General Prologue Research Articles

IN PRAISE OF ANIMAL LABORANS, THE LABORING BODIES OF CHAUCER’S GENERAL PROLOGUE

In the late medieval England, the long futile wars, famine and death tolls caused by the plagues highlighted the value of laboring bodies. Attitudes to labor changed, especially labor for food production. The attitude of the clergy, however, was paradoxical towards labor. According to the Christian doctrine and ethics, work was a virtue, but, practically speakin, in the feudal system of the medieval period, manual work was allotted to the peasants. To cope with this ideological flaw, the clergy triumphed in their (non-productive) clerical labor and services, meditative and ascetic life. Failure in achieving these ideals is depicted and satirized in the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales, by the pilgrim-Chaucer’s highlighting the significance of both food and foodmakers.

Risk before Risk: Actuarial Logic and Mercantile Metaphors in the Canterbury Tales

Abstract: Thinking in terms of risk means imagining the future as a set of potential outcomes and ameliorating potentially problematic ones through action in the present. Modern theorists of risk consider risk and its mitigation to be, by definition, modern, but this essay argues that the medieval period has something important to offer histories of risk, showing that actuarial attitudes (if not modern actuarial math) are present in literary accounts of social cohesion and identity, and that medieval "pre-risk" forms of actuarial thought serve as the basis of modern attitudes toward risk and its unequal social management. Focusing on specific moments in the frame narrative of the Canterbury Tales , it argues that The General Prologue initially presents the Tales as a seemingly egalitarian experiment in risk mitigation, but that closer inspection of the descriptions of the Merchant and Shipman—and later the Canon and Canon's Yeoman—reveals an inequality of access to risk-mitigation strategies that anticipates the modern inequalities of a global risk society. Even as certain dangerous behaviors (large risks taken on by the mercantile class) are seen as insurable and therefore licit, other behaviors (small-scale risks taken on by lower-class laborers) are portrayed as criminal and damaging to the common good. By approaching Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with risk and risk mitigation in mind, readers might more clearly see how the felaweshipe of the Canterbury pilgrimage, what David Wallace calls its "associational form," holds within it a fundamental disunity and distrust that seeks to manage the future through the hedging of bets in the present.

Un]Licensed Riot: Prodigality, Hypocrisy, and Guild Discourse in Chaucer s Cook s Tale

Chaucer’s Cook’s Tale demonstrates the characterization of a riotous apprentice, the narrative depiction of conflict between that apprentice and his master, and that master’s issuing of a questionable “papir” of “acquitance” (4404 & 4411) to suggest provocatively linked definitions of class and depictions of order and transgression specific to the guild-oriented mercantile culture of Chaucer’s fourteenth-century London. Considered within the context of the General Prologue’s depiction of Roger the Cook who tells the tale, and the description of the Four Guildsmen who employ him, the narrative suggests the emergence of the binary pairing of prodigality and hypocrisy, both of which contribute to the breakdown of the social cohesion and concept of “degree” so important to Chaucer’s Canterbury frame tale. Considered against the backdrop of what William Woods’ (1996) analysis of The Cook’s Tale describes as a “social structure defined by commerce” (190), and in relation to general work on Chaucer’s use of language (Cannon 1998) and terminology specific to The Cook’s Tale (Blenner-Hassett 1942; Call 1943), it becomes clear that Chaucer’s fragment indicts both the laterally mobile prodigal apprentice and the decadent hypocrisy of the Master through the linked subversion of license and guild authority.

Little Lewis and Latin Folk in Chaucer's Prologue to the Treatise on the Astrolabe

Little Lewis and Latin Folk in Chaucer's Prologue to the <i>Treatise on the Astrolabe</i>

Washington Irving's Mediaeval Renaissance: Chaucer’s Influence on Irving’s Foundational Project

ABSTRACT Critics have traditionally assumed that Washington Irving did not read far beyond The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, but a study of Irving's works, particularly The Sketch Book, demonstrate a keen awareness of Chaucer's works, and of mediaeval English literature as well. As this article argues, Irving's reading of Chaucer's works, including The Canterbury Tales and The House of Fame, provide an important foundation for his critique of American culture and Anglo-American relations in the early nineteenth century. Narrative strategies used in The Canterbury Tales also recur in The Sketch Book, suggesting that Chaucer's work was likely also a model for Irving's early efforts to create a distinctly American literature that nonetheless acknowledges its connection to British and European antecedents.

PROLOGUES AND EPILOGUES IN THE RITUAL STRUCTURE OF UKRAINIAN WEDDING

The article is devoted to the construction and study of the structure of the cycle of Ukrainian wedding rites, and it is a kind of continuation of the author’s publications, who uses a structural and functional method to study the national family ritualism. In the course of the study, it turned out that, after the division of rites, there were extra episodes that cannot be attributed to any of the rites in which they occur - neither matchmaking, nor wedding, nor dowry. And since such unaccounted episodes are at the beginning of pre-wedding, wedding and post-wedding small cycles, the researcher proposes to include them in the prologues of each of these cycles. At the same time, these three prologues should be considered full-fledged rites to give the structure greater harmony and functionality. The correctness of the division of prologues into episodes is checked using five criteria of division: new-level or generalized repetition of the event, material and spiritual metamorphosis of the characters of sacred action, change of sacred chronotope, the principle of constant renewal and change of character of the action. According to the latter criterion, episodes that are adjacent but do not change the nature of the action cannot be considered as individual episodes, but only as variations of the same episode. The prologues created in this way for the three small cycles of the Ukrainian wedding took the first, eighth and fourteenth places in the structure, respectively, and the cycle of fourteen rites increased to seventeen. Two of the three prologues - wedding and post-wedding - have no culminating episodes. The prologue of the pre-wedding cycle is at the same time the general prologue to the whole great cycle of rites. The presence of prologues implies the need to identify epilogues for both the large ritual cycle and each of the small cycles. Such epilogues, according to one version, can be considered the last rites in small cycles - hiltse, komora and perezva. On the other hand, the epilogues may be the final episodes of the said rites, which are after the culmination. This version is supported by the absence of culmination episodes in two of the three prologues. But none of the options is important for the existence and functioning of the structure, because the created structure does not need to be divided into epilogues, and prologues are important from the point of view to include all the available episodes in the ritual action.

Making an Edition in an App

The massive increase in the use of mobile devices over the last years, with over half of all accesses to the internet now coming from mobile devices, presents a challenge and an opportunity to textual scholars. It has long been suggested that digital technologies may help scholarly editors find new audiences for their work: work which has traditionally lain on library shelves with only the occasional visitor. In this paper we describe an attempt to plan, make and distribute an edition -- the CantApp, presenting in its first iteration the General Prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales -- designed specifically for mobile device use (Chaucer 2020). We reflect on the difficulties we faced, the initial reception of the app, and draw conclusions which might be useful for other scholarly projects.

Making an Edition in an App

The massive increase in the use of mobile devices over the last years, with over half of all accesses to the internet now coming from mobile devices presents a challenge and an opportunity to textual scholars. It has long been suggested that digital technologies may help scholarly editors find new audiences for their work: work which has traditionally lain on library shelves with only the occasional visitor. In this paper we describe an attempt to plan, make and distribute an edition -- the CantApp, presenting in its first iteration the General Prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales -- designed specifically for mobile device use. We reflect on the difficulties we faced, the initial reception of the app, and draw conclusions which might be useful for other scholarly projects.

Retuning Chaucer's Instrument: Chaucer and the Trots Once Again

ABSTRACT Thirty-five years ago in this journal, I argued on the basis of my analysis of ten translations of key passages in the Canterbury Tales that we could not trust translators to give accurate renditions of what Chaucer wrote. In this follow-up study, I analyze ten different translations of the famous opening lines in the General Prologue, beginning with “Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote.” I look first at the wide variety of ways the translators render the word soote at the end of the first line. Then, through a series of questions, I call attention to the many ways these ten translators introduce inaccuracies large and small into their renditions of Chaucer's first four lines. At the end, I consider the question of the appropriateness of Christopher Lauer's unusually free translation of the Reeve's Tale.

Chaucer's Yeoman and Richard II's Archers of the Crown

ABSTRACT In the critical literature there is often a tacit assumption that the Yeoman of the General Prologue is “merely” a forester and mounted archer. This essay challenges that assumption by exploring a potential source of inspiration for the character: Richard II's archers of the crown. One of these archers, Thomas Forster of Drybek, serves as an exemplar for an exploration of the socioeconomic heterogeneity of the men who comprised this elite troop.

The Norton Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales ed. by David Lawton (review)

Reviewed by: The Norton Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales ed. by David Lawton Peter Fields David Lawton, editor. The Norton Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. Norton, 2020. 627 p. David Lawton's Norton edition of The Canterbury Tales is the ideal teaching choice for Chaucer. Once upon a time, I required my students to use the scholarly Riverside Chaucer whose explication was always the most masterful: e.g., tracking the Wife of Bath's Prologue line by line with Jerome's Against Jovinian (yes, to die for). Then my evolution took me to Kolve and Olson's Norton edition of Fifteen Tales and General Prologue. However, after perusing Lawton's edition (distilled from his 2019 complete Norton Chaucer), I am ready to evolve again if only so I can include as much of "The Parson's Tale" as possible. Of course, Kolve and Olson were way ahead of me. They added more of "The Parson's Tale" along with "The Man of Law's Tale" to give us the Norton Seventeen Tales (2018). However, Lawton's subtle (but powerful) point of view has converted me to his conviction: if we are reading stories with Chaucer, then we need not less but more of Chaucer to understand his interest in these texts. Everything in the introduction serves dual purposes: not only [End Page 233] an overview of Chaucer's life and times but also an implicit overview of The Canterbury Tales, offering themes to which Lawton will return in the prefaces (and footnotes) for the 10 parts of the Tales. The genius of these recurring themes is to help us appreciate the value of lesserknown tales and make a case for them. Who are the big winners in these sweepstakes? For me, I was especially taken with "The Second Nun's Prologue and Tale," which incorporates (not unlike "The Prioress's Prologue and Tale") Marianism from St. Bernard and Dante's Paradiso, and adds to it explication of St. Cecilia's name. The Second Nun manages to resist the blood libel of the Prioress but still deliver on a devotional spirituality jarringly steeped in violence (something Lawton also notes in "The Man of Law's Tale"). Here we find a religious eroticism just a little longer (but more adult) than the Prioress's fetish for infantile simplicity at a mother's breast. The fetish for the Second Nun centers on a jealous angel's possession of Cecilia's body. Male converts to her cult enter a kind of mystic multiple marriage, tantalized by an immersive sensorium of sights, sounds, and scents unavailable to the non-believer. Another big winner is "The Monk's Tale," not only the brief sections on Samson, Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar, and Belshazzar, but also the longer account of Zenobia, which could have been a rollercoaster of a tale all by itself. The sections on Nero, Julius Caesar, and Croesus are thumbnail portraits of graphic violence. If students have patiently absorbed "The General Prologue" and "The Knight's Tale," the monk's compendium of tragic celebrity will feel like a gothic romp. These thumbnail portraits in violent shock-and-awe complement, and set off, the more philosophical inclinations of "The Wife of Bath" and "The Nun's Priest." The sense of guilty excess in all the stories leads nicely to perhaps the biggest winner in Lawton, "The Parson's Tale": "The tension between play and penance, which runs though The Canterbury Tales from the opening of the General Prologue, here reaches the point of climatic rupture" (500). The Parson's penitential discourse is delightfully spiced with vivid strokes of grotesque description like the "superfluitee of clothing" which the wearer unwittingly soils, "trailing in the dong and in the mire" (lines 20-21; p. 524) versus the "horrible disordinate scantnesse of clothing" (32: p. 524), best illustrated by overly-revealing male hose that "shewen the shap and the boce of hir [their] horrible swollen membres" (36-7; p. 524). Lawton keeps pace, [End Page 234] confirming we heard the Pardoner correctly. To be sure, Lawton is faithful to Chaucer's sources, the most frequent of which seems to be the Roman de la rose. Lawton, in fact, closely monitors Chaucer's reading...

The Canterbury Tales Handbook by Elizabeth Scala (review)

Reviewed by: The Canterbury Tales Handbook by Elizabeth Scala Peter Fields Elizabeth Scala. The Canterbury Tales Handbook. Norton, 2020. 297 p. Elizabeth Scala knows that she does not have the luxury of scale. A handbook becomes a problem if it competes with its subject for the student's reading time. Her technique is to anticipate a disconnect between Chaucer and the modern reader and then to leap into the breach with a provisional explanation that moves the reader forward. The only slow place is dwelling momentarily on the General Prologue, taking advantage of the first 18 lines to introduce a model for explication. Especially well-done is how Scala seems to take on too much, making a point, for instance, of explaining the demande d'amour in "The Knight'sTale." What first seems like a needless excursus emerges as a great opportunity to acknowledge the difficulty the modern young person might have entering into the motives and emotions of courtly love as in the case of Arcite's bittersweet dilemma of regretful freedom. Suddenly released upon the wide world, Arcite frets the loss of that prison window he once shared with his fellow knight Palamon because it afforded an unencumbered view of Emelye, the idol of their hearts. [End Page 250] The Knight's own language presumes that the skeptical reader must be won over if only by flattery: "But almost as though he knows that his audience is made up of potentially resisting readers, the Knight preemptively turns it into a group of lovers—courtly, aristocratic, gentle lovers—subtly persuading us to play the demande's game" (47). Such is Scala's modus operandi of first highlighting a pitfall for modern students, then hinting that the astute and playful Chaucer is simpatico with modern sensibility. Interestingly, she does not feel the need to apologize for Chaucer's bawdy fabliaux like "The Miller's Tale," "The Reeve's Tale," "The Friar's Tale," and "The Summoner's Tale." Here the teacher can sit back and give Scala the wheel as she acquaints students with double-entendre like "quainte." Scala builds momentum right up to "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale," where she makes a perfect compromise between examining the far-ranging implications of Chaucer's most important speaker and keeping the reader moving along. The concision of Scalas also does well with the motif of marriage-as-torture-of-women in "The Clerk's Tale" and "The Merchant's Tale." She makes an exceptionally compelling case for "The Man-of-Law's Tale" as genre-bending "secular hagiography," all the while staying breezy with her prose. Scala reconnoiters as of "The Squire's Tale," shifting from modern resistance to a more esoteric consideration of whether language can express the speaker's meaning. The Squire for instance seems conscious of the limitations of language to express the inexpressible. By surrendering to limitation, he enters another level of sensibility and wonder. The hinge of the book is the chapter on "The Franklin's Tale," a story that depends on the tension between marriage and courtly love and comes to a rather hip conclusion to the marriage debate: "The answer that the Franklin offers is that no one should have mastery (which we might define as control over another person or being), and everyone should have sovereignty (or control over themselves)" (179). However, "The Physician's Tale," whose story of a father who wins his daughter's permission to cut off her head (to avoid her marriage to a corrupt judge), would logically seem to present Scala a high hurdle for casting Chaucer as a hero of personal freedom. But Scala stands up for the story and reveals her previous strategy for reconciling the resistant modern reader: "But rather than suggest that the story is some kind of intentional failure (on Chaucer's part or the Physician's), we might see [End Page 251] the tale as provocatively experimental" (182). Another great explanation is her take on the Pardoner's subterfuge, which strategically blurs "[…] the distinction between forgiveness a poena (from the pain of punishment) and forgiveness a culpa (from guilt of one's actions or intent)" (189). Her larger purpose...

Chaucer: A European Life, by Marion TurnerHistorians on Chaucer: The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, ed. Stephen H. Rigby with Alastair J. Minnis

Chaucer: A European Life, by Marion TurnerHistorians on Chaucer: The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, ed. Stephen H. Rigby with Alastair J. Minnis

Meaning, Metaphor, and Chaucer's “thikke knarre”

Abstract One of the best-known descriptions in the General Prologue is that of the Miller as a “thikke knarre.” Since the first glossary of Chaucer in Thomas Speght's 1598 Workes, knarre has been related to a Dutch word and literally defined as a stump or thick piece of wood, here with the metaphorical sense of “rugged fellow.” This sense would be unique to the word in the Middle English record, and in fact derivation from the Dutch word has difficulties with semantics, phonology, and lexicography as well as with rhetorical appropriateness. This article proposes a different derivation from a Norse word meaning “freighter,” and more broadly argues that a great deal of secondary evidence can sustain a conclusion that actually has very little primary support. Sometimes history, whether linguistic or social, repeats itself precisely because historians, perhaps in part due to the thinness of the record, cause it to do so.

The Canterbury Tales Handbook by Elizabeth Scala

Reviewed by: The Canterbury Tales Handbook by Elizabeth Scala Kim Zarins Elizabeth Scala. The Canterbury Tales Handbook. New York: Norton, 2020. Pp. x, 312. $27.50 paper; $10.00 e-book. Norton has been publishing a number of Chaucer editions recently and has finally published a guidebook. The Canterbury Tales Handbook by [End Page 445] Elizabeth Scala is tailor-made for college students; the writing is smart, jargon-free, and delightful. The stated goal is deceptively simple: "This book helps you enjoy Chaucer by showing you how to read him more fluidly in the language in which he wrote. Some careful work at the beginning of the semester pays dividends later" (1–2). This comforting promise of enjoyment is gently followed by the promise that the hard work of reading Middle English will be worthwhile. Scala's book is a pleasurable and thought-provoking entry into Chaucer's text. Much as expected from a guidebook, the chapters, organized by tale, move through the text more or less in order, a structure designed to help students keep track of plot strands and, at the same time, discover deeper meanings. What makes Scala's book feel different from other guidebooks is attentiveness to its primary audience, the college undergraduate; pragmatic questions as to whether students should read from the handbook before or after Chaucer's text, or perhaps consult a translation, are addressed with refreshing transparency. Scala keeps her readers in mind particularly when their expectations might be challenged—for example, readers new to The Knight's Tale might be surprised to find a story set in classical Athens, or surprised that, given all these knights, there is very little action and a whole lot of lengthy descriptions and speeches. The handbook acknowledges such small surprises as well as graver discomforts, such as anti-Semitism in The Prioress's Tale. The voice of the text is very much that of an experienced professor addressing her students (often directly in the second person), sometimes pointing out ambiguity and leaving it open-ended, sometimes making a more decisive pronouncement. The handbook's focus on close readings is well exemplified by a detailed breakdown of Chaucer's opening lines in The General Prologue. In this deep exploration of a single Middle English sentence, Scala introduces terms such as "connotation" and "denotation" in order to persuade readers that the way a thing is said can matter more than what is said: Getting the connotation right is important and often tells us a good deal more than the denotation might reveal on its own. In this first half of the sentence, the denotation of many of these words and expressions is the same: "it is raining" or "everything is wet." But the connotation of the words is vastly different. It's raining in a rather elegant and literary way that makes us think of other places, mentioned in other texts, rather than the local environment literally [End Page 446] being described. Chaucer here is aggrandizing England in the style of some Continental precursors. (15–16) Students learn how to read more closely, and Scala shows how such things as literary rain matter and work as part of Chaucer's strategy. Scala brilliantly unpacks the poem's twists and turns at the level of the line, revealing contradictions that beg pondering. Here is a lovely example from her analysis of the Clerk's protestation that "yvele it sit / T'assaye a wif whan that it is no neede" (ClT, 460–61): These first-person statements on the narrator's part have garnered a great deal of critical attention. The Clerk alerts us to what Griselda emphatically cannot: the sadistic unfairness of Walter's tests. For Griselda has promised never to gainsay any of Walter's decisions … the Clerk narratively revels in the suffering ("anguisshe and … drede") of Griselda, at the same time that he distances him-self from it. Since Griselda is forbidden to show any dissent or emotion because of the vow she made to Walter at their wedding, the Clerk is the only means by which Griselda's anguished emotional life is ever known. Just as Walter does within the tale, the Clerk gets...

The Yeoman's “Pecok Arwes”

Abstract While attention to the Knight's Yeoman in Chaucer's General Prologue typically focuses on his weapons, fundamental misunderstandings regarding those weapons persist in the critical commentary. The character's peacock-fletched arrows are perhaps the most frequently misinterpreted component of his arms. This article contextualizes the peacock fletching of the Yeoman's arrows by explicating birdwing anatomy, the appearance of various peacock feathers, medieval fletching practices, and historical references to peacock-fletched arrows. Rather than being ostentatious, peacock fletching was mundane—unless enhanced by decorative embellishments. Based on reported uses of peacock-fletched arrows, it appears likely that esteem for such arrows was based more on performance than appearance, and a subsequent analysis of how the Yeoman's fletching is likely trimmed supports the tactical utility of his arrows. In this light, the Yeoman's “pecok arwes” suggest that he is a consummate bowman and a lethally effective companion to the Knight.

Embodiment of Transformation from Scholasticism to Worldliness: Geoffrey Chaucer's the Canterbury Tales

Although the medieval period is well-known for its otherworldly scholastic view of life, people’s gradual prioritization of material interests is arguably an embodiment of a transformation from scholastic to anthropocentric outlook on life and people. Along with common people’s interest in material gains, the ecclesiastical people’s interest in luxury and ostentation as well as acquisition of material profit are representations of the new paradigm in social area. The growing interest in worldly profits among the clergy and their indulgence in ostentation is the particular point of satire in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. In this work, while Chaucer reflects the traits of an ideal person in the knight’s description in “General Prologue”, he deals with clerical corruption in “Reeve’s Tale”, the monk, the nun and the summoner’s depictions in “General Prologue”. While criticising the problematic aspects of the ecclesiastical class in medieval context, Chaucer transgresses the borders of his period and favours the expression of female individuality in “Wife of Bath’s Tale”. Hence, The Canterbury Tales invites reading in relation to Chaucer’s anxieties concerning medieval view of life and his position as a pioneer of a new anthropocentric social paradigm in literary context.

Neural networks in business applications

In this paper shows a present vision of neural systems that are propelled by neural frameworks to give viable models to measurable examination. Their most essential part in neural system is the capacity to “learn”, depend in a set number of observation. With regards to neural systems, The articulation “Picking up” subsidizing that the learning picked up from the example can be outlined as tactile reconnaissance. In this regard, fake neural systems are regularly alluded to as the learning machine. In that capacity, counterfeit neural systems might be considered as images for operators who take in the reliance of their condition and make their conduct techniques subject to a predetermined number of perceptions. This exploration does not have to finish up from the natural sources of neural systems. Be that as it may, this is an absolutely scientific model and factual application. ever after the comming of PC insight, The craft of working together needs to experience uncommon changes. After some time, numerous information based registering frameworks have entered a substantial number of organizations and their utilization has turned out to be progressively across the board. With the colossal advances in innovation, the administration of data identified with cutting edge counterfeit neuroscience has turned into a basic part of business insight. In this article, we portray the key of neural systems and in addition We will audit the work done in counterfeit neural systems applications in numerous organizations. The association of this diary is as per the following. The initial segment exhibits a general prologue to neural systems. The second part features the business utilizations of neural systems. The third part takes a gander at work done in the field of insolvency determining, trailed by work in the zones of Mastercard extortion identification. The fourth part investigate the Back spread calculation – a numerical methodology and work done in the zones of securities exchange forecast, trailed by a survey of money related bookkeeping work. Area five examines The connection among ANN and Statistical strategies, Finally, we finish up this article in segment 6th pursued by references and the glossary.

Seinte Loy: A Metrical Non-problem in Chaucer’s General Prologue

Seinte Loy: A Metrical Non-problem in Chaucer’s General Prologue

As Confissões como elogio do diálogo

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; O artigo é a primeira parte de um trabalho que propõe ler as Confissões como um diálogo, no conteúdo e na forma. Um diálogo pretendido (e falhado) com Deus, e também um diálogo segundo sua forma de composição. O prólogo geral da obra será apresentado como lugar de formulação de impasses teóricos, que darão unidade à investigação desenvolvida no conjunto dos treze livros. A elaboração dos impasses, já no prólogo, dependerá do uso e da crítica de modelos consagrados. Ao manejar e se distanciar de modelos retóricos e religiosos, o Autor transforma sua prece inaugural, aparentemente tradicional, em exórdio a um diálogo ainda não constituído. Ali ele disporá uma alternativa, com diretrizes cuja realização dependerá das seções autobiográfica e exegética da obra.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;