Friday, October 2, 2009
Question of the Week (10/2/09)
How does the literary criticism of The Monk's Tale enhance your reading of it? Click on the Question of the Week, it's a link to the Monk's lit crit!
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I'm not sure if this is what we're supposed to do. . .
ReplyDeleteThe literary criticism of the Monk's Tale gives a better understanding of Chaucer's tale because it describes the characters and what makes the the tyrants that they are. The Monk's Tale describes mainly how they died or lost their power. But, the packet describes qualities of the tyrants. Some common words used to describe the tyrants in the packet were lust, betrayal, blindness (many were warned and chose to ignore the warning), desire, strength, corrupt, rules by oppression, wealth, interference in the affairs of the church, cruel, conquest, pride, and ambition. (there are a lot more.) The criticism gives us a lot more information and background about each tyrant. And I found that they all were fairly similar.
In the beginning of the packet it says that the Monk's tale was "intolerable", "unspeakable monotony", "dry epitomizing character" and "inevitably recurring moral". Personally, I couldn't agree more. The tale had no real plot because it was a lot of short tales. The same moral was true in each one. Like in the Reeve's tale, what goes around comes around. If you are a tyrant eventually you will be overthrown and/or killed.
The literary criticism of The Monk's tale helps us understand what the author intended us to get out of the story. I found the Monk's tale very boring, which to some extent must have been the feeling even in Chaucer's time since the Knight interupts the Monk and tells him to make the story more interesting. However, the story gains more depth if we understand the preconceptions of the time.
ReplyDeleteThe word tyrant is extremely different now, from when the tale was written. A tyrant now is anyone who is not democratically elected and/or seizes power. If this were the criteria in Chaucer's age ever single leader in the world would be a tyrant.
As with everything, a ruler was defined by religion in the 14th century. The ruler could govern fiercely and grab power as long as he ruler for the "good of the people" (maybe just the good of the upper class people?) and respected the authority of God. The litterary packet helped put these views into context so that I can now see how the stories tie in with the views of the day.
In Response to Megan:
ReplyDeleteI agree with Megan that the tale was very dry and boring. However, another way that the packet helped me was in establishing a back story for the anecdote. All the Monk's examples were historical figures or from Greek or biblical mythology. The audience of the time would have known all of these references. For me, knowing most of them only vaguely it was difficult to understand what was going on. Now that I can assimilate to the back story, each little story seems less dry and can even turn in to a self contained, coherent short work.
The literary criticism was extremely helpful for me to gain a better understanding of the monk's tale. As was said before, the monk's tale was very dry and at times hard to follow. At one point, the knight barges in saying "Ho my good sir, no more!" and "As for myself, I take a great displeasure In tales of those who once knew wealth and leisure And then are felled by some unlucky hit." (pg. 213). As we can see, even the people who were listening at the time found him dry. However, by reading the literary criticism, we can see how they would have been thinking at the time about the historical tyrants that he uses to make his point.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Nick:
I agree that the definition of a tyrant has drastically changed from the time of Chaucer and even from the time of some of his historical tyrants. By reading the lit crit, we can definitely see that it has changed which helped (at least for me) with the comprehension of the tale.
Also I liked what megan said when she made the connection between the Reeve's tale and the monk's tale. I hadn't made the connection of the two morals. Good job kid!
ReplyDeleteI too must aggree with the literary criticism, as well as my classmates, that the the Monk's Tale lacks vigor and is quite repetitive. Judging the knights interruption of Monk's storytelling, I do believe we are not the only ones to feel this way. The literary criticism gives background to each Greek or Biblical story the Monk references to. I think the subjects that the Monk weaves into his moral preaching tale are historically interesting, but the way he goes about morbidly and drly writing their small unmomentous stories ruins it for me. The monk's tale is as close to the monastic behavior the monk will ever achieve, as he is preaching against sin and its path to disorder; where as he usually is living out of character (hunting, lavish clothes). Not only does the literary critisism help to piece together all the tales, it dives into the meaning of Tyranny. I realized the extensive modification of the word, now only applicable to one absolute ruler but then used to characterize “any individual who held power over another could be guilty of tyranny”. Nick's question, of whether the common good of the people is directed to “upper class people”, is a fine point, I would probably assume upper class. This is because as we discussed in class, knights were known to treat peasants horribly and still walk away with a guiltless conscience. The tale is a cross between a series of Myths and a as a whole could be considered an Exemplum.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading the literary criticism. It definitely enhanced my reading of the monk's tale because it explained the stories in simpler terms, and in a way that I could understand the "moral" of each story. I think that there were aspects to the monk's tale that would only make sense to people of those times (things like the references to characters we never learn about). I also found the Monk's tale boring, but I also picked up on the trends within the stories. Each story was focused around a corrupt tyrant, an sinful hero, or an un-virtuous character. Like the author of the packet said, the monk told these stories as an "exemplary tale to warn of the social consequences of tyranny". The monk is supposed to be devoted to God and the church, and yet he hunts (stated in the prologue). Reading the lit crit really helped me see how hypocritical the Monk is, and how Chaucer was practically making fun of him and his monkhood.
ReplyDeleteIn response to nick: I agree that the definition of a tyrant has changed since Chaucer's time. However, a corrupt person is still definitely corrupt no matter the time period. You're right that the difference is really just how you define corrupt. The tales the monk told were dry, but I think the lit crit did a good job of explaining them and showing the trends within each story.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Brittany: I also like how you say the entire thing could be an Exemplum. I think that it definitely is an exemplum, and is also a good example of how the entire canterbury tales is a satire. So far, the monk, the nun prioress, the reeve, and the miller have all been made fun of in some way by Chaucer or the tales told in the story.
In response to Nick and Scott:
ReplyDeleteI also agree that our view of a tyrant now is much different then Chaucer's idea of a tyrant. I liked how Nick made the connection of saying that a ruler was aloud to take control as long as he ruled for the good of the people. Nick also mentioned the fact that the ruler had to respect the church and the authority of God, which is something the packet mentioned a lot and is not always true today, at least in our culture.
When I first read the Monk's tale, I felt that the whole thing could be simplified down to one statement: fortune will eventually abandon any man who has any sort of flaw. I didn't understand the point of telling so many monotonous tales that had the same exact moral. However, reading the lit crit packet helped me see that the story wished to demonstrate how people we see as tyrants can be abandoned, and the ones that don't appear to be tyrants can actually be quite evil. The story talks about people such as Hercules and Alexander; men who had great strength and who we learned to appreciate as heroes had imperfections. The packet even said that Caesar was a tyrant, a man whom many respect. I find that the interrogation of the pirate in Alexander's tale is important, for when Alexander asks the pirate why he is making the seas unsafe, the pirate replies: "I do it with one ship I am called a pirate; you, because you do it with a large fleet, are called an emperor." (this refers to the differences in how the two men conquer).
ReplyDeleteWhat this goes to show is that men that we find to be honorable are not always so, and arrogant men will always be abandoned by the divine.
I agree with Brittany how it is very ironic that the monk is telling this tale, because he is defying what monks of that period were supposed to be. I definitely think that Chaucer is poking fun at this, and perhaps is foreshadowing the monk's inevitable downfall. The same concept is true for the monk in the shipman's tale, people leading snobbishly conceited lifestyles are doomed.
After reading the literary critisism of the Monks tale I more fully understood what Chaucer wanted the reader to take from the story. I origianally thought that he wanted to convey that even if you are a good person bad things can still happen to you. I thought this becasue most of the people he name are good leaders, or just good people in general, but in they end most of them die or are betrayed by those the are closest to. My perception of the story changed after i read the Lit Crit however because i realized that he was trying to say that if you are a tyrant then you will be punished. The reason why this didnt make sense to me in the beginging is because the term tyrant has changed dramatically from chaucers time to the present. In chaucers time it simply meant a person who was elected or took power by force, which was essentially every leader at the time. Nowadays tyrant means something like a leader who rules with and iron fist. The new definition however is the opposite of what Chaucer was trying to convey. In conclusion the Lit Crit greatly helped me understand what chaucer was trying to say in the Monks tale.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Nick
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with what you said about the word tyrant meaning something different back in Chaucers time. You made a good call because i was thinking about the modern definition of tyrant but i never thought about the fact that it may have meant something different back in Chaucers time.
The Literary Criticism piece clarified many aspects of the Monk's Tale simply by presenting the stories in the tale in a modern, straight forward format.This eliminated a lot of the ambiguity that arose in the the Monk's Tale as a result of the differences in the knowledge of Chauncer's audience and our knowledge. Chauncer made certain assumptions about the common knowledge of his audience that were probably true at his time, but are not true now. For example, in the story about Count Ugolino, the only background to the story that Chauncer gives is "He was condemned to perish in that prison/ For Bishop Ruggieri had framed lies/ Against him." The Literary Criticism fills in some of the discrepancies between the amount of knowledge Chauncer thinks we have and the amount of knowledge we actually have with its description of who Ugolino actually was and where Chauncer got his information about the Count..
ReplyDeleteIn response to Scott,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the Monk's Tales were fairly dry in comparison to the tales of the other pilgrims. I wonder, though, if knowledge about the referenced histories makes the tales more interesting, then why was it the knight (presumably a well educated person who knew a lot about these histories, and in fact based his own tale on one) who objected? Was it because he was uninterested in the tales, or because he understood the tales enough to be put off by them?
I think this packet helped me understand what the deeper meaning of the Monk's words were. His story wasn't just a collection of many stories about tyrants. His story wasn't just teaching us, the readers, a moral like many of the previous stories had done. His story was sort of a shout out in response to the reality of his time. The monk, and therefor Chaucer was telling all the audience that tyrants always come to a bad end, no matter what. This packet also helped me add a little more understanding to the characters, since while I read the actual story I often didn't have enough background knowledge to truly understand what the monk said.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Aaron:
ReplyDeleteAs I read the Monk's tale, I felt the same way when the knight interrupted the monk. I didn't feel that it was totally out of boredom, that the knight was just looking for a good time. It seemed as if the knight as well as the host really were feeling somehow threatened, just by the way they abruptly interrupted the monk, and quickly tried to change the subject. The knight would have rather heard "secure" stories, about people who didn't do any wrong, not about people who were "felled by some unlucky hit" (pg. 213). It makes the atmosphere a lot more comfortable for the knight as well as the host to hear tales of men "who climb aloft and growing fortunate remain secure in their prosperity" (pg. 213).
The extra reading really helped me understand the message that Chaucer was trying to convey through the Monk's tale. When I had read the story without the literary criticism, I thought that he was stating that every ruler's throne is always at risk, no matter how good or bad a leader he or she was. But after reading the literary criticism, I see that it was another story with a moral- warning against tyranny and showing the many different ways in which it appears. I think that the tale was so hard to understand without the literary criticism is because the differences in what and who a tyrant is, and I don't know the political atmosphere of the time.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Aaron's second post, I think that those are both valid reasons for the Knight's objections. However, there are many other reasons why he could have objected; he could have observed the members of the lower classes becoming bored with the dry topic, or could have simply not enjoyed it much himself. His story is filled with grand themes and descriptions, and might have found the way in which the Monk presented his story not exciting enough.
ReplyDeleteOverall, the literary criticism helped me understand the Monk's tale a lot better. When I first read the tale, I completely agreed with the critics cited in the handout in saying that the Monk's tale was of "dry epitomizing character" and had the sane "inevitably recurring moral". Upon my initial reading, I thought they were all just stories of rulers who lost everything, because fortune is fickle and good luck never last forever. But now that I read the lit crit, I realize that the Monk (Chaucer) is giving examples of tyrants throughout mythology, literature, and history, as well as the traits that contributed to their downfall, such as lust, ruling style, and interference in church affairs. Also, the handout said that if you read between the lines, Chaucer was in fact writing about his own political views pertaining to feudal society, which I found really interesting.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Colleen:
I agree in you saying that Chaucer's point about tyrants was hard to understand without reading the literary criticism, because he talked about so many different types of tyrants it became confusing. If Chaucer had told the reader at the beginning of the tale that he was trying to make a point about tyrants, I think the tale would have been much easier to understand and analyze.
this might sound a little bit repetitive but i couldnt follow the monks at all and the knight did exactly what i wished i could have done; interrupt the story. without the literary criticism i would have collected no knowledge of the monks tale or understanding of it. the story is way to dry and without help it is hard to make sense of.
ReplyDeleteThe literary criticism of The Monk's Tale enhance my reading of it, for one thing just because it was easier to read and understand what happened in each story. Which, in turn, made it easier to understand what morals they were trying to get across and such. Sort of like Colleen, when I read the Monk's tale without having read the criticsm I thought it was about how no matter how powerful someone was, something could go wrong. Now I understand it was another story of morals. I still didn't like it though, I thought it was really dry, and dragged on for way too long.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Nick's post:
ReplyDeleteI think what Nick was saying about the definition we are used to of a tyrant against the old definition of a tyrant is really intersting and true. It certainly helps in understand the story better to realize these differences. However, I also think that though we define a tyrant differently now, the morals the Monk was trying to get across with his story still hold up.
The Monk's tale was basically about how people will be punished and a person, no matter how powerful they are, can lose everything very easily if they don't follow the rules. The article is much more concise and describes the people as tyrants. The author makes it quite clear that he dislikes the Monk's tale, and I have to say that I agree. It was long and very dry, without any interesting stories. It's just a collection of tedious moral stories. I think this may have been intentional on Chaucer's part. Maybe he thinks that monks or boring, or that it's an indication that the monk himself will lose his position.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Clark:
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about arrogance. If a person is arrogant, they will be abandoned by god and it will lead to their inevitable fall from grace. Anyone can be affected by this and no person is above it. If you want to keep your position of power, you must remain humble and not let it go to your head. That will lead to failure and falling from power. You will lose everything. People are flawed, but it's important to try to overcome these flaws to improve yourself as a person.
I'm going to take this from a slightly different angle: Does it help at all? Does reading criticism, of any kind, help one's understanding of a particular piece of work? I would argue very strongly that it doesn't, and, in fact, that it actually depresses one ability to enjoy the work itself. Criticism, when given to a writer, is a very useful thing. It helps him (or her) improve his style, his ability, and it helps him catch on any little mistake he made while writing (or a big mistake).
ReplyDeleteWhen reading, however, it's completely different. How many song have you heard the first time and though 'Oh my... that's amazing', and then listened to what other people had to say about it and thought it (and how they interrupted the song), and then thought it was trash? (I did that with The Killers Mr. Brightside for a while. It's okay, though, I like the song again).
I believe that reading is the same way. While discussion can get the reader to see a story from a different viewpoint, unneeded criticism can get a person to see only the negative things about the tale. Even simple discussion can delude the orginal tale in the mind of the reader, because they can see that the way they interrupted things to be as being completely and totally wrong, which can be both disillusioning and might even make a story worse simply by making a person realize what it is not. On the other hand, this helps an English class a lot, since no one is going to get points on a misinterrupitation of a story. I think that it helps the thought process overall, though.