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Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) was born in London, the son of a wine maker. He served with Lionel, son of King Edward III, who paid part of the ransom after he was captured in the war with France. Around 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet, the sister of John of Gaunt’s third wife. He held a number of positions at court and traveled abroad on numerous occasions on diplomatic missions, most often to France and Italy. During his visit to Genoa and Florence, he may have met Boccaccio and Petrarch. After his death, he was buried in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey where a monument was erected to him in 1555. He wrote The Book of the Duchess, a dream-poem, The House of Fame, an unfinished dream-poem, and Troilus and Criseyde, his first masterpiece, between 1380 and 1385.

Begun around 1386-87, The Canterbury Tales is one of the great literary achievements of the Middle Ages. Chaucer’s choice of the stories, each suited to the individual teller, ranges from those he had heard on his travels, to what he read in Boccaccio or other classic masters, and the lives of saints. He planned to write 120 tales, but wrote only 24 instead.  The book is written in Middle English, which closely resembles the contemporary language in both vocabulary and orthography, but is still difficult to fully understand without a glossary.

The pilgrims on their way to the grave of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury are presented in the General Prologue in the order of the three estates: the nobility, the clergy, and the laity. The Knight attempts to express his chivalry and false humility. His son, the Squire, is obsessed with courtly love. In the presentation of the three characters representing the clergy, we see Chaucer’s criticism of the abuses in the Church: the Prioress is thinking more about noblesse than piety, the monk’s main concern lies in riding horses and hunting, and the friar, who sells indulgences, is lecherous and greedy. The three professionals are presented next: the Merchant, the Clerk and the Man of Law. The most important goal of the first and the third is monetary gain. The five guildsmen are not described in full detail, but the Franklin, the Shipman, and the Physician are also portrayed in negative light. The Wife of Bath is perhaps the most complex character. Parson and Plowman are honest and hard working, and the three stewards, the Miller, the Manciple and the Reeve are treacherous and money-loving. The Summoner and the Pardoner, the two lay church officers, depict the corruption in the church most vehemently. The prologue preceding each person’s tale corresponds in some way to the story. The stories can be divided into moral stories, romances, and fabliaux, where the plot is centered around a grotesque feature, usually a bodily noise or function.

The Wife of Bath’s prologue is more than twice as long as the next longest prologue. She tells about the five husbands she has had, and justifies her promiscuity for much of her speech, citing the Gospel and St. Paul. If the length of her prologue does not show Chaucer’s support or condemnation of her character, it certainly testifies to his concern about the issue of dominance in marriage. The Wife of Bath’s tale is rather chaotic, demonstrating her lack of organisation, her talkativeness, and her impatience to make a confession. Her motivation for embarking on the pilgrimage is social interaction, demonstration of her rich garment and search for a sixth husband. The interruption of her autobiography with the commentary shows Chaucer’s original, novelistic narrative technique. The Wife of Bath’s tale, as her prologue, talks about the women’s desire for dominance over men, and the men’s wisdom in choosing to obey them, but its romantic nature stands in sharp contrast with the realism of her prologue.

This 14^th-century poetic work was written by the “Gawain poet” or the “Pearl poet,” thus named because of a lyric poem of the same title found in the oldest Gawain manuscript. It represents a revival of alliterative poetry fostered before the Norman Conquest.

The poem is written with four stresses in a verse, three of which are found in the words beginning with the same consonant, with a caesura after two stresses. The modern-English translation has an increased number of unstressed syllables because of the nature of the contemporary language.

The stark realism of Norse and Anglo-Saxon literature, a harsh natural setting, a combination of a violent event, a laconic understatement and grim humour, and moral seriousness are representative of northern ethos. The poem also has characteristics of a Romance with its rhymed quatrains, chivalric courts and courtly love.  Its major strength is that it absorbs into traditional English form the best of the finesse and spirit of French romance. It also combines a subtle transmutation of pagan folk material drawn mostly from the early Celtic tradition with the grace of medieval Christian consciousness. As in every good literary creation, irony is what renders the work less didactic.

The perfect structure has the work divided into four fits (parts). In fit 1, the Green Knight challenges the knights of the Round Table to a beheading game. In fit 2, Sir Gawain sets out to the north and after an arduous journey arrives at the castle of Bertilak in time for a Christmas celebration. In fit 3, he is wooed by Bertilak’s beautiful wife while her husband is hunting, and in fit 4 we have the final showdown at the Green Chapel and the knight’s return to Camelot.

There are three games played in the entire event: the main one, the beheading game, is interwoven with the temptation by the hostess and the exchange of winnings. It is all designed to test the truth of the noble warrior. During three consecutive days, Sir Gawain has to defend his chastity and remain courteous, a quality that includes nobility, piety, decency, grace, eloquence, compassion, humility, gravity, ability of love and chastity, frankness, and awareness of the delicacies of personal relationship and public demeanor. The two overarching emblems signify the two main themes of the poem: the shield with the pentangle represents the knightly virtue, faith and capabilities, and the green girdle is a symbol of both the knight’s success and his shameful fault.

The hunt and the bedroom scenes are related in several ways. The deer, hunted by Bertilak on the first day, corresponds to Sir Gawain’s frightful reaction to the Lady’s initial attempt at seduction. The boar is the hunter’s fiercest encounter related to the toughest verbal duel between the knight and the temptress. The twists and turns of the wily fox, hunted by Bertilak on the final day, correspond to the final slyness of the Lady. The host’s disgust with the fox’s skin relates to the only fault committed by Sir Gawain. The three animals symbolise three types of temptations: flesh, devil and the world, respectively.

The Green night is an enchanted Bertilak, who turns at the end from a demonic tempter to a confessor who absolves Sir Gawain of his sin. This act demonstrates the higher value placed on chastity than on untruthfulness caused by the love of one’s life. Sir Gawain keeps the green girdle to remind him of his shame, but for Bertilak and Camelot the souvenir represents a token of his courage and strength.

The legendary English king Arthur originates either from a 5^th or 6^th-century general who fought against the Saxons or the Celtic sun god. Some of the similarities to sun deities of other cultures include: he is a boar hunter like Theseus and Hercules, he is wounded in the thigh (a euphemism for testicles) like Adonis, and has to be healed by a virgin knight (Sir Percival or Sir Galahad) bearing a blood-stained lance. The location of his castle, Camelot, is claimed by many regions in Britain, even one in Scotland.

Sir Gawain is first encountered as an Irish hero whose strength increases during the day and decreases towards the night. He obtains his eternal youth after a visit to a fairy island. He is a healer, a medicine man, and the original Holy Grail hero. In one romance, he saves Arthur by wedding and chivalrously treating the foul hag Ragnell, who, not surprisingly, later turns into a beautiful girl.

Morgan the Fay is traced to the Celtic goddess Matrona, who is connected to water. Mermaids of Brittany who drag fisherman down to death and Welsh lake fairies are called Morgans. Morgan’s enmity to the Round Table originates in Guinevere adultery of King Arthur with Lancelot and the witch’s revelation of her unfaithfulness. She hates Guinevere most, because King Arthur’s wife is responsible for her banishment. She builds a valley chapel to trap her unfaithful victims.

Merlin is entirely the creation of Geoffrey of Monmouth, but he may also be a Welsh prophet. He is responsible for the sword-in-the sword succession trial and the founding of the Round Table. He is said to be the child of a nun and the devil. He is Morgan the Fay’s teacher and lover.

Courtly love is a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Since all marriages at that time were arranged, and there was often a complete lack of love between a husband and a wife, the liaison between a knight and a married lady was expressed in this type of affection. The lover or idoliser usually accepts the independence of the mistress and tries to make himself worthy of her by acting bravely and honorably and by doing whatever deeds she might desire. Sexual satisfaction may not have been a goal or even end result, but the love was not entirely Platonic either, as it was based on physical attraction. The notion of “love for love’s sake” and “exaltation of the beloved lady” have been traced back to Arabic literature of the 9^th and 10^th centuries, and the concept of the “ennobling power” of love was developed in the early 11^th century by the Persian philosopher, Ibn Sina, in Europe known as Avicenna. This concept is one of the most important elements of Medieval English Romances.