Pathetic speech in “Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer

This article is dedicated to the peculiarities of pathetic language in Geoffrey Chaucer's “Canterbury Tales” and rhetorical techniques used for saturating the speech of the narrator and the characters. On the example of the “Man of Law's Tale” and the “Second Nun’s Tale”, in which the vicissitudes of the heroines are in the limelight, the author of this article examines the specificity of pathetic speech and its functions in Chaucer’s text. The goal of this research lies in determination of the cause for using pathetic speech in these two tales. Research methodology employs structural, semantic, and historical-cultural methods of analysis of the literary text. The scientific novelty consists in reference to the analysis of rhetorical techniques in the poetics of Geoffrey Chaucer reflected in the context of the categories of tragic and pathetic, which have not been thoroughly studied in the Russian and foreign research tradition. The following conclusions were made: the abundance of pathetic speech is a means to draw the attention of audience; its heightened expansiveness allows reaching the expected emotional response. In most instances, pathetic speech is associated with the positive characters of the tales, as well as the narrator, who comments on the actions of the heroes and emphasizes the touching episodes in their lives. The speech of the negative characters in these two tales is rather neutral, and in some cases replaced by the speech of the narrator. Granting the word to the negative characters, Chaucer means expansion of their role, allowing the audience to look at them not only as the minister of evil.

Teaching the Big Three: Making Sense of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton

Arguably, the three most important early writers in the English language – indeed, one might say the founders of the language – are Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400), William Shakespeare (1564-1616), and John Milton (1608-1674). Yet our experience at the higher level of education is that students have had little exposure to the life and times of these writers or of their work. Our study shows that, while some Georgian school leavers have been exposed briefly to a bit of Shakespeare, few have chanced to encounter Chaucer and none to Milton. Moreover, while teaching what we might call “The Big Three” of English language and literature, much the same might be said at the master’s level: a bit of Shakespeare, little of Chaucer, and none of Milton. To the extent that students of English as a foreign language encounter any literature at all, they tend to be offered little other than literal translation. “Retell the text.” They miss the nuances of the English language as they would encounter them through the greatest of writers. It is, therefore, essential that those who teach any or all of these great writers develop a strategy to fit the needs of the students while meeting the objectives of the course. The key to making sense of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton is to make connections to what students already know, to their own experiences, to make these greatest of all English writers relevant to the lives of the students in ways they can understand. Keywords: English literature, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton

The Afterlife of the Roman de la rose

Mobility in learned circles was a reality in the Europe of the Middle Ages, and it is only when we consider the reception of well-known works, such as the thirteenth-century Roman de la rose, in the countries where they circulated in the local language that we are able to gain a more complete understanding of their impact on literary and cultural currents even after the authors had passed away. Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun’s conjoined Roman de la rose (1236, 1269-78) is without a doubt one of the foundational works of French medieval literature with over 360 extant manuscripts. Focusing on two non-French adaptations of this work that appeared within a century of the date of its composition, I show that these translations, or more accurately rewritings, enabled its survival and contributed to its sustained popularity in medieval Europe. The adaptations that are the subject of this analysis are Il Fiore, a thirteenth-century translation and adaptation into Italian often attributed to Dante, and the Romaunt of the Rose, commonly attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer. I conclude that through the medieval practice of interpretatio, the authors of the Fiore, and the Romaunt of the Rose adapt the original text to reflect their own contemporary cultural realities.

Los escritores ricardianos y la consolidación de la literatura en inglés medio

Este artículo tiene por finalidad destacar las condiciones bajo las que desde las últimas décadas del siglo XIV tuvo lugar el reconocimiento de la poesía en inglés medio como práctica prestigiosa en un contexto todavía dominado por la literatura y la cultura francesa. Para ello, tomo en cuenta una serie de conceptos planteados por eruditos y hombes de letras que, desde principios del siglo XV en adelante, establecieron la noción de un canon literario temprano a partir de los nombres de poetas que estuvieron activos durante el periodo ricardiano, en especial a partir de John Gower y Geoffrey Chaucer, desde entonces identificados como fundadores de la literatura inglesa. A continuación señalo algunos de los rasgos comunes a la obra de estos escritores, y enfatizo la significación que le asignan a la literatura como vehículo de un sentido de pertenencia a una comunidad cultural, seguramente una de las razones que facilitaron su aceptación por parte de sus receptores presentes y futuros.

Pilgrims’ Texts

This chapter explores reading and writing on the move, through the transnational medium of pilgrims’ books. It considers literary writing about pilgrimage by the likes of William Langland and Geoffrey Chaucer; a printed indulgence sold to pilgrims the shrine of St Cornelius in St Margaret’s Church at Westminster; and the routes taken, books read, and texts produced by particular medieval pilgrims, including Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV of England. The chapter examines the ways in which pilgrimage was a stimulus to writing as well as to reading, and was a process that put the material facets of textual production into a variety of dynamic and often surprising relations with communities of readers and writers.