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The Canterbury Tales: Franklin's Tale, Pardoner's Tale & Nun's Priest's Tale (Chaucer Lecture) (Patreon)

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2025-05-25 20:55:33
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'For thogh myself be a ful vicious man, a moral tale yet I yow telle kan.'

Today we are joyfully rounding off our curation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with a deep appreciation of three superb stories from the Franklin, the Pardoner, and the Nun's Priest.

We're discussing what matters most in storytelling, Breton lai romances, how morality is often inconvenient, the problem of theodicy, Shakespearean foreshadowing, iconic beast fables, vitalistic characters, and much more.

Please do feel free to enjoy the discussion even if you haven't read these parts of the Canterbury Tales yet. You can enjoy our talk before, during, or after your reading of these prologues and tales in the way that best suits you.

Timestamps:

0:00 life is short & the craft is long

2:00 it’s the journey, not the destination

4:00 appreciating the Franklin’s Tale

6:00 hermeneutics of suspicion

8:00 what were medieval franklins?

10:00 interrupting the Squire’s Tale

12:00 the Breton lai romance genre

14:00 characters Arveragus & Dorigen

16:00 mastery cannot constrain love

18:00 on the problem of theodicy

20:00 choosing good in an evil world

22:00 Dorigen’s theological lament

24:00 ‘these grisly black rocks…’

26:00 Aurelius falls for Dorigen

28:00 Dorigen’s impossible love task

30:00 making the metaphorical literal

32:00 Shakespeare’s Prospero foreshadow

34:00 magical illusion of vanished rocks

36:00 on truth being the highest virtue

37:00 why morality is often inconvenient

39:00 the Franklin invites interaction

40:00 the plot of the Physician’s Tale

42:00 appreciating the Pardoner’s Tale

44:00 what was a medieval pardoner?

45:00 subverting the confessional genre

47:00 radix malorum est cupiditas 

49:00 immoral teller of a moral tale

50:00 making the spiritual material

52:00 an exemplum on the tavern sins

54:00 a parody of medieval preaching

55:00 the pardoner subverts the pilgrimage

57:00 living in the shadow of the plague

58:00 the absurd plot of the Pardoner’s Tale

1:00:00 Death transfigured into gold

1:01:00 on finding what you seek

1:03:00 the Pardoner’s dirty breeches

1:05:00 can a bad tree bear good fruit?

1:06:00 Chaucer the Pilgrim’s stories

1:08:00 entertainment vs deep meaning

1:10:00 appreciating the Nun’s Priest’s Tale

1:12:00 some iconic fables from Aesop

1:14:00 story of Chaunticleer & Pertolote

1:16:00 ‘I cannot love a cowardly man’

1:18:00 Chaucer’s medieval dream book

1:20:00 free-will vs predestination

1:22:00 how to give controversial opinions

1:24:00 the message in the fall of mankind

1:25:00 beware sycophancy & flattery

1:26:00 mock heroic action of the story

1:27:00 congratulations on reading Chaucer

1:28:00 where to next after Chaucer?

1:31:00 our dystopian double bill next

1:33:00 what did you make of Chaucer?

Resources to Explore:

  • Storytelling Compendiums: If our time spent on the pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral has left you craving for more storytelling collections, then you might wish to check out one of these collections next, as they exerted a strong influence upon the father of English Literature: Boccaccio's Decameron, 1,001 Nights/Arabian Nights, Ovid's Metamorphoses. Treat yourself to one of these, dip in over the long-term, and think about how Chaucer sublimely contributed to the tradition. You could also treat the complete works of Shakespeare as a kind of storytelling compendium and read through his works as an extended saga using our lectures as a guide. Reading Shakespeare up against Chaucer is one of the most rewarding exercises in English literary appreciation.

  • Beast Fables: You may also find that the Nun's Priest's Tale about Chaunticleer, Pertelote, and the fox has piqued your curiosity for more moral teaching tales featuring anthropomorphised protagonists. If so, then Aesop's Fables always makes for a wonderful work to peruse when in need of enduring folk wisdom.

  • More Medievalism: A powerful Italian influence upon Chaucer, in addition to Boccaccio, would be Dante Alighieri. His Divine Comedy is another one that rewards slow, thoughtful, long-term engagement. I personally love both the Ciardi and the Hollander translations. If you haven't already, you might find it interesting to check out our Dante's Inferno lectures and keep an eye out for his influence upon Chaucer. Remaining in Medieval English Literature, Langland's Piers Plowman, Gower's Confessio Amantis, the works of the Gawain Poet, and Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur all make excellent choices as next steps.

  • Old English: Perhaps reading Chaucer's Middle English has made you curious about works even further back in the tradition. Anglo Saxon poetry is on a whole different level of challenge. One can make it through the Canterbury Tales in the original with some clarifying notes by one's side, but this is not the case for Old English works. But that doesn't stop one investigating the iconic heroic epic Beowulf using one of the many excellent translations. The Seamus Heaney, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Burton Raffel translations are all great choices.

  • More Chaucer: If you have fallen in love with Chaucer's poetry and storytelling, the Riverside Chaucer is a great resource to have on hand. Check out the introductory essays for the different works to see which one tickles your fancy. I would personally recommend that readers who want more Chaucer check out Troilus and Criseyde after the Canterbury Tales.

  • Our Next Masterpieces: Congratulations on bringing yourself so powerfully to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. You should feel intensely proud of your accomplishment. If you can appreciate Chaucer, you can appreciate anything. This coming weekend, we will be taking a time machine from the past to the future, from Medieval Europe to a dystopian vision of the world. We will move into the next exciting part of our reading adventure with our introductory 'how to read' video for our Dystopian Double Bill. We are going to read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World followed by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Reading them back to back will offer us a really powerful exercise in comparing and contrasting visionary literature. In our intro video, we will discuss everything from our practical approach and pacing to themes, genre, and socio-historical context. You don't need to read anything just yet, but, if you are keen to dive in, you may want to dip into the first chapter of Brave New World. The main thing you want to do right now is to secure your copies of the books. I'll be working from the Vintage edition for Huxley, and the Penguin edition for Orwell, but feel free to use the copies you like and that come most easily to hand. I am tremendously excited to share this next appreciation with you and am so grateful that you have made our read-throughs for the first half of the year so rewarding.

Questions to Consider:

1) What did you personally make of these three tales? And how did you find the characterisation of these pilgrims?

2) Can an immoral person tell an effective moral tale?

3) Which virtue do you think is the highest? And which vice the worst?

4) What matters most when it comes to great storytelling?

5) How would you persuade another to pick up the Canterbury Tales? And what advice would you give to facilitate a meaningful reading experience?

And please do share with us your impressions and favourite passages from these tales. Let us know the highlights of your time spent with Chaucer.

Congratulations on bringing yourself powerfully to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales!

Files

Previews only

Comments

JNL

The Pardoner's tale, like all the tales, is more complex than it first seems as Ben's excellent lecture makes clear. To complement it, I highly recommend Christopher Cannon's four Johns Hopkins lectures on the Tales. Here's the first: (https://www.youtube.com/watchv=djRYALc3CAY&t=243s). He recently published the Oxford Chaucer, a two volume study of all of Chaucer. Most intriguing is his lecture on the Pardoner, the third (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQTEgVLs0AM&t=2209s). Chaucer weaves together the Pardoner's sermon (greed is the source of all evil) and his confession. Yearly confession of one's sins was required to be in good standing. One's conscience became a "hidden self" that was only revealed through language. The Pardoner confesses that he's out for money and doesn't care who he robs or whether they end up in hell. He also sermonizes against drunkenness and swearing while not realizing that he is doing what he condemns. In short, Chaucer asserts the existence of the unconscious. Through his lectures, Cannon makes the point, as does Ben, that rhetoric--and its use and abuse--is central to all the tales. The purpose of rhetoric is to "move language into operation." The Pardoner is so confident in his rhetorical skills that believes that he can tell the pilgrims that he's going to rob them and still dupe them. But he goes too far in insulting the Host who attacks and silences him. Chaucer continues to highlight the use and abuse of rhetoric in The Nun's Priest's tale. The key moment is when Chanticleer quotes a Latin phrase (he's well read) and ignorantly translates it to "woman is man's joy and all his bliss." What it really says is that woman is the ruin of man. In short, it means whatever he wants it to mean, a common charge against rhetoric and poetry. But Cannon points out in the second half of the Nun's Priest's tale that Chaucer redeems rhetoric and references great events (Troy) to increase the drama. Chanticleer skillfully uses rhetoric to escape the clutches of the fox and all ends well. Words are actions. If the rooster had been killed, it would have been catastrophic for the widow and her small garden and farm. A separate series that I've watched is a four part BBC historical background to Chaucer's time by Terry Jones, another Chaucer scholar. It will be very interesting to those members who have read Richard II and Henry IV in the Shakespeare series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hXb2M5ERHk

Pete Castleton

Getting ready for Brave New World, I read Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We", the perfect introduction to dystopia. First published in 1924, the book must have had an impact on Orwell (who admits it) and Huxley (who denies it). Quick read and hard to put down. Can't help but see the impact it likely had on Terry Gilliam's "Brazil".

Thomas Davidson
>>175555512

Thank you, JNL for the link. It was very timely! In a separate discussion here Vida, Ellen M and I have been discussing the Pardoner, with differing takes on his character. I'm going to digest Cannon's interpretation of this scoundrel. Very helpful and thank you!

Nancy Johnson

I will miss hearing you read in the Middle English. My goal is to learn the prologue by heart. Thank you for these brilliant lectures ❤️❤️❤️

Elias Casseres

Thouroughly enjoyed the Cantebury Tales. I have been intriged by it since I was first introduced to it in college, but found the translations I was given back then hard to read. I found Nevill Goghill's translation in Penguin Classics brilliant. Thanks for your guidance, as always.

Lisa

Just like everyone else I too want to thank you for reintroducing me to this book. I had such a great time reading the tales. The comedy is what I enjoyed the most and the lol moments!

Charles S.

Several have mentioned how they enjoyed hearing Benjamin read, and I echo that appreciation. I don’t think anyone has pointed out the large number of readings from the Chaucer Studio at Brigham Young University. You can see the catalog at https://creativeworks.byu.edu/CreativeworksStore/ProductCategory?siteID=20 . Prices are normally $5-10 per reading. The only potential drawback is that you will have to download each reading in the form of MP3 files contained within a ZIP file, then extract the MP3s to play them. (Tools also exist to reassemble the MP3s into audiobook format.) It’s a somewhat cumbersome process, but I find these performances wonderfully rewarding.

Cynthia Ford

I couldn’t stop with only reading portions of the book. I m so glad I finished the book and I put myself under a timeline because I wanted to be able to keep up in real time with the books chosen for dystopian June. I had to even pull out my old copy of Neil Postman to add to the selections. Anyway, I thought I’d comment on one of your questions. Can an immoral person write a moral tale? Absolutely. I actually think that an immoral person is the best person to write the tale because they know better than anyone how far from the mark they seem to be. They know the golden standard and how they have failed in achieving it. We probably heard the proverb that experience is the best teacher. Well, I would teach my children to learn from the mistakes of others instead of making them, themselves. Why suffer if you don’t have to? That’s my short answer and once again Amazon has received a significant amount of my paycheck from all the other books I bought because of the recommendations and I happily spent it. Time to tuck into Brave New World.

Ashley August

This was such good fun! I adore listening to Ben read in the old language and the melodic fluidity it lends to the words. I also appreciate the commentary during the introduction of the pardoner's tale when you describe him as having 'drenched his thirst' as opposed to commonly used 'quenched...' I think it really lent itself to the voracity of his desire for largesse and excess. He is a man of much and all. Superb!

Josh LaMar, He-Him

I’m a bit behind here because I read the entire Peter Ackroyd translation. Really enjoyed it so so much :) I do think the tales discussed were among my favorites, so it was good to read them all and then also listen again to the lectures. I read parts in the original. But I was so scarred from undergrad that I just wanted to enjoy the story. I know I can read them, I just had a different goal this time and I was glad to have done it my way this time haha

Angelina

I finished tonight. Once I started I couldn't put down the book. Addictive. I read the Peter Ackroyd retelling. Just so beautiful and very different from the usual books. So happy to have this under my belt too.