Meet Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer is known as the father of English poetry, not because he was the first but because his works are mesmerizing. He is one of the greatest of all, being literate in French and English, who also read Latin and studied French and Italian poetry (THORNLEY; ROBERTS, 2008, p. 15). He lived during the Middle English period (1100-1500) and was born in the reign of Edward III, 1340, dying in 1400 (HUDSON, 1913, p. 20). The language used, as we will be able to perceive below, changed substantially, being much easier to read the original version when compared to Beowulf, which was written in Old English. Read the original passage below and its translation:
It is possible to notice that it is much more familiar to the English that we use today than Old English. The passage was taken from “The Canterbury Tales”, written by Chaucer, read here. Beyond words, Chaucer told the stories of characters that seem so authentic that it seems that we are living the story, that we recognize the characters as true people.
“Although Chaucer’s invented personages are now six hundred years old, they are flesh and blood today; they are, in fact, the people whom we have known all our lives.”
– Louis Untermeyer
The Pardoner’s Tale
The analysis of The Pardoner’s Tale below was made through the translation of Nevill Coghill; Beforehand, have in mind that The Pardoner’s Tale is an exemplum, a story to illustrate a moral point of view, a social satire, having as its themes Death, Sins and the Corruption of the Church.
First of all, a Pardoner is someone who travels selling pardons for people that are repentant of their sins by accepting donations for the church. However, despite being paid by the Church with a percentage of the take, Chaucer's Pardoner – and real Pardoners – yielded to this temptatious sin, taking more than their share. It is not fair to judge only the Pardoner, once pardons must not be sold and donations are different from an exchange. In his prologue, the Pardoner is drunk and starts by saying that:
Then he proceeds with his confession, being completely aware of his sin
– I’m doing it only to gain money, not to correct – and not regretting it.
Demonstrating his hypocrite dubious morality.
The Pardoner is so corrupted by greed, that confesses that even the poorest widow with starving children has something to do for him; He also says that he drinks and has different girls in each town, which are also sins.
After that, the reader is surprised by an unexpected
and ironic utterance: “I’m vicious, but I can tell a moral tale”, showing how
intelligent and manipulative the Pardoner is. Considering this, he starts to
tell the tale of The Three Rioters (a group of a noisy and masculine young
man), that loved eating and drinking (gluttony) and going after women of the
town (lust). Above all, they loved gambling. During a Sunday – the
usual day to go to Church in many countries and epochs – they were drinking
instead of going to the church and heard people talking about someone that
passed away. At that very moment, one of them said to a servant to discover the
name of the deceased and receives his answer: one of his friends, drunk, was
stabbed by Death three times. After that, it is possible to notice another real
event: The Plague, which killed approximately 75,000,000 to 200,000,000 that is
cited to show the power of the Death and its lack of mercy. Instead of mourning
the death of his friends, they explicit their strong and apparently
indestructible bond and decide to find Death and slay him – Personification,
giving human traits/states/qualities to inhuman things.
"These three, to live and die for one another
As brother-born might swear to his born brother."
They start their journey to kill Death and meet an old
man that is very polite to them but treated impolitely. The Old Man says that
wants to die, that he is suffering in pain, but Death does not want him. Then,
he advises the leader by saying that he treated him badly and he should have
respect for the elders, as the Bible instructs. “Don't hurt me, but treat me
kindly so that, when you are old yourself, people will respect you. Now let me
pass. I must go where I must go.” He is accused by the Leader of being one of
Death’s spies and the Old Man tells him the directions to find Death: he must
follow the path that goes to the forest, because he left Death there, under a
tree. “God be with you and help you to become good”. The Old Man figure is
typical and similar to a prophet-like figure that gives useful yet dangerous
information.
Following the Old Man’s instruction, the Three Rioters
find a treasure – a huge pile of Golden coins. Then, they begin to start a
plan: The Leader says that they should bring the coins to one of their houses
at night, to not be seen by people, choosing to keep the treasure for
themselves instead of finding the owner of it (greedy and stealing), thanking
God for the finding. From here, the decadence begins as a chain of events.
The youngest of them goes to get bread and wine, while
the Leader and the middle one agrees to divide the money in two, by fighting as
a joke with the youngest and surprising him with a cruel stab – by the back and
by the front.
However, despite the youth, the youngest was not innocent. He was also planning something for his “brothers”: he bought rats’ poison from a Chemist arguing that an animal is killing his chickens. Conveniently, the Chemist gives him his strongest poison, that could kill any animal or man in minutes. He comes back with three bottles of wine, two of them with poison poured. Despite having his plan, his brothers attacked him first. The murderers drank the wine to celebrate their wealth in front of the deceased and found Death. They die.
FOR FURTHER READING:
ALGEO, John. The Middle
English Period (1100-1500). In: THE ORIGINS and Development of the
English Language. 6. ed. Boston: Wadsworth CENGAGE Learning, 2009. cap. 6,
p. 112-138. ISBN 978-1-4282-3145-0.
HUDSON, William Henry.
The Age of Chaucer: (1300-1400). In: HUDSON, William Henry. An Outline History of English Literature. London:
G. Bell and Sons, LTD, 1913. cap. 3, p. 20-35. Disponível em:
https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/3875221/mod_resource/content/1/AN%20OUTLINE%20OF%20HISTORY%20OF%20ENGLISH%20LITERATURE.pdf.
Acesso em: 7 dez. 2020.
THORNEY, G. C.; ROBERTS, Gwyneth. Middle English Literature. In: THORNEY, G. C.; ROBERTS, Gwyneth. An Outline of English Literature. 13. ed. England: Longman, 2008. cap. 2, p. 15-21. Disponível em: https://idoc.pub/documents/an-outline-of-english-literature-gc-thornleypdf-qn85ddo5y2n1. Acesso em: 7 dez. 2020.
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