Guiana’ which was a medicine made of
‘pearl, musk, hartshorn, bezoar stone, mint, gentian, mace, red rose, aloes, sassafras, spirits of
wine, and vipers ’hearts’. The lines composed during the same time might indicate to this
ongoing experiment. The potion was declared to be an atheistic enterprise and revived the
oldest charges of religious sacrilege against Raleigh. Hence, the lines are also strategic in this
that he hoped, “By casting off the suspicions of religious nonconformity which had dogged
him throughout his life, Raleigh's newfound piety served to validate his claims of political
truth telling.” (Anna B, 1996, p. 27)
Check Your Progress

1. Explain the significance of the irregular rhyme scheme in these lines.
2. What are the precious gems an allusion to?
Lines 35-50
From thence to heaven’s bribeless hall
Where no corrupted voices brawl,
No conscience molten into gold,
Nor forg’d accusers bought and sold,
No cause deferr’d, nor vain-spent journey,
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For there Christ is the king’s attorney,

Who pleads for all without degrees,
And he hath angels, but no fees.
When the grand twelve million jury

Of our sins and sinful fury,
’Gainst our souls black verdicts give,
Christ pleads his death, and then we live.
Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader,
Unblotted lawyer, true proceeder,
Thou movest salvation even for alms,
Not with a bribed lawyer’s palms.
(Rhyme scheme: AA BB CC DD)
Raleigh is seen defending his personal honour and shows his passionate belief in piety by
extolling the King and his lawyers by using the metaphor of Christ and angels. He calls to
attention the decadent state of courtiers who according to him are unfit for their positions as
they have lost their personal honour and virtue. The rhyme scheme is AABBCCDD, and uses
varying tri-meter (Fróm thêncê || tó heávêns || Bríbelêss háll/ Whérê nó || côrrúptéd || vóicês
bráwl) to express narrator’s anguish in being accused wrongfully by the conspirators.
The survival of the state and the state church depended on the internalization of obedience. A
good example of this procedure is the pious and submissive Raleigh, who, in these words,
renounced a defiance based on personal dignity and instead accepted the justice of his trial,
confessed his sin, and begged the King for forgiveness, At the moment of execution it is
reported that a great ‘muttering went through the multitude[:] never died a braver spirit.’
Those who had never loved Raleigh ‘loved him in the catastrophe of his life.’ (Anna B, 1996,
p.31)
Check Your Progress

1. How does Raleigh defend his personal honour?
2. Explain the reference to Christ in relation to James I.
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Lines 51-58
And this is my eternal plea
To him that made heaven, earth, and sea,
Seeing my flesh must die so soon,
And want a head to dine next noon,
Just at the stroke when my veins start and spread,
Set on my soul an everlasting head.
Then am I ready, like a palmer fit,
To tread those blest paths which before I writ.
(Rhyme scheme: AA BB CC DD)
These concluding eight lines follow the Petrarchan tradition of reflection. The grotesque
imagery of the lines such as, ‘And want a head…start and spread’ and the irony and sardonic
tone of the lines alongside the ‘eternal plea’ of the narrator chiefly juxtaposes the idea of
honour and martyrdom. It is implicit of dramatization of internalized obedience by the
honorable knight Raleigh, who is determined to present his truthfulness. The professed faith
through the mystical allusion to perfect Christian death alongside political truth telling is the
visual display of Raleigh’s performance.
Check Your Progress

1. How does the poet juxtapose the ideas of honour and martyrdom?
5. CONCLUSION
“Supposed to be written by one at the point of death.”

Execution ballads, were an extremely popular form in early modern England. Taverns,
marketplaces, homes, and even the execution space itself resounded with the singing of
these macabre ditties, allowing the public to reflect upon and relive the brutal spectacle
of execution through the medium of song. Whilst ballads were probably read out loud,
they were, first and foremost, intended to be sung, and the majority of ballad sheets
usually contain an inscription under the title indicating its tune. These popular and
memorable melodies were used over and over again, garnering new thematic and
emotional associations with each rendering. (Willis, 2021, web)
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The internal variation of stanza, rhyme and rhythm is an imaginative stance dramatized by
Raleigh in his lyrical verse. The poem’s opening sequence and the closing sequence follow
the Petrarchan stanzaic division, with a difference. The middle of the poem is divided into
varying lengths and show the influence of Shakespeare, Spencer, Sidney and early classical
Renaissance framework, such as, Dante. The change of reigning house, from the Tudors to
the Stuarts lead to a series of events which impacted the courtiers. “Into the sunset Raleigh
took an intellect which was one of the most powerful and most highly trained of the rich
Elizabethan age, He was poet, historian, chemist, soldier, philosopher, courtier; he carried
with him on his geographical expeditions the prestige, the skill, the basis of ripe thought
which all this commerce with the world of men and books had given him.” (Gosse, 1903, p.
605)
6. Works Cited
Beer, Anna. “Textual Politics: The Execution of Sir Walter Ralegh.” Modern Philology, vol.
94, no. 1, 1996, pp. 19–38. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/438299.
Gosse, Edmund. “Sir Walter Raleigh.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 21, no. 6, 1903, pp.
602–05. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1775649.
Hunt, Clay. “The Elizabethan Background of Neo-Classic Polite Verse.” ELH, vol. 8, no. 4,
1941, pp. 273–304. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2871583.
Montrose, Louis Adrian. “Of Gentlemen and Shepherds: The Politics of Elizabethan Pastoral
Form.” ELH, vol. 50, no. 3, 1983, pp. 415–59. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2872864.
Waddy, Reginald. “Elizabethan Lyrics and Love-Songs.” Proceedings of the Musical
Association, vol. 38, 1911, pp. 21–39. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/765565.
Winters, Yvor. “The 16th Century Lyric in England: A Critical and Historical
Reinterpretation: Part I.” Poetry, vol. 53, no. 5, 1939, pp. 258–72. JSTOR,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20581656.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-I/Accession
https://www.worldhistory.org/Walter_Raleigh/
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/sir-walter-raleigh
https://www.britannica.com/art/sprung-rhythm
https://manyheadedmonster.com/2021/03/04/execution-ballads-and-the-popular-imagination-
in-seventeenth-century-england/
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B.A.(Hons.) English
Unit-II(4)
‘THE SUNNE RISING’ ‘THE CANONIZATION’
‘THE GOOD-MORROW’
John Donne
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
This lesson will enable you to

• Situate Donne in the poetic love tradition
• Understand the main features of metaphysical poetry
• Critically analyze the poems prescribed for your study
THE SUNNE RISING

John Donne
Vibhuti Wadhawan
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Life of John Donne (1572-1631)

John Donne was born in the latter half of Queen Elizabeth’s reign in 1572, in the period
commonly identified as the English Renaissance, and lived until the first decade of the
Caroline age. Donne’s poems were chiefly read in the manuscript form during his lifetime
and were published only after his death in 1631, and therefore, he is considered more of a
Jacobean poet. However, critic Jonson considers that Donne had already produced his best
work before he was twenty-five, but since his poems were published later, he is regarded as
the seventeenth century Jacobean poet.
The early seventeenth century was marked by political upheavals and religious unrest.
Donne was born of Roman Catholic parents but by the beginning of the seventeenth century
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came under tremendous pressure to conform to the Anglican faith under the Protestant Queen
Elizabeth. In 1598, Donne entered the services of Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of
England, as his secretary. However, what damaged his career was his secret marriage to Anne
More who was a minor under the guardianship of Egerton. As a result of his elopement,
Donne was dismissed from Egerton’s service and fell on bad times. For the next decade, he
lived in extreme poverty and unemployment while his family grew, with Anne giving birth to
a child each year. In order to improve his fortunes then, Donne took orders as a deacon and
priest in 1615 under pressure from King James. However, his wife Anne died soon after
while giving birth to a stillborn child. Distraught poet in bereavement turned fully to his
vocation as a man of religion. This was also the time his literary compositions saw a shift
from secular themes to religious concerns. He became the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral and
held this position until his death in 1631.
1.2 DONNE AND THE POETIC LOVE TRADITION
At the time of Donne, there were mainly two ‘schools’ of love—the Platonic and the Ovidian.
Platonic love inspired from Petrarch was of a non-sensuous kind, where the beloved was seen
as a spiritual ideal—a manifestation of the higher divine. On the other hand, the Ovidian
school had a more sensuous and playful approach towards love where the lover became a
slave to his passions. While the Ovidian lover’s adoration was to win sensual rewards from
his ladylove, the Platonic lover was more devoted and deferential.
Let us not forget that Donne was writing for the Elizabethan court where courtly love
poetry enjoyed great patronage and favour with the queen. Courtly love ideal was revived by
Queen Elizabeth following the classical and medieval literary traditions of the courtly love
poetry, where a nobleman pronounced his love for a lady and idealised her as chaste and
unattainable. The higher aim of courtly love ideal was to lead men to transcend the physical
beauty of the beloved to reach the ultimate beauty and truth of God. Through the pursuit of
such beauty, the lover would be exalted beyond the physical/temporal to a higher spiritual
plane. Most of the Elizabethan sonneteers such as Sidney and Spencer wrote in the courtly
love tradition and imitated Petrarch’s platonic model of courtly love, with their sonnets
venerating Queen Elizabeth as the “Virgin Queen”.
However, unlike his predecessors such as Spencer who described the visible physical
beauty, Petrarch who talked about sublimation in love, and Ovid for whom love was a sport,
Donne gives importance to physicality, earthiness and mutuality in love. While Petrarch and
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Dante sanctified women’s body beyond such unholy contemplation, Donne rejects this old
platonic style which was devoid of passion and makes an unabashed declaration of his love.
Donne’s poems register a clear departure from the sonnet conventions of the
Elizabethan court as he moves away from the idealistic platonic approach of the courtly
tradition to a more sensual Ovidian expression. Donne can be credited for not only
introducing innovation in the Elizabethan renaissance poetry with his metaphysical conceits
but also for challenging the Petrarchan tradition where the beloved was seen as chaste and
divine. With Donne, there is no Petrarchan idealisation of women as goddesses. He rejects
the platonic Petrarchan ideal of womanhood and instead takes recourse to Ovidian elegies. He
subverts the mystification of the beloved commonly seen in Petrarch and expresses a longing
for intimacy with the beloved. In complete contrast to Petrarch, Donne celebrates reciprocity
in male and female love relationships and there is a continuous assertion of mutuality and
reciprocity in the experience of love. The ‘thou’ and ‘I’ that one sees in Petrarch becomes
‘we’ in Donne’s poetry.
Broadly speaking, Donne’s poetry has been divided into two categories—love poetry
and religious poetry. Love is a recurrent theme in his poetry where he expresses a longing for
intimacy with the beloved and desires a union that cures “the defects of loneliness”(The
Extasie). While Donne’s love poems, songs and sonnets were composed in 1590s, the impact
of religion is seen towards the latter part of his life after he was ordained as an Anglican
priest under pressure from King James.
With the ascendancy of James I, the love poetry that flourished in the Elizabethan
court was gradually replaced by religious verses greatly patronised the king. The changed
socio-religious scene from Elizabethan to Jacobean age also cast its influence on Donne’s
writings. In contrast to the unabashed eroticism and promiscuity of his earlier poems, his later
poems reflect a mature understanding of love that took on a spiritual colouring. Grierson and
Smith identify this transition from sensual to religious poetry by Anne Donne’s death, and
believe that “when Anne died, all Donne’s love for her turned back to God from whom she
came”(97). His wife Anne’s death during childbirth and its bereavement turned him towards
God that paved way for religious poetry.
If Donne’s early poems are about love and its expression, his later poems are
metaphysical in content and reflect his spiritual awareness. However, the two experiences are
not shown exclusive and are often presented as one. Several of his holy sonnets and poems
conflate the sexual and the spiritual where the two experiences intertwine. Donne’s love
poems often use religious metaphors. In Batter my Heart, the poet uses rape as the central
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metaphor. God is drawn as a masculine lover with poet a pliant female asking God to ravish
her to make her pure. The later poems reveal a shift in the poet’s religious sensibilities where
his initial scepticism about God in the Holy Sonnets converts to assured faith in Hymn to God
in my Sickness. It is in his poems where the religious unrest of his age along with his spiritual
scepticism and confusion accompanying his ordination also finds expression.
Check Your Progress

1. Explain the difference between the Platonic and Ovidian schools of love.
2. How do Donne’s poems register a clear departure from the sonnet conventions
of the Elizabethan court?
1.3 THE METAPHYSICAL POETS
The phrase ‘metaphysical poets’ was first used by Samuel Johnson in The Lives of Poets
(1799) who applied it to the work of poets writing at the beginning of the seventeenth century
whose “manner resembled that of Donne”. Most of the metaphysical poetry was written in
the latter part of the sixteenth century to mid-seventeenth century, prominently between 1595
and 1660.The metaphysical school included George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Abraham
Cowley among others.
Ostensibly, the word ‘metaphysical’ is a combination of ‘meta’ (after) and ‘physical’
(material) which means beyond or after the physical. Metaphysics is seen as opposite to the
physical/material nature of the world and deals with philosophical ideas related to religion,
death, nature of the soul, universe and man’s place in it. Critic R.G Cox suggests that the
term ‘metaphysical’ was used to identify poetry with “fundamental problems and opposition
of a metaphysical nature” that was “express(ed) by a special kind of paradoxical metaphors”
(Cox, 110). Much of the metaphysical poetry is religious and frequently other concerns
related to soul, eternity and time do appear.
A salient and distinguishing feature of metaphysical poetry is its use of conceits.
Conceits are witty and intellectualized metaphors that draw a deliberate parallel between two
dissimilar objects/ideas. The two objects may be vastly different and not alike at all, but the
ingenuity lies in bringing two disparate ideas and images together to draw an unlikely parallel
between the two.
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Samuel Johnson identified Donne’s poetry as “metaphysical” for his rich use of
conceits. Donne’s poems use weird analogies, wit and wordplay to fuse logic and emotions
through abstract ratiocination and intellectual conceits. If in A Valediction, Donne presents
lovers as “twin-feet compass”, in The Flea he uses conceit of a flea to convince his beloved
for lovemaking.
Over the years, critics have differentiated conceits from ordinary poetic metaphors.
While metaphors imply straightforward comparison, a conceit likens two dissimilar objects.
Skilful use of a conceit establishes a relationship between two different ideas to convey the
poet’s vision by cleverly linking the ordinary and familiar with the abstract and imaginary.
The strength of a poem lies in its creative use of metaphysical wit (clever reasoning) that
unitesW unrelated ideas incapable of any link or association.
According to Grierson and Smith, “if Donne’s conceits are extravagant, his
vocabulary is simple” to reveal his cogent logic and his creative cleverness (99). There are
frequent references to religion, medieval cosmology, alchemy, chemistry and imperialism
that well illustrate the concerns of his age. Discourses on monarchy, law and science are
alluded to and often figure in the form of analogies and conceits.
Check Your Progress

1. What is a conceit? How is it different from ordinary metaphors?
1.4 THE SUNNE RISING
The Sun Rising

Busy old fool, unruly sun.
Why dost thou thus.
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys, and sour prentices,
Go tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
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Thy beams, so reverend, and strong

Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to morrow late, tell me,
Whether both the Indias of spice and Myn
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those Kings whom thou saw'st yesterday.
And thou shall heare, All here in one bed lay.
She's all States, and all Princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compar'd to this.
All honor's mimic; All wealth alchemy,
Thou sun art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art every where;
This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.
Donne’s The Sunne Rising is an imitation of the medieval European tradition of aubade –a
morning love song sung by the lover when the lovers separate at dawn. These twelfth century
aubade were essentially love poems in which the lover lamented the end of night’s comfort
with daybreak. The poem is also influenced by Ovid’s Amores that were playful and erotic
love elegies. Though Donne borrows from the two poetic traditions of Ovid and aubade, he
subverts them by reinventing the conventions.
The Sunne Rising is addressed to the sun. The poem has the poet speaking in voice of
a lover who reproaches the sun for disrupting the pleasures of the night with his beloved. The
conceit of the sun runs throughout the poem and the sun presented as a vain voyeur, a
peeping-tom who bothers the lovers through the curtains and windows and interferes in their
lovemaking.
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Though it is the sun that determines the diurnal rhythm, it becomes an irksome
nobody for the lover as the lovers are subject to the motions of this sun like the rest of the
world. The lover upbraids the sun as “saucy” (impertinent) and “pedantic wretch” (haughty)
and asserts his superiority over the sun by calling it “a busy old fool”(1). He condescendingly
instructs him to stop bothering them and instead wake up “late schoolboys”, apprentices to
various trades, court’s huntsmen preparing for king’s riding out and the “country ants” who
go harvesting. The image of the “country ants” here refers to both the real insect ‘ants’ and
the field labourers/farm hands engaged in agriculture. “Court huntsmen” here carries a veiled
reference to King James who was fond of hunting. Despite its importance, the impertinent orb
is dismissively dispatched to discharge his diurnal duties and not bother the lovers.
The sun is a symbol of life; a marker of time, hours and seasons and reins the
activities of the world. But the lover refuses to recognise the authority of the sun and
flagrantly debunks it by asserting that his love is eternal and not a slave of time or seasons:
“Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime…”(9) Admonishing the sun, Donne asks him
what makes the sun think he can control the meeting of the lovers, and goes on to claim that
their love is not bound or enslaved by the movement of the sun. The sun holds no authority
over the life of lovers and is instead curtly asked to go about his daily business.
The sun is criticised throughout the poem. It is denigrated as “unruly” for intruding
into the lives of the lovers and is pulled down from its exalted pedestal. The poet-lover
further claims that the sun “beams” are not so powerful and he can easily eclipse/block the
sun by merely shutting his eyes, something he would not do because he cannot bear to lose
the sight of his beloved even for a second. The sun is stripped of all its grandeur that in turn is
imparted to the beloved’s eyes which the lover says are more radiant than the sun.
Every insult thrown at the sun becomes a compliment to the beloved. It is by using the
conceit of the sun that the lover elevates his beloved above all the fragrance and the riches of
the world.
The sun is rendered peripheral with its glory imparted to the beloved upon whom the
lover claims sovereignty. The beloved is “all states” and the lover is the “prince” ruling over
her. And in his power over his beloved, he becomes a king/ruler of the most extensive state.
There is an allusion to the imperialistic enterprise of his day when Donne mentions East
Indies known for its perfumes and spices and West Indies famous for gold. The lover
commands the sun to “look” around the globe and report “tomorrow” all the richness and
treasures of India that he says are concentrated in the beloved who lies with him in bed,
proclaiming that compared to these riches, what he has in his bed pales the treasures of India.
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All the honours, riches and alchemy of this world are meaningless before their love. “All
honor's mimique, all wealth alchemy” (24) refers to Plato’s conception of the material world
as temporary where all honour/fame is unreal and all wealth bogus. For the lover, the entire
world is illusive and only his love is real. It is the lovers that constitute the entire world and
all that is meaningful and worthy is concentrated in their love for each other.
In their status as lovers, the couple is exalted beyond the temporal. The world with all
its riches is concentrated in their bed as they look down on the sun and treat it with disdain.
The sun becomes a part of the material world that is unreal while the lovers present true
reality—timeless and eternal in their love for each other. Seasons, climate or time does not
alter the intensity of love in poet’s mind, as the poem reiterates lovers’ seclusion and
exclusion from the prying eyes of the hostile world and grants love permanence by elevating
lovers beyond the temporal world.
Paradoxically enough, the lover who was initially impatient at the appearance of the
sun, now orders the sun to stay forever in his room. The sun is “old” and should not take
pains of going around the world. And since the lovers constitute the whole world, the sun
should make the lovers his centre and revolve around them by making their bed its centre and
walls its orbit and shine on them. In the final lines, contempt gives way to patronage as the
sun is asked to shine on the lovers, with the couple taking the place of decentered earth:
“shine here on us, and thou art everywhere” (29).For the lover, it is the beloved who
encapsulates all the richness and grandeur. And since his beloved is the essence of all
kingdoms, glory and wealth, the sun should shine on them and not take pains to go around the
world.
Though the heliocentric nature of the universe had long been discovered and known,
Donne still refers to the sun going around the earth and gives love the centrality he believes it
deserves/commands. For the lover, the sun may be a mighty symbol of life and a marker of
time, but the lovers are above it in the boundlessness of their love that defies the limits of
both time and space. The lovers will keep their own time and the force of their love will make
the sun go round.
The Sunne Rising has Donne reiterating his belief in the sovereignty of love over
every other human and natural activity. It is male heterosexual love that finds expression in
verses where a man praises his beloved. However, the power that the lover wishes over the
beloved needs a closer inspection. Catherine Belsey questions this kind of love expressed in
terms of “conquest” with a “wholly silent women” and goes on to identify “sexual politics
with the cultural analysis of femininity and masculinity”(219).She contends that Donne’s
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poems reveal an inherent gender hierarchy through the construction of this ‘self’ and the
‘other’, where the ‘self’ is the superior male/coloniser/ruler/powerful and the ‘other’ is the
inferior woman/colonised subject/ruled/weak. Women are objectified and become the
subordinated ‘other’ –a kind of possession to be gazed at, desired and conquered.
Though many of Donne’s love poems are addressed to women, the women in them
remain silent and subordinate to the male voice. His other poems Elegie: to his Mistress
Going to Bed and The Good-morrow also present sexual relation in terms of imperial politics
where the beloved’s body becomes a territorial possession to be mapped and discovered.
According to Thomas Docherty “what is being sought by the poet is a recognition of his
maleness, recognition of his phallus, and an acknowledgement of the power which its
potency is supposed to give him” (82). Implicit gender hierarchy is revealed through the
metaphor of colonization, where the lover becomes a ‘prince’ ruling over his ‘states’. With
the lover rightfully declaring mastery over his beloved, the poet seems to make it clear that
the rule of the female monarch does not mean patriarchal society is rethinking gender roles,
and reaffirms the old hierarchy where men are superior and women play a subordinate role.
The tone of The Sunne Rising is both commanding and patronising and the language,
colloquial. Metaphors ranging from science to colonial explorations are employed to assert
dominion over the beloved. Each of the three stanzas is ten lines long and follow the rhyme
pattern of ABBACDCDEE. The poem addresses the sun by way of ‘apostrophe’— a figure of
speech which directly addresses an object, in this case it is the sun by which the poet replaces
Galileo’s heliocentric concept of the universe with the geocentric theory where the sun goes
around the earth.
Check Your Progress

1. In The Sunne Rising, how does the speaker use the conceit of the sun.
2. How does his attitude towards the sun change by the end of the poem?
WORKS CITED
• Belsey, Catherine. “Worlds of Desire in Donne’s Lyric Poetry”. Sidney, Spencer and
Donne: A Critical Introduction ed. Rina Ramdev. Delhi: 2002
• Docherty, Thomas. John Donne, Undone. London: Methuen, 1986. p 82
• Grierson and Smith. A Critical History of English Poetry.Bloomsbury.2014
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• Johnson, Ben. “Conversations on Donne”. John Donne’s Poetry. ed. Arthur Clements.
1833
• Johnson, Samuel. “Lives of the Poets”. John Donne: The Critical Heritage ed. AJ
Smith. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975.p 218.
• R. G. Cox, “The Poems of John Donne” in From Donne to Marvell, ed. Boris Ford,
Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1982. p. 110.
—”A Survey of Literature from Donne to Marvell”
THE CANONIZATION
John Donne
Shriya Pandey
1.5 THE CANONIZATION
For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,

Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his honor, or his grace,
Or the king's real, or his stampèd face
Contemplate; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.
Alas, alas, who's injured by my love?

What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned?
Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
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Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still

Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.
Call us what you will, we are made such by love;

Call her one, me another fly,
We're tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find the eagle and the dove.
The phœnix riddle hath more wit
By us; we two being one, are it.
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.
We can die by it, if not live by love,

And if unfit for tombs and hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for Love.
And thus invoke us: “You, whom reverend love

Made one another's hermitage;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes
(So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize)
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Countries, towns, courts: beg from above

A pattern of your love!”
1.5 CRITICAL ANALYSIS
The poem's attempts to establish the sacredness of love between a man and a woman through
the use of religious language and is thematically linked to the process of canonization.
According to The Encyclopaedia Britannica canonization is “an official act of a Christian
communion- mainly the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church- declaring
one of its deceased members worthy of public cult and entering his or her name in the canon,
or the authorized list, of that communion’s recognized saints.”
In the poem, Donne employs wordplay, ambiguity, and paradox to canonize love and
lovers. The poem has five stanzas of nine lines each, all rhyme in the pattern abbacccaa. The
meter of the line is irregular, though the major foot or pairing of unstressed-stressed syllable
used in the poem is iamb. For instance,
We can die by it, if not live by love,
Wé cán dié bÿ ît, îf nôt lívê bÿ lôvê
Check Your Progress

1. What is canonization?
2. What is the rhyme scheme of the poem?
Stanza I
Donne’s speaker begins his process of canonization of love with spirited “For God's sake.”
The speaker dramatises the act of love by highlighting the “paradox and problem” of
constantly receiving criticism for his love life. Hence, he humorously asks society as a whole
to permit love to exist in its material world. According to Donne's speaker, materialistic
pursuits are worshipped and everything is valued above love. Because, sycophancy and
dishonesty are common in this culture, the speaker suggests that this value system is
defective. The other meaning conveyed by this image of a physically aging body of a cynical
man is that Donne and his contemporaries are now occupying the barren ruins of the social
structure, religious foundations, and Petrarchan courtly culture that originally subsisted love
poetry.
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Your wealth will better your situation, and the arts will improve your mind, the
speaker tells the unknown listener, who is criticising him for loving, and advises him to
“Take you a course, get you a place”. However, when the speaker considers the goal (“Get
you a place”)—for wealth instead of love, the affection for this person quickly turns into
disapproval. The King or a bishop encourage men to worship—”observe his honour or his
grace”—and who, in speaker's perspective, damage social bonds since they are men who may
provide favour to their sycophants. Donne asserts that the meaninglessness of traditional
literary forms and subjects is a result of the corrupt patronage system. As the courtiers only
want fame by being seen with the monarch—”or his stamped face, I contemplate”—, the
king's “stamped face,” or money is their true object of desire. The paradoxical wordplay is
effective in silencing the listener, whose only goal is to look at monetary benefits.
Check Your Progress

1. Why does the speaker want his listener to ‘Hold your tongue’?
2. Describe the image of the lover.
Stanza II
In stanza two, the speaker continues to discuss the “paradox and problem”: the love of power,
the love of wealth, the desire of military or judicial conquest which permeates the legal
language and social values. The cynicism of the speaker is evident in the tone of surrender
with which he discusses this problem. The playful vocabulary of the aging lover—sighs and
tears, colds and heats, imitating the Petrarchan courtly love tradition—is paradoxically
contrasted against the realities of a profane, harsh, and exploitative world. The poem was
written after Donne's marriage with Anne More. Once Donne lost the King’s favour,
everything changed. He was simply disallowed from participating in court, much alone
hoping to benefit from it. Around the same time, he discovered a possible alternative in his
love for Anne More. Donne's depiction of love makes it obvious that his perspective on the
courtly world has significantly changed.
The core of the speaker's new moral urge and value system is love, whose worth is
underlined by the speaker in the second stanza by showing its capacity to remain beyond
worldly vanity and petty ambitions. In Donne's poem, the idea of canonization persists as the
main metaphysical conceit. Due to the fact that canons are created and upheld in societies that
are themselves shaped by institutional and ideological biases, “Soldiers find wars, and
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lawyers find out still/ Litigious men, which quarrels move,” Value systems, modes of
thinking, and ways of seeing may sometimes result in cultural superiority. But, such human
flaws allow us to focus on the evolutionary and liberating character of love, “Though she and
I do love.” The atmosphere that Donne evokes is of a communal reverence and religious
sermon.
Check Your Progress

1. What does the speaker wish to prove by the series of rhetorical questions?
2. Which figure of speech is being used?
Stanza III
The poem's third stanza begins with the grandeur of a religious sermon. The picture of the fly
is changed into an eagle, a dove, and finally a phoenix, showing the trans-valuation through
shifting images. Trans-valuation is a strategy used by Donne to dramatise the process of
canonization of love. The strategy of comparing and contrasting the value associated with the
symbolism of fly, dove, eagle and phoenix helps with paradoxical inversion to reject the
arguments against love. The speaker perceives himself as a fly because in the material world,
love is small and inconsequential. The fly serves as an image of paradox that contributes to
the development of the poem's tone and overall meaning. First of all, most flies are non-
predatory and easily eaten by other insects “We're tapers (candles) too, and at our own cost
die,” The second reason is that, due to its insignificance, it symbolizes a dramatic change in
Donne's line of reasoning: “Call us what you will,” even a fly. This is a stark contrast to the
earlier tone of self-celebration.
The stanza refers to the Phoenix, a sacred bird in Greek mythology. The fly, like the
phoenix, can and must “die” a fiery death, according to the speaker. “We die and rise the
same,” to “prove” lovers “rise” again after they “die,” they live on after their own deaths.
Donne here is using the word ‘die’ as a pun. In the case of the mythological bird Phoenix
‘die’ is mortal death, but in the instance of the lovers ‘die’ refers to the sexual climax, an
orgasmic death. The Phoenix rising from its ashes is also symbolic of the resurrection of
Christ. “The phoenix riddle hath more wit/By us; we two being one, are it.” The riddle, as a
problem and a paradox, is accurately described by Donne's in this poem as—love is capable
of simply being resurrected as a moral perfection because of the authority granted to it by
God. Since, love also “fit both sexes,” suggesting that their souls are stretched into each other
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in an erotic, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual union. The lovers should also be recognised
as saints of love and canonized.
Check Your Progress

1. How does the Phoenix riddle have “more wit by us”?
2. Explain the pun of the word ‘die’.
Stanza IV
In the stanza, Donne's speaker invites the admirers to their private love celebrations: “And by
these hymns, all shall approve/Us canonized for love. The paradoxical wordplay here is
saying both that—it is the virtue of their love that will bring about this “canonization,” their
elevation to a sphere above everyone else, and Donne is also saying that it is the quality of his
writing that will bring it about, because “all shall approve / of our canonization for love”
through “these hymns.” In order to be apart from the ordinary, the lovers in the stanza reject
society, work, ambition, and wealth. For instance, the speaker plays the part of a social
authority who is above the materialistic social system because of his love, “We can die by it,
if not live by it.” According to David Kelley in The Canonization of John Donne (1995),
Donne is seen as more monumental than poetical as a result of reinventing love. He is the
“half-acre tomb” as opposed to the “well-wrought urn,” which he compares to a sonnet.
The mortal lovers are transformed into exemplary presences by the speaker, who, due
to the transformative power of their love, will be imitated at all levels of society. Donne
envisions a time when the lovers' celebrations will no longer be private but rather become
public due to the exhumation of their skeletal remains. However, the lines “And if no piece of
chronicle we prove, / We'll build pretty rooms in sonnets; / as well a well-wrought urn
becomes/ The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs” argue against arrogance by comparing
writing to an act of physical creation. According to Donne, the custom of seeing tombs as
symbols of social status is similar to value placed on grandeur and imitation in the poems,
which like the funeral monuments are superficial and meaningless forms of art. Instead, the
motivating qualities of love in his writing will resurrect the prestige of poetry as a spiritual
home to prevent psychological suffering after the lovers have passed away, and their skeletal
remains of “sonnets” and “hymns” will be canonized by their imagined admirers in order to
honour them.
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Check Your Progress

1. What would be the ‘hymns’ to the canonized lovers?
Stanza V
Donne invokes the Catholic idea of the Communion of Saints' special capacity to bring the
living and the dead together in his metaphysical conceit of canonization. The imagery of
religious tension developed by the speaker is a criticism of nobility that devalues love and
uses religious arguments hide their moral flaw. The speaker develops a spectacular solution
for overcoming the rejection and isolation that he and his lover go through while they are
alive, since he is not content to merely compete with the monumental forms that he
challenges. You, whom reverend love/ Made one another's hermitage;” According to Donne,
generations will view the couple as saints because of his poetry's depictions of love.
The first and the last stanzas of the poem mirror each other in the manner of reversed
images. The process of canonization is performed in the last stanza as— a dramatic
monologue perfected as a prayer,
And thus invoke us: “You, whom reverend love
Made one another's hermitage;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;
Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes
(So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize)
Countries, towns, courts: beg from above
A pattern of your love!”
“Who did the whole world’s soul contract.” expresses the symbolic reference to time and
mortality. Time is now seen as important not for providing the challenging and creative
medium in which lovers may grow towards self-fulfillment, but for its leading towards death
and judgment. Donne accomplishes a mathematical increase of love by paradoxically
reducing two to one, “So made such mirrors”, the eyes, rage and peace of the lovers prepares
us for the hyperbolic triumph of love. The linked hands “spies” and the linked eyes “mirror”,
which represent the windows of the soul, both refer to a physical and a spiritual union. The
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“Countries, towns, courts: beg from above/ A pattern of your love!” becomes the proof of
personal sanctity of heroic virtue immortalized as love. The stark examination of the
sainthood of love is enshrined in literature as speaker’s triumph over life.
Check Your Progress

1. How will the canonized lovers be invoked by the believers in love?
Bibliography:
Chambers, A. B. “The Fly in Donne’s ‘Canonization.’” The Journal of English and Germanic
Philology, vol. 65, no. 2, 1966, pp. 252–59. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27714839.
Gallo, Carmen. The Logic of Excess: Religious Paradox and Poetical Truth in Donne’s Love
Poetry. English Literature, 2014, pp. 101-116. ISSN: 2420-823X. Web.
Kelly, David. The Canonization of John Donne. Sydney Studies in English, 2008, 1995.
Low, Anthony. “Donne and the Reinvention of Love.” English Literary Renaissance, vol. 20,
no. 3, 1990, pp. 465–86. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43447334.
Ramdev, Rina. “Introduction”. Sidney, Spencer and Donne: A Critical Introduction.
Worldview Critical Editions, 2012, pp. 181-197.
THE GOOD MORROW

John Donne
Nalini Prabhakar
1.6 THE GOOD MORROW
The Good-Morrow’
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers ’den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
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If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.
Introduction
The poem ‘The Good Morrow’ like ‘The Sunne Rising’ is an aubade. Aubade is a love song
or poem usually sung at dawn when lovers part. This poetic genre seems to have originated in
medieval France. Whereas the speaker in ‘The Sunne Rising’ has already experienced love,
in ‘The Good Morrow’ he experiences love for the first time and is in a state of awe and
wonder. The poem is organised in two parts; the first part (stanza-1) deals with the life of the
lovers before they experienced love. The second part deals with the awakening after
experiencing love. This experience marks a distinct shift in their perspective to life, the world
around them, and their understanding of it. The poem has 21 lines split into three 7line
stanzas, with the rhyme scheme ABABCCC. The first 6 lines in the stanza are in iambic
pentameter (10 syllables/unstressed-stressed) and the last line is an iambic hexameter (12
syllables).
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Check Your Progress

1. What is an aubade?
2. How is this poem organized?
Critical Analysis
Stanza-1
In this stanza the lover/speaker through rhetorical questions claims that whatever they ‘did’
before they found each other and experienced love was insignificant and inconsequential. The
word ‘did’ presupposes that both she and he have been in relationships before, and are not
novices in love. The speaker employs two metaphorical images to dismiss the quality of life
and love experienced by them previously. The first metaphor is drawn from a child suckling
at its mother’s breast. The lovers were like children, immature, who have not yet been
weaned away, and were sucking /suckling on simple pleasures. The words ‘not weaned’
‘suck’d’ and ‘childishly’ draw our attention to the immaturity of their actions. The second
metaphor of seven sleepers den indicates that like the sleepers they were in an un-awakened
state. The allusion here is to the Christian myth wherein seven young men hid themselves in a
cave/ ‘den’ to avoid Roman persecution, and came out after close to 200 years when the cave
was reopened. In this metaphor the Cave symbolises the womb, and the emergence from it
after centuries of sleep, a rebirth. Similarly in the case of the lovers, experiencing love for the
first time is a rebirth, a coming into being for the second time. The lovers until then were like
the sleepers in an un-awakened state, and now have moved into a wakened state of being.
In the last 3 lines of the stanza, the lover admits to ‘seeing’, ‘desiring’, and ‘getting’ beauty-
referring to the women he has loved before, but now realises that all those pleasures were
mere ‘fancies’ and his past experience of love nothing but an unreal ‘dream’.
Check Your Progress

1. Explain the two metaphors used in this stanza.
Stanza 2
In this stanza the speaker moves from the past to the present by using the image of “waking
souls’. This image establishes their love as not merely physical but also spiritual. The power
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of their shared love- ‘love of all other sights controls’- liberates them from fear and suspicion
and enables them to rise above the fear of losing love. The experience of love in which the
body and soul work in harmony, is sacred, and allows the lovers to transcend the world of
time and space, and makes “one little room an everywhere”.
Elizabethan age was a period of voyages and discoveries of new lands hitherto unknown to
the western world. The ‘little room’ which is the lovers universe, stands in stark contrast to
the ever expanding universe. The speaker says that, what the voyagers, explorers, and
astronomers have discovered is only one small part of the universe and not the whole of it,
and even that part they will never ‘possess’. The lovers have surpassed them because without
moving from their little room they have made it an ‘everywhere’ and unlike the explorers
they ‘possess’ it too. The compression of the entire universe into a little room is an excellent
example of a metaphysical conceit. A similar idea is used in ‘The Sun Rising’ when the lover
tells the sun “shine here to us and thou art everywhere; This bed thy center is, these walls thy
sphere”. Here too the whole world is compressed into a bed which signifies the love between
the lovers. In a world dictated by material wealth and possessions, the lovers have created
their own world based on their mutual love which is free from the demands and constraints of
time and space.
Check Your Progress

1. What does the image of “waking souls’ signify?
2. ‘For love, love of all other sights controls’. Explain
3. Explain how “one little room an everywhere” is a conceit.
Stanza- 3
When the lovers gaze into each other's eyes, they see themselves reflected in the eyes of the
other, and the faces thus reflected are true plain hearts devoid of fear and suspicion. The
speaker employs another conceit by comparing the face of each lover to one hemisphere. The
two reflected faces which are two hemispheres combine to complete each other and form the
whole world. Unlike the hemispheres which constitute the world, as on a map, the lovers are
not afflicted by the sharp north and the declining west. The reference here is to the sharp cold
winds of the Arctic north and the setting/ declining sun in the west.
All things that ‘die’ do so because they suffer from a paucity of harmony and balance, as they
have not being ‘mix’t equally’. If the love between the lovers is mixed in equal measure their
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love cannot die. The last line of the poem resorts to the pun on the word ‘die’. In the earlier
poem ‘The Canonization” we have seen the usage of this pun in the context of the Phoenix-
“The Phoenix riddle hath more wit by us; ... We die and rise the same”. This pun is being
cleverly used to prove the permanence of love. Die in the old usage of English also refers to
the sexual climax and the coming to an end of the sexual act. The lover here suggests that if
their love is true and does not slacken, they can continue to experience love permanently-
“none do slacken none can die”. The death is only temporary for like the Phoenix they will
rise again and again to experience love.
Check Your Progress

1. Explain the conceit in “My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?”
2. Explain the pun in the last line.
Summing up
In this lesson we have briefly summarized the poetic love tradition and the place of
metaphysical poetry in it. We have also critically analyzed the three poems prescribed for
your study, paying special attention to the distinctive features of metaphysical poetry.
Reference
Ramdev, Rina. Sidney, Spencer and Donne: A Critical Introduction. Worldview Critical
Edition, 2012
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Unit-III(5)
JOHN MILTON: PARADISE LOST BOOK-1
STRUCTURE
Section-1: Life and Times of John Milton

1.1 John Milton: A Biographical Note
1.2 The Epic Form and Paradise Lost
1.3 The Religious and the Political Background of the 17th Century
1.4 Renaissance Hierarchy and Cosmology
Section-2: Paradise Lost Book-1
2.1 Learning Objectives
2.2 Introduction
2.3 The Invocation
2.4 Book I Lines 1-26
2.5 Lines 27-83
2.6 Lines 178-375
2.7 Lines 376-533
2.8 Lines 533- 798
2.9 Major Characters
2.10 Major Themes
2.11 Epic Simile
2.12 Use of Myths
2.13 List of Allusions
2.14 Bibliography
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Section-1
Life and Times of John Milton
Anil Aneja
1.1 JOHN MILTON: A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
John Milton was born on 9th of December 1608 at Spread Eagle, on the East side of Bread
Street. In Cheapside, Milton's father owned a shop and conducted his business as a scrivener,
a profession which by the seventeenth century, had extended beyond the work of a scribe to
include the functions of notarizing, money-lending and investment brokerage.
To begin with, Milton's early education was in the hands of private tutors until 1615
when he joined a school, St. Paul's which adjoined the Cathedral. In 1621, one of the great
metaphysical poets, John Donne was appointed as Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral and Milton
probably heard Donne preach on several occasions. Right from his childhood Milton was
encouraged to read on extensive subjects until late in the night. This could probably have
been one of the reasons for Milton's total blindness in 1652. Milton thanks his father in Ad
Patrem for the encouragement to learn five languages- Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and
Italian apart from English.
In 1625, Milton moved to Christ's college, Cambridge. His stay at Cambridge was not
altogether a happy one, with Milton developing differences first, with one of his tutors and
later with the University's way of awarding degrees which made it mandatory for candidates
to sign a written declaration subscribing to the doctrines of the Church of England and
acknowledge the supremacy of the King. For unknown reasons Milton had developed
differences with his tutor William Chappell and was even sent down from the University.
Later, he was readmitted and assigned to a new tutor. On 3rd July. 1632. Milton was awarded
his M.A. degree and for Milton, the next six years were devoted to private study, primarily
Greek and Latin authors. One of the most decisive influences on his life and his choice of
vocation as a poet was the continental tour which Milton took in 1638. He had composed
many of his poems in the English language, but the warmth with which they were received in
Italy and other parts of Europe cemented his resolution of becoming not only a poet but a
national poet.
The years following his return to England in 1639 are crucial as far as his pamphlet
writing is concerned. From 1641-1642, Milton wrote five important anti-prelatical tracts; Of
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Reformation in England, Of Prelatical Episcopacy; Animad versions upon the Remonstrant's

Defence; The Reason of Church Government and Apology for Smectymus. However, Of
Education and a tract on the freedom of the press, Areopagitica, both published in 1644 are
his most important pamphlets.
Milton's tumultuous life as a public figure during the 1640 and 1650 distracted his
activities as a poet, and a series of personal crises disturbed his domestic peace. His
contemporaries John Donne and George Herbert never lost faith in the Anglican Church and
never doubted that a true Church existed in spite of her superficial divisions and blemishes.
However, Milton viewed the institutional Churches as having been corrupted. From 1638
onwards, Milton did not view the Anglican Church as any better than the Roman Catholic
Church.
For a man as interested as Milton was in the Church, in personal religion and in
marriage, he invokes the biblical marriage trope seldom. He does not attempt to separate the
case of human marriage and divorce from its ideal exemplar, the divine marriage of Christ
and his Church.
As; he grew increasingly disillusioned with the progress of the Reformation in England,
he saw himself coming into the center of all activities political and religious.
After 1660, Milton retired to private life and concentrated on the composition of his
epic. Paradise Lost (1667). After publishing Paradise Regained and Samson Agonists (1671)
Milton died early in 1674 and on 12th November was buried in St. Giles” Cripplegate.
1.2 THE EPIC FORM AND PARADISE LOST
An epic is usually described as a long narrative poem, which is exalted in style and heroic in
theme and content. Epics are classified into two categories – “primary” epics and
“secondary” epics. Early or primary epics, such as the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer are
“written versions of oral legends of a tribe or nation.” Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, Virgil's
Aeneid and Milton's Paradise Lost come under the category of “secondary” or “literary” epic.
Primary epics are ancient in their origin and character. Since they were recited or sung orally
by bards, who relied on memory and improvisations to produce an evocative effect on their
audience, “primary” epics have a spontaneous and free grand style. The poet of the “literary”
or “secondary” epic, on the other hand, creates an effect of grandeur by a conscious elevation
of his poetic style. Paradise Lost, which deals with the lofty subject of justifying “the ways of
God to men,” is well-known for. Milton's use of grand style.
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Published in 1667, Paradise Lost represented for Milton the fulfillment of his two
aspirations. For several decades he had wanted to write an epic and had at the same time
wanted to recreate the story of the fall of man. To begin with these were to be separate
projects as Milton had chosen the tales and adventures of King Arthur to be the subject of his
epic. The story of the fall of man was to be treated differently as a tragedy. However,
disenchantment about the historicity of Arthur gradually led to the abandonment of the plan
to write an Arthuriad. Finally for Milton the two projects merged into the writing of an epic
which dealt with the tragedy of the fall of man. Milton decided to explore his theme in the
form of an epic and this gave him a licence to range over vast tracts of human experience.
Geographically, the poem ranges over the entire world and Milton delights in cataloguing the
names of various places. Satan's journey round the Earth in Book IX depicts the names of
places presumed to be corners of the earth. Milton supposedly used contemporary atlases, the
Bible and Biblical commentaries and several works of classical antiquity for place names and
other references.
Milton's choice of writing an epic was a reflection of the Renaissance notion of
hierarchies of being. Poetic genres were ranged in an ascending order starting at the lowest
rung from simple lyrics up to the highest, the heroic poem or epic. For Dryden “A heroic
poem, truly such is undoubtedly the greatest work which the soul of man is capable to
perform.” Spencer's Faerie Queene, while inspirational for Milton, was more of a romance
than an epic. For the seventeenth century, Virgil was the writer whose Aeneid provided a
model for emulation. A classical epic would present a heroic tale of adventure, usually a long
journey accompanied by fighting and the hero victorious. In order to revise classical epic
upon Christian lines Milton needed to re-evaluate the epic hero. Adam is not a warrior like
Aenas or Odysseus and this was Dryden's objection in calling Paradise Lost an epic. For
Milton, heroism did not center in military warfare (the theme of classical epics) but was to be
found in the spiritual warfare of the active Christian. While Satan's expedition against
mankind might look like a heroic mission at a surface level, a deeper analysis shows that it is
self-glorifying and inferior to that which glorifies god. Military valour is devalued in
comparison to “suffering for truth's sake/(which) is fortitude to highest victory” (Bk. XII.
569-70). By such radical reassessments of heroic values, Milton redefines and revises the
epic tradition. Some critics argue that for values military and glorious Milton has substituted
the domestic and pastoral ones, for the theme of human greatness, divine greatness. With
emphasis on the daily chores of Adam and Eve, Milton makes Paradise Lost the first
'domestic epic'. It is not an epic in the traditional sense of the word because Milton does not
follow the conventions and norms of a classical epic.
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However, Milton does follow some of the conventions of a traditional epic. For
instance, the Supernatural intervention is a part of the epic tradition where gods and
goddesses intervene in human actions either validating them or disapproving of them. The
Invocation to the Muse is another such convention which Milton follows. He invokes Urania
to inspire and illuminate him so that he can write good poetry. Beginning the story in 'media
res' ('in the middle') is also an epic convention which Milton follows closely. After the
statement of his theme and invocation to the Muse in Book I, Milton begins the narration in
the middle of the action. Chronologically the story begins in Book V. Milton's use of epic
similes, which form an integral part of this grand style, is another epic convention that he
follows. Milton invests his poem with complexity and richness of meaning through his use of
epic similes.
1.3 THE RELIGIOUS AND THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND OF

THE 17TH CENTURY
The literature of any age is influenced by the social, religious and political factors of the
period. Milton's views and his writings demonstrate the deep impact of the events of his age.
As David Daiches puts it, “The great debate on religion and politics which divided the
English nation in the middle of the seventeenth century helped to determine the course of
Milton's career and the shape of his literary ambitions.” Religious controversy in the
seventeenth century is quite inseparable from political controversy. The Elizabethan
government had used the pulpit for political propaganda. Stuart governments also did the
same, and as a counter force, were opposed by the Puritans who strove to establish “an
alternative politics as well as an alternative religion.”
The uncertainty in the post-Elizabethan era was aggravated by the fact that Queen
Elizabeth left no natural successor of hers. James VI of Scotland, Lord Essex, Lady Arabella
Staurt and many others put their claim to the throne after Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603.
With James' accession to power there were several attempts to depose him. The Puritans had
never liked the coming to the power of monarch who was a favourable compromise between
the Catholic and the Protestant ideas. For the Puritans, their time was ripe in 1642 when
Charles I ruled. Under Oliver Cromwell the Civil War was led to a meaningful conclusion for
them when Charles I was beheaded in 1649. The Puritans ruled England from 1642-1660 and
in these years there was emphasis on thrift, economy, moral exaltation, purity of the self and
home. Quite early on Milton had cast his cause with the Puritan revolutionaries and was
active politically writing pamphlets which supported the execution of Charles I. One of the
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consequences of the Puritan rule was their antipathy towards all forms of fun and
entertainment. As a result, all theatres in England were closed down in 1642. Literary
activities took a backseat for almost twenty years. The Puritanical strain is obvious in
Milton's advocacy for righteousness and moral purpose in his writings. To understand
Paradise Lost in relation to Milton's age and career, we have to bear in mind that Milton
spent almost twenty years between 1641 and 1660, writing prose works which upheld
ecclesiastical and civil liberty, and attacked all forms of ecclesiastical and political tyranny.
In the years following the Civil War, Milton began to increasingly question the validity of
institutional and centralized forms of secular power and external authority. He came to rely
more and more the authority found in the Bible, “those written Records pure,” as he puts it, in
Paradise Lost (Book XII, line 513).
The year 1660, which ended the Puritan rule in England got Charles II to the throne. The
subsequent years are referred to as the Restoration period—with an obvious reference to the
restoration of monarchy and the theatres in England. The Restoration was a period when
theatre reopened with a new and added vigour after eighteen years.
1.4 RENAISSANCE HIERARCHY AND COSMOLOGY
Milton follows some of the dominant conventions and beliefs of his age, such as the belief in
the hierarchical order of all things in the universe. All beings were arranged in a hierarchy
beginning from God at the top to the meanest of the inanimate class. Every speck of creation
was a link in the chain of being thus it enhanced the dignity of all creation.
To begin with, there is the inanimate class which includes the elements, liquids and
metals. Next in hierarchy was the vegetative class which had both existence as well as life.
Next came the sensitive class which had feeling as well. All animals were a part of this. What
distinguished man from beasts/ animals is the faculty of reason which man possesses. Higher
up, angels and finally God completed the hierarchy. To an ordinary Elizabethan, this
hierarchy was a part of divine order which was meant to keep everything in place. So if the
Elizabethans believed in an ideal order, they were also afraid Jest it should be upset. Disorder
to them meant cosmic anarchy. So when Satan tries to disrupt this natural, hierarchical
scheme of things, he is thrown out of heaven.
Milton was exposed to the competing cosmologies of the time- Ptolemaic with its
conception of a geocentric view of the universe and Copernican, with its heliocentric view of
the Universe. Milton primarily follows the Ptolemaic system of the universe with the earth as
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the center though there is ample external evidence to suggest that Milton was familiar with
Copernicus' theories very well.
Milton's universe started with the Empyrean Heaven, the abode of God and his angels.
Heaven is separated from the New World by a golden chain. This golden chain by which the
New World hangs on to the Heaven also serves as an opening for the passage of angels from
Heaven to Earth. The center of this New World is the Earth around which revolved the sun,
the moon, the seven planets, the fixed stars, the crystalline sphere and finally the premium
mobile. Then there was further Chaos and finally Hell at the end. Chaos consisted of
shapeless matter whereas the New World was conceived to be made up of the four elements,
Earth, Air, Fire and Water.
Milton's Hell is a burning pool of fire where sinners are tortured and punished.
The presence of the two competing theories of the universe is suggestive of the public
nature of the poem. He did not use the poem to propagate his own views, rather he allowed it
to voice the range of opinions prevalent in England at the time.
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Section-2
Paradise Lost Book-1
Meenakshi Sharma
2.1 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
This unit aims to:

• Familiarize the reader with John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost.
• Situate the poem in its social, political, and religious context and thus provide the
readers with an overview of Milton’s time period
• Survey the various methods used by Milton to either follow through or deviate from
the literary conventions of the Late Renaissance era of British literary history
• Conduct a brief yet comprehensive textual analysis of Book I of Paradise Lost to
acquaint the reader to the richness of Milton’s verse
• Study the salient features of Milton’s style and his use of various techniques and
devices to enrich his verse
• Study the allusions within the poem andanalyse the conflict between Christian and
Classical traditions of thought in Milton’s verse
2.2 INTRODUCTION
Paradise lost, divided into XII Books tells us the story of Satan and his followers who have
been expelled from Heaven on the charge of rebelling against God. Satan firmly resolves to
take revenge upon God by harming God's creation, Adam and Eve. The rest of the poem
depicts Satan's craft and deceit as he manages to tempt Eve into eating the forbidden fruit of
the Tree of Knowledge. Thus the story of the fall of Man is given to the reader through these
XII Books.
The Bible and Biblical commentaries account for substantial part of the poem. Book IX
concentrates on the temptation of Eve by Satan. The book begins with a conversation
between Adam and Eve where Eve suggests a separation from Adam to cater to the large
amount gardening work. Adam, who has been forewarned of the coming danger is unwilling
to let Eve go alone. His argument is that the enemy when confronted by two people instead of
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one, would find himself weak. Eve sees the argument as Adam's distrust of Eve and insists on
moving alone in Eden. The parting takes place and Satan gets his opportunity when he sees
Eve alone, taking care of the plants.
Satan enters Eden and takes the shape of a serpent and proceeds towards Eve. He tempts
Eve through flattery and is able to convince her that eating of the fruit will make her move up
the hierarchy, the way he has moved up from being a beast to possessing the powers of
speech and reason. Eve is convinced and she plucks and eats the apple. Immediately she
becomes aware of a change in herself and she appears before Adam ready to lie to him. Adam
listens to the story and is aware that Eve will now be permanently separated from him.
Unable to bear this separation, Adam knowingly plucks the fruit and eats it. An unknown
element of lust now enters into the relationship in sharp contrast to the innocence and purity
of their earlier married life.
As a Christian poem in classical epic form, Paradise Lost reflects the humanist fusion of
Christian with classical learning. Its assertion of man's free will with God's omnipotence is a
classical irresolvable concern throughout.
2.3 THE INVOCATION
The Invocation is a device used by all epic poets. The purpose of the invocation is the
introduction of the theme and seeking inspiration from the Muse. The Muse is invoked for the
reason of providing Milton with ideas and expressions which have not been attempted till
now. In the light of the narrator's rejection of classical Muses of the Spirit, we can judge how
far an epic has been transformed. The narrator provides unity to the Epic by his invocations
opening books I, III, IV and IX.
Although claiming the status if literary authorship, the text must display the tenuousness
of its spiritual authority. Accordingly, at the narrator's first appearance the prayer for divine
inspiration, for the authority to speak truth, involves an equally emphatic reference to
blindness, both physical and spiritual. “What in me is dark/ Illumine” (I, 22-3). Constant
reference to the reader maintains the reader's sense of the text's construction, its objectives
and its problems as well.
The juxtaposition of the narrator's self with hero and heroic epic is a reading clue to his
courage in confronting the tragedy of Fall, striving to describe adequately something by
which he himself is compromised as a storyteller.
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Milton's theme is man's disobedience of God's commandment and the consequences of

this Fall. References to “one greater man” and “ that Shepherd” are to Christ where the
narrator looks up for redemption. He embarks on a feat of spiritual danger, presuming to
portray God and his truth despite all the human fallibilities in this postlapsarian world.
Without his guide, the Holy Spirit, his flight will fail.
In this alienation from God's sight, as also in his boast of a daring undertaking, the
narrator's one counterpart within the narrative quite strongly is Satan himself. Against this
sinister parallel, this embodiment of the false speaking and fake authority to which the
narrator himself may succumb, the invocations repeatedly announce the narrator's lack of
self-sufficiency and the need for God's authorization by way of inspiration.
2.4 BOOK-I LINES 1-26
Book I opens with a statement of the theme and subject of the whole poem: the disobedience
of man, his fall and the consequent loss of paradise. Milton goes on to refer to the redemption
of mankind by Christ: 'till one greater Man/ Restore us' (11.4-5). For the ambitious task of
justifying 'the ways of God to men' (1.26), Milton seeks divine inspiration and help from the
Heavenly Muse. The poet believes that his subject is more exalted and heroic than any other
epic, as he is writing of 'Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme' (I.16).
In the following notes brief explanations of references in the text and the meaning of
difficult words/ phrases are provided:
Line 1 first : Man's first act of transgression was eating the apple of the
forbidden tree of knowledge.
2 mortal : The word combines a sense of 'human' and 'fatal' or
death-producing.
3 Eden : The garden or beautiful place in the newly-created Earth,
where Adam and Eve lived in a state of bliss before the
fall.
4 one greater Man : Christ, in theological tradition 'the second Adam.' Christ
provides man with an opportunity to regain bliss by His
supreme sacrifice.
5 the blissful seat : Paradise. When all wickedness is dissolved after the Last
Judgment, Earth and Heaven shall be blissful.
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6 heavenly Muse : the Spirit of God. Milton follows the epic convention of
invocation to the Muse, but with the difference that his
Muse is no classical symbol of poetry.
7 oreb, or Sinai : the mountain top which was set apart by God for his
communication with Moses. Here Moses received the
Law from God (the Ten Commandments).
8 shepherd : Moses, who was a shepherd. God first spoke to him when
he watched sheep on Mount Horeb and gave him the Law
when he became the “shepherd” of his people.
8 chosen seed : The chose rase of Israel.
9-10 in the beginning... : Moses, the supposed author of Genesis, tells us:
Rose out of Chaos 'In the beginning god created the heaven and the earth.'
'And the earth was without form, and void;... And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.'
(Genesis 1: 1-2).
According to Milton God created out of Chaos.
10 Sion hill : Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.
11 siloa : the brook and pool near the temple of Jerusalem.
15 Aonian mount : Mount Helicon in Boetia, considered sacred to the Muses.
Milton's intention is to make his poem, which is inspired
by God, excel the great classical poems which were
inspired by the Muses.
17 spirit : The Spirit of God. Milton now appeals directly to the
Spirit of God and seeks divine help and instruction.
18 Before all temples : The pure heart is preferred before all temples. Compare
Psalm 15:1-2 (Old Testament) and I Corinthians 3:16
(New Testament).
21-2 Dove-like ... pregnant : The Spirit of God brooded and brought out the Universe
out of the unshaped matter of Chaos (”abyss”), thus
putting life into Chaos.
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24 highth ... argument : Milton wishes to measure up to the demands of his great
subject (argument).
25 assert : vindicate.
26 justify : show the justice of.
Check Your Progress

1. Comment upon the significance of the invocation in Book I of Paradise Lost.
2. How does Milton intend to “justify the ways of God to men.
2.5 LINES 27-83
The rest of Book I follows the angels after their rebellion and the consequent fall from
Heaven into Hell, a place designed for their eternal punishment. Milton describes Hell both
through Satan’s eyes and through a third person narrator’s point of view. Hell is a place of
hopelessness and despair burning with fire all around. As Satan wakes up amidst confusion,
he sees his second-in-command, Beelzebub besides him. They talk of the preceding events
and their miserable condition. Satan decides that he will never submit to God and instead
strive to foil all his plans. He then calls the fallen angels to gather together in battle armour in
military formation at a volcanic hill. After a rousing speech by Satan to lift the morale of the
angels, they build an opulent council chamber which Milton calls Pandemonium. The fallen
angels, infinite in their number, flock together into the large chamber like a swarm of bees.
The first council of Hell then begins.
Below is a brief explanation of the text along with the meaning of some allusions:
27-28 Heav’n…Hell : Milton exalts the Muse by saying that neither heaven nor
Hell is hidden from her view
29 Grand Parents : Adam and Eve. “Grand” here is used in the sense of first/
original.
30-33 Favoured…revolt? : Who made Adam and Eve, favourites of the heaven
disobey God’s single command of not eating from the
tree of knowledge
34 infernal Serpent : Satan. He came to Eve in the form of a serpent
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35-40 Stirred…High : Satan was driven by jealousy and revenge to corrupt Eve
after he was cast out of Heaven with the other rebel
angels. With the help of these angels, he hoped to become
superior to everyone else and even challenge God (”the
most high”)
41-44 If he…Almighty Power : Satan and his angels waged a war against God but his
attempts were doomed to fail
45-46 ethereal sky : God cast Satan out head-first from heaven, the celestial
sky into bottomless hell
47 perdition : a place where a sinner goes to after death, i.e, hell. The
bottomlessness of perdition signifies the eternal nature of
the punishment
48 adamantine : imprisoned in unbreakable chains
49 Omnipotent : the omnipotence, i.e, all-powerful God cannot be
defeated. This line raises questions about predestination
and free will. If God is indeed omnipotent (all-powerful)
and omniscient (all-seeing), why did he not prevent the
Fall of Man?
50-52 Nine…gulf : For nine days Satan and the fallen angels lay defeated
53-54 Confounded…thought : Satan was confused and doomed to an eternity of pain due
to his immortality. This made him angrier than before.
55 lost happiness…lasting pain : Satan was tortured by the thoughts of all the pleasures he
was never going to experience again as well as the never-
ending pain that plagued him now
56-60 round he…wild : Satan looks around his surroundings and sees only doom
and decay of his fellow fallen angels. His hatred grows
stronger
61-62 : everywhere : Satan looked, he only saw flames
63 darkness visible : This oxymoron shows that unlike fire which illuminates,
the fire of hell is devoid of physical and moral light
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64-69 A dungeon…unconsumed : The darkness from the fire illuminated sights of suffering,
hopelessness, sorrow and unending pain
70-75 Such place…they fell : Hell is a prison of dark fire made for those who rebel. It is
the furthest from Heaven and from God. This place is
completely different from the place of their fall, i.e.,
heaven
76-83 There…began : Among the rebel angels lying in the fire, Satan notices
Beelzebub, his second-in-command. Satan thus begins to
speak.
84-96 If thou…change : Satan’s first speech. Satan says to Beelzebub, “in your
fallen status, how different you look from the angel
whose heavenly brightness would outshine everyone
else’s light. You once joined me in the plan to overthrow
heaven and now yet again we are together in this misery.
God with his thunder proved so much stronger than us.
Who would have thought there was so much strength in
his arms? However, no matter how much suffering the
winner of our rebellion inflicts upon me, I do not repent.”
Through his speech Satan projects himself as a fallen hero
who is resilient in the face of adversity. He is resolutely
devoted to his mission. Also of importance is the
Calvinist notion of repentance by the sinner in exchange
for forgiveness by God. Since Satan will not repent, his
crime cannot be forgiven
97-102 Though…preferring : “I have lost my outer glory but my mind remains fixed
against the injustice meted on injured merit” (stronger
abilities that are disregarded. The angels were stronger
than mankind). Satan portrays his rebellion as a battle
against God’s bias for mankind who according to him are
lesser beings. This fight against a perceived injustice
brought together the fallen angels who disliked God’s
unfair reign and preferred Satan instead.
103-110 His utmost…or might : “In heaven we (Satan and the fallen angels) fought against
the all-powerful God and managed to shake his throne. So
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what if we lost that fight? Everything is still not lost; I

still have our free will, valour, courage, revenge, and
undying hatred. All these attributes can never be taken
from me, neither through strength, nor through anger.
111-115 To bow…beneath : It will be very low of me to kneel before him and ask for
forgiveness now that I’ve shown that I can challenge his
empire. Doing so would be more shameful than this
downfall.
116-121 This downfall…eternal war : We are immortal because of fate, the strength of God,
and due to the celestial substance we are made of.
Through our experience of the battle so far, we have
gained much foresight and now have better chances of
waging an unending war against God either through force
or through trickery.
122-124 Irreconcilable…of Heaven : We will forever be apart from God, our “grand Foe”
who joyous in his victory, rules heaven tyrannically
125-127 So spake…compeer : Satan spoke in this manner. Even though he was in pain
and despair on the inside, he was proud and boastful on
the outside. Beelzebub (bold Compeer) answered him in
the following manner:
128-133 O Prince…or fate! : “Oh Prince with many powers, you rallied us angels
(seraphim) for war. It was under your leadership that we
opposed God (heaven’s perpetual King) and proved his
supremacy. He defeated us maybe through greater
strength, by fate, or by chance.
134-142 Too well…endless misery : “I regret that our rebellion has lost us Heaven and cast
us into this horrible destruction. We are immortal, our
minds and spirits cannot be destroyed, our courage and
strength will soon return but our glory is no more and our
happiness has been taken over by eternal misery.
143-155 But what...eternal punishment? : I think God might really be all-powerful to have
defeated an army like ours. He must have let us have our
complete strength and spirits so that we can suffer this
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misery eternally and satisfy his vengeance or perhaps so

that we carry out his orders in Hell. What good is
complete strength or immortality if we must suffer for
eternity?”
156-168Whereto…aim : To this, Satan (Arch-Fiend) quickly replied, “Fallen angel
(cherub) it is a misery to be weak but let us be certain of
this, that we shall never commit good deeds again and our
only joy will be in doing evil deeds. We will do the
opposite of the will of the God we resist. If he seeks to
bring good out of our evil deeds, our task will be to do the
opposite and bring evil out of good. We shall distract his
closest angels from their task.
169-177 But see!...Deep : But look! The winner of our rebellion (God) has now
called back his angels and has returned to the gates of
Heaven. It is now the calm after the storm. The rage of
Heaven has died down
Check Your Progress

1. Critically examine the imagery used by Milton to describe Hell in Book I.
2. What does Satan’s conversation with Beelzebub tell us about the differences
between their respective personalities?
2.6 LINES 178-375

178-191 Let…despair : Let us not let this opportunity pass away. Do you see
those dark plains with only these flames as their source of
light? Let us move there and away from these flames. Let
us rest there, if there can be any rest, and gather our
weakened strength. Let us plan how we can hurt our
enemy and repair our loss, let us plan how to get over this
hardship, let’s gain strength from hope and if there’s none
left, courage (for evil deeds) from our hopelessness
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192-195 Thus…large : Satan thus replied to his nearest comrade. His head lay
above the fire, with his flaming eyes sparkling while the
rest of his huge body was floating in the flaming floods
196-197 Lay floating…size : Satan looked like a huge figure whose enormous size is
described in fables (myths)
198 Titanian : In Roman mythology, Titans were powerful primeval
deities who were gigantic in size. They were the children
of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). Satan is being
compared to Titans
198 Jove : In Roman mythology, Jove or Jupiter overthrew Saturn to
become the king of all Gods.
199 Briareos or Typhon : Briareos was a giant god of sea storms with hundred
hands and fifty heads. Typhon was a child of Gaia and
Tartarus who was defeated by Zeus.
201 Leviathon : A creature mention in the Bible in Book of Job, Psalms,
the Book of Isaiah, and the Book of Amos, here described
as a large sea monster
202-209 Created…lay : Each of these prominent figures from Roman mythology
symbolize the attempt to overthrow the authoritative
powers and their subsequent defeat.
210-212 Chained…Heaven : Satan would have remained chained and could not have
risen if it were not for the will of God
213-220 Left…poured : Heaven willed this so that Satan could commit more
crimes and be further damned while being enraged by
how his evil deeds brought goodness on Man, but to him
these deeds brought only confusion, anger, and vengeance
221-227 Forthwith…dry land : Thus Satan gets up from the pool of fire, leaving behind
him a horrible void where he used to sit. Then he spreads
his wings to fly in the polluted air until he is on dry land
228-231 He…fire : Satan rests his feet on dry land with solid fire much like
the lake with liquid fire
232 Pelorus : Cape Pelorus in Sicily
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233 Aetna : Mt. Etna, a volcanic mountain on the East coast of Sicily
234-238 And fuelled…Unblestfeet : Satan rests his unholy feet on the ground singed as if in
the aftermath of a volcanic eruption
239 Stygian flood : Refers to the River Styx that flows in the Underworld in
Greek/ Roman mythology. Here it means Hellish fire
240-241 As gods…power : Satan is joined by Beelzebub. They both rejoice at leaving
the fiery floods because of their own strength and not
because Heaven let them escape
242-255 Is this…Heaven : Satan said, “Is this the land that we must exchange for
Heaven? This sorrowful darkness in place of celestial
light? Then so be it. It’s better to be furthest away from
him who rules in tyranny, who is our equal but through
force, stands above his equals. Farewell heavens and
welcome hell! Welcome your new master Hell, one
whose mind so resolute that it remains unchanged by
place or time. The mind is its own place and can make
Heaven feel like Hell, and Hell feel like Heaven.”
256-258 What…greater : “How does it matter where I am so long as I’m still the
same? I’m as great as God who is only mightier in his
strength.” Here “thunder” metonymically stands for the
power and strength of Heaven.
259-270 We…Hell : “At least we can be free here. God has not built this place
for anything else and therefore, will not force us out of
this place. So we can reign safely here. In my opinion, it
is better to be the king in Hell than to be a slave in
Heaven. Let’s not let our friends and comrades in our loss
lie in the fiery lake and let’s invite them here to share our
losses, or rally together to regain what can be salvaged of
Heaven or perhaps see what else awaits us in Hell.”
271-282 So… highth : Beelzebub replied, “Leader of that army which only God
to defeat! If our comrades can hear your voice, the same
voice that gave them hope in the worst battles, they will
soon gain strength and courage even though now they lie
confused and defeated in the lake.”
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283-286 He… : Beelzebub had barely finished speaking when Satan

started moving towards the shore with his large and bulky
ethereal shield on his back
287-289 Tuscan artist : Galileo. Milton compares Satan’s shield to an orb
observed by Galileo through an optic glass
290 Fesole or Valdarno : Fesole is a height close to Florence. Valdarno is the valley
of river Arno surrounding Florence
291-302 Rivers...brooks : Satan’s spear was as long as the mast of a huge ship
(Ammiral) and he used it to balance himself over the
burning grounds of Hell, so unlike Heaven, while the hot
air burned him. Nevertheless, he endured the misery and
reached the beach from where he called his fallen angels
who were lying like autumn leaves in a lake
303-304 Vallombrosa : A valley near Florence, strewn with autumn leaves.
305 Orion : A constellation. Associated with stormy weather
306-307 Busiris : Egyptian Pharaoh drowned at the Red Sea. Memphian
here means Egyptian. Chivalrie refers to the Pharaoh’s
cavalry & forces
308-309 Sojourners of Goshen : Israelites.
310-314 From…Resounded: The fallen angels were scattered in the fiery lake, shocked
at their ugly changed bodies. Satan called out to them so
loudly that his voice echoed throughout the deep and
hollow Hell
315-330 Princes… Fallen : “The princes that one ruled Heaven, have you chosen this
place to rest after battle? Perhaps this place is as
comfortable for you as Heaven or perhaps you kneel to
your Conqueror who looking at our weakened state will
take advantage and send his troops from Heaven to
trample us or chain us using thunderbolts to the bottom of
Hell. Either rouse up now or stay in this state forever!
331-338 They… : The fallen angels heard Satan’s call and were ashamed
like a night guard on duty were caught sleeping by a
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B.A.(Hons.) English
superior. They shook themselves awake despite the pain

to obey their General’s (Satan’s) orders
339-345 Amram’s…Hell : The fallen angels flew out from the fiery lake like the
swarm of locusts that plagued the land of Nile, Egypt.
Like the sheer number of locusts turned the day dark like
night, so did the fallen angels’ flight swarm Hell.
346-350 Twixt…plain : Satan gave these fallen angels direction using his spear
until they landed
348 Sultan : Implies an un-Christian tyrannical ruler. Satan is
compared to a Sultan
351-352 : The “multitudes” and “frozen loins” invokes an overflow
of fallen angels, especially implying unnatural breeding
353-355 Rhene–Sands: They looked like barbarians in a horde trying to conquer
Libyan sands
356-375 Forthwith…world : Then the leader of each squadron came forward towards
Satan. They were powerful beings with superhuman,
Godlike shapes and bodies, they were the formerly kings
of Heaven even though now their records of ever being in
Heaven was erased due to their rebellion. Nor had they
received their new names from wandering on Earth to test
mankind. Through their lies and deceit they would later
corrupt the majority of mankind to worship false idols and
compel the Church to forsake God for pompous showoff
and greed
Check Your Progress

1. How does Milton describe the fallen angels in Hell?
2. Who does Milton compare Satan to, in his fallen state?
a. “The mind is its own place, and in itself/ Can make a Heaven of Hell,
a Hell of Heaven” (I. 254-255)
b. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” (I.263)
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2.7 LINES 376-533
376-385 Say…round : Tell me their names, Muse, who woke up from their sleep
in the fiery lake when their emperor (Satan) called them and
stood with him. The chief among these fallen angels were
those who were worshipped as false Gods on Earth.
392-404 First…thence : First there was Moloch who would make the humans
sacrifice children by burning them alive to his idol amidst
the noise of drums while the parents cried. He was
worshipped by the Ammonites in city of Rabba and the
neigbouring countries of Argoand Basan. When this did not
content him, he corrupted Solomon’s heart to build a temple
in the valley of Hinnom, Tophet
405 Gehenna : Due to the sacrifice of children by fire in the valley of
Hinnom, the land was considered cursed and took the name
of Gehenna, or Hell
406-418 Next...Hell : Next, Chemos came forward. He was worshipped by
Maobites. He was also called Peor, who made his devotees
perform obscene rituals while passing through Sittim on
their journey towards Nile alongside Moloch until Josiah
drove them away.
419-437 With...foes : These two were accompanied by Baalim and Ashtaroth.
Spirits could take the form of any sex because they were
not tied to any shape, flesh or body. For them the Israelites
abandoned their real Gods and worshipped the false ones
438-445 Came... : Astoreth who was called ‘Queen of Heaven’ came along
with them. She had cresecent-shaped horns which were
worshipped by maidens of the city of Sidon. Solomon, who
had many foreigners as wives and concubines, introduced
her worship in Israel and built her temple
443 offensive mountain : Mount of Olives, also known as Mountain of Corruption
444 uxorious king : Solomon
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446-456 Thammuz...idolatries : Next there was Thammuz, the Syrian women believed it
was his blood that would discolour the Adonis river once
every year. The love-tale of Venus’ love for Adonis and his
death aroused the women of Sion
457-466 Next...bounds : Next was Dagon with upper body of a man and lower of a
fish. When Philistines found the ark, they placed it in
Dagon’s temple only to find his head and hands cut off
467-477 Him... renown : Next in line was Rimmon who was worshipped in
Damascus. He tempted King Ahaz into building him an
altar and worshipping him
478-489 After... gods : These were followed by a train of Egyptian gods, Osiris,
Isis, Orus and the like. They forced Egypt to worship
animal-like gods instead of the human form of the true God.
These were borrowed by Jews in the form of the golden
calf. The rebel king, Jeroboam made two calves of gold and
placed them in Bethel and Dan, thus, doubled the sin
490-505 Belial...rape : Belial came last, the most lewd of them all who loved vice
for its own sake. He had no temple dedicated to himself but
could be found in all the corrupted altars like the sons of
high priests of Eli who themselves were priests, or courts
and palaces, or the city streets with rioters or drunk men.
The sons of Belial attempted to rape a Jew in Gibeah who
sent his concubine in place of himself to survive
506-521These...Isles : Milton describes the Greek gods as found in Hesoid’s
Theogony. To Milton, these are false gods because they
originate after Heaven and Earth are formed. The birthright
of Titan as a god is seized by Saturn, his son, and he in turn
loses it to his son, Jove (Jupiter or Zeus in Greek
mythology) who ruled in Olympus.
522-533All...standard : These and other devils came to Satan looking dejected but
joyful at finding their chief. Satan recollected his lost pride
and raised their spirits and commanded them to raise his
banner.
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Check Your Progress

1. Comment on the Classical allusions used by Milton to describe the fallen
angels.
2. Critically analyse the ways in which Milton includes Pagan deities such as
Chemos to describe the fallen angels.
2.8 LINES 533-798
533-540 That...sounds : Azazel then unfurled the imperial banner bedecked with
jewels while the trumpets were blowing
541-555 At...retreat : At Satan’s loud call, the fallen angels waved thousands of
colourful banners and raised their shields, spears and helmets.
They moved in a military formation to the sound of flutes.
They weren’t moved to flight or retreat by any fear of death.
Phalanx : military formation of foot soldiers in Greek
warfare. Dorian mood: musical mode for military suited for
battle.
556-572 Nor...strength : Forgetting their pain, fear, and sadness, the fallen angels
walked together, united as a single entity. From the front they
were a sight of chilling terror with their spears and armour,
awaiting the orders of their chief (Satan) while he inspected
their ranks, his heart filled with pride.
573-587 Glories...beyond : Largest army of men combined with combined with the army
of Trojan and Theban wars and the knights of Arthur (Uther’s
son) were puny and small in front of this army
588-615 Compare...heath : Satan stood in front of his mighty army looking like a ruined
Archangel who hasn’t yet lost his brightness like a rising or
an eclipsed sun. His face was scarred but his eyes felt pity for
dooming his comrades to eternal pain. He was touched by the
loyalty of the fallen angels even though they looked like
burnt forests in the aftermath of a fire.
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615-621 He...way : he fallen angels inched closer in attention as Satan tried to

speak, thrice, but each time his eyes filled with angel tears
until with deep sighs he spoke:
622-662 O...resolved : “O immortal spirits whose powers could only be matched by
the almighty, our battle was not without glory even though
we face this dire change but who could have known that our
mighty forces would be defeated and who can yet believe that
our might forces will fail to win back heaven on our own?
God is to be blamed for our fall for tempting us to rebel by
not revealing his full strength. But now that we know His
strength, we can wage a new war with deceit and trickery for
to win by strength is only half a victory. There is a rumour
that God intends to create a new world (Eden) for creatures
he regards as equal to angels. This darkness will not hold us
forever but we must ponder on these thoughts and hold a
counsel. There is no question of peace because we will not
surrender.
663-693 He...bane : The fallen angels bellowed against heaven and pulled out
their swords. The fallen angels stormed towards a volcanic
hill containing metal. They were led by Mammon, the
lowliest of them all. Even in heaven, he’d admire the golden
floors more than God’s glory. He’d later teach humans to dig
gold from Mother Earth. Mammon and his comrades dug the
hill to recover plenty of riches
694-700 Babel : Tower of Babel. Human race speaking the same language
attempts to build a tall tower in Shinar that would reach
Heaven. God then confused their language and when they
tried to communicate, they only heard each other babble. The
Tower of Babel “symbolizes man's pride and marks his
attempt to equal God and recreate reality” (Low p. 171)
701-715 Nigh...architrave : One team of fallen angels prepared canals to channel molten
metal into the plains while a second team separated the
different kinds of metals as a third poured these metals into
the moulds. Thus they created a huge structure as if
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symphony playing out of land. Milton compares the palace of

Hell to the organ (a musical instrument)
715-730 nor...sky : The structure had a roof of gold and was better than any built
by the Egyptian kings or in Babylon. When the structure was
finished, the doors opened to reveal a huge space with metal
cups filled with flammable substances like naptha and
asphaltus (tar) suspended from the arched roof
731-740 admiring...Mulciber : The angels entered hastily and praised the Architect for his
work, he had earlier built such structures for heaven’s angels
but later will come to be known as the Greek
740-751 Mulciber...Hell : Greek Hephaestus and Roman Vulcan who was thrown out of
Heaven by Zeus/Jove. According to Milton, the classical
myth of Hephaestus’ fall from Olympus is a distortion of the
Biblical myth of Mammon’s fall from Heaven
752-762 Meanwhile...hall : The fallen angel messengers blew their trumpets and
announced the meeting will be held in Satan’s palace, now to
be called Pandemonium. At once, thousands of angels
gathered and crowded the spacious palace.
756 Pandemonium : Milton coins the term for Satan’s palace. In Greek, stands for
pan – all, daimon – demon, and –ion stands for a place of
worship
763-766 Though...lance : A medieval tradition in which Christian knights challenge the
strongest knights to a duel.
767-776 Thick...seemed : Satan’s comrades are compared to bees. In doing so, Milton
diminishes their stature
777-797 Behold...full : The angels who were once bigger than giants now
transformed into the size of small faeries, pygmies, and elves
so as to make the crowded hall more spacious while the
greatest rebel angels retained their original size and sat on
golden seats
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797-798 After...began : After a brief moment of silence during which all the fallen
angels settled themselves into the new surroundings and
shapes, the great counsel finally began.
Check Your Progress

1. Explain in detail the military metaphor used by Milton in his description of
the fallen angels.
2. Critically examine the construction of Pandemonium by Moloch and the
other angels.
3. How is the Tower of Babel relevant to the construction of Pandemonium?
4. Compare and contrast the Biblical figures mentioned in Book I with their
Classical and Pagan counterparts. For example, consider the case of
Mulciber who Milton identifies as Hephaestus or Vulcan in Greek and
Roman mythology respectively. Why do you think Milton does this?
5. Now that you are familiar with the text, can you identify the various
contrasting pairs put forwards by Milton in Book I, for example, Heaven
and Hell, God and Satan, Light and Darkness? How does Milton
differentiate between these sets of binaries?
2.9 MAJOR CHARACTERS
Satan
Satan is the protagonist and anti-hero of Book I of Paradise Lost. Satan is introduced to the
readers at his lowest. Rather than beginning his narrative with Lucifer, the angel’s
disagreement with God in his grand kingdom, Milton begins his narrative in the epic tradition
after Satan has rebelled and fallen from grace.
Milton presents Satan as a complex character. While wishing to be the antagonist to
God’s plans and missions, he serves the very function designed by God. Thus, he never strays
away from the scheme of things even when he rebels. For instance, Satan follows the
Christian doctrine of ‘do not despair’, not once; even in his fallen state does he ever despair
and give in to his suffering and submitting. In doing so, he never strays from the precepts set
by God, his folly being his inability to recognize the source of his power and resilience. On
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one hand Milton delves into Satan as a tragic hero who overcomes his own struggles, on the
other, he is the primary example of corrupted power and the perils of ambition and pride. In
Book I, Satan can be seen as a leader who rallies his troupe and shakes them out of their
feeling of hopelessness and misery by providing them a purpose. He is majestic in his
grandeur, unafraid in the face of adversity. However, this purpose is meaningless as a force of
perpetual destruction as opposed to the forces of Creation by God.
Satan not only stands in opposition to God but also acts as a foil for the heroes – Adam
and Eve who will lead to the redemption and salvation of mankind. His fall is paralleled in
the later books to the Fall of Adam and Eve as well as all of mankind who are then redeemed
by Christ, the “one greater Man”. Milton ascribes Satan certain human qualities in his sense
of hurt and betrayal, as well as his sorrow for the state of his fallen angels. His seductive
appeal most prominent in Book I, at the very beginning of the events that set the stage for the
greatest battle between evil and good. Milton perhaps turns him into a tragic, fallen hero so
that the readers can sympathize with him and in doing so; realize the seductive nature of evil.
His hamartia (tragic flaw of the hero of an Epic) is his excessive pride. Nevertheless, he is
portrayed as heroic in his persistence to achieve the impossible.
Milton portrays Satan as an orator par excellence, the master of rhetoric. In doing so, he
cautions against empty words and promises that only serve to lead the listener astray. Below
is a brief analysis of Satan’s speeches throughout Book I:
• Satan’s first speech to Beelzebub – magnificent leader, sympathizes and identifies
himself as one with his followers and their misery. He shows pity on the reduced
stature of his friend. He justifies his animosity towards God in his sense of “injur’d
merit”. It is a mark of Satan’s eloquence that he makes a ceaseless war with
impossible odds seem like their only option
• Satan’s second speech – Infuse a sense of courage in his commanders after their
defeat, overconfidence in his schemes masks their futile nature because in no way
will they help in gaining back what has been lost. Foiling God’s plan will not get
them heaven back
• Satan’s third speech- Accepting their fate to be eternal adversaries of God, Satan
willingly accepts their dismal situation as a rebellion against the servitude of
Heaven. “Farthest from him is best” marks not only physical alienation but also the
moral distance between himself and God. Milton suffuses Satan’s speech with
irony. Milton draws the readers’ attention to how Satan’s speech is “full of ringing
phrases expressed with a deliberate sonority”, laying bare the rhetoric.
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• Satan’s fourth speech – Ironically calls these angels ‘princes” to rouse their sense
of pride
• Satan’s fifth speech – A war cry which rules out any other options such as
surrender or submission to the authority of God, repentance for their rebellion
against Heaven, or even the idea of bearing their sufferings due to their punishment
with patience and persistence.
Two particularly interesting interpretations of Satan have been touted by critics
throughout the many centuries of scholarship since the publication of Paradise Lost in 1667.
One bases Satan as the villain, the anti-thesis of Adam & Eve on the basis of theological
theme, while the second interpretation, brought forward most prominently by William Blake,
interprets Satan as the hero of the poem, rebelling against the anarchy of a tyrannical ruler.
Alexander Raleigh compares Satan to Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus for the benefit of
mankind. Likewise, Raleigh calls Satan a “fearless antagonist of Omnipotence”. On the other
hand, Stanley Fish suggests that Milton attempts to ‘tempt’ the reader as Satan tempted Eve
and it becomes the moral and religious duty of the reader to overcome this temptation. The
reader who falls before the lures of Satanic rhetoric displays […] the weakness of Adam and
… [fails] to avoid repeating [Adam's] fall. (Fish, 38)
Check Your Progress

1. Comment on the character of Satan in Book I of Paradise Lost.
2. Critically examine the various speeches delivered by Satan in Book I of
Paradise Lost. What do they tell us about Satan as an orator and leader?
3. “Milton was of the devil’s party without knowing it”. In light of this
statement, critically examine the portrayal of Satan in Book I of Paradise
Lost.
4. Based on your reading of Book I, do you agree that Paradise Lost is a
Christian poem? Give reasons for your answer.
Beelzebub
Beelzebub is one of the rebel angels who fell from Heaven alongside Satan. He awakens
soon after Satan. He is the first to interact with Satan and listen to his plans. In fact,
Beelzebub serves as Satan’s most reliable ally and his second-in-command. He functions as a
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counselor to Satan and equally adept at diplomacy. He, alongside Satan convinces the other
fallen angels into formulating a plan of revenge against the supposed wrongdoings of God.
While Satan is proud and boisterous, Beelzebub reasons Satan with rationality and a realistic
survey of their situation. He brings to light their dire circumstances and does not shy away
from admitting that God indeed is all-powerful (almighty). He offers rational explanations for
the situation the angels are in and does not coax the other angels with false promises of going
back to their pre-fallen glory.
“Satan, however, has not Beelzebub’s wisdom and practical sense. For example, Satan
rejoices at the immortality of the rebel angels, and hopes that they will thus be able to vex
god through eternity Beelzebub at once points out that the immortality of the rebel angels
also means eternal torture for them. Satan declares that the fallen angels will always be doing
evil, thus vexing god. Beelzebub shrewdly observes that their very opposition may be turned
by god into the furtherance of his own glory. Bold, proud and ambitions, Satan is at his best
on a throne or at the head of an army. The proper place for the wise and sagacious Beelzebub
is the council chamber” (“Discuss the character”). He offers a calm rationality to Satan’s
brazen call-of-action against their overthrow. Unlike Satan, he isn’t rash in his decisions but
cautious. He openly accepts the superiority of God’s forces over the angels and devises that
only through trickery and deceit can they win. “Of force believe almighty, since no less/ Than
such could have o’erpow’red such force as ours” (I.144). While Satan belittles their Fall
using bold metaphors of bravery, Beelzebub instead accepts the great and eternal misfortune
that has befallen them. Through his shrewd powers of persuasion, he helps direct Satan’s
course of action as his chief lieutenant.
Check Your Progress

1. Critically examine the character of Beelzebub in Book I of Paradise Lost.
2. Compare and contrast the characters of Satan and Beelzebub in Paradise Lost.
2.10 MAJOR THEMES
Hell and Pandemonium

Milton offers a vivid description of Hell and the creation of Satan’s Palace in the Book I.
Hell appears as a singed furnace while the Hellish fire does not illuminate like the ordinary
fires but instead spreads further darkness and hence, only “darkness [is] visible” (I.63),
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indicating the doomed fate of its inhabitants who have forsaken the light of goodness and of
Heaven. It deprives its inhabitants of vision and instils only despair. Hell is a place where any
positive feeling of hope or rest does not exist. Milton describes Hell as never-ending as “ever-
burning sulphur unconsumed” (I.69) to depict the eternal nature of the punishment of its
inhabitants. There is no sense of calm even in the climate with ongoing fiery floods or
tempests. Milton compares Hell to a perpetual volcano. There is no sense of stability as the
dry land is composed of solid fire and the lake is composed of liquid fire, making it difficult
for the angels to walk. Hell isn’t a formless or shapeless landmass; it contains lakes and hills
and precious metals using which the capital of Hell – Pandemonium is built.
The Latin meaning of the word Pandemonium is ‘belonging to demons/ evil spirits’
while the contemporary usage identifies it as a situation of wild uproar and confusion. Indeed,
Hell is a place of confusion where the flames emit darkness instead of light and hope is born
out of sheer despair. It is the capital of Hell that is built to house all the devils. The
Pandemonium marks the moral degeneration into materialistic baseness of the devils from the
army of Satan to the buzzing bees. The pride and valour of the military transformed into the
very mundane. Pandemonium is the name coined by Milton for the capital of Hell. It is built
by the fallen angels, lead by Mammon, the angel most invested in materialistic pursuits as
well as Mulciber, who Milton identifies as the Greco-Roman god of forgery Hephaestus/
Vulcan. The angels are able to create a greater marvel than the Egyptian pyramids in just an
hour, its luxury and splendour is unmatched even by Babylon. Milton describes its creation in
terms of visual music – rising like the notes of a musical organ. However, Pandemonium
represents Milton’s attitude towards greed and wealth acquisition. He describes the process of
building the monument in the crudest of words as “a second multitude/With wondrous Art
found out the massieOre/Severing each kind, and scum'd the Bullion dross” (I.71-73). The
Pandemonium serves as a space that functions as a parliament in a faux-democracy of the
fallen angels which parodies the religious and political climate of Milton’s time. As a
Protestant, Milton was dissatisfied with the corruption and greed of the Catholic Church as
well as the political leaders whom he parodies. This monument is a mere façade of grandeur
built using worldly materials as a replica of Heaven’s splendours but while it attempts to
match the outward glory.
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Check Your Progress

1. Write a short note on the following: a. Hell, b. Pandemonium. c. Mammon
2. Write a short note on Paradise Lost as a political commentary.
3. Based on your reading of Book I, comment upon the ways in which Milton
acts as a poet of the Reformation
4. Critically examine Paradise Lost as a Renaissance epic.
5. Identify Milton’s views on wealth and materialism as portrayed in the
construction of Pandemonium.
2.11 EPIC SIMILE
Epic simile refers to detailed comparisons that are built up over a large course of the text
throughout several lines as opposed to the function of simile which points out similarities
between two dissimilar concepts in a short and simple manner. These are used to add richness
to the narrative but more importantly, to transpose loftier ideas into familiar and acceptable
notions. Since these require elaborate and detailed comparisons, they are often digressive in
nature, i.e, these comparisons tend to deviate from the actual narrative to discuss at length a
specific aspect.
Milton was more concerned with the intellectual function of the simile rather than its
aesthetic function. For instance, the various comparisons of Satan to an enormous sea beast
(I.199-207) or the fallen angels to a swarm of bees (I.768-776) or the description of Satan’s
shield to the moon as seen through Galileo’s astronomical glass (I.284-291) seek to help the
readers understand the abstract concepts in the form of concrete images. Doing so is an
important aspect of the narrator (and by extension Milton’s) task of justifying the ways of
God to men as well as Milton’s project of creating a Biblical epic of the scale of the classical
epics such as The Iliad and The Odyssey. The buzzing bees present the image of a filthy,
undifferentiated swarm lacking individuality as well as a reduction in their stature just like
the reduction in their size, in the mind of the reader. At the same time, they represent a
certain kind of wildness and chaos which the fallen angels seek to bring to the world of
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mankind. The images of sea as well as the swarm of bees portray Hell as a place always in a
state of flux and impermanence, in direct contrast to the immutability of Heaven.
Interestingly, Homer, who is credited with the conception of the epic simile, also uses the
‘bee simile’ in his epic, The Iliad. Harding notes that, “Milton wanted his readers to
recognize the source of his allusion so that they could compare his version with the original
and then judge for themselves how skillfully, and with what new creative insights, he had
reworked it” (665).
Thus, while Milton’s use of epic similes present decorative, poetic imagery, they are also
suffused with deeper meaning of classical scholarship and serve the larger purpose of
providing the reader with a means to make the grand events of cosmic proportion more
relatable.
Check Your Progress

1. Comment upon the use of Homeric simile in Book I of Paradise Lost.
2. What is an epic simile? What function does Milton’s use of the epic simile
serve?
3. Comment upon Milton’s use of Epic conventions in Book I of Paradise Lost.
2.12 USE OF MYTHS
Throughout Book I, Milton provides various allusions to the Biblical as well as Classical
myths. The entire poem is couched within the Christian myth of the loss of Eden (Paradise)
by Adam and Eve for disobeying God’s will by eating the forbidden fruit. At the same time,
Milton makes several allusions to Greek and Roman (classical) myths. Often, His purpose is
to denounce these myths by comparing them to the Biblical myths which he presents as the
origin or source of all the other tales. To that effect, he often presents the Pagan deities as
falsehoods and fake gods as well as the classical myths as debased replicas of the original,
Christian myths. For example, Hephaestus’ fall from Olympus is presented by Milton as a
debased form of the fall of Mulciber, the angel due to his rebellion against Heaven. Likewise,
he brings together all such deities worshipped across various mythologies and integrates them
into his narrative as the fallen angels leading mankind astray into degradation. Allusions help
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Milton in transgressing the boundaries of time and space as defined by his chosen subject
matter of the fall of Man. He presents himself in the figure of Moses, who seeks to “justify
the way of God to men” (I.26).
Check Your Progress

1. Critically examine Milton’s mythological universe in Book I.
2. How does Milton bring out the conflict between Classical and Christian themes
in Paradise Lost?
3. Briefly examine some of the major allusions in Book I of Paradise Lost.
2.13 List of Allusions
The following is the list of some of the major allusions used by John Milton in Book I of
Paradise Lost arranged in order of their appearance in the text. A brief explanation is also
provided alongside the references.
• Jesus Christ - Line 24
• Moses - Line 8; Line 339: In Judaism, Moses is the Prophet, a conduit between God
and man. He is the one who narrates God’s word to the people
• Theogony of Hesiod 713 ff. – Line 50; 126 – 139; 197- 200: A poem by Hesiod
recounting the creation myth of Greek gods and Greek cosmology
• Metamorphoses by Ovid – Lines 197- 200: A poem by the poet Ovid recounting
classical Greek myths
• Leviathan – Line 201: From Isaiah 27: 1 “In that day the Lord with his sore and great
and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that
crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.” and Job 41:34 “It
looks down on all that are haughty; it is king over all that are proud.”
• Exodus 10:13-5 – Line 338 : The Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt
• 1 Kings 11:1-9 – Lines 383-391: “But king Solomon loved many strange women,
together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites,
Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites...”
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• Aeneid by Vigil 3.570-7 – Lines 230-237: A poem by the poet Virgil recounting the
journey of Aeneas, a Trojan hero who founds Rome
• Iliad by Homer – Line 576; 740-746; 768 – 770: account of the Trojan war
• Genesis 11:4 – Line 694 : Tale of the Tower of Babel
2.14 BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Admin. “Discuss the Character of Beelzebub in Paradise Lost.” Www.josbd.com, 26

May 2016, www.josbd.com/discuss-the-character-of-beelzebub-in-paradise-lost/.
• Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Will. Blake, 1793.
• Coogan, Michael. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version.
Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 2010.
• Fish, Stanley Eugene. Surprised by Sin: the Reader in Paradise Lost. Harvard
University Press, 2001.
• Fish, Stanley, and John Milton. Paradise Lost, Oxford University Press, 1967, pp. 1–
10.
• Fish, Stanley. How Milton Works. Harvard University Press, 2003.
• Harding, James P. “Milton’s Bee-Simile.” The Journal of English and Germanic
Philology, vol. 60, no. 4, 1961, pp. 664–669.
• Hoyt, Randy. “The Rebellion of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost.” Latest Issue, 1 Aug.
2008, journeytothesea.com/satan-paradise-lost/.
• Ježik, Biljana. “The Fallen Angels in Milton's Paradise Lost.” Strossmayer University
of Osijek, 2014.
• King James Bible. Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Lewis, C. S. A Preface to Paradise Lost: Being the Ballard Matthews Lectures
Delivered at University College, North Wales, 1941. Oxford University Press, 1971.
• Martinsek, Francis Louis. “Milton's Use of the Epic Simile in Paradise Lost.” Loyola
University Chicago, 1941.
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• Milton, John. Paradise Lost: A Norton Critical Edition. Edited by Gordon Tesky, W.
W. Norton, 2005.
• Paradise Lost Allusions. www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/paradise-
lost/analysis/allusions.
• Rajan, B, editor. John Milton's Paradise Lost Book 1. Doaba Publications, 2014.
• Raleigh, Walter Alexander. Milton. E. Arnold, 1909.
• Widmer, Kingsley. “The Iconography of Renunciation: The Miltonic Simile.” Elh,
vol. 25, no. 4, 1958, p. 258., doi:10.2307/2872092.
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Department of Distance and Continuing Education

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Title Prepared by Edited by Page

‘The Canonization’ Shriya Pandey

‘The Good Morrow’ Nalini Prabhakar

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3. CHAUCER’S LIFE AND WORKS

3.1 Early Years

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3.3 Literary Career

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4.3 The Setbacks

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4.5 The Rising Middle Class

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4.7 Spread of Literacy

Check Your Progress

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5. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE GENERAL PROLOGUE

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5.4 The Pilgrim Chaucer

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Check Your Progress

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6. TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF THE GENERAL PROLOGUE

6.1 The Beginning

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Glossary and Explanatory Notes Lines 1 – 18

Engendered is the The flower is generated or created

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Glossary and Explanatory Notes Lines 1 – 18

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Glossary and Explanatory Notes Lines 1 – 18

They wende Make their way

6.1.2 The Narrator Enters

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Glossary and Explanatory Notes Lines 19 – 34

6.1.3 The Narrator Continues

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6.2 The Pilgrims

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6.2.1.2 Critical Comment

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