Chaucer, The Merchant, The Wife Of Bath, The Prioress, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Chaucer, The Merchant, The Wife Of Bath, The Prioress e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Chaucer’s life • Born about 1343. • The son of a wine merchant. • Received an excellent education. • Found employment in the house of John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III of England. • His skill and inventiveness as a writer, a clever mind and practical skills helped him raise his social status. • Worked as a controller of the customs for the port of London. • Took part in important diplomatic missions. • Died in 1400 and was the first poet to be buried in Westminster Abbey, in Poets’ Corner. The structure A general prologue, where the pilgrims are introduced Twenty-four tales usually preceded by a prologue, which introduces the theme of the tale sometimes followed by an epilogue • One of the first English poets to be known by name. • He was the first who writed in middle english. And it Gradually became standard English. So he made the basis of Modern English. • In his masterpiece The Canterbury Tales, he was able to give a portrait of the English society of his time. • It is a narrative poem. • It is told in verse. • It contains a variety of narrative elements: the setting in time and place, the description of characters, the use of a narrator. • It has links with the moral views of the time. • It gives insight into individual characters as regards their lifestyles, their psychology and their experiences. He is important because The Canterbuty Tales • The one of the merchant was becoming an increasingly important figure at the end of the Middle Ages with new trade routes and discoveries • They travelled to different and exotic places to exchange goods or, simply, worked as traders and negotiators in ports • They helped to create an new profit-oriented society and a new social class, the middle-class • Our Merchant in The Canterbury Tales shows his status by wearing exotic and unusual clothes • He was also interested in keeping the trade routes under control (Harwich-Holland ranges), so to protect his profits from pirates • In the original version, the Harwich-Holland ranges is called Middelburgh-Orewelle (Holland-England) • Quella del commerciante stava diventando una figura sempre più importante alla fine del Medioevo con nuove rotte commerciali e scoperte • Hanno viaggiato in luoghi diversi ed esotici per scambiare merci o, semplicemente, ha lavorato come commercianti e negoziatori nei porti • Hanno contribuito a creare una nuova società orientata al profitto e una nuova classe sociale, la classe media • Il nostro mercante in The Canterbury Tales mostra il suo status indossando abiti esotici e insoliti • Era anche interessato a tenere sotto controllo le rotte commerciali (Harwich-Holland varia), in modo da proteggere i suoi profitti dai pirati • Nella versione originale, si chiama la gamma Harwich- Holland Middelburgh-Orewelle (Olanda-Inghilterra) The prologue is twice as long as the story. She travelled around the world as a pilgrim, visiting Jerusalem, Boulogne, Rome, Santiago de Compostela and Cologne, and now she is doing another pilgrimage to Canterbury. She got married five times and she had many lovers when she was young. The Wife is exactly what the medieval Church saw as a “wicked woman” and she is proud of it. She is wealthy, resourceful and an expert embroiderer and she usually wears extravagant clothes, including scarlet tights and very expensive leather shoes. She is described as “gap-toothed”, “red in hue” and “handsome”, having “large hips” and a “bold face”. She says that three husbands of hers have been “good” and two have been “bad”. The first three were good, she admits, mostly because they were rich, old and submissive. She admits proudly to using her verbal and sexual power to bring her husbands to total submissions. The wife of bath One of the most important characters described among the pilgrims is a nun a Prioress -, a young and pretty woman. She's very nice, her way of smiling studied French at the school of Stratford-Atte-Boweand her biggest oath was "By St, Loy!" She is known as Madam Eglantyne. She often sings religious songs with a nasal voice (that in Chaucer's times was regarded as a very beautiful characteristic). She's very polite also for what concerns table manners. In fact at table her manners are very well taught: she never dips her fingers inside the sauce too deeply, she never lets a morsel fall from her mouth onto her breast, she usually wipes her upper lip so that she never leaves a trace of grease on her cup when she drinks, and she's always careful not her dress to get dirty. Her disposition is friendly and sensitive. She's so tenderhearted that she starts crying if she only sees a mouse in a trap. She's got some little dogs with her, that she feeds with the best food: milk and meat. They are very attached to her, and she hates chance, happens to hurt them or beat them with a stick. She wears a very elegant veil, her mouth is little, red and soft, her forehead large, her nose is simple and shy. She's also very polite, ui fact she someone, by The prioress