The Canterbury Tales: Franklin's Tale, Pardoner's Tale & Nun's Priest's Tale (Chaucer Lecture)

'For thogh myself be a ful vicious man, a moral tale yet I yow telle kan.'

Today we are joyfully rounding off our curation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with a deep appreciation of three superb stories from the Franklin, the Pardoner, and the Nun's Priest.

We're discussing what matters most in storytelling, Breton lai romances, how morality is often inconvenient, the problem of theodicy, Shakespearean foreshadowing, iconic beast fables, vitalistic characters, and much more.

Please do feel free to enjoy the discussion even if you haven't read these parts of the Canterbury Tales yet. You can enjoy our talk before, during, or after your reading of these prologues and tales in the way that best suits you.

Timestamps:

0:00 life is short & the craft is long

2:00 it’s the journey, not the destination

4:00 appreciating the Franklin’s Tale

6:00 hermeneutics of suspicion

8:00 what were medieval franklins?

10:00 interrupting the Squire’s Tale

12:00 the Breton lai romance genre

14:00 characters Arveragus & Dorigen

16:00 mastery cannot constrain love

18:00 on the problem of theodicy

20:00 choosing good in an evil world

22:00 Dorigen’s theological lament

24:00 ‘these grisly black rocks…’

26:00 Aurelius falls for Dorigen

28:00 Dorigen’s impossible love task

30:00 making the metaphorical literal

32:00 Shakespeare’s Prospero foreshadow

34:00 magical illusion of vanished rocks

36:00 on truth being the highest virtue

37:00 why morality is often inconvenient

39:00 the Franklin invites interaction

40:00 the plot of the Physician’s Tale

42:00 appreciating the Pardoner’s Tale

44:00 what was a medieval pardoner?

45:00 subverting the confessional genre

47:00 radix malorum est cupiditas 

49:00 immoral teller of a moral tale

50:00 making the spiritual material

52:00 an exemplum on the tavern sins

54:00 a parody of medieval preaching

55:00 the pardoner subverts the pilgrimage

57:00 living in the shadow of the plague

58:00 the absurd plot of the Pardoner’s Tale

1:00:00 Death transfigured into gold

1:01:00 on finding what you seek

1:03:00 the Pardoner’s dirty breeches

1:05:00 can a bad tree bear good fruit?

1:06:00 Chaucer the Pilgrim’s stories

1:08:00 entertainment vs deep meaning

1:10:00 appreciating the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

1:12:00 some iconic fables from Aesop

1:14:00 story of Chaunticleer & Pertolote

1:16:00 ‘I cannot love a cowardly man’

1:18:00 Chaucer’s medieval dream book

1:20:00 free-will vs predestination

1:22:00 how to give controversial opinions

1:24:00 the message in the fall of mankind

1:25:00 beware sycophancy & flattery

1:26:00 mock heroic action of the story

1:27:00 congratulations on reading Chaucer

1:28:00 where to next after Chaucer?

1:31:00 our dystopian double bill next

1:33:00 what did you make of Chaucer?

Resources to Explore:

• Storytelling Compendiums: If our time spent on the pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral has left you craving for more storytelling collections, then you might wish to check out one of these collections next, as they exerted a strong influence upon the father of English Literature: Boccaccio's Decameron, 1,001 Nights/Arabian Nights, Ovid's Metamorphoses. Treat yourself to one of these, dip in over the long-term, and think about how Chaucer sublimely contributed to the tradition. You could also treat the complete works of Shakespeare as a kind of storytelling compendium and read through his works as an extended saga using our lectures as a guide. Reading Shakespeare up against Chaucer is one of the most rewarding exercises in English literary appreciation.

• Beast Fables: You may also find that the Nun's Priest's Tale about Chaunticleer, Pertelote, and the fox has piqued your curiosity for more moral teaching tales featuring anthropomorphised protagonists. If so, then Aesop's Fables always makes for a wonderful work to peruse when in need of enduring folk wisdom.

• More Medievalism: A powerful Italian influence upon Chaucer, in addition to Boccaccio, would be Dante Alighieri. His Divine Comedy is another one that rewards slow, thoughtful, long-term engagement. I personally love both the Ciardi and the Hollander translations. If you haven't already, you might find it interesting to check out our Dante's Inferno lectures and keep an eye out for his influence upon Chaucer. Remaining in Medieval English Literature, Langland's Piers Plowman, Gower's Confessio Amantis, the works of the Gawain Poet, and Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur all make excellent choices as next steps.

• Old English: Perhaps reading Chaucer's Middle English has made you curious about works even further back in the tradition. Anglo Saxon poetry is on a whole different level of challenge. One can make it through the Canterbury Tales in the original with some clarifying notes by one's side, but this is not the case for Old English works. But that doesn't stop one investigating the iconic heroic epic Beowulf using one of the many excellent translations. The Seamus Heaney, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Burton Raffel translations are all great choices.

• More Chaucer: If you have fallen in love with Chaucer's poetry and storytelling, the Riverside Chaucer is a great resource to have on hand. Check out the introductory essays for the different works to see which one tickles your fancy. I would personally recommend that readers who want more Chaucer check out Troilus and Criseyde after the Canterbury Tales.

• Our Next Masterpieces: Congratulations on bringing yourself so powerfully to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. You should feel intensely proud of your accomplishment. If you can appreciate Chaucer, you can appreciate anything. This coming weekend, we will be taking a time machine from the past to the future, from Medieval Europe to a dystopian vision of the world. We will move into the next exciting part of our reading adventure with our introductory 'how to read' video for our Dystopian Double Bill. We are going to read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World followed by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Reading them back to back will offer us a really powerful exercise in comparing and contrasting visionary literature. In our intro video, we will discuss everything from our practical approach and pacing to themes, genre, and socio-historical context. You don't need to read anything just yet, but, if you are keen to dive in, you may want to dip into the first chapter of Brave New World. The main thing you want to do right now is to secure your copies of the books. I'll be working from the Vintage edition for Huxley, and the Penguin edition for Orwell, but feel free to use the copies you like and that come most easily to hand. I am tremendously excited to share this next appreciation with you and am so grateful that you have made our read-throughs for the first half of the year so rewarding.

Questions to Consider:

1) What did you personally make of these three tales? And how did you find the characterisation of these pilgrims?

2) Can an immoral person tell an effective moral tale?

3) Which virtue do you think is the highest? And which vice the worst?

4) What matters most when it comes to great storytelling?

5) How would you persuade another to pick up the Canterbury Tales? And what advice would you give to facilitate a meaningful reading experience?

And please do share with us your impressions and favourite passages from these tales. Let us know the highlights of your time spent with Chaucer.

Congratulations on bringing yourself powerfully to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales!