Chaucers in and out

A detailed Summary of Chaucers in and out

Chaucer's social commentary grows from so-called "intrusion"

The relationship Geoffrey Chaucer establishes between "outsiders" and "insiders" in The Canterbury Tales provides the primary fuel for the poetry's social commentary. Both tales and moments within tales describing instances of intrusion work to create a sense of proper order disturbed in the imaginary, structured universes presented by the pilgrims. The perturbances, conflicts born of these examples of, "intrusion into the inner circle," bear the responsibility for most of the ironic-comedic role reversal on which the Tales thrive. From the knight's rape of a maiden in the Wife of Bath's fantastic tale to Absolon's jamming of a hot iron into Nicholas' rectum in the Miller's tale, examples of such invasion and inversion represent the foundations of most of the tales' plots.

Chaucer exposes his fundamental device in the opening stanza of the General Prologue. The first five lines of the poetry address only major natural forces-"Aprill with his shoures soote," (1) and, "Zephirus...with his sweete breeth" (5). Life forms, first grain and then birds, grow organically from these bricks of the earth. The poet creates a chain of existence molded

But two of the numerous changes born of the clash of inside and out in the Knight's Tale present themselves as particularly interesting. The first remains primarily tethered to the earth. When both Palamon and Arcite manage to slide out of jail but return to Athens at risk of death, the two rise into battle with each other. In their exchange before the fight, Palamon assumes more of the martial, aggressive form generally attributable to Arcite who reveals himself as more placid and loving (though no less possessive of Emily as a goal). But this incident foreshadows the final step on the social pyramid that the Knight's Tale describes.

A slew of momentary, physical insertions arise throughout the Tales as reminders of the poetry's plan. When Absolon rapes Nicholas with a searing poker in the Miller's tale and when the university students have sex with all of the women in Symkin's family in the Reeve's Tale, Chaucer reminds his readers exactly what his stories describe with defined, actualized inner circle penetration. The rampant sex and rape found in The Canterbury Tales works harder than to simply supply a low comedy crowd-pleaser.

The Canterbury Tales flesh out their exploration of intrusion through other literary devices than plot twists. Chaucer also uses focused physical forrays into "the inner circle" in the text of his verse and in minor elements of his stories. These tangible interruptions fortify the technique of raising his comedy from inverted social situations.

Emily's interloping beauty incites another fundamental switch in character interaction within the Knight's Tale. The Thebians begin the story as friends, addressing each other as, "Cosyn myn" (1081). But almost immediately after Emily's invasion "thurghout" Palamon's "ye" (1096), the two knights fall into the conflict that dominates the rest of their lives. In under one hundred lines, Chaucer notes, "Greet was the strif and long bitwixt hem tweye," (1187).

The Knight's Tale begins at a human level-wailing women interrupting Theseus' procession with his new wife-and builds to an immortal conflict, checking the integrity of the social structure it is scaling along the way by testing the result of deviations from it. Consequently, the story functions as a figurative introduction to the whole of The Canterbury Tales. The General Prologue presents a format in which Chaucer can create social comedy, but it provides no justification for the poet's sniping. For instance, when Chaucer comments in the General Prologue that the friar "hadde maad ful many a mariage/ Of yonge wommwn at his owene cost"(212-3), he remains noticably aloof and withou

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Approximate Word count = 1781
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English