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PRÁCTICAS DISCURSIVAS DE LA COMUNICACIÓN ESCRITA IV – MODULE 5

Welcome back! We will work on MODULE 5 from 28/6/2021 to 11/7/2021. We are going to
have a virtual class next Monday 28th at 2 pm, hope to see you there!

Activity 1: Language and Literature

Meet Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer has often been called “the father of English poetry,” a phrase that makes him sound like a stuffy sort of
writer. However, Chaucer’s masterpiece The Canterbury Tales is anything but stuffy. In fact, its realistic language
and coarse humor prompted critics to call Chaucer everything from “observant” to “contemptible.”

Chaucer was a man of the world who knew how a variety of people spoke and acted. This knowledge was invaluable
to his writing. Born in London into a middle-class wine merchant’s family, he became a page in the royal household
while still a teenager. Despite the lowly duties of the job— making beds, carrying candles, running errands— the
position offered Chaucer exposure to a world of fine manners and high-born people. A few years later, he saw more
of the world when he served in a military campaign in France.

While in his twenties, Chaucer was made a court official, an appointment that was the start of many years of public
service. During his career, he traveled abroad on diplomatic missions and was therefore exposed to both French and
Italian literature and culture. For the rest of his life, he held a variety of governmental posts.

Despite these busy professional duties, Chaucer managed to create a large body of writing. His work is often divided
into three distinct periods. His early poetry, which is influenced by the French medieval tradition, includes the Book
of the Duchess and a partial translation of the Romaunt of the Rose. Later, he wrote the Parliament of Fowls and the
masterful Troilus and Criseyde. His most mature writing, which he began crafting in his forties, includes the Legend
of Good Women and finally The Canterbury Tales.

The Canterbury Tales is considered a masterpiece for several reasons. First, it marks the beginning of a new
tradition; Chaucer was the first writer to use English in a major literary work. Before him, literature was composed
in French or Latin. Second, because The Canterbury Tales focuses on an assortment of people who are thrown
together on a journey, it gives a lifelike and engaging picture of a cross section of society during the 1300s. Finally, it
is an outstanding literary achievement. Chaucer created approximately 17,000 lines of vivid poetry, which still
attract new readers centuries later.

“No poetry was ever more human than Chaucer’s; none ever came more frankly and genially home to men than his
Canterbury Tales.” —John Richard Green
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PRÁCTICAS DISCURSIVAS DE LA COMUNICACIÓN ESCRITA IV – MODULE 5

“He does not, however, appear to have deserved all the praise he has received, or all the censure he has suffered.” —
Samuel Johnson

“Although Chaucer’s invented personages are now six hundred years old, they are flesh and blood today; they are,
in fact, the people whom we have known all our lives.” —Louis Untermeyer

Geoffrey Chaucer was born about 1342 and died in 1400.

Frame Story

The Canterbury Tales uses a frame tale, a story that provides a vehicle, or frame, for telling other stories. The frame
is about a pilgrimage, a trip made to a holy place for religious reasons or just for fun and adventure.

In Chaucer’s work, twenty-nine pilgrims travel to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas à Becket. When
Chaucer’s pilgrims first meet, at an inn, their host suggests they tell stories to pass the time. Their stories become the
main part of The Canterbury Tales.

Real Characters

Chaucer’s pilgrims are well-rounded characters with personalities and pasts. As one critic said, “Not a whisper, not
a

wart, is omitted.” The pilgrims’ occupations reflect different aspects of fourteenth-century society:

• Feudal System: Knight, Squire, Yeoman, Franklin, Plowman, Miller, Reeve

• Religious Life: Nun, Monk, Friar, Cleric, Parson, Summoner, Pardoner

• Trades or Professions: Merchant, Sergeant at the Law, Five Tradesmen, Cook, Skipper, Doctor, Wife of Bath,
Manciple, Host

The Language of Chaucer

Although Chaucer wrote in English, the language that he usually spoke, it was not the same English that we speak
today. He spoke what is now called Middle English, the result of mixing the Old English of the Anglo-Saxons with
the Old French of the Normans. The grammar and vocabulary of Middle English might seem familiar to speakers of
modern English, but certain pronunciations are quite different. For example, the silent e of modern English was a
separate, audible syllable in many Middle English words. Chaucer’s decision to write in English was in itself
remarkable. For much of his life, English remained primarily the language of uneducated people; it was considered
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PRÁCTICAS DISCURSIVAS DE LA COMUNICACIÓN ESCRITA IV – MODULE 5

unsuitable for literary purposes. Other writers of the time chose to write in French or Latin. The famous opening
lines of The Canterbury Tales appear on the next page in the original Middle English that Chaucer used.

a) We are going to focus on The General Prologue and some of the tales. Everybody has
to read The General Prologue to analyse it together for our next meeting (12/7) and
each student is going to read a tale to make a short presentation to the group:

Martina: The Knight’s Tale

Inés: The Wife of Bath’s Tale

Abril: The Pardoner´s Tale

Melany: The Man of Law’s Tale

Estefanía: The Monk’s Tale

Then, but not for the class, everybody has to read all the tales mentioned.

b) Chaucer, like Shakespeare, is often regarded as a writer with timeless appeal. It is,
though, useful to debate just how far The Canterbury Tales can be transhistorical. Read
this extract from William Lipscomb’s Preface to an 18th-century edition of the Tales:

The exhibiting him [Chaucer] free from stains has been effected scrupulously by the omission
of the offensive passages. […] It is proper here to observe, that this omission hath extended to
the two most exceptionable of his Tales (those of the Miller and the Reeve); both of which
being highly indelicate, as well in the sentiments as in the language, are wholly omitted in this
collection. (The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, Vol I, 1795)

Then, read John Sutherland’s article ‘Filthy Chaucer’ (, published in The Guardian in 2008.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/jul/30/highereducation.classics

What does this parallel reading reveal about how Chaucer has been read and studied across
the centuries? Produce an essay to answer the question.

Activity 2: Grammar and Vocabulary

We are going to revise “Modals and Semi-modals” and the vocabulary related to
“Communication and The Media”. You will find a file with theory and practice uploaded with
the class.

Activity 3: Reading
We are going to continue working with New Proficiency Reading. I would like you to work with
Unit 3 “Going Places”. You should do all the activities and hand in your answers. The book is
part of the folder of the subject:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JLyumkEOWQo2LvJ0GXrS6PdScutSCxGM?usp=sharing