The Canterbury Tales AO3

What type of text is the Canterbury Tales?

Verse Narrative (Rhyme Royale, Iambic Pentameter

what is a fabilaux?

extended jokes, typically sexual, characterised by anarchic attitudes- scatological

e.g. Senex Amans & Ovid in the Ars Amatoria

what is the courtly love romance?

Conventional medieval tradition of love between a knight and married noble woman- typically unconsummated & obstacles to love.

e.g. Lancelot (12th Century)

what is the confessio style of writing?

Storytellers looking back over their own lives and reveal faults to the audience

e.g. The Nun’s Priest’s tale

what is the fable style of writing?

Tales that make a moral point

e.g. the hare and the tortoise

what is the sermons style of writing?

stories with a moral message

what is the anti feminist style of writing?

Male writers biased towards a male society

e.g. Le Miroir de Mariage by Dechamps

What is the frame narrative style of writing?

Storyteller who tells the story

e.g. the Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio

Women in medeival society

• Most women were illiterate and their work was menial and domestic

• Mainly enter child-rearing as a trade

• Women were categorised by their marital status

women + power

• relatively powerless

• maidens subject to their fathers and wives to their husbands

• widows were categorised by the status of their last husband

• from birth to widowhood women were under control of a man or religious institution

• many women were in unhappy marriages because their husbands were selected for them and they had virtually no rights.