YOUR TEXTS EXPLAINED
General Prologue
GEOFFREY CHAUCER THE CANTERBURY TALES
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T4
p. 42
Enjoy!
We have never seen spring before reading this, have we? This is life, not just of rain and wind, flowers and plants, birds and people, but of the spirit of man, who sets out on the journey of life to find himself, as the pilgrims found Becket, at his shrine, and others like them on the way to Canterbury. That’s the law of pilgrimages: you walk on and on and on, but there’s a goal: to find new life, for you, again.
The General Prologue opens with the image of spring, the season of rebirth for all creatures. Chaucer contrasts March, a cold wet month with its “drought” (l. 2) with April with its “sweet showers”, the blossoming of flowers and the singing of birds. The first lines convey an image of peace, calm and harmony between man and nature. The sun has gone through the second half of the zodiac, Aries, the “Ram”.
The rebirth of man and nature in spring
Around this time of year, inspired by the rebirth of nature, people begin to feel the desire to go on pilgrimages to seek spiritual regeneration. Pilgrimages, therefore, bring new life to the soul in the same way as April brings new life to the soil; pilgrimages represent a symbolic journey towards spiritual salvation but at the same time they also preserve their peculiar function of holiday-making and an opportunity for amusement. Many devout English pilgrims set off to visit shrines in distant holy lands, but most people choose to travel to Canterbury to visit the relics of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, where they thank the martyr for helping them when they were in need.
Pilgrimages: the rebirth of the spiritual soul
From the narrator (Chaucer himself), we learn that London was the usual departure point for pilgrims. Chaucer meets his twenty-nine fellow travellers at the Tabard Inn in Southwark – a London suburb just across London Bridge – on the night before their journey to Canterbury. We can imagine that numerous company to be quite picturesque and colorful, since the pilgrims belonged to different social classes. Besides giving us some interesting information about the pilgrimage, the last lines of the text also provide a particular link between the work and its author. In fact, by allowing Chaucer to “take the way to Canterbury” with them, the “company” turns the poet into a true eyewitness and makes his narrative more realistic.
A realistic picture of the different social classes
YOUR PERSONAL RESPONSE
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You are at Tabard Inn when Chaucer and his fellow travellers arrive. It is sunset. The air is mild, full of the perfumes and sounds of spring. Inside the inn you can smell hot soup, roasted meat, baked potatoes… Around you people of all sorts, standing or sitting at the tables.
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Some are talking, others are listening, a few young people are singing in a corner. Plunge into this atmosphere and imagine… Who are you? Who are you with? What are you doing? What has brought you here? What is your reaction to the group of people who have just arrived?
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