Summary and Analysis of The Clerk's Tale (The Canterbury Tales)
Prologue to the Clerk's Tale:
The Host remarks that the Clerk of Oxford sits quietly, and tells him to be more cheerful. The Host asks the Clerk to tell a merry tale of adventure and not a moralistic sermon. The Clerk agrees to tell a story that he learned from a clerk at Padua, Francis Petrarch. He then praises the renowned Petrarch for his sweet rhetoric and poetry. The Clerk does warn that Petrarch, before his tale, wrote a poem in a high style exalting the Italian landscape.
Analysis
In the Prologue to the Clerk's Tale, Chaucer indulges yet again in a mild critique of his contemporaries. Here he analyzes Petrarch's stories and finds fault with his overindulgent descriptions of the Italian landscape, yet nevertheless he finds Petrarch's story good enough to adapt for his own Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer did adapt most of these tales from outside sources, modifying them as he saw fit and often making significant changes in tone and plot points. Nevertheless, many of the stories in the Canterbury Tales did not originate with Chaucer himself.
The Clerk's Tale:
The tale begins with the description of Saluzzo, a region at the base of Mount Viso in Italy. There was once a marquis of this region named Walter. He was wise, noble and honorable, but had one major flaw. He refused to marry, choosing careless pursuits instead. His refusal was so steadfast that the people of his realm confronted him about this, pleading with him to take a wife. They offer to choose for him the most noble woman in the realm for him to marry. He agrees to marry, but makes this one condition: he will marry whomever he chooses, regardless of birth, and his wife shall be tr...
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...tes Griselde's fortitude is callous and inappropriate to the purpose. The following tests that Walter inflicts on his wife appear to serve a different purpose. Walter's motivation seems to shift from demonstrating his wife's capacities to breaking down his wife. This may be due to envy for Griselde, a woman universally beloved by his people, who at the outset of the story consider Walter irresponsible and immature. By the time Walter sends Griselde naked from his home he has become wholeheartedly sadistic.
The reconciliation that concludes the Clerk's Tale is therefore unsatisfying, for it restores to Walter what he does not deserve. The reconstruction of the family that occurs when Griselde and her children return to Walter's estate is at best tenuous, bringing together a wife and a husband who tortured her, and children and the parents who did not raise them.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Canterbury Tales Study Guide : Summary and Analysis of The Pardoner's Tale | GradeSaver." Study Guides & Essay Editing | GradeSaver. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2011. .
The modern US version of a jury derived from ancient English law. It is said in the early 11th century, William the Conqueror brought a form of a jury system from Normandy that became the basis for early England’s juries. It was constructed of men who were sworn by oath to tell the king what they knew. King Henry II then expanded on the idea by using a group of white men with good morals to not only judge the accused, but also to investigate crimes. King Henry II had panels of 12 everyday, law abiding men; this aspect of it is much like modern juries. The difference is that these early jurors were “self-informing”. This means that they were expected to already have knowledge of the facts that would be presented in court prior to the trial. King Henry II’s first jurors were assigned the job of resolving the land disputes that were occurring in England. ...
Due to her father’s wealth and her high rank, Matilda was highly sought after as a bride. She was well educated and said to be very beautiful. Modern research shows that she never exceeded five feet in height. Matilda gained the attention of the powerful William, Duke of Normandy. He had fallen in love with her when he first saw her at the French court and was said to be so passionately captivated by her that he would do anything to obtain her. According to legend, when William's representative asked Matilda if she would marry the Duke of Normandy, she declined by saying that she was too high born to consider marrying a “bastard”. William was the son of Robert, Duke of Normandy and his mistress, Herleva. The legend also says that when William heard of her refusal, he rode from Normandy to Flanders, found Matilda on her way to church, dragged her off her horse by her long braids, beat her and left. After this she shockingly agreed to marry him.
There is no way to measure how everyday people of the jury compartmentalize the information given to them. By disregarding information, does it work in favor of justice or does it highlight a forbidden topic. Using a jury trial and the disregarding of evidence played a key role in the OJ Simpson case that began in 1994 (Jasanoff: 714). Just after a year of his acquittal of the first case, he became the defendant of a civil suit placed by the relatives of the victims. When asking juries to disregard statements and evidence can change their decision-making abilities, especially if the evidence directly links the alleged criminal to the crime as it did arguably in OJ Simpson’s case. During this trial, the defense tried to highlight and find errors in the Los Angeles Police Department’s procedures for collective and transporting evidence (Jasanoff: 715). The evidence, which was once connected to the trial, was now inspected to establish both its validity and reliability. The outside influence of the evidence played a role in the decision, which included the credentials of the lab and their procedures. In sum, the jury’s roles in legal proceedings emphasize the influence of the everyday nature in the law. In these cases, the jury has much more control on the case rather than the law controlling their
While these two stories show great similarities, they also contain many differences. Because they are derived from the same original work, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, they are greatly deviated in their structure, vocabulary, and story line. Version I, the text from the textbook that was translated by Nevill Coghill was more indicative of Old England based on the old and sophisticated language used and the verse of the text. Version II, the adaptation be another author into a narrative was an easier read and used lower-level vocabulary and although it attempted to use an old style form of writing, it did not seem likely to a reader that the narrative was close to the original.
In order to be seated as a juror, a variety of trial lawyers will ask questions to each perspective juror. If the juror seems to fit the profile of the "perfect juror," it is likely that in the current system that this person will sit on the jury. More often than it should, this means that because someone has the same beliefs as the trial lawyers, they will be selected because they will most likely be sympathetic to the correct client. Even though most of the time it is the evidence that convicts, the law should also be considered when jury reaches a verdict. It is a struggle to have Twelve people, with different personalities and beliefs come to a just vote for conviction or acquittal, especially with little to no background in the practice of law.
“The Clerk’s Tale.” The Canterbury Tales. New York: Viking, 2009. . Web. Jan & Feb. 2012.
“The Canterbury Tales” was written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer. These tales constitutes a frame story which each pilgrim has to tell their own story to the Chaucer, the pilgrim; not the poet. As we know, the tale itself is a satire, but the stylistic structure in the tales creates a sense that can be a parody as well. To support this idea of parody, it is need to know the definition of parody and how Chaucer use this style to make his own ideas clear through the general prologue and the tales such as “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Knight’s Tale”.
Chaucer uses the prologue to the Monk's Tale as one more opportunity for satiric, self-referential comedy. Within the story he is a necessarily opaque character. Significantly, the Host assumes that Chaucer is, at best, a mid-ranking government official and not an artist capable of constructing a landmark piece of literature such as the Canterbury Tales.
Our current trial by jury system was originally adopted from Anglo-Saxon English common law. Prior to juries, the United States had much more rudimentary methods that were in affect, such as bench trials. A bench trial consists of solely the judge determining the final verdict, versus a jury possessing that responsibility. Proceeding with a trial by jury assures that there will be a margin of error, simply due to the fact that the jurors are human, and are susceptible to human fallibility. Whether the jury is cognizant of it or not, emotions such as pre-determined bias and favoritism can impede or bring the case to a halt all together. According to Andy Leipold, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois College of Law, the number of jury trial conviction rates have increased from 75 percent in 1946 to 84 percent from 1989 to 2002 (Krause). This sudden anomaly can be attributed to the influx of uneducated jurors, the increased cost of proceeding to trial, and improper juror selection.
Throughout literature, relationships can often be found between the author of a story and the story that he writes. In Geoffrey Chaucer's frame story, Canterbury Tales, many of the characters make this idea evident with the tales that they tell. A distinct relationship can be made between the character of the Pardoner and the tale that he tells.
Mandell, Jerome. Geoffrey Chaucer : building the fragments of the Canterbury tales. N.J. : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992.
Chaucer identifies a pardoner as his main character for the story and utilizes the situational and verbal irony found in the pardoner’s interactions and deplorable personality to demonstrate his belief in the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church during this time. Chaucer first begins his sly jab at the Church’s motives through the description of the Pardoner’s physical appearance and attitude in his “Canterbury Tales.” Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a representation of the Church as a whole, and by describing the Pardoner and his defects, is able to show what he thinks of the Roman Catholic Church. All people present in the “Canterbury Tales” must tell a tale as a part of a story-telling contest, and the pilgrim Chaucer, the character in the story Chaucer uses to portray himself, writes down the tales as they are told, as well as the story teller. The description of the Pardoner hints at the relationship and similarity between the Pardoner and the Church as a whole, as well as marks the beginning of the irony to be observed throughout the “Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale.”
In the Middle Ages, when The Canterbury Tales was written, society became captivated by love and the thought of courtly and debonair love was the governing part of all relationships and commanded how love should be conducted. These principles changed literature completely and created a new genre dedicated to brave, valorous knights embarking on noble quests with the intention of some reward, whether that be their life, lover, or any other want. The Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer, accurately portrays and depicts this type of genre. Containing a collection of stories within the main novel, only one of those stories, entitled “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, truly outlines the 14th century community beliefs on courtly love.
Chaucer is not some unknown literary author who is known only by a dozen people in the English field. Besides Shakespeare, Chaucer is probably one of the most well-known contributors to English literature, if not the most well-known. His name is instantly recognizable, and many a high school student learned of him through the oftentimes-painful reading of his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s work is an extremely important text in terms of the evolution of the English language; The Canterbury Tales set itself apart from other literary works at the time by being one of the first pieces of literature to be written in English instead of French, and its extreme popularity spurred the creations of even more English literature, allowing the language to regain its prominence and evolve into the English we know today (“Chaucer”; Kemmer). Today, it’s the most prominent example of Middle English work, and is studied not just for its literary worth but as evidence of what the language was like at the time. The Canterbury Tales and Chaucer’s importance are extreme, and the author enjoyed his fame during his life as well as long after, largely due to his abilities to make sound decisions, take risks, learned to learn as a professional, and transfer knowledge, skills that people even today can utilize to be successful.