Lesson Questions for Today:
· What is characterization, and how can we characterize the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales
This lesson is a continuation of our first lesson on the Canterbury Tales. Please read the second half of the prologue. (Pages 131-142)
Also, remember you can listen to the Prologue be read to you by clicking on the little bullhorn icons in the story.
ASSIGNMENT
As you read the second half of the prologue, do a small characterization analysis for each character. Characterization is the process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character.
For each character in the first half of the prologue, write at least one sentence for each of the following categories:
· How the character looks and dresses
· How the characters speaks and acts
· What the character thinks and feels
· Place each pilgrim within one of these three groups that comprised medieval society: the feudal system (related to the land), the Church, or the city (merchants and professionals).
I suggest that you do your assignment in Microsoft Word, first--Then, paste it in the free response box.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Canterbury Tales Prologue Part One
Lesson Questions for Today:
· What is the storyline of the Canterbury Tales?
· What is characterization, and how can we characterize the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales
In the tale, the narrator joins a company of twenty-nine pilgrims. The pilgrims, like the narrator, are traveling to the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury. The narrator gives a descriptive account of twenty-seven of these pilgrims, including a Knight, Squire, Yeoman, Prioress, Monk, Friar, Merchant, Clerk, Man of Law, Franklin, Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Tapestry-Weaver, Cook, Shipman, Physician, Wife, Parson, Plowman, Miller, Manciple, Reeve, Summoner, Pardoner, and Host. (He does not describe the Second Nun or the Nuns Priest, although both characters appear later in the book.) The host suggests that the group ride together and entertain one another with stories. He decides that each pilgrim will tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. Whomever he judges to be the best storyteller will receive a meal at Bailey's tavern, courtesy of the other pilgrims. The pilgrims decide that the Knight will tell the first tale.
ASSIGNMENT
Your assignment for this lesson is to read the first half of the prologue (page 120-130) Also, to keep track of our large group of characters, you'll do a small characterization analysis for each character. Characterization is the process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character.
For each character in the first half of the prologue, write at least one sentence for each of the following categories:
How the character looks and dresses
How the characters speaks and acts
What the character thinks and feel
Place each pilgrim within one of these three groups that comprised medieval society: the feudal system (related to the land), the Church, or the city (merchants and professionals).
I suggest that you do your assignment in Microsoft Word, first--Then, paste it in the free response box.
· What is the storyline of the Canterbury Tales?
· What is characterization, and how can we characterize the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales
In the tale, the narrator joins a company of twenty-nine pilgrims. The pilgrims, like the narrator, are traveling to the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury. The narrator gives a descriptive account of twenty-seven of these pilgrims, including a Knight, Squire, Yeoman, Prioress, Monk, Friar, Merchant, Clerk, Man of Law, Franklin, Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Tapestry-Weaver, Cook, Shipman, Physician, Wife, Parson, Plowman, Miller, Manciple, Reeve, Summoner, Pardoner, and Host. (He does not describe the Second Nun or the Nuns Priest, although both characters appear later in the book.) The host suggests that the group ride together and entertain one another with stories. He decides that each pilgrim will tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. Whomever he judges to be the best storyteller will receive a meal at Bailey's tavern, courtesy of the other pilgrims. The pilgrims decide that the Knight will tell the first tale.
ASSIGNMENT
Your assignment for this lesson is to read the first half of the prologue (page 120-130) Also, to keep track of our large group of characters, you'll do a small characterization analysis for each character. Characterization is the process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character.
For each character in the first half of the prologue, write at least one sentence for each of the following categories:
How the character looks and dresses
How the characters speaks and acts
What the character thinks and feel
Place each pilgrim within one of these three groups that comprised medieval society: the feudal system (related to the land), the Church, or the city (merchants and professionals).
I suggest that you do your assignment in Microsoft Word, first--Then, paste it in the free response box.
Class Notes November 30
English 12 November 30, 2007
Today’s Objectives:
Ballad Review
Introduction to Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales
Extra Credit: 25 points
Email me with at least 12 bene and mal words and today’s example.
Today’s example is coming up.
Bene and Mal
Bene
Mal
Get Up and Bar the Door
The story in this ballad exists in many versions in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East—perhaps illustrating the universal theme called the battle of the sexes. Goodman and goodwife are terms once applied to married men and women, something like Mr. and Mrs. today.
Who is the most foolish character in the story?
Lord Randall
What happened to Randall?
Who is to blame?
What is going to happen to Randall?
Trivia Question!
Who is considered the father of English Poetry?
Geoffrey Chaucer page 113
Made the English language respectable
Wrote in the vernacular spoken in London
Government official and poet
Buried in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey
“The father of English Poetry lies in the family vault”
Westminster Abbey
Poet’s Corner
Author’s Buried There
Robert Browning
Geoffrey Chaucer
Charles Dickens
John Dryden
Thomas Hardy
Dr Samuel Johnson
Rudyard Kipling
Alfred Tennyson
John Gardner’s Quote page 114
“In a dark and troubled age, as it seems to us, he was a comfortable optimist, serene, full of faith. For all his delight in irony-and all his poetry has a touch of that-he affirmed this life, to say nothing of the next, from the bottom of his capacious heart.
Gardner continues.
Joy-satisfaction without a trace of sentimental simple-mindedness-is still the effect of Chaucer’s poetry and of Chaucer’s personality as it emerges from the poems. It is not the simple faith of a credulous man in credulous age: No poet has ever written better on the baffling complexity of things.”
CRED
Credulous
Incredulous
More examples?
Snapshot of an age
To include the complete range of medieval society in the same picture, Chaucer places his characters on a pilgrimage. These pilgrims, like a group of people on tour today, are from many stations and stages of life.
What pilgrimages to people take today?
Chaucer’s Pilgrims
They come from all walks of life
Represent “everyman” on the universal pilgrimage of life.
Do you think you could anything in common with a medieval pilgrim?
Frame Story
Frame Story: a story that serves to bind together several different narratives.
The poet-pilgrim narrator starts out at the Tabard Inn in South London.
There he meets 29 other pilgrims on the way to Canterbury.
They decide to pass the time on the 55 mile journey by telling stories.
Literary Focus: Characterization
To create portraits of his pilgrims, Chaucer uses the same methods of characterization that writer’s use today.
How the character looks and dresses
How the character speaks and feels
How others respond to the character
Today’s Objectives:
Ballad Review
Introduction to Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales
Extra Credit: 25 points
Email me with at least 12 bene and mal words and today’s example.
Today’s example is coming up.
Bene and Mal
Bene
Mal
Get Up and Bar the Door
The story in this ballad exists in many versions in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East—perhaps illustrating the universal theme called the battle of the sexes. Goodman and goodwife are terms once applied to married men and women, something like Mr. and Mrs. today.
Who is the most foolish character in the story?
Lord Randall
What happened to Randall?
Who is to blame?
What is going to happen to Randall?
Trivia Question!
Who is considered the father of English Poetry?
Geoffrey Chaucer page 113
Made the English language respectable
Wrote in the vernacular spoken in London
Government official and poet
Buried in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey
“The father of English Poetry lies in the family vault”
Westminster Abbey
Poet’s Corner
Author’s Buried There
Robert Browning
Geoffrey Chaucer
Charles Dickens
John Dryden
Thomas Hardy
Dr Samuel Johnson
Rudyard Kipling
Alfred Tennyson
John Gardner’s Quote page 114
“In a dark and troubled age, as it seems to us, he was a comfortable optimist, serene, full of faith. For all his delight in irony-and all his poetry has a touch of that-he affirmed this life, to say nothing of the next, from the bottom of his capacious heart.
Gardner continues.
Joy-satisfaction without a trace of sentimental simple-mindedness-is still the effect of Chaucer’s poetry and of Chaucer’s personality as it emerges from the poems. It is not the simple faith of a credulous man in credulous age: No poet has ever written better on the baffling complexity of things.”
CRED
Credulous
Incredulous
More examples?
Snapshot of an age
To include the complete range of medieval society in the same picture, Chaucer places his characters on a pilgrimage. These pilgrims, like a group of people on tour today, are from many stations and stages of life.
What pilgrimages to people take today?
Chaucer’s Pilgrims
They come from all walks of life
Represent “everyman” on the universal pilgrimage of life.
Do you think you could anything in common with a medieval pilgrim?
Frame Story
Frame Story: a story that serves to bind together several different narratives.
The poet-pilgrim narrator starts out at the Tabard Inn in South London.
There he meets 29 other pilgrims on the way to Canterbury.
They decide to pass the time on the 55 mile journey by telling stories.
Literary Focus: Characterization
To create portraits of his pilgrims, Chaucer uses the same methods of characterization that writer’s use today.
How the character looks and dresses
How the character speaks and feels
How others respond to the character
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