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The Pennsylvania State University Schreyer Honors College THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH CHAUCER’S USE OF SATIRE IN MULTIPLE GENRES WITHIN THE CANTERBURY TALES LOREN BASELER SPRING 2020 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for baccalaureate degrees in English and French with honors in English Reviewed and approved* by the following: Caroline D. Eckhardt Professor of Comparative Literature and English Thesis Supervisor Carla Mulford Professor of English Honors Adviser * Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College. i ABSTRACT This thesis will focus on The Canterbury Tales as a representation of Chaucer’s mastery over the conventions of literary genres, along with his all-encompassing mode of satire. It will analyze critical theory in relation to genre studies on Chaucer, as well as conduct a close-reading analysis on “The Knight’s Tale,” “The Miller’s Tale,” and “The Pardoner’s Tale.” These three are selected because each exemplifies a fundamentally different genre, and the differences in genre demonstrate how Chaucer uses multiple different genres with satiric effects. The analyses included here will discuss the genre conventions within the stories that are both preserved and broken within these three tales. They will also discuss the mode of satire as it is used in each story, whether that story seems to have a primarily conventional use of its main genre or not. The goal of this thesis is to allow the reader to see the prevalence of social satire in various parts of Chaucer’s work in The Canterbury Tales and discuss how he uses satire to address multiple themes in three of its important genres: romance, fabliau, and exemplum. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... iii Chapter 1: Chaucer’s Awareness of Genre in The Canterbury Tales ......................... 1 Common Medieval Genres within The Canterbury Tales ............................................... 3 Choice of the Tales .......................................................................................................... 11 Chapter 2: The Knight’s Tale ..................................................................................... 12 Existing Scholarship ........................................................................................................ 12 Genre Analysis ................................................................................................................. 14 Chapter 3: The Miller’s Tale....................................................................................... 22 Existing Scholarship ........................................................................................................ 22 Genre Analysis ................................................................................................................. 23 Chapter 4: The Pardoner’s Tale .................................................................................. 33 Existing Scholarship ........................................................................................................ 33 Genre Analysis ................................................................................................................. 34 Chapter 5: Societal Critiques through “The Knight’s Tale,” “The Miller’s Tale,” and “The Pardoner’s Tale” .......................................................................................... 42 Works Cited ................................................................................................................. 48 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to my parents for their unwavering support throughout my education. Thank you to Mrs. Cowart from Franklin Area High School who first introduced me to The Canterbury Tales and who reinforced my love for literature. Thank you to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Caroline D. Eckhardt, for her detailed readings of my thesis. Her thoughtful comments and dedicated guidance helped me to complete this thesis to the best of my ability. I also thank her for her positive encouragement both in and outside of the classroom, as her instruction has helped me become more successful not only as a Chaucerian, but also as a continued learner. 1 Chapter 1: Chaucer’s Awareness of Genre in The Canterbury Tales Throughout The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses satire to create commentaries on many different aspects of his society, including its gender distinctions, other popular literature, social class distinctions, and the role of the Church. He uses his tales to draw attention to the problems associated with each of these categories, and his commentaries create an effective space for satire to operate. Chaucer comments on his society through many different genres, perspectives, and social classes in order to critique the ruling standards of his society. If we approach The Canterbury Tales with the understanding that Chaucer wants to critique his society, then we can see the appropriateness of satire in each genre that Chaucer utilizes. Chaucer demonstrates his mastery and knowledge throughout The Canterbury Tales by including a vast number of genres throughout his work. We can first see Chaucer’s manipulation of genre by observing the work as a whole. The Canterbury Tales falls under the genre category of a frame tale. Amanda Gerber discusses the qualities of a frame tale in her book Medieval Ovid: Frame Narrative and Political Allegory in reference to many famous works including Ovid’s Metamorphosis and also Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. She states that “the frame narrative . can be generally identified by the application of framing devices that interweave a collection of shorter embedded stories” (3). Chaucer utilizes this tactic in The Canterbury Tales as he sets up the prologue with the indication that each person present in the story will be able to tell their own tales about whatever they want to share. Gerber goes on to discuss the flexibility and inconsistencies within the genre of frame narratives as she says, “the genre, if it can even be 2 called such, often resists description owing to its capacity to encapsulate a multitude of genres within its frame, its centuries of use, and its various cultural applications” (3). Gerber’s hesitation about referring refer to frame narratives as a genre indicates the inconsistencies throughout not only the works that are classified as such, but also the stipulations to classify a work as a frame narrative. In fact, she refers to the inconsistences specifically when she states, “the most consistent aspect of the frame narrative is its inconsistency . even more than its function to gather materials, the frame narrative is defined by its interpretive context for collected and juxtaposed tales” (3). By defining The Canterbury Tales as a frame narrative, we recognize the expectation of different genres throughout the work. Chaucer uses this overall genre for his work in order to enhance his ability to alter genre normative, as frame narratives consist of smaller works within a whole. At a first glance, it can seem as though Chaucer follows the conventions of a frame narrative genre. Frame narratives allow different genres to be present in each work, as mentioned, but the presence of great variety is not common. The other classic frame narratives mentioned above tell different stories, but each story contributes to a greater meaning in its entirety. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, however, does not seem stick to one theme throughout. Chaucer’s tales have religious, social, and political messages that differ in each story, and they do not culminate in an over-arching message for Chaucer’s readers. Even from the onset of The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer breaks the expectations of his chosen genre, and this breaking of genre sets up the rest of his narratives. In the book A New Companion to Chaucer, Caroline D. Eckhardt discusses the vast number of genres that are present in The Canterbury Tales and also the links between many of those genres. She says, “Sometimes Chaucer builds extensive links between tales of different 3 genres, as if to put genres in conversation with each other, whether in a parodying relationship or not” (Eckhardt 191). The recognition of Chaucer’s purposeful use of multiple genres and their relationship to each other can be applied to his use of satire. He employs a number of different genres in order to demonstrate the versatility of the function of satire, and satire is a mode through which we can bind together “The Knight’s Tale,” “The Miller’s Tale,” and “The Pardoner’s Tale.” Common Medieval Genres within The Canterbury Tales Chaucer’s choice of genre in The Canterbury Tales is based on other common genres and traditions of medieval literature. One of the most common modes of existence of medieval literature is the oral tradition that preceded it and accompanied written documents. The long oral tradition that came before Chaucer’s time had heavily influenced many genres of written literature, and the frame-tale genre is one of the genres that has been the most influenced. Lee Haring discusses the importance of the oral tradition in the frame narrative in his article “Framing in Oral Narrative.” Haring discusses this tradition in relation to A Thousand and One Nights, but his arguments remain relevant to other works within the frame-narrative genre. Haring states that A Thousand and One Nights, “shows the literary imitation of that orally invented device; it standardizes the movement from one story into the next” (229). The
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