Lesson 1.6 · Unit 1 · RL.11-12.5, RL.11-12.6
The frame narrative and what it makes possible
Chaucer wrote in English when the prestige languages were French and Latin, and he built his masterpiece on a device that let him include everybody. The frame is not a container for the tales; it is the argument.
- Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales from about 1387 until his death in 1400, leaving it unfinished.
- Middle English is readable with glosses, and this course quotes it directly rather than in translation.
- A frame narrative is a story containing other stories, with a device that explains why they are being told.
- The pilgrimage is the device, and it is the only occasion in medieval England that could legitimately mix the social classes.
- The Host proposes a storytelling contest, which supplies a reason for each teller to compete.
- Chaucer writes himself in as a pilgrim, a naive one, which gives him a narrator who reports without judging.
- The tales suit the tellers, so a tale is characterization as well as content.
- Tellers interrupt and answer each other, which turns the collection into an argument.
Where students lose marks: reading a tale without its teller. A tale in Chaucer is evidence about the person telling it, and separating the two discards half of what is on the page.
The text. Geoffrey Chaucer, the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, about 1387. Public domain. Middle English with glosses; spelling is as printed.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour...
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
Bifil that in that seson on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye,
Of sondry folk, by aventure y-falle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle
Step one: gloss the opening. Shoures soote, sweet showers; droghte, drought; perced, pierced; swich licour, such liquid; vertu, power; engendred, brought forth. The passage says April's rain has reached the root of March's dryness and made flowers grow.
Step two: read the grammar of the first sentence. It runs eighteen lines before reaching a main clause, and the main clause is "Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages". The whole spring is a subordinate clause explaining why people travel.
Step three: state what that syntax argues. Pilgrimage is placed inside a natural cycle. Religious motive and the return of spring are joined in one sentence, so the poem begins by declining to separate devotion from biology.
Step four: notice the second passage's setting. A tavern in Southwark, outside the city walls. Not a church, not a court, not a hall, but the one kind of place where twenty-nine strangers of different ranks could legitimately share a room.
Step five: state what that permits. A knight, a miller, a prioress, a merchant and a cook can speak in sequence and answer one another. No other medieval occasion would allow it, so the frame is what makes the social range of the poem possible.
Step six: read "by aventure y-falle in felaweshipe". They fell into fellowship by chance. Chaucer insists the mixture is accidental, which is a fiction that lets him assemble exactly the sample of English society he wants.
Step seven: identify the narrator. "As I lay" places Chaucer inside his own poem as one of the pilgrims. This narrator admires almost everyone and notices details that contradict his admiration, which is the technique lesson 1.7 examines.
Step eight: state what the contest adds. The Host proposes that each pilgrim tell tales and that the best win a supper. That converts a collection into a competition, so every tale is aimed at an audience the reader can see, and several are aimed at a specific rival in the company.
Questions 1 to 5 are recall. Questions 6 to 10 ask for reasoning.
- When did Chaucer write The Canterbury Tales?
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From about 1387 until his death in 1400, unfinished
- Define a frame narrative.
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A story containing other stories, with a device explaining why they are told
- Where does the company assemble?
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The Tabard, a tavern in Southwark
- How many pilgrims are in the company?
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Nine and twenty, plus the narrator and the Host
- What does the Host propose?
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A storytelling contest, with a supper as the prize
- What does the eighteen-line opening sentence argue?
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That pilgrimage belongs inside a natural cycle. The whole account of April rain, root, sap and flower is a subordinate clause, and the main clause is that people then long to go on pilgrimages. Religious motive and the return of spring are joined by grammar, so the poem opens by declining to separate devotion from biology. Devotion and the spring are joined in one sentence
- Why is the tavern the necessary setting?
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Because it is the one kind of place where a knight, a miller, a prioress and a cook could legitimately share a room. A church, a court or a hall would each admit only part of the range. The frame is chosen for what it permits socially, and the poem's entire social breadth depends on that choice. It is the only place that could mix those ranks
- What work does "by aventure y-falle in felaweshipe" do?
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It insists the mixture happened by chance. That is a useful fiction: it lets Chaucer assemble exactly the cross-section of English society he wants while presenting the assembly as accidental. A reader who notices the claim also notices how carefully selected the twenty-nine actually are. It presents a carefully chosen sample as an accident
- Why does Chaucer write himself in as a pilgrim?
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It gives him a narrator who reports without judging. The pilgrim Chaucer admires almost everyone and records details that contradict his admiration, so the reader receives accurate observation with unreliable evaluation and must reconcile them. The device is the same one Twain would use five centuries later. To get a narrator who observes accurately and judges badly
- What does the contest add to a collection of tales?
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An audience and a motive. Each tale is now aimed at listeners the reader can see, and several are aimed at a specific rival in the company, so tales answer and insult each other. The frame converts a collection into an argument, and reading a tale out of that context loses the half of it that is directed at somebody. It makes the tales compete with and answer each other