Review: Chaucer’s plain, peculiar tails
Jenni Nuttall examines the contrasting styles of The Wife of Bath’s Tale and The Pardoner’s Tale
By Isabelle Morris
Throughout Jenni Nuttall’s article about two of Chaucer’s great works we gain a huge insight into the differing texts and Chaucer’s narrative style and structure of his literature. The article guides you through the texts starting with two small synopsis’s leading through into an analysis of Chaucer’s use of experimental narrative styles. We also gain an understanding into some of Chaucer’s other texts as we learn ‘The Canterbury Tails’ written by Chaucer was never completely finished and instead left as a work-in-progress after his death in February 1400. Afterwards Nuttall explores the genre and style of the texts showing Chaucer’s experimentation within deciding which genre to place his literature in. Also a detailed explanation of the lexis explores the contrast between the simplicity of the language which differs from the complexity of the texts’ characters. Furthermore this is continued into a comparison between the two works in question; ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tail’ and ‘The Pardoners Tail’. Nuttall shows both the differences and similarities between the texts including Chaucer’s choice to tell both novels ‘in abbreviated rather than amplified form’ as well as the differences in his choice of adjectives and how this contributes to our understanding of both works. Finally Nuttall concludes the article through showing the contrast between styles which Chaucer uses to make moral points within the texts and an explanation into the differences regarding some of Chaucer’s earlier works and the idea that they seem more pretentious and humble since he was drawing to the end of his life.
In particular, I found Nuttall’s examination of Chaucer’s style extremely interesting. This is because the ‘stark simplicity’ of the main body of the texts contrasts the complexity of the characters within. It also reveals much about the way Chaucer tested out different possibilities of styles of his poetry which often produced unexpected and unfamiliar mixtures making his literature unique. Also I like the analysis of the array of polysyllabic nouns and lack of adjectives which leaves lots of room for speculation for an audience. Also the ‘elaborate language is concerned in the tale with sin, temptation, disrespect and deception.’ This is interesting as it suggests that Chaucer’s use of language mainly came to life whilst talking about such topics and these ideas are constructed from little collections and interesting verbs and nouns. Although I think that Nuttall’s ideas that Chaucer challenges the conventions of romance as a genre through the use of verbs which are more academic and intellectual than what may be expected is slightly extreme, I think that it highlights the way Chaucer used his literature to change typical styles and bring originality to his work.
I also like Nuttall’s analysis of Chaucer’s exploration into the psychologies of his narrators as he reveals their identities. This is because they are complex and multi-faced which influences the way in which the story is told. I think the way Chaucer provides a frame structure through doing this is interesting as it allows us the challenge the traditional structure of narratives at the time and see hoe Chaucer starting to change this. Through including hypocrisy within religion within his novels we can see that Chaucer had strong modern views, despite them being rebellious at the time.
Overall I feel that by reading Jenni Nuttall’s article I have gained a huge understanding into the styles used in both of the poems included in the article and I feel that other students could also benefit greatly from this too. It also gives me a wider understanding into different writers around this time period and improves my knowledge of French literature too, since Chaucer was French. In conclusion I feel more able to understand the way in which style, especially, can influence a text and can broaden the understanding of readers.