Medieval Literature Class

Previous Page  Back to The Virtual Classroom

Whan that Aprill 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;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially fram every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Bifil that in that seson on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Canterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.
The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
And wel we weren esed atte beste.
And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
So hadde I spoken with hem everichon
That I was of hir felaweshipe anon,
And made forward erly for to ryse,
To take oure wey ther as I yow devyse.

Closing discussion

Practical Criticism was originally developed within a positivist intellectual climate. According to a positivist account, meaning is best understood without reference to the prejudices we hold before coming to a text. For this reason the author's name was not supplied, and the text was presented without any contextual material. Meaning, by this account, should be wholly understood from the 'words on the page'. Many intellectual currents of later twentieth-century criticism have, however, rightly questioned the simplicity of that model; these anti-positivist theories argue instead that meaning is always produced through a complex interaction between a reader's response to a text and what that reader already knows before s/he comes to the text. Before one can understand the part, one must understand the whole, and before one can understand the whole, one must understand the parts. That way of putting it nevertheless justifies the act of Practical Criticism, as a way of beginning to understand the part. It also recognises, however, that Practical Criticism is just a beginning, and that we need to understand more of the whole to which the part belongs.

What might constitute the 'whole' to which this text belongs? The answers to that question are potentially infinite, but the following would be obvious leads to pursue.

  1. How does this passage work in the Canterbury Tales as a whole? Throughout the Tales Chaucer juxtaposes a high, courtly style with a humbler style derived from comic genres, such as the fabliau. The juxtaposition of the Knight's Tale and the Miller's Tale might be thought of in the light of this opening sequence.
  2. How does this passage work in the larger pattern of Chaucer's poetic career? In the simplest terms, Chaucer's writing moves from courtly styles and genres to embrace a much wider social and literary range in the Canterbury Tales. One might compare, for example, the earliest dateable poem, The Book of the Duchess (c. 1368) with an example of fabliau (e.g. The Shipman's Tale, probably written in the 1390s) to see that contrast in very sharp relief. Further reading in the whole of Chaucer's oeuvre will reveal, however, that he is looking forward to the comedy of the Canterbury Tales from as early as his House of Fame (late 1370s).
  3. How does this passage draw on the traditions of European literature with which Chaucer was familiar? The Christian humanism of this passage sits well with Chaucer's profound engagement with the literature of Classical Rome, especially the work of Virgil, Ovid and Statius. One could also set the passage discussed above in the context of Chaucer's deep knowledge of both French and Italian poetry. Those literatures both provided examples of courtly and humbler, comic styles, as well as providing Chaucer with the model of vernacular languages being used for the full range of literary possibility. The fact that Chaucer travelled to both France and Italy on royal business is relevant. Those literatures also provided Chaucer with many examples of Spring openings; beginning a narrative with a description of Spring is a standard topos in medieval literature.
  4. What are the 'cultural politics' of this passage? It might be relevant that Chaucer began the Canterbury Tales towards the end of the 1380s, when service to Richard II had momentarily become extremely dangerous, and when Chaucer literally withdrew to Kent until the situation calmed. Further, one might want to think about the broadly 'political' and social implications of juxtaposing styles in this way. By upsetting stylistic decorum, is Chaucer upsetting a social decorum? By refusing to observe a hierarchy of styles, is Chaucer questioning a social hierarchy? What is the significance, too, of Chaucer writing this passage in English, when French could easily have been his language of choice for poetry of high literary ambition?

Further Reading

David Burnley, The Language of Chaucer (London, 1983).
Piero Boitani and Jill Mann, eds. The Cambridge Chaucer Companion (Cambridge, 1986).

©James Simpson 2000