Mendoza, Kathren Jane

THE CANTERBURY TALES

1. Choose one pilgrim. Summarize his or her story in five sentences. Discuss
the tone of the tale.

The General Prologue names the prioress as Madame Eglantine, and describes her
impeccable table manners and soft-hearted ways. Her portrait suggests she is likely in
religious life as a means of social advancement, given her aristocratic manners and
mispronounced French. Prioress is very elegantly dressed, with a string of coral beads
attached to a pendant that reads "Amor Vincit Omnia," or "Love Conquers All." The tone
of the tale is about being religious and a strange mixture of delicacy and horror.

2. What are the main reasons which makes all the Canterbury tales fantastic.
Cite 5 examples and explain it in two sentences.

The Canterbury Tales is build up of a story and another story within the story that
makes more fantastic. The tales also has a tales of each pilgrim. The 30 pilgrims who
undertake the journey gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, across the Thames from
London. They agree to engage in a storytelling contest as they travel, and Harry Bailly,
host of the Tabard, serves as master of ceremonies for the contest. The Canterbury
Tales incorporates an impressive range of attitudes toward life and literature. The tales
are by turns satirical, elevated, pious, earthy, bawdy, and comical.
 THE PARLIAMENT OF FROWLS

3. According to what you read and understand, what do you think

are the characteristic traits of a courtly lover? What clues in the
text support your account?

A highly conventionalized code that prescribed the behaviour of ladies

and their lovers. It describes a conference of birds that meet to choose their
mates on St. Valentine’s Day. Allegorized lovers, often represented as
birds, sang of eternal and unrequited love in these complaint ballads. On
St. Valentine’s Day 1400, after mass, the chief ministers met in joyous
recreation and conversation about love. Love-poems were presented
before ladies, who judged them, and awarded a golden crown and chaplet
for the best poem.

4. Discuss the role of the narrator in the Parliament of Frowls.

The Parliament of Fowls is a dream-vision. In its opening section, it

describes how the narrator falls asleep while reading Cicero’s Somnium
Scipionis. The narrator sees Nature herself surrounded by birds of every
kind one could imagine. Under Nature's governance, the birds are having a
debate to decide which eagle deserves to marry the formel or the female
eagle.