Chaucer Critic And Context

Question 1

(Brunner) ‘Merchantile logic… leads to a breakdown of…

Answer 1

…human relations’ (Brunner)

Question 2

(Brunner) ‘Underscoring the devious and secretive first impression of this pilgrim and…

Answer 2

…firmly establishing him as an unreliable narrator’ (Brunner)

Question 3

(Hathaway) ‘The real ‘snare’ in this raucous tale is not marriage…

Answer 3

…but the prison of his own desire that he has constructed around himself’ (Hathaway)

Question 4

(Shores) ‘Cynical condemnation of…

Answer 4

…courtly convention’ (Shores)

Question 5

(King) ‘His natural habitat is indoors; he loses control…

Answer 5

…when the action moves to the garden’ (King)

Question 6

(Tolliver) ‘His misery and resulting hatred…

Answer 6

… could be likened to buying a faulty product’ (Tolliver)

Question 7

(Harrington) ‘we are left with a disturbing notion that a level of happiness is…

Answer 7

…possible through folly and self-deception’ (Harrington)

Question 8

(Hoffman) ‘Because of Eve’s sin, women were thought to be carnal and decetiful […] and the source of…

Answer 8

…the world’s problems. If a man lusted, it was always the women’s fault’ (Hoffman)

Question 9

define Nomenclature

Answer 9

Act of naming something/someone.

Question 10

define Misogamous

Answer 10

Hatred of marriage

Question 11

define Prolepsis

Answer 11

Asking a rhetorical question that’s then answered by the asker

Question 12

define Interjection

Answer 12

‘O’ or ‘Ah’ at the beginning of a line

Question 13

define Periphrasis

Answer 13

Extended description (big words use) often followed by bathos and is used to break up the narrative

Question 14

define Traductio

Answer 14

Previous metaphor that becomes reality

Question 15

define The burlesque

Answer 15

Exaggerated imitation for comedy

Question 16

define Parody

Answer 16

A mocking intimidation of a style of literature

Question 17

define Euphemism

Answer 17

Word or phrase that softens an uncomfortable topic

Question 18

define Apostrophe

Answer 18

Speech addressed to someone or something that’s not present

Question 19

define Pathos

Answer 19

Evokes great pity or sadness from the audience

Question 20

define Masculine and feminine rhyme ending

Answer 20

Masculine rhyme ending have one syllable and are stressed. Feminine rhyme endings have two or more syllables and are unstressed

Question 21

define Senex Amans

Answer 21

Translated as ‘amorous old man’ - his lustful desire for a youthful, ill-matched wife makes him a source of ridicule

Question 22

define Iambic Pentameter

Answer 22

‘stressed, unstressed’ syllables x5

Question 23

define Feudalism

Answer 23

A social structure and hierarchy

Question 24

define Fabliau

Answer 24

a type of burlesque with lustful women and foolish men. Told in verse, they were coarse, crude and often very cynical about the characters of women. They stemmed from folklore and allusion.

Question 25

define Courtly Love

Answer 25

In literature only romance could be found outside marriage - followed strict rules, combined with the Code of Chivalry

Question 26

define (Mock) Heroic Couplets

Answer 26

AABBCC rhyme scheme mocked in the fabliau

Question 27

(Ackroyd) ‘battle of supremacy between...

Answer 27

...husband and wife’ (Ackroyd)

Question 28

(Ackroyd) ‘notion of authority...

Answer 28

...seems to be parodied’ (Ackroyd)

Question 29

define pashtiche

Answer 29

imitation of an art style

Question 30

around when were the Canterbury tales written

Answer 30

1387-1400

Question 31

describe the turbulent times Chaucer was writing in

Answer 31

England was engaged in the hundred year war, there were bad harvests (= peasants revolt) and the black death had wiped out 1/3 of europe's population

Question 32

describe Chaucers career marriage to Phillipa Roet

Answer 32

the married in 1366 there marriage is more recently deemed as a career marriage they lived apart and there were rumours that Phillpa had a lover

Question 33

when did phillipa die and how did Chaucer react

Answer 33

1387 - Chaucer publicly vowed to never marry again

Question 34

how did the black death effect england

Answer 34

in 1348 between half and a third of the population were dead, this only increases social mobility and lead to the peasant's revolt in 1381

Question 35

define Petrarchan lover

Answer 35

a literary convention - a melodramatic, self-consciously suffering lover, under the power of his mistress

Question 36

what was the overarching purpose of the Fabliau

Answer 36

to trivialise medieval society, particularly mocking glorified knights and the church

Question 37

who was Chaucers contemporary audience

Answer 37

the medieval aristocracy

Question 38

describe St Jerome's anti-feminist thoughts

Answer 38

women were daughter's of Eve and therefore should be held responsible for the loss of paradise and should be punished accordingly

Question 39

changing purpose of marriage at this time

Answer 39

marriage was moving away from the church and towards more mercantile ideals of inheritance and career mariages

Question 40

how did Boccaccio’s 'The Decameron' inspire the pear tree scene

Answer 40

a wife states that whoever climbs up the tree will see people making love on the ground, the husband climbs the tree and sees the wife and her lover on the floor

Question 41

how did 'Roman de la rose' inspire the garden

Answer 41

A similar garden which the courtly lover searched through for his love (as a rose) where she remains unattainable. That Januarie attempts to reproduce this marks his hubris and sinfulness

Question 42

how did 'Le Miroir De Marriage' by Eustache Deschamps inspire the marriage debate

Answer 42

old man debating about whether he should marry with three friends - a long epistle full or misogynous undertones

Question 43

what was the youngest age girls could be married off

Answer 43

12

Question 44

how did the church view marriage

Answer 44

a means for regulating sexual activity and controlling carnal desire - St Augustine stated that ‘passionate love of one's own wife is adultery'

Question 45

What kind of family did Chaucer come from

Answer 45

a merchant family