The Parson's Tale
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The Parson's Tale seems, from the evidence of its prologue, to have been intended as the final tale of Geoffrey Chaucer's poetic cycle The Canterbury Tales. The "tale", which is the longest of all the surviving contributions by Chaucer's pilgrims, is in fact neither a story nor a poem, but a long and unrelieved prose treatise on penance.[1] Critics and readers are generally unclear what rhetorical effect Chaucer may have intended by ending his cycle in this unlikely, extra-generic fashion.
Framing narrative
It is clear from the Parson's Prologue that - at least by the time Chaucer was writing the Prologue - it was to be the final tale: the host, Harry Bailly, tells the Parson "Thou sholdest knytte up wel a greet mateere", and the Parson agrees to "knytte up al this feeste, and make an ende".[2]
Thematically, it is linked to the Manciple's Tale, which directly precedes it in all major manuscripts. The Manciple's Tale warns against careless speech; when the host asks the Parson to tell a fable, the Parson refuses, condemning the telling of fables and referring to the Epistle to Timothy. The last two tales thus "represent a closing down of the work".[2] The General Prologue had initially set out a plan for four stories to be told by each pilgrim, a contest ending in a feast at the Tabard Inn once the travellers had returned from Canterbury. By the time Chaucer was writing the Parson's Prologue, he had instead chosen to end the work with the pilgrims still en route to Canterbury: instead of being judged by Harry Bailly on their storytelling, they will be judged by God on their souls.[2]
The Tale
Unlike every other tale of Canterbury, the Parson's Tale is not a tale at all, but rather a treatise on penitence and the Seven Deadly Sins.[1][2] Citing Saint John Chrysotom, the parson divides penitence into three parts: contrition of the heart, confession of the mouth, and satisfaction (making amends). In the first part, he explains at length how a person comes to universal and total contrition. In the second, he explains the kinds of sins, and how one makes a true confession. In the third and final part, he explains how to make satisfaction for one's sins, and reminds his listeners that "the fruyt of penaunce [...] is the endelees blisse of hevene" (§ 111).
Chaucer himself claims to be swayed by the plea for penitence, since he follows the Parson's Tale with a Retraction (the conceit which appears to have been the intended close to the entire cycle) in which he personally asks forgiveness for any offences he may have caused and (perhaps) for ever having deigned to write works of worldly vanitee at all (line 1085).
This kind of treatise was popular in the later Middle Ages, since it was decided at the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) that every Christian should make confession at least once a year. Initially, manuals, written in Latin, were primarily intended as reference works for confessors. By Chaucer's day, they circulated in vernacular languages, for personal, non-clerical use, as a kind of "self-help" manual.[2] Chaucer appears to have complied the tale himself mostly from three different thirteenth-century works, translating their contents into English. He used the Summa de poenitentia of the Dominican Raymund of Pennaforte for the sections on contrition, confession, and satisfaction, inserting the material on the sins in the middle from a source that ultimately traces to the Summa vitiorum of Dominican William Perault. (Chaucer may have come to this text in a shortened form that was circulating in England at the time.)[2] He also incorporated elements from the Summa virtutum de remediis anime, a work on the remedial virtues.[2] Chaucer adapted and condensed these works, interspersing them with elements from proverbs and other literature.[2]
It is possible that the tale was originally written outside of the context of the Canterbury Tales, and only added to them at a later date.[2][3] Popular among early Chaucer scholars was the hypothesis that not only that this was the case, but that Chaucer had never intended it to be part of the Tales at all. Instead, so this theory goes, Chaucer left the Parson's Prologue without a tale to follow it, and what we know of as the Parson's Tale was added to this gap.[2]
Manuscript context
The Parson's Tale is included in most manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, but owing to its position as the final tale, damage to the manuscripts has often left it incomplete.[2]
The scribes who copied the tale often added marginal glosses and other ordinatio to help readers navigate the dense paragraphs of text.[2]
Character of the Parson
The Parson's portrait in the General Prologue "stresses his teaching by example rather than by precept";[2] he is considered by some to be the only good member of the clergy in The Canterbury Tales, while others have detected ambiguities and possible hints of Lollardy in the portrait.[4] Unlike other characters, who use scripture for their own ends, the Parson is the only one who uses scripture for the exclusive purpose of benefiting his listeners' souls.[2]
None of the explicit criticism of clergy that marks many of the other tales and character sketches is obvious here. The Parson is throughout depicted as a sensible and intelligent person. Chaucer is not uncritical of other clergy; in the paragraph headed "Lat us now touche the vice of flateryng", he describes flatterers – those who continuously sing placebo – as "develes chapelleyns".
Interpretation
Scholars are divided on how much the Parson's Tale represents Chaucer's own beliefs, as opposed to imagined beliefs of the fictional character of the Parson.[2] Some scholars believe that the tale is not Chaucer's at all, but was inserted by a later editor; this view is no longer common.[2] However, even scholars who believe the work to be Chaucer's find that it does not refer to the rest of the Tales as one might expect, even though they include many examples of the sins that he decries.[2] In general, readers have struggled with this tale, seeing it as a repudiation of the rest of Chaucer's work.[2][5]
Notes and references
- ^ a b "Though spoken by a parish priest to a group of listeners, The Parson's Tale is formally not a sermon or a homily but a handbook on penance." See Benson, Larry Dean, ed. (1988). "Explanatory Notes". The Riverside Chaucer (third ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 956. ISBN 9780199552092.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Cooper, Helen (10 August 2023), "The Parson's Tale", Oxford Guides to Chaucer (3 ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 436–450, doi:10.1093/oso/9780198821427.003.0031, ISBN 978-0-19-882142-7, retrieved 6 August 2024
- ^ Charles A. Owen, The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge, 1991)
- ^ The explanatory notes to Benson 1988 cite various instances of critical doubt; parsons were "frequent objects of satire" generally; Chaucer's parson in particular has been associated, variously by interpreters, with unauthorised sale of indulgences or carrying of false relics. Some have doubted whether he is even in orders at all, or have claimed that he is a eunuch and "ineligible for holy orders" (Benson 1988, p. 824).
- ^ Patterson, Lee W. (1978). "The 'Parson's Tale' and the Quitting of the 'Canterbury Tales'". Traditio. 34: 331–380. ISSN 0362-1529.
External links
- "The Parson's Prologue and Tale", middle-english hypertext with glossary and side-by-side middle english and modern english
- "Parson's Tale" retold in Modern English prose
Works related to The Parson's Prologue and Tale (Chaucer) at Wikisource
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and Texts
- Manuscript tradition
- Order of The Canterbury Tales
- Hengwrt Chaucer
- Ellesmere Chaucer
- Harley MS. 7334
- Adam Pinkhurst
- Scribe D
- John Shirley
- Chaucer's influence on fifteenth-century Scottish literature
- Influence of Italian humanism on Chaucer
- Philippa Roet (wife)
- Katherine Swynford (wife's sister)
- Thomas Chaucer (son)
- Alice de la Pole (granddaughter)
- A Knight's Tale (2001 film)