About The Canterbury Tales:
The Canterbury Tales (Middle English: Tales of
Caunterbury) is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines
written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387
and 1400. In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of the
Peace and, in 1389, Clerk of the King's Works. It was during these years
that Chaucer began working on his most famous text, The Canterbury Tales.
The tales (mostly written in verse, although some
are in prose) are presented as
part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they
travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the
shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for
this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark
on their return.
The noble Duke
Theseus of Athens is on his way home from his invasion of Scythia, where he has
won a wife, Hippolyta, and a sister-in-law, Emily. Sounds like a pretty
successful trip, right? Along the way, Theseus & Co. meet a group of crying
women. They beg Theseus to take vengeance on Creon, King of Thebes, because of
his refusal to allow them to give their husbands' bodies a proper burial.
Theseus agrees and beats Creon. In the process, he wins two noble Theban
hostages, cousins Palamon and Arcite.
Theseus throws
Palamon and Arcite in the slammer (a tower next to his garden), without ransom.
One day in early May, Emily walks in the garden, gathering flowers. Palamon
sees her from the prison window and immediately starts crushing on her. He's so
smitten that he cries out. Hearing his cry, Arcite runs to his cousin. But as
soon as he lays eyes on Emily, he falls for her too. The knights argue about
who gets dibs on Emily. Arcite finally decides that it's a dumb argument to
have; since both knights will be in prison forever, they'll just have to love
Emily from afar with no hope of consummation.
Or maybe not.
Soon, Arcite gets out of jail because he and Theseus have a mutual friend, who
petitioned to get Arcite released. The only catch is that Arcite has to leave
Athens and never set foot in the city again. Arcite moans and groans and feels
sorry for himself, convinced that Palamon is better off than him because he
gets to see Emily every day. Palamon, on the other hand, thinks that Arcite is
a lucky dog because he can assemble an army to win Emily in battle.
Arcite returns
to Thebes for a while, but, unable to stay away from Emily, quickly returns to
Athens disguised as a servant. He works his way into Theseus's household,
becoming Emily's manservant.
Meanwhile,
Palamon has managed to escape from prison. He takes shelter in a grove of trees
not far from the palace, planning to continue his journey under cover of
nightfall. And – surprise, surprise – Arcite happens to go walking in that same
grove. Palamon doesn't recognize him at first because of his disguise. When
Arcite begins to speak of his love for Emily (because, you know, emo lovers
always talk to themselves about their crushes), though, Palamon figures out who
he is and leaps from the bushes, outraged. He and Arcite bicker. Arcite challenges
Palamon to a duel, promising to return the next day with armor and weapons for
Palamon, to ensure a fair fight.
The next day
comes, and the two knights begin their duel. Duke Theseus and his party, out
hawking, happen to come across the two knights as they battle. Theseus orders
them to stop. When he finds out who they are at what they're fighting about, he
at first wants to put them to death. But when the ladies, especially Hippolyta
and Emily, beg for mercy, Theseus reconsiders. The Duke admits that he, too,
has done some pretty stupid things for love.
Theseus decides
that each of the knights must return in one year's time with one hundred
knights, in order to fight an epic joust. The winner will get Emily. The
knights agree, and ride home to Athens to gather knights. Meanwhile, Theseus
pours time and money into building a huge stadium for the joust. It's like he's
prepping for the World Cup. The stadium is complete with temples dedicated to
Venus (goddess of love), Mars (god of war), and Diana (goddess of the hunt).
After a year
has passed, Palamon and Arcite return to Athens, where everybody is ready to
watch the competition and party. On the morning of the joust, the two knights
and Emily visit the different temples. Palamon prays to Venus to grant him
Emily, while Arcite asks Mars for victory in the joust. Emily, on the other
hand, asks Diana to grant her perpetual virginity. (Guess she doesn't want to
marry either of these guys.) Only Emily's request is refused. The knights'
requests cause a conflict between Mars and Venus in the Heavens, but Jupiter
(the king of the Gods) figures out a way to please both of them.
The joust
begins, and many captives are taken. The fighting is fierce on both sides. In
the end, Palamon is captured, and Arcite wins. On his victory ride, an
earthquake in the stadium causes Arcite's horse to trip, sending him headfirst
to the ground. Despite cracking his head pretty hard, everyone is sure that
Arcite will recover. That night the people of Athens celebrate the upcoming
marriage of Emily and Arcite.
But Arcite
doesn't recover. He dies with Emily and Palamon at his bedside, using his last
breath to tell Emily what a great guy Palamon is. Theseus arranges a fancy
funeral for Arcite, after which Palamon returns to Thebes in mourning. He
doesn't stay in Thebes very long, though. Theseus's counselors want an alliance
between Athens and Thebes, and think that a marriage between Palamon and Emily
would be just the thing. Theseus gives a long speech about how death is a part
of God's plan for the world. At the end, he recommends that Palamon and Emily
marry. They agree, and the story ends with a big, happy wedding.
Themes:
Rules
and Order:
"The
Knight's Tale" shows what happens when the rules of two different systems
– chivalry and courtly love – come into conflict with one another. Palamon and
Arcite have sworn a knightly oath to be loyal to one another, but they both
fall in love with the same girl. The problem is, the rule of chivalry, which
demands knights keep their oaths, is tested by the rule of courtly love, which
demands that a knight put his love for his lady before everything else. This
inevitably leads to a big, fat fight between the two knights. The tale solves
the problem in the character of Duke Theseus, who proposes an organized contest
to solve the feud. The winner gets Emily. Theseus is the order-bringer and rule-protector from the very
beginning of "The Knight's Tale," when he sets its plot in motion by
punishing a king who has broken the societal rule that bodies must receive a
proper burial. Yet his desire for an orderly universe is tested when Arcite,
the knight who wins the joust and Emily, dies in a freak accident immediately
following the battle. To disprove the seeming randomness of this event, Theseus
lays out a vision of an orderly universe with all creation deriving its
existence from God. In this universe, death is a part of God's plan for
creation, a sign that all is as it should be, so rules and order still prevail.
Love:
From the second
Palamon and Arcite lay eyes on the lovely Emily, they are pierced to the heart
by a love so intense that it literally makes them ill. Yeah, they seem like
drama queens, but their behavior is pretty typical of the courtly love genre.
Palamon and Arcite, two noble knights, spend most of their time pining for the
love of a beautiful but distant noblewoman. The knights express their love in
terms of wounds and sickness. Emily, the noblewoman, becomes almost a goddess.
Palamon and Arcite swear to do anything to win the love of Emily, even if it
includes breaking their knights' oaths to protect one another. But then Duke
Theseus comes onto the scene and calls into question this kind of intense love
and devotion. Theseus questions why anyone would want to serve the god of love
if the only reward for this service is suffering. In the end, though, Theseus
admits that he's done some pretty stupid things for the sake of love too. In
fact, being lovesick and silly is something all people
experience. The depictions of suffering for love that Theseus orders painted in
the Temple of Venus prove his point, tying the suffering of Palamon, Arcite,
and all lovers to a long and storied history of love.
Friendship:
Arcite and
Palamon have sworn an oath of brotherhood to one another, promising to defend
one another's interests in everything. Yet why might they break their promise?
Because they love the same girl, that's why. Both Palamon and Arcite seem to
think that romantic love is more important than bonds of friendship, and
"The Knight's Tale" doesn't do much to question that point of view. In
contrast to Palamon and Arcite's fair-weather friendship, however, a brief
passage just after their falling-out details the devotion of Perotheus to
Theseus. Apparently, these guys are such good friends that they're willing to
go to Hell and back for one another. So, despite the main, unsuccessful
friendship in the tale, we do get an inkling that other, deeper possibilities
exist for the bond between two friends.
Death:
In "The
Knight's Tale," death is closely connected to love on multiple levels.
Like love, says Theseus, death is the great equalizer. It's an experience that
every human – whether rich or poor, fat or thin, smart or silly – will someday
endure. Like love, death makes the characters feel powerless over their fates.
Like other stories that fall into the genre of courtly love, "The Knight's
Tale" is in the habit of talking about love in terms of death. Yes,
Palamon and Arcite seem like drama queens when they complain that their love of
Emily "slays" them, that they will "die" if separated from
her. But the placement of this metaphor next to very literal deaths
brings out the similarities between these two kinds of death in an original way.
Suffering:
In "The
Knight's Tale," suffering takes multiple forms, both physical and mental.
Palamon and Arcite suffer a lot from their love for Emily. Their love afflicts
them like an illness, or an arrow that pierces them through the eyes and stabs
its way into their hearts. At various points, both men declare that they are
suffering so much "wo" for love that they think they're going to die.
It's not just our two heroes that suffer, though. Other, lesser characters
suffer too. There's the lamenting women whose husbands' bodies Creon refuses to
bury, not to mention all of the people of Athens, who scratch their faces and
tear out their hair when they hear of Arcite's death. In most cases, characters
in "The Knight's Tale" express their mental anguish physically, by
comparing it to illness or physical wounds, or by actually wounding their
bodies. In this way, "The Knight's Tale" points out that being messed
up in the head or the heart can translate into actual physical pain. In the
Temple of Mars, we also see how physical suffering can also be caused by war,
so that love, loss, and violence become a triangle of suffering in the Tale.
Competition:
Palamon and
Arcite are rivals for the love of the same woman. The knights decide to
fight a duel to determine who gets her. Yet when Duke Theseus stumbles upon the
dueling knights, he declares their fight is unlawful. The Duke proposes
instead that there be a public joust, with a very clear set of rules, and the
winner will marry Emily. Whereas the knight's duel upset the order of Theseus's
kingdom, the joust becomes a part of it, showing the way in which violent
competition can both disrupt and reinforce the rules of a society. Emily is the
"prize" in this game whether she likes it or not, just as her sister,
Hippolyta, was Theseus's prize after defeating the Amazons. In "The
Knight's Tale," then, a man's job is to compete, while a women's role is
to reward the winner.
Fate and
Free Will:
All of the
characters in "The Knight's Tale" believe that larger forces are at
work behind everything that happens to them, deciding their destinies in love
and life, and determining the time and circumstances of their deaths. Variously
called "Fortune," or any one of the gods, this mysterious force
writes people's fates in the stars. As Theseus reminds everyone in his speech, it is pointless to rage against fate.
Still, he's confident that the Fate has a plan, and that what may seem
senseless is actually part of something larger than ourselves. All this talk
about destiny and fate raises the question of how much responsibility an
individual has for the course of his life. But the thing is, "The Knight's
Tale" isn't really concerned with that question. Instead, it points to the
fruitlessness of trying to shape one's own destiny. The proper way to live your
life is simply to accept your fate with patience and to try to make the best of
it.
Strength
and Skill
Palamon and
Arcite have to decide who gets Emily in armed combat, which means that the
better fighter gets the girl. Or does it? See, Palamon and Arcite are both
equally strong knights who are able to marshal equally strong armies when
necessary. This means that in addition to strength and skill, luck (a.k.a.
having the gods on your side) is necessary in order to win. The knight's job is
to bring his talents to the table and hope that the gods will do the rest. This
isn't to say that strength and skill are totally without use in "The
Knight's Tale." Theseus demonstrates how might can be used to make right
when he goes to battle with Creon to avenge the mourning women. And as the tale
pauses to describe the battle-array and sheer spectacle of Team Palamon versus
Team Arcite, we can't help but be kind of impressed by it all.
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