This week we finished up our examination of English medieval literature with a short look at The Canterbury Tales. Not only was the language more modern (as symbolized by the textbook creators assuming you could read it without a translation), but its portrayal of English life was contemporary. Beowulf and Gawain were poems about the pagan and Christian past respectively. The Canterbury Tales was a representation of English life and people in the late 14th Century as it was happening.
With some very small adjustments you could easily write a 21st century adaptation of the pilgrimage Chaucer has his characters go on.
Imagine Jeff Chaucer directing a TV show about a collection of tourists heading to New Orleans on a tour bus or a group of DisneyLand visitors headed to see Mickey in Cali.
On the bus, you find the following participants:
- The decorated war veteran (the Knight)
- His ladies-man son who wears the uniform but has never actually seen battle (the squire)
- The affluent hippie guru who preaches self-help (the Monk)
- The Real Housewives of Bath multi-divorcee cougar (The Wife of Bath)
- The blue-collar union man who likes to tell inappropriate stories in mixed company (The Miller)
- The televangelist who sings his ways to millions in the name of God (The Pardoner)
This is a reality show waiting to happen. Somebody call Bravo yesterday!
What I appreciate most about Chaucer’s satire is that it never veers into cynicism. The narrator finds something nice to say about the Pardoner (“I mean, the dude CAN sing and preach”) while admitting his fundamental corruption, and we’re given a sermon with a worthwhile moral even if his prologue and epilogue are horrific.
Chaucer still judges his City of Man pilgrims by the standard of the City of God. Chaucer knows that individuals within the church are corrupt, but that does not mean the church itself is corrupt. In fact, we have to use religious standards to find the way the Friar, Monk, Summoner, and Pardoner behave objectionable. The Pardoner’s greed does not invalidate his criticism of greediness. In fact, it asks readers to think about their own hypocrisy: the way their external message matches their internal motivations.