What classes do the heroes of the josera belong to. Composition and genre diversity of "Canterbury Tales" j

Chaucer took up this main work, apparently, not earlier than 1386. But we know that certain parts of it were written long before that: "St. Cecilia" (the story of the second nun), fragments of the story of a monk, "Lalamon and Archytas" (a knight's story), Melibey (Chaucer's second story), a priest's story. When these things were being written, Chaucer hardly had a plan for The Canterbury Tales. It appeared later, and the suitable material, previously prepared, in the most natural way was pulled into the emerging frame. The most significant part of the Canterbury Tales appeared in the four years 1386-1389. The final text contains 20 complete things, two unfinished and two torn off. Here, as we will see, is far from everything that was conceived. But the social meaning of the work, its artistic value and its influence on the further growth of English literature fully affected. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer paints the society of New England. In this society there is also a place for the knight, as there is a place for him in the motley company of Canterbury pilgrims. But here and there it is already being squeezed out, and the most lively and flexible part of the feudal class, under the pressure of circumstances, begins to switch to the path of bourgeois economy. And soon - this has already begun with the accession of Chaucer's benefactor Bolinbroke - the feudal lords will begin to exterminate each other: the War of the Roses is approaching. The knights will be replaced by others. These others are middle classes. Chaucer paints them with particular passion. Many of the Canterbury pilgrims are well-to-do merchants and artisans, or in the liberal professions. They are wearing clothes made of good-quality cloth, they have glorious horses, and in their wallets they have something to pay for the stay. Even his peasant (prologue) is not a poor man: he regularly pays his tithes and fulfills his duties, without complaining about fate. He is not at all like Langland's hungry catters or the peasant with such tremendous power depicted in Peter the Plowman's Creed. Chaucer willingly delves into the details of merchant and craft (the miller's story) life. He does not hide the funny sides of the townspeople (a woman from Bath), but nowhere is his humor so imbued with gentle affection as in these cases. His attitude towards the upper classes is not hostile. Only a subtle mockery, seen, for example, in the parody story about Sir Topaz, shows that the author has outgrown the chivalrous ideology. Much clearer is the mockery of clergy. There are several of them in the company, and all of them are caricatures (with the exception of the priest), especially the monks: here, perhaps, the echoes of Wyclif's sermon also affected. Chaucer knows perfectly well that the church must feed the army of its parasites at the expense of the sons of the people, for it cannot exist otherwise, and he knows how to show it (story of the seller of indulgences). He considers only the parish priest necessary. The rest are no longer needed.

27) English literature of the 15th century: general characteristics.

The fifteenth century in the history of England usually appears to us at times of decline and decay. In all areas of life and culture of this historical period, the observer sees first of all the features of decay, weakening of creative activity. The literature of this period, at first glance, does not put forward a single major name; the place of the former poetic luminaries is taken by compilers, imitators, translators who live entirely in the legacy of the past. Continuous wars and civil strife did not favor the development of peaceful creative labor. The 14th century ended with the deposition of King Richard II (1399). In the person of Henry IV, the Lancaster dynasty entered the English throne. Henry's reign was troubling and full of setbacks. The arbitrariness of the feudal lords, constant strife between them, heavy taxes burdened by the working population, the beginning of fanatical persecution of "heretics" - all this soon embittered the population, and at the beginning of the reign of Henry V (1413-1422) led to massive popular unrest ... Henry V tried to divert attention from internal troubles by widely planned military campaigns against the French, thus renewing the Hundred Years War with France, which had died out somewhat under Richard II and Henry IV. Outwardly, these were successful and for a long time afterwards placated the English national pride. The Battle of Agincourt (1415), when Henry, who landed on the French coast with his small detachments, defeated a large French army, never lost its power of attraction for English poets, playwrights and novelists; Shakespeare also made her famous. The further successes of Henry V seemed even more dazzling; the capture of the entire north of France, the capture of Paris (1422) were the limit of those hopes that his contemporaries placed on him. But Henry V died unexpectedly, at the peak of his military glory. The crown was received by his young son (Henry VI, 1422-1461). At once the feudal lords began to strife, the struggle of the court parties for influence and power; the French possessions of England began to decline rapidly, after a period of brilliant victories began a time of bitter defeats. By 1450, the British retained only one Calais on the continent. No sooner had the Hundred Years War with France ended when new, this time internecine wars broke out in England, which plunged the country into a state of complete lawlessness. The War of the Scarlet and White Roses (1455-1485) was the last mortal battle of the rebellious feudal forces. It was a struggle for the crown and, at the same time, for the creation of a new absolute monarchical regime. On the battlefields between the supporters of Yorks and Lancaster, along with the death of almost all of the old feudal nobility, the old feudal culture was bleeding and dying. The Battle of Bosworth (1485), when Henry Tudor defeated his rival Richard III, began a new era in English history. The young Tudor dynasty relied on new social forces. The new nobility, which seized the hereditary land holdings of the old feudal families, destroyed during the internecine wars, was directly dependent on the royal power and supported its desire for further national-state unification of the country. Throughout the entire 15th century, the influence of the gentry, merchants, cities, which was noticeable already in the 14th century, was continuously growing; industry and trade are expanding, and the spirit of entrepreneurship is growing. During this entire period, literacy undoubtedly increased in wider circles of the population than before. Along with the growing needs of a strengthened middle class, the network of schools in London and the provinces increased, ranging from schools established by the king (at Eton and Cambridge), and schools of the church or guilds, to small private institutions in which children were given their first literacy lessons. It is characteristic that the largest number of schools belonged to the category of primary schools, where students did not receive a scientific education, but only prepared for a purely practical, most often merchant, activity. The development of school education increased the demand for books, increased the production of manuscripts as a form of publishing activity at that time. From one official document dating back to 1422, we can conclude that this year, out of 112 London guilds, four guilds were specifically engaged in copying handwritten books for sale. By the middle and especially by the end of the 15th century, we have a number of information about the libraries of such handwritten books, arising not only from land magnates or representatives of the church, but also from noblemen and wealthy townspeople. One of the most famous documents of this kind is the inventory of the private library of John Paston, the landowner, made shortly after 1475. Other arts - painting, sculpture, architecture - were also not in decline in England in the 15th century, on the contrary, they received new and stronger grounds for its development. English painting and sculpture of this time, for example, experienced the beneficial effects of the Italian and Burgundian schools and created a number of remarkable works designed not only for church use. Architecture was going through one of its heyday periods and was also gradually becoming secularized; Along with the magnificent buildings of churches and monasteries in England, remarkable secular buildings were also erected - university colleges, houses of wealthy citizens (Crosby Hall in London, 1470), buildings for guild associations (London Guildhall, 1411-1425). Commercial connections attracted many more foreigners than before to London and the English port cities. The largest number of the British, who showed in the first half of the 15th century. a penchant for pursuing classical antiquity and a commitment to a new science, belonged to the highest clerical nobility. Against this background, the figure of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, brother of Henry V, who was the first humanist patron, patron of humanistic interests among English scholars and writers of his time, stands out sharply. Humphrey was a great lover of antiquity and an ardent admirer of Italian scholarship. He subscribed to teachers from Italy to study ancient authors, spent huge sums of money on the acquisition of manuscripts, was in correspondence with a number of humanists, ordered them translations of Greek authors. The most important result of Humphrey's activity was the accumulation of remarkable book wealth, which half a century later were able to use the first English humanists. The Humphrey Library was bequeathed to the University of Oxford. Next to Humphrey, one can name another representative of the English aristocracy of the 15th century, who acquired considerable fame in Italy itself with his exemplary Latin oratorical cuts. It was John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester. Beginning in the 1450s, an increasing number of young Englishmen were drawn to Italy by the thirst for knowledge. Changes in the field of language were of great importance for everything considered and for subsequent periods. Compared to the XIV century. in England at this time, the prevalence of French speech undoubtedly decreased, even in the circles of the highest nobility. Throughout the century, the importance of the London dialect increased. Under his influence, dialectal differences in the written language of other English regions were blurred. The completion of the centralization of political power by the time the wars of the Scarlet and White Rose ended also contributed to the centralization in the field of language, the development of a common English literary speech on the basis of the London dialect. Of great importance in this respect was the appearance of printing in England. The opening of the first printing press in England was the work of William Caxton (1421-1491). ), publisher and translator. As a young man, Caxton entered as an apprentice to the wealthy London merchant Robert Large, who was the sheriff and then the Lord Mayor of the capital. After the death of Large, Caxton lived for about 30 years in Bruges; one of the most important shopping centers of the then northwestern Europe. There he achieved a significant position and honor, being something of a consul, "who ruled over the British living abroad." Many writers, translators, scribes-calligraphers, miniaturists and binders lived in Bruges; literature and poetry flourished here, however, the late autumn color of medieval culture, already doomed to destruction; medieval romances of chivalry and courtly lyrics were still in vogue here. All this could not but have an impact on Caxton; around 1464 he began to translate from the French a collection of stories about Troy. Caxton subsequently published this translation in the same Bruges (The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, 1474). It was the first printed book in English, albeit outside England. In the years 1474-1475. Caxton entered the company with the miniature painter and calligrapher Muncion and began printing books. In addition to the Collection of Narratives of the Three, Caxton, together with Munción, published in Bruges a book on the game of chess (The Game And Playe of the Chesse) and one book in French.

From the opening of the Westminster Printing House until the end of the 15th century (until 1500), about 400 books were printed in England. English literature of the 15th century is of a transitional nature - from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. The old traditions are still very strong in it; it still gravitates towards the old forms, but gradually these forms are filled with new content, which modifies and breaks them. The epic gravitates towards the novel and the chronicle, the place of poetry is taken by prose. The gravitation towards prose is reinforced by the widely developed translation activity. In the XV century. in England they translate Latin treatises, French novels, and more varied works that have applications to life. Literature acquires a specifically practical purpose, which it did not have before, and begins to serve the numerous needs of the population on a much broader scale. The catalogs of English manuscripts of the 15th century are full of treatises on hunting and fishing, the art of war and fortification, in the cultivation of orchards, agriculture and housekeeping. Medicine and education, cookbooks and rules of etiquette are found here more often than theological writings or works of fiction in the proper sense of the word. Especially numerous are books related to commercial activities: commercial reference books and travel guides for itinerant merchants, essays of a geographical or economic nature. In the first half of the 15th century. all such works, including educational books, are written mainly in poetry; in the second half of the century, poetry is replaced by prose, the technique of which is already acquiring some stability, developing general literary and grammatical norms. A typical example of a purely practical poetic work is the very curious "Book of English Politics" (Lybelle of Englishe Polycye, 1486), written by an unknown person for the purpose of teaching the English merchants. She puts forward a broad program of government measures, which, in the author's opinion, are necessary for the further prosperity of the country, at a time when England is, indeed, more and more obviously moving to active trading activities, to the conquest of new markets. The author sees the true way of enriching the English state in protecting trade with all his might and with the help of the fleet and weapons to dominate "the narrow sea", that is, the Channel, between both ports, English at that time, Dover and Calais. Among the sciences in 15th century England, theology still dominated. Dogmatic problems were still in the foreground, but along with them new ethical interests were already emerging, which life itself put forward, in addition to theology and aside from it. Apologists for Catholic orthodoxy at this time used Latin for their polemical writings. The only exceptions are the theological works of Reginald Peacock, who was one of the most important English prose writers of the 15th century. In the historical and journalistic literature of the 15th century, as well as in other areas of writing, Latin is gradually giving way to English. English journalism of the 15th century, was born not within the walls of a monastery, but in a whirlpool of political passions and bloody feuds. The first major political writer in England, John Fortescue (circa 1395-1476), stood at the very center of the dynastic struggle for the throne and began his literary career as the author of topical political pamphlets. The most important of his Latin writings, written by him for Prince Edward of Lancaster, is the treatise De natura legislation naturae, the first part of which deals with various forms of government; unlimited monarchy (dominium regale), republic (dominium politicum) and constitutional monarchy (dominium politicum et regale). Fortescue also wrote De laudibus legum Angliae (1470), a Latin treatise for the Prince of Lancaster. This composition is remarkable in many ways. Fiction in the proper sense of the word, however, is considerably more scarce in fifteenth-century England than in the preceding century. Poets imitate Chaucer and for a long time cannot find their own creative paths; prose writers are few in number: next to Caxton the translator stands only Thomas Malory, published by him, with his only book of stories about the Knights of the Round Table. But in the 15th century in England, as if in contrast to the relatively poor book poetry, folk poetry flourished. The ballads of England and Scotland - the most original and viable form of poetry of this time - have a strong influence on subsequent literary development. Folk drama flourishes in full bloom at this time and will have a powerful effect on the English theater of the Renaissance.

Jeffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is a late-life storybook written in Middle English. This collection of short stories is not complete. In literary criticism, "Canterbury Tales" is called a cyclical collection of short stories.

Any national literature begins its development with samples of small prose - a story, an essay, a story and, of course, a short story.

Modern researchers of the literary process are not unanimous in defining the concept of a novel. Some limit themselves to the inductive description of short stories and the statement of brevity as its main genre feature, analyzing the number of words contained in a particular work. Others take as a basis not the volume of the work as a whole, but the volume of its plot. At the same time, the question of the origin of the novel is of great interest, since in the historical projection, as a rule, the dominant features of the genre are revealed. However, many researchers speak of a long and continuous tradition of the novelistic genre, which makes it possible to trace its features at all stages of its development.

Note that English researchers of the phenomenon of small prose and its varieties use in their monographic works a whole set of concepts and terminological designations - story, short story, long short story novella, novellette, tale, brief tale, fragment, abbreviated fiction - between which sometimes it is difficult to draw a clear line. The very concept of "short story" as a designation of a literary genre was established at the end of the 19th century in connection with the flourishing of short stories. Nevertheless, the question of the ambiguity and ambiguity of this term was raised already in the 30s of the 20th century. For example, Henry Seidel Canby points out the ambiguity of the concept of "short story".

In Russian literary criticism, the issue of the genre distinction between the novel and the story is relevant: the novel is characterized by a gravitation towards unusual situations, the rapid development of the action, an unexpected outcome, the integrity of the impression, formal accuracy and brevity. On the contrary, the story is notable for its simplicity of plot, slowness of action, greater descriptiveness and variety of forms.

The priority in creating the theory of the English-language short story belongs to E. Poe, an American literary theorist and author of a number of Gothic short stories and poetic works. According to the concept he proposed, the starting point is the principle of "unity of effect or impression", which obeys all structural elements of the work, including the organization of the text. Thus, the American classic laid the foundations for the subsequent short story theory. However, there is another point of view: the English researcher G. Orel is convinced that British authors created their novellas without taking into account the concept put forward by the American writer.

At the end of the 19th century, a detailed description of the novella as a special literary genre was offered by the English critic B. Matthews. The principle of unity of impression, put forward by E. Poe, is retained by Matthews as one of the defining features of the novel. However, with this requirement, he not only connects brevity and laconicism as features inherent in the poetics of a small genre, but also introduces a significant addition: the integrity of the impression is achieved due to the fact that only one event, one character, one feeling or a series of sensations caused by one event. Another achievement of Matthews is the recognition, along with the event novel, of another type of small genre, in which one could limit oneself to describing the character of the hero or even a picture of moods and impressions.

Thus, according to the definition of the novella, The Canterbury Tales are a collection of just novellas. It consists of twenty-two poetic and two prose novellas, which are united by a common frame: the stories are told by pilgrims who go to worship the relics of St. Thomas Beckett in Canterbury. The pilgrims are described in detail in the Prologue written by the author. In accordance with the intention of Chaucer himself, all the characters he described were supposed to tell four stories, two stories

At the beginning of the journey, and two - on the way home from the pilgrimage.

For the most part, "The Canterbury Tales" are poetic, they do not use a uniform division of the verse. In Chaucer's work, the stanzas and dimensions vary freely, with the prevailing meter being the iambic pentameter with paired rhyming, the so-called heroic verse.

Let us turn to the peculiarities of the composition of the "Canterbury Tales". This work acts as a collection of stories, enclosed in a single frame. In this, "The Canterbury Tales" are similar to Boccaccio's "Decameron", but the scope of these works is different. So, in Boccaccio's frame, the frame is somewhat artificial, although beautiful, but still true only in terms of describing the plague in Florence. The characters also differ, because in "The Decameron" they all belong to the same class, practically do not differ from each other, individually little expressive.

In the work of Chaucer in the Prologue, the reader is transported into the whirlpool of real life, contemporary to the writer. Chaucer manages to portray a society of pilgrims belonging to the most diverse strata of society, different genders, different temperaments and ages. All the pilgrims gather at an inn near London, intending from there to move together to Canterbury to worship the tomb of St. Thomas Becket.

In the General Prologue, the appearance of all the characters is drawn. Among the pilgrims are a knight, a lawyer, a monk, a student, a merchant, a cook, a chaplain, a miller, a weaver from Bath, and many others. It is in the "General Prologue" that the compositional principle that Chaucer uses is revealed.

Pilgrims begin to tell entertaining stories in accordance with the proposal of Harry Bailey, the owner of the tavern, and this allows the pilgrims to while away their journey to Canterbury and back. Each story is a poetic complete novella, and it is these narratives that make up Chaucer's book.

Indeed, we can say that Chaucer uses the compositional principle, which Boccaccio took as a basis for creating

"Decameron". It was Boccaccio who managed to establish in European literature the method for the plot frame of the book of short stories.

Giovanni Boccaccio is called the younger contemporary of Petrarch and one of the founders of humanistic literature in the European Renaissance. Boccaccio's talent developed on the basis of the Pre-Renaissance in the culture of Florence, he managed for his time to look at the world in a new way. Boccaccio possessed and expressed in his work humanistic individualism, in fact, offering a historically new, truly revolutionary concept of reality, where an earthly, real, internally free man was considered as the center of this worldly space.

He laid the foundations of contemporary short stories. His

The Decameron is a book of short stories. It includes one hundred short stories, which are told by young people and young ladies for 10 days. The author's novellas are characterized by such features as the amusingness of the story, the vivid imagery of the heroes, his novellas are distinguished by artistic grace, an unconventional interpretation of the plots. The center of Boccaccio's novel is the problem of personality self-awareness, which has received a broad perspective in the further development of the Renaissance culture. The framework for the novels is the description of the plague, with which the novel begins. Boccaccio could tell about the plague from his own observations, because he was able to see with his own eyes its destructive effect. "The Decameron" has a pronounced rhetoric, in the novel there are a large number of very different roles. The plague is described by the writer impartially, calmly, practically with scientific objectivity, with a peculiar severity. The plague in his novel is often interpreted as a specific large-scale image of a crisis in the world. In the composition of a collection of short stories

"Decameron" some researchers find a reflection of the principles of Gothic architecture.

So, according to the research of V. Khlodovsky, the change of the Gothic by the Renaissance, the change of the transcendent by immanent theology by humanism, God by man, the harmony of metaphysical necessity by the harmony of individual freedom is reflected and manifested in the construction of the collection.

The medieval plots in The Decameron were not simply stated, they were retold, while they lost the scripted schematism of religious “examples”, medieval “novellinos”, and urban anecdotes. With all these forms of narration, a completely new narrative length was acquired.

A.N. Veselovsky wrote about it this way: “The point is not in repeating ready-made narrative schemes, but in their combinations, if they meet aesthetic goals, in new lighting, in the materials of analysis, in the initiative that makes us talk about Boccaccio as one of the founders artistic realism ".

The collection of Boccaccio, as well as the "Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer, contains a common folk anecdote, a knightly history, and episodes of a modern scandalous chronicle. However, unlike Chaucer, in "The Decameron" all these stories are retold in the same carefully verified language, distinguished by sweet sound, harmony, albeit with a certain artificiality.

The novel "Boccaccio" is based on the strict unity of the external structure. Boccaccio's short stories are characterized by a prosaic, neutral style, with a typically intense, poignant action, plot drama. The action of the short stories unfolds in everyday life, but the plot itself tends to be unusual, to a sharp violation of the regularity of everyday life. Goethe defined the novella as "one extraordinary incident."

In general, the composition of "Decameron" is similar to a collection of oriental fairy tales like "A Thousand and One Nights", where the framing collection, "frames", has an exclusively service character, often ornamental, where stories are embedded in each other and in frames like nesting dolls. But the framing of the Decameron has its own aesthetic necessity.

By themselves, the novellas in The Decameron are not scattered, this work is quite integral. Framing assumes the accumulation of short stories from the inside, acts as an organic part of the overall artistic structure. It does

The Canterbury Tales by Jeffrey Chaucer are similar to

"Decameron". Boccaccio manages not only to collect stories with their rethinking, but also to show how this process took place. Compositionally, the “frame” appears in a completely new quality: within the frame, individualism develops into a historically new social phenomenon.

Moreover, in the "Decameron" the framing itself is complex, two-stage. The first stage is the author's "I" of Boccaccio himself, in the second stage the humanistic integrity of the world vision is aesthetically embodied. In addition, one can distinguish a rather close connection between the narrators in The Decameron and the author's “I” of Boccaccio himself. The storytellers themselves are similar in ways of presentation.

Until now, among literary scholars (studies by A.N. Veselovsky, A.K. Dzhivelegov, V.E. Krusman, M.P. Alekseev, A.A. Anikst, Yu.M. Saprykin, G.V. Anikin, N. .P. Michalskaya, etc.) there is an established opinion that

The Canterbury Tales were influenced by

"Decameron".

We examined the features of Boccaccio's "Decameron", now we turn to understanding the compositional correspondences of the works of Boccaccio and Chaucer.

Opens Chaucer's General Prologue, where the characters emerge. It is in the Prologue that the author sets the basic compositional principle that will be used in the future. Pilgrims are invited to tell entertaining stories, and it is these stories that act as completed poetic novellas.

In general, we can say that "The Canterbury Tales" belong to the ancient genre tradition of a collection of stories, short stories, which are united by a common plot "frame". In this case, such a frame is the situation of the conversation, the alternation of storytellers. However, it should be borne in mind that this fairly widespread tradition, in which a large number of works of world literature have been created, has undergone important changes under the pen of Geoffrey Chaucer. The author strives to convey the main plot from a position of greater naturalness, greater significance, which allows for a more natural frame of inserted novellas. In addition to the general prologue, the characteristics of the pilgrims are also contained in the prologues that immediately precede their stories.

The dynamic and pictorially constructed plot gives Chaucer the opportunity to use or parody almost all genres of medieval literature. So, one of the main genre components of this work is the novel we have already described. However, in addition to the novel, the work contains elements of many other medieval genres. The knight tells the story in the spirit of a chivalric romance. Abbess tells the legend of a tortured Christian boy - this is already a genre of living. The carpenter tells a funny and obscene story in the spirit of speedy urban folklore, reminiscent of the fablio genre. The stories of the monastery chaplain and the steward have a fabulous character. The story of the seller of indulgences contains elements of a folk tale and parable.

When considering the composition of the work, it should be noted that all the stories of the pilgrims appear as if by chance, follow from the circumstances of the conversations, while each of them complements or sets off the previous story, which is closely connected with the framing "frame", the novella.

We can say that Jeffrey Chaucer's compositional innovation is a synthesis of genres within the framework of one work. Almost every story has its own unique genre, which makes the "Canterbury Tales" a kind of "encyclopedia" of medieval genres.

In the work "Decameron" Boccaccio brings only one genre to high perfection - a small prose novella that existed before him in Italian literature.

Boccaccio in The Decameron relies on Latin medieval collections of stories, on oriental fanciful parables; often they are retold small French stories with humorous content, the so-called "fablio" or "fablio". However, Chaucer goes much further, as we see in his Canterbury Tales.

Boccaccio's work "The Decameron" is not just a collection that includes a hundred short stories, it is an artistic and ideological whole, which is thought out and built in accordance with a certain plan. The novellas in The Decameron follow one after the other not arbitrarily, but in a certain order, which is quite strictly thought out. As we have already noted, these novellas are held together by the framing of the story with the introduction to the book, a kind of compositional core. With such a structure, the narrators of various short stories act as participants in the framing, introductory story.

In general, it can be noted that it is possible that Geoffrey Chaucer, in the creation of "The Canterbury Tales", borrowed the compositional technique used earlier by Boccaccio in creating

"Decameron". And yet, Chaucer reveals closer ties between the individual stories and their framing narratives. Geoffrey Chaucer strives for greater significance and naturalness of the main plot, which frames the "plug-in" novellas, which is absent in the work of Boccaccio. poet character narrative novel

Chaucer's work, despite the same composition as the Decameron and the presence of several random plot coincidences, can be called completely unique. Note that in stories that are comparable in plot to Boccaccio, Chaucer always leads the narrative in more detail, in more detail and in detail, in many moments it appears more intense, begins to possess greater drama and significance.

And if we can speak in relation to the "Canterbury Tales" of the relative genre diversity of this work, in comparison with it "The Decameron" is a work where only the novelistic genre is presented, albeit brought to perfection. But, of course, this does not mean that Boccaccio's work is of much less value for world literature. Each writer has his own tasks, each work has its own specific mission. So, Boccaccio created by him "Decameron" destroys the religious-ascetic worldview, giving an unusually bright, complete, versatile reflection of contemporary Italian reality. Boccaccio manages to bring out a whole gallery of figures that are taken by him from different walks of life, and endow them with typical features.

It was Boccaccio's "Decameron" that allowed the novella to be established as an independent full-fledged genre, and "The Decameron", which was imbued with the spirit of modern national culture, began to act as a model for many generations of not only Italian, but also European writers, which we see in Chaucer's example.

For a better understanding of the composition of the Canterbury Tales, one can compare it with Chaucer's Legend of Exemplary Women. In The Legend and The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer gives two structurally different solutions to the problem of framed composition. In The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, the motive is the desire to entertain the pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. The Legend combines a loving vision (in the Prologue) with a collection of stories, while the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales suggests a real situation. In addition, there is a difference in the way of presentation: the stories of the Legend are told by the narrator, which is probably Chaucer himself. They are united by a thematic thread, but between them there are no “dramatic” connections based on action. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer appears as one of the pilgrim storytellers and at the same time as a storyteller-reporter. There is dramatic action in Chaucer's collection, although it is characterized by fragmentary and incompleteness, which nevertheless links each story with the next (such patterns can be traced in relation to a number of stories).

The Legend of Good Women consists of a Prologue and nine legends. In the Prologue to Legend, Chaucer tried to offer a structural motivation to frame a collection of stories. The figure of Alcesta was supposed to provide motivation for the narration of the legends. It was a bold attempt on the part of the poet to combine vision with a collection of stories.

The plot frame of The Canterbury Tales is somewhat different. Host Harry Bailey invents a challenge game to keep the pilgrims entertained on their long journey to and from Canterbury, each with two stories to tell, but that's not all. At the end of the journey, the one who told the most instructive and interesting story will be rewarded with a dinner that promises to be sumptuous. In other words, it is a kind of "travel" literary competition based on oral storytelling skills, with the prospect of a gastronomic award. But events do not unfold according to plan:

pilgrims do not reach Canterbury, let alone return; and the prize lunch will not take place either. At the end of the twenty-fourth story, the master announces that only one story is missing to complete his plan. And it is narrated, or rather, preached, by the Pastor, and under the influence of his sermon the author introduces a renunciation, in which the author of the book is implicitly presented, trying to obey the sinful stories that were told. He thanks God for the religious works that he wrote, for the translation

"Consolations of Philosophy" by Boethius. And, finally, he himself prepares himself for repentance and rebirth, which, he hopes, will grant him salvation on the Day of Judgment.

Thus, The Canterbury Tales, although they are not finished, nevertheless have an ending somewhat different from that intended by Harry Bailey, who organizes the action of the entire narrative. Yet the stories do not have a perfect architectural sequence: they are unrelated fragments of different sizes, which are preceded by the "General Prologue".

Explanations for such contradictions can be found. First of all, of course, it is the hasty approach of the death of the author. In addition, some literary scholars attributed this to the fact that the author was organically incapable of completing his own work.

In the very structure of the Canterbury Tales - a pilgrimage

Contains a hidden allegorical meaning, in which the pilgrimage to Canterbury appears as a pilgrimage of human life to Jerusalem, the Heavenly City

In addition, based on earlier research, it can be noted that the “dramatic principle” contains a unifying form of all work: three factors of development of action (correspondence between the story and the narrator, external motivation, internal motivation) that govern the fulfillment of obligations by pilgrims.

In general, we can say that the structural model

"The Canterbury Tales" is the interweaving of a number of stories in the labyrinth, which Chaucer mentioned in the work

"House of Glory". In this regard, the design that Chaucer pursues in The Canterbury Tales is especially important and which makes this collection of short stories so complex.

In the work, Chaucer himself is presented to the reader as one of the pilgrim characters traveling to Canterbury. It is he who appears at the Gabard Hotel, joins a group of pilgrims, listens to the Master's words and goes to Becket's grave. As an unknown pilgrim and unsuccessful storyteller, he tells the story of Sir Topas. When interrupted, he begins to talk about Melibey. He appears in the narrative as an ordinary observer who is closer to worldly interests. This Chaucer pilgrim is the narrative "I" of the whole action, the so-called frame, framing.

Certainly, The Canterbury Tales are by no means a diary, in connection with which it can be assumed that the pilgrim Chaucer refreshes in his memory what he saw and heard. These are different events - the appearance of different pilgrims, their characters, features, faces, conversations, conflicts and, finally, stories. This narrative ambiguity (the Chaucer pilgrim and the narrator versus the pilgrim narrators) is reflected at the end of The Student's Tale, where a student who has just told Griselda's story wants to sing a song that describes Chaucer's afterword, which makes it incomprehensible. who exactly is the storyteller - the student himself or the Chaucer-narrator.

This ambiguity in The Canterbury Tales is often significant: for example, in the case of Miller, who, while drunk, promises to tell his story, but tells it in good literary language, rhyming and in perfect organization, which does not correspond to his condition. Here, the narrator again tacitly reveals his presence. The analysis suggests that Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales contains an implicit narrator who does not identify himself, but nevertheless often influences the course of storytelling.

In general, the narrator himself is presented as the narrator of stories presented by others, and at the same time as the author of the book; note that Chaucer used a similar technique in Troilus and Cressida.

We also note that in the "Canterbury Tales" the compositional framing, in fact, acts as a national one. This is the setting of the novels' scene: this is a tavern on the road leading to Canterbury, this is a crowd of pilgrims, where, in fact, almost all of English society is represented.

Thus, the narrator of the visionary poems and "Troilus and Cressida" is at the same time as a creator above the text and as a character within it. He is the person who created this text. Sometimes the narrator in the text also informs about his other works ("The Legend of Kind Women"). He is the creator of other storytellers and he is also a fictional storyteller among other storytellers, a person who gives an account to his conscience. Chaucer of the end of the Canterbury Tales

It is at the same time for the reader that "I" who tells the story of the pilgrimage, and the "I" of the one who tells "Sir Topas" and

Melibeya. It is possible that all the stories presented in the collection of short stories were read publicly, which explains some repetitions, the use of formulas, direct questions from the audience, requests for attention, and narrative transitions.

These stories, told by pilgrims to other travelers, reproduce the social and literary reality of that time, the relationship between the text, its author and the reading public.

The culture of the Renaissance with its ideological basis - the philosophy and aesthetics of humanism - appears primarily on Italian soil. Unsurprisingly, Italian influence can be seen in all English Renaissance writers. But much more noticeable than the influence of the Italian model, the original character of the English culture of this time. The tragic fate of the free peasantry in the era of initial accumulation, the rapid breakdown of the medieval order under the onslaught of the power of money, the development of the national state with its contradictions - all this gives social issues in England a special acuteness. The broad folk background of the English Renaissance is its main merit, the source of such 16th century achievements as Thomas More's Utopia and Shakespeare's theater.

English humanism.Early English Renaissance refers to the XIV century; its most prominent representatives were Jeffrey Chaucer and William Langland. Feudal strife of the 15th century. for a long time delayed the development of English humanism. At the beginning of the 16th century, humanistic literature revived again. Oxford University was a spree of new humanistic ideas. True, these ideas often had a theological shell; in this respect England was like Germany. The English humanists Grosin, Linecre and John Colet, who traveled to Italy, are mainly fond of philological research there, showing no interest in natural-philosophical and aesthetic problems. They use their philological scholarship more often to study questions of religion and morality. The leading figure among the Oxford humanists was Thomas More.

"Utopia" by Thomas More

Chancellor of Henry VIII Thomas More saw with his own eyes the beginning of a profound change in the position of the working classes in England, a picture of popular disasters caused primarily by the system of fencing. In his novel-treatise "The Golden Book, as useful as it is funny, about the best structure of the state and about the new island of Utopia" (Latin text - 1516, first English translation - 1551) Mor in a mercilessly harsh light depicts England in the 16th century ... with the parasitism of its upper classes and bloody legislation against the expropriated, England, where "sheep eat people." From his description of English reality, More concluded: "Wherever there is private property, where everything is measured on money, there is hardly ever a correct and successful course of state affairs." The genius of his main idea is quite clearly expressed in the principle of compulsory labor for all, in anticipation of the destruction of the opposition between the city and the countryside, between mental and physical labor, in denying the exploitation of man by man. Mora's book was a lively response to the development of capitalist relations in England and expressed the deepest aspirations of the British masses. Mohr's communist ideal was, as it were, a fantastic anticipation of the future.

In the Middle Ages, criticism of private property usually appeared in religious vestments. More purged this criticism from its mystical shell and connected it with political, economic, moral and philosophical issues .. For some time it might seem that such ideas of More, such as the establishment of peaceful relations between states, reduction of government spending, etc., have an impact on the politics of the court. Nevertheless, the difference in goals inevitably should have led to a sharp conflict between the king and his chancellor. More was a decisive opponent of the English Reformation. At the request of the king, the Lord Chancellor was convicted. In the second half of the century, secular culture was finally established. Humanistic tendencies in the work of D. Chaucer, the innovative nature of the poem "The Canterbury Tales". Chaucer's innovations (1343 - 1400): Rejecting alliterative verse, he develops the foundations of English syllabo-tonic versification. Using the experience of contemporary Italian and French writers, he enriches English literature with new genres, introducing a lot of independent and original into their development (a psychological novel in verse, a poetic novel, an ode). Chaucer lays the foundations for the satirical tradition in English literature. By all its roots, Chaucer's work was associated with the national life of England. This explains the fact that he wrote only in English, although he knew Latin, French and Italian perfectly. Chaucer made a major contribution to the formation of the English literary language. Chaucer turned to the work of Boccaccio more than once. From the works of Boccaccio ("The Decameron", the poem "Theseis"), he borrows plots and images for his "Canterbury Tales". However, when comparing Chaucer with Boccaccio, a significant difference is revealed: in Boccaccio's short stories, the main thing is the plot, the action, and in Chaucer the main thing is the characterization of the character. Boccaccio lays the foundations for the narrative art of the Renaissance; Chaucer's work carries the beginnings of dramatic art. Chaucer introduced the ring design, which was later used by other authors. The main work of Chaucer, which constituted an entire era in the history of English literature and marked a turning point in its development, was The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer created a wide and vivid picture of contemporary England, presenting it in a gallery of living and full-blooded images. The book opens with a "General Prologue", which outlines the appearance of each of the characters. The General Prologue reveals the compositional principle used by Chaucer. The innkeeper Harry Bailey invites pilgrims to tell entertaining stories to while away the journey to Canterbury and back. Chaucer's book consists of these stories, each of which is a complete poetic novella. In this case, Chaucer uses the compositional principle of the Decameron by Boccaccio, who established the method of framing the book of short stories in European literature. However, one cannot fail to notice that the Canterbury Tales are characterized by a more organic interaction of the “framework narrative” with the content of the stories told by the pilgrims. With a few strokes, Chaucer outlines the appearance of each of the pilgrims, his costume and habits. Already from these laconic remarks, one can imagine people of a completely certain era, a certain social stratum of society. The Canterbury Tales captures the atmosphere of a watershed era of which Chaucer was a contemporary. The feudal system became obsolete. Chaucer's definition of the "father of realism" in new European literature refers, of course, primarily to his art of portraiture. We have the right to speak about the early form of Renaissance realism as a creative method, which implies not only a truthful generalized image of a person, typing certain social phenomena, but also a reflection of the changes taking place in society and in a person. English society, as it is depicted in the portrait gallery created by Chaucer, is a society in motion, development. This is no longer old England, as it entered the Hundred Years War, this is a society of a transitional period, where the feudal order is strong, but outdated, where people of new professions associated with the developing life of the city make up a noticeable majority. Chaucer critically portrays not only the old, departing estates, but also the predatory, greedy for profit merchant, miller, skipper, majordomo. On the other hand, he sympathetically depicted a peasant, artisan, student - a laboring England, which, however, knows how to have fun and enjoy life.

FSBEI HPE Stavropol State University

Scientific adviser: Ph.D. Sci., Associate Professor of the Department of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages, Stavropol State University

D. CHOSER AND THE CENTERBURIAN STORIES: A CONTEMPORARY'S LOOK ON ENGLISH SOCIETYXIV V.

In this article we will turn to the problem of literary texts as one of the types of historical sources. At the same time, the question of their relevance, in one way or another, concerns the problem of the author, and upon closer examination, and how the origin, education and social experience affect the nature of the text and the ways in which the surrounding reality is reflected in it. Let us analyze the Canterbury Tales by D. Chaucer from these positions.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340? -1400) is considered the father of English poetry, the creator of the literary English language, the first English realist poet, pre-Renaissance humanist. The main work of the poet, the result of his creative path is the "Canterbury Tales", where the author's interest in the political, economic, ethical, religious phenomena of England in the XIV century was fully expressed, and most importantly in his contemporaries - people of different classes and states.

Chaucer's biography is an excellent example of the existence of a person in various social fields. At different periods of his life, the poet communicated with representatives of almost all estates, which allowed him to learn all aspects of the life of English society. And if you consider that Chaucer took place not only as a poet and various kinds of employee, but also as a husband and family man, his personality in a good sense becomes amazing.

D. Chaucer was born into a London merchant family of Norman origin, his father was a wealthy wine merchant, had a large enterprise for the import of Spanish and Italian wines into England. Apparently he was the supplier of the royal court, which made it possible for Chaucer to get into the circle of courtiers in his youth, into the English aristocratic society where the future poet learns the way of life and customs upper feudal estate... In 1357, he already held the position of a page in the retinue of the wife of Edward's son, Duke Lionel Clarence, and two years later became a squire and took part in the military campaign of King Edward to France. There Geoffrey is captured near the city of Reims, but the generous king ransoms him for only 16 livres. In his court career, Chaucer experienced ups and downs, successive English kings treated him differently, but the poet himself was always loyal to his patrons, for example, the son of Edward III the Duke of Lancaster John of Gaunt.

At court, Chaucer witnessed one of the most important phenomena of the 14th century: the last surge of knightly culture in the history of England under Edward III. The king was an ardent lover of tournaments, embodied all the ideals of chivalry and tried to revive the cult of chivalry. Chaucer shared a similar sentiment. In addition, the poet lived in the era of the Hundred Years War, and moreover, was a participant in it. Military action, coupled with the passion of Edward himself, allowed Chaucer to feel the way of life. knightly estate: Reading the story of the knight from the "Canterbury Tales" we see that Chaucer was quite well versed in knightly duels and tournaments, we meet their detailed description.

In 1370, a new period began in Chaucer's life. He began, on behalf of the king, to accompany diplomatic missions to Europe: he visited Italy twice - in 1373 and 1378. There are suggestions that the poet personally met with the founders of Italian humanism Petrarch and Boccaccio there, although there is no reliable information about these meetings. One thing is clear, this period in Chaucer's life is one of the most important. He gave the poet the opportunity to observe a highly developed urban early humanistic culture, master the Italian language, expand social and cultural experience. Moreover, the influence of early Renaissance Italian literature is clearly felt in the same "Canterbury Tales".

From 1374 to 1386 Chaucer served as Customs Controller for Wool, Leather and Fur at the Port of London. This post was not easy. The poet had to spend all day in the port, write all reports and invoices with his own hand, inspect goods, collect fines and duties. There was no time left for creativity, and only at night Chaucer worked on his works. Then he read books and was engaged in self-education.

The poet's addiction to reading is obvious. His writings testify to the knowledge of ancient and medieval literature, the works of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio (which is not typical for England), Holy Scripture, the works of the "church fathers", an interest in philosophy, music, astronomy, and alchemy. Book references are consistent throughout Chaucer's major writings. And tradition ascribes to the poet the possession of a library of 60 volumes, which was a lot for that time. The answer to the question of what education the poet received is still not clear, but many researchers suggest that it is legal. Based on what knowledge Chaucer should have had, occupying various government positions, and in what educational institutions people of his circle and wealth studied, Gardner concludes that the poet could study sciences in the Inner Temple - a guild of lawyers created from the Temple Church in London.

Surprisingly, "customs" is the most productive period of the poet's work. Now Chaucer saw the true life of London in the XIV century. urban England... Merchants and officials, artisans and small traders, yeomen and villans, monks and priests passed by. Thus, the service brought him into contact with the business world of London, and the social types he saw later appeared in his stories.

In addition to service and writing, Chaucer realizes himself in his personal life: since 1366, the poet was married to Philippe Roet, the maid of honor of the second Duchess of Lancaster and had three children. In addition, despite his strongest employment, Chaucer was also engaged in public activities - he was a magistrate in the county of Kent (1385), a deputy in parliament from the same county (1386). While in Kent, he met rural England, talked "with people from the land": landlords, tenants, managers, villas, cotters. This environment greatly enriched his observations.

The following years were not very successful in Chaucer's life. The era of Richard II was full of intrigue and political conflicts: the Duke of Gloucester and the patron of the poet D. Gaunt and the Duke of Lancaster fought for influence over the young Richard II. After Gloucester's victory, Chaucer lost his job at customs. His financial situation worsened, and in 1387 his wife died. Chaucer was morally depressed, a "black streak" began in his life. Only in 1389, when the matured Richard II took power into his own hands, Chaucer received the position of caretaker of the royal estates and overseer of the repair of royal buildings, but did not last long. In 1391 he was dismissed, and the last years of his life he lived on occasional handouts and errands. On October 25, 1400, Chaucer died, and his grave was the first in the "Poet's Corner" at Westminster Abbey.

Surprisingly, in years. - in the most difficult years of his life (political intrigue, dismissal from office, financial problems, death of his wife) Chaucer creates the brightest, most cheerful book, full of humor and irony - "The Canterbury Tales". The stories can be called "an encyclopedia of literary genres of the Middle Ages." There is a chivalric romance, a pious legend, a historical story, a fablio, a sermon, and a short story. By the way, the very frame structure of Chaucer's book was innovative for that time, it was well known in the East, but in Europe it was found only by a few authors (for example, Boccaccio).

On an imaginary April morning, 29 pedigree pilgrims from different parts of England set off from Southwark to Canterbury to the tomb of St. Thomas Becket and tell each other stories to entertain themselves on the way - this, it would seem, is the whole plot of The Canterbury Tales. However, in it Chaucer was able to express the realities of medieval England. Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died a violent death in 1170, was famous for the fact that many were healed from her diseases. Such a pilgrimage was very popular in England, it is believed that the poet himself made it in 1385.

In the general prologue, the narrator, whom Chaucer endowed with his name, appearance, and even the vocation of a poet, takes turns introducing and describing the pilgrims. Pilgrims can be divided into several groups: people whose life is spent on military campaigns, rural residents, townspeople, clergymen, representatives of the urban intelligentsia. We see that the pilgrims belong to different strata of society, only the highest court (dukes, princes) and church (bishops, archbishops) aristocracy are not represented. This is due to the fact that by the middle of the 1380s. Chaucer's ties to the royal court were greatly weakened, and he devoted his stories to a society of townspeople who usually did not clash with the upper classes.

So, in The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer takes the position of the author-narrator. At the same time, he not only characterizes modern English society and shows the realities of England in the XIV century, but also expresses the views of a representative of a new social type that began to take shape in the cities of that time - a secular official, an educated layman. Although there are several semantic levels in the stories and the views of Chaucer himself can not always be distinguished, the researchers note that the characteristics of the pilgrims given by the poet are objective, and express the tendencies of the time.

In the prologue, Chaucer describes three characters whose lives are associated with war: the knight, the squire squire, and the yeoman. In this troika, the main character is the knight. More than a third of all stories are devoted to the knightly theme, here apparently the "knightly" youth of Chaucer himself has affected. In them, two tendencies in the depiction of chivalry can be distinguished: one develops the image of a valiant and noble warrior, outlined by the prologue (the story of the doctor, the knight himself), the other shows the emerging tradition of ridicule of the knight (the story of a weaver from Bath and a merchant). The last tradition of depicting a knight not only goes back to fablio and urban literature, but also expresses a general European trend - the decline of the knightly estate, which was also observed in England.

Chaucer draws in the stories a large number of representatives of the clergy (abbess, Benedictine monk, Carmelite monk, priest, bailiff of the church court, seller of indulgences). In describing these characters, he notes such tendencies of his time as secularism and formal piety, oblivion of the vow of poverty and money-grubbing, deception of the population. At the same time, an important role is assigned to contrasts: the negative qualities of the majority of the clergy are set off by the image of the parish priest idealized by the author. This is the only type of clergy to whom the poet apparently felt respect and sympathy: “I did not know a better priest,” he says. D. Chaucer not only criticizes the clergy in an abstract way, he reflects in his stories the realities of England in the XIV century. - the corruption of the clergy, an increase in the number of mendicant monks-money-grubbing, luring money from the people by the practice of papal indulgences, the arbitrariness of church bailiffs and the spread of Wycliffe's ideas. Apparently, Chaucer was quite well acquainted with the ideas of the Lollards, because his contemporary, the reformer of the English Church, D. Wycliffe, was assisted by D. Gaunt, a friend and patron of the poet. It is important to note that Chaucer, who was a Catholic all his life, does not turn the ironic image of the clergy into a sharply accusatory one, concerning the institution of the Catholic Church as a whole. Obviously, this is not a criticism of faith, but of its bearers.

The Canterbury Tales depicts an entire gallery of pilgrims-townspeople. We are interested in artisans (dyer, carpenter, hat maker, weaver, upholsterer) and merchant. Chaucer describes five wealthy artisan burghers, members of a guild fraternity, who were part of a London guild. This is the artisan elite, wealthy townspeople, they are richly dressed, have sufficient income, are wise, and may well become aldermen - to participate in city government. These people "with importance, awareness of wealth" keep aloof all the way. They are drawn to the gentry class in every possible way, emphasizing their high social position: their wives demand to be called madam, and the townspeople themselves bring a cook with them so that he cooks for them on the way. In fact, Chaucer thus reflects the economic and social processes taking place in England in the XIV century: the decomposition of the guild system, the differentiation of guild artisans, the folding of the bourgeoisie, which concentrates power in the city in its hands. It is not by chance that the poet speaks of all the artisans at once - perhaps he unconsciously expresses the view of his contemporaries, who perceived the townspeople as a whole. Describing the merchant, Chaucer calls him a worthy man who knows how to manage his business, who cares about profit, and is richly dressed. Although the poet ironically notes that the merchant gives money for growth and skillfully hides his debts, he is far from the traditional condemnation of the merchant, does not use the epithet "deceitful", speaks of him with respect, thus reflecting the growing influence of the merchant class in London life.

In his stories, Chaucer also emphasizes the new meaning that money began to acquire in 16th century English society. as one of the main types of wealth. To get rich by any means is the main aspiration of many of the poet's contemporaries. The theme of greed and money is present in almost half of all stories, and the pilgrims make money as best they can: the seller of indulgences lures money with holy relics, the doctor of medicine and his friend the pharmacist deceive the sick, etc.

Chaucer paid little attention to the peasantry in comparison with other estates: the plowman-pilgrim in the prologue is practically the only image of the peasant. There is no duality in the image of the peasant, the poet idealizes the plowman, as well as the priest, saying "he was a brother to him." The plowman is hardworking, merciful, very devout, and willingly pays tithing. The peasant is completely devoid of the fighting traits of the followers of Wat Tyler, the leader of the peasant uprising of 1381. Chaucer approached the peasantry from the position of Wycliffe, he was far from both defending the peasantry and cursing rebellious peasants; for him, the most acceptable social compromise and the observance of the class hierarchy. No wonder another hero of Chaucer, the priest, condemns in his sermon both the rebellious "servants" - the peasants, and the cruel "masters" - the lords, because everyone has different, but inevitable obligations to each other. Chaucer does not speak directly about social conflicts in his stories, however, we come across references to other equally important events in the life of England in the 14th century. - for example, the plague - "Black Death" in the years. in the prologue.

Of the three representatives of the medieval secular "intelligentsia" (lawyer, doctor and Oxford clerk), the student should be singled out. The clerk is a beggar, hungry, but strives for knowledge and would rather have 20 books than an expensive dress. Perhaps such a rather benevolent description of the student was inspired by Chaucer's own love for books and knowledge. The idealized image of a student is rarely met in life, because Chaucer shows more real clerks, cheerful and resourceful, who love worldly life and love adventures (stories of a miller and a majordomo).

The general realism of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is also expressed in the fact that many of the characters in the book are believed to have real prototypes in life: the sailor is identified with the pirate John Pearce, and the knight with Henry Lancaster, cousin of Edward III. Moreover, even the Tabard tavern itself and its owner Harry Bailey, described by Chaucer in the stories, actually existed.

So, the content of the "Canterbury Tales" is closely related to the social experience of Chaucer, who came from the urban class and was the bearer of his mental attitudes. By virtue of his occupations, associated with a constant change of professional activity, he had the opportunity to closely contact not only with the townspeople, but also with the court aristocracy, clergy and, in part, with the inhabitants of the village. The stories touch upon many issues of vital importance for Chaucer's time, for example, of a socio-economic nature: the decomposition of the guild system, the growing influence of the merchants, the folding of the bourgeoisie and the justification of the desire for profit. At the same time, the poet not only captures the events and describes the characters, but also to some extent evaluates them - ironically criticizes the greed of the clergy, reflects on the ideals of chivalry that are fading into the past. The fact that Chaucer's approach to the estates has a specific urban worldview is manifested in a realistic and benevolent image of the townspeople and in a practical lack of attention to the peasantry, in ridicule of the clergy and in an ambivalent assessment of chivalry.

Literature:

1. Alekseev of medieval England and Scotland. M .: Higher school. 1984.

2. Bogodarova Chaucer: strokes for a portrait // Middle Ages. Issue 53. M., 1990.

3. Jeffrey Chaucer // Chaucer J. The Canterbury Tales / Per. from English ; prev. : Eksmo, 2008.

4. Gardner J. Chaucer's Life and Time / Per. from English; prev. - M .: Raduga, 1986.

5. Chaucer J. Canterbury Tales / Per. from English ; prev. : Eksmo, 2008.

6. Jivelegov // History of English Literature. Volume I. M.-L .: Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1943. [Electronic resource] http: // www. /d/dzhiwelegow_a_k/text_0050.shtml

7. Medieval Gorbunov. Moscow: Labyrinth, 2010.

8. Bogodarov - political views of Jeffrey Chaucer. // From the history of social movements and social thought. M., 1981.

9. Bryant, A. The era of chivalry in the history of England. SPb: Eurasia. 2001.

10. Kosminsky on the history of the Middle Ages /. - M.: Uchpedgiz, 1938

11. On the humanistic ideas of D. Chaucer // Bulletin of Moscow State University. Series 8. History. 1978 - # 1

12. Long road to Canterbury \ Newspaper History No. 18, 2005. [Electronic resource] http: /// articlef. php? ID =

35: But still, as long as there is a place and time,

37: I think it would be appropriate

38: Tell you about the situation

39: Each of them, as they seemed to me,

40: And what they were, and to what extent,

41: And more about their outfits ...

The story tells about the love of two cousins ​​- Palamon and Arsita - for the daughter-in-law of the Duke of Athens, Emilia. The cousins, being princes of a hostile state, are imprisoned in a dungeon by the order of Theseus, from the high tower of which they accidentally see Emilia and both fall in love with her. Enmity breaks out between the cousins, and when Theseus finds out about the rivalry between the two brothers, he arranges a knightly tournament, promising to give the winner Emilia as a wife. By the intervention of the gods, Palamon wins; Arsita dies by accident; the story ends with the wedding of Palamon and Emilia.

It should be noted that the Knight's tale is one of the longest stories presented by the Pilgrims. One gets the impression of the solemnity, majesty of the narrative, since the narrator often deviates from the main action, presenting the listeners with large fragments of detailed descriptions, often not related to the very development of the plot (description of the women of Thebes mourning the death of their husbands, descriptions of temples, festivals, battles). Moreover, the Knight, as the story progresses, interrupts himself several times, returning to the main characters and to the main development of the plot:

“Long passages, presenting descriptions of temples, rituals, armor of warriors, emphasize the pretentious luxury of knightly life. The descriptions are rich in imagery and metaphorical, although, as some researchers note, they are standard: "... Palamon in this fightyng were a wood leon, and as a crueel tigre was Arcite ..." - Arsita ... "); when describing the captives, Palamon and Arsita; the author does not go beyond the standard epithets: "woful" ("poor"), "sorweful" ("sad"), "wrecched" ("unhappy"), "pitous" ("wretched") - epithets that are repeated throughout narration ".

The central figures of the narrative (the unfolding of the action) are Palamon and Arsita, but most researchers note that the central figure is Duke Theseus. He is presented at the very beginning of the story as an ideal image, the embodiment of nobility, wisdom, justice and military dignity. The narrative opens with the introduction of the duke, a description of his merits, although it would be logical to expect at the very beginning of the story the presentation of the central figures of the narrative, Palamon and Arsita. Theseus appears as an example of chivalry, an ideal figure, and then - a judge in the dispute between Arsita and Palamon. The greatness of the duke is confirmed by military victories and wealth:

Theseus is an ideal image in terms of knightly merits: he protects those who need it, has knightly valor in battles, judicious in controversial matters, sensitive to the suffering of others. So, as we have seen, the Duke of Athens, Theseus, is presented to the reader as a model of chivalrous behavior, an ideal image, which will then act as a judge in a dispute between two brothers.

“The structure of the story is unusual for simple storytelling as a development of any plot. The symmetry of the structure of the story, the symmetry of images, pretentious static descriptions, rich symbolism suggest not focusing attention on the search for skillfully drawn images, not on moral conclusions - all the attention of the reader is focused on the aesthetic impression of the story. "

At the lexical level, a large number of epithets were noted (when describing characters, temples, rituals), but the standard, repetitiveness of epithets does not allow us to determine the stylistic coloration of the text. To a greater extent, the stylistic coloring of the text, the lyricism of the story is presented using parallel structures, listing (that is, at the syntactic level).

“The images presented are more symbolic than real. The images are revealed by the structure of the story - the structure presupposes the role and position of each character in the story, his characteristics (if any), symbolism. "

The story presents the reader with an expanded image of the Knight as an image of a romantic hero.

This proves the presence of elements of a chivalric romance in this work.

At the same time, Chaucer reinterprets the genre tradition of the chivalrous romance. The writer presents all the characters as unique individuals, approaches their description in detail; creates an ideal image of the Knight, as the embodiment of the dignity of nobility and honor; uses a large number of epithets and metaphors; especially rich in figurativeness of his description of nature and terrain.

1.3. INFLUENCE OF OTHER GENRE OF MEDIEVAL LITERATURE ON THE "CENTERBURIAN STORIES"

As mentioned earlier, "Canterbury Tales" is an encyclopedia of poetic genres: here is a courtly tale, and a household story, and le, and a fable, and a fable, and a parody of knightly adventure poetry, and a didactic narration in verse.

The stories of the monastery chaplain and the steward have a fabulous character. The story of the seller of indulgences echoes one of the plots used in the Italian collection Novellino and contains elements of a folk tale and parable (the search for death and the fatal role of the gold found lead to mutual extermination of friends).

The most vivid and original are the stories of the miller, major domo, skipper, Carmelite, bailiff of the church court, the canon's servant, revealing closeness to the fablio and, in general, to the medieval tradition of the novelistic type.

The spirit of the fablio also blows from the story of the Bath weaver about herself. In this narrative group - the themes of adultery, familiar both for the fablio and for the classic novel, and the methods of cheating and counter-cheating associated with it (in the stories of the miller, major domo, and skipper). The story of the bailiff of the church court gives the brightest description of a monk extorting the gift of the church from a dying person, and sarcastically describes the rough reply joke of a sick person rewarding the extortionist with a stinking "air" that still needs to be divided among the monks. In the story of the Carmelite, another extortionist, "cunning" and "dashing fellow", "despicable bailiff, pimp, thief" appears in the same satirical vein. At the moment when the bailiff tries to rob the poor old woman, and she in despair sends him to hell, the devil present at the same time takes the bailiff's soul to hell. The story of the canon's servant is devoted to the popular theme of exposing the trickery of the alchemists.

Thus, we came to the conclusion that the Canterbury Tales by J. Chaucer are a unique encyclopedia of medieval literary genres. Among them are a courtly tale, and a household story, and le, and fablio, and a folk ballad, and a parody of knightly adventure poetry, and a fable, and a didactic narration in verse.

2. REALISM J. CHOSERA AND GENRE SPECIFICITY OF ITS WORK

“The essence and basis of the book is its realism. It includes portraits of people, their assessment, their views on art, their behavior - in a word, a living picture of life. "

It was not for nothing that Gorky called Chaucer “the father of realism”: the luscious painting of portraits of his contemporaries in his poetic Canterbury Tales and even more their general concept, such a clear collision of old feudal England and new England of merchants and adventurers, testify to Chaucer's belonging to the literature of the Renaissance.

“But the category of realism is a complex phenomenon that has not yet received an unambiguous definition in the scientific literature. In the course of the 1957 discussion, several points of view on realism emerged. According to one of them, realism, understood as plausibility, fidelity to reality, can be found already in the earliest monuments of art. From another point of view, realism as an artistic method of cognizing reality appears only at a certain stage in the history of mankind. As for the time of its inception, there is no complete unity among the supporters of this concept. Some believe that the conditions for the emergence of realism develop only in the 19th century, when literature turns to the study of social reality. " Others associate the genesis of realistic art with the Renaissance, believing that at this time writers begin to analyze the influence of society and history on a person.

Both of these judgments are true to some extent. Indeed, realism as an artistic method was fully developed only in the 19th century, when the direction known as critical realism took shape in European literature. However, like any phenomenon in nature and society, realism arose "not immediately, not in finished form, but with a certain gradualness, experiencing a more or less lengthy process of formation, formation, maturation" [cit. on 8, 50]. It is therefore natural that some elements, certain aspects of the realistic method are found in the literatures of earlier eras. Based on this point of view, we will try to find out what elements of the realistic method are manifested in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". As you know, one of the most important principles of realism is the reproduction of life in the forms of life itself. This formula, however, does not imply that the works of all historical periods are realistic or believable in the modern sense of the word. As Acad. NI Kondrad: “The concept of“ reality ”carried different content for writers of different centuries. “The love potion in the novel Tristan and Isolde is not a mystic at all, but simply a product of the pharmacology of that time. ... . "".

The idea of ​​reality, which found its expression in the "Canterbury Tales", was largely based on medieval ideas. Thus, "reality" in the late Middle Ages included astrological representations. Chaucer took them quite seriously. This is evidenced by the fact that in the "Canterbury Tales" characters and situations are often determined by the position of the stars and celestial bodies. An example is the Knight's Tale. Astrology in Chaucer's time combined medieval prejudice and scientific astronomical knowledge. The writer's interest in them is manifested in the prose treatise "On the Astrolabe", in which he explains to a certain "little Lewis" how to use this ancient astronomical device.

Medieval philosophy often declared real not only the objects around a person, but also angels, and even human souls. The influence of these ideas can be traced in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". His view of the world includes both Christian miracles, which are narrated in The Abbess's Tale and the Lawyer's Tale, and the fantasy of the Breton le, which is manifested in the Tale of the Weaver of Bath, and the idea of ​​Christian longsuffering, in the Oxford Student's Tale. ... All these ideas were organic to medieval consciousness. Chaucer does not question their value, as evidenced by the inclusion of such motifs in The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer, as a writer of the earliest stage of the English Renaissance, is characterized not by a denial of medieval ideals, but by a somewhat ironic attitude towards them. This is manifested, for example, in the "Story of an Oxford Student", which sets out in detail the story of the patient Griselda, popular at that time. The daughter of a poor peasant, she becomes the wife of a major feudal lord, who requires unconditional obedience from her. Wanting to test Griselda, her husband and master orders the children to be taken away from her and fakes their murder. Then he deprives Griselda of all property and even clothes, expels her from the palace and announces his decision to marry again a young and noble girl. Griselda meekly obeys all the orders of her husband. Since obedience is one of the basic Christian virtues, at the end of the story, Griselda is fully rewarded for it. The husband returns his favor to her, she again becomes the sovereign of the whole circle and meets with the children, whom she considered killed.

“Chaucer's hero faithfully retells a well-known parable. But his closing words are ironic:

It were ful hard to fynde now-a-dayes

In al a toun Grisildis thre or two.

It would be very difficult these days

Find two or three Griselds in the whole city.

The student narrator's conclusion is very revealing. It reflected the understanding of the unrealism, the implausibility of ideas that were part of medieval reality. "

Realistic tendencies in Chaucer's art have not fully developed, they are in the making. With regard to the literature of the XIV century. one can hardly speak of the reproduction of reality in the forms of reality itself. However, the author of "The Canterbury Tales" is distinguished by a quite deliberate desire for a truthful depiction of life. Confirmation can be found in the words that the writer puts into the mouth of a pilgrim named Chaucer. In "the prologue to The Miller's Tale," he expresses his fear that not all storytellers will follow the rules of good than in their stories. "Apologizing for the obscenities encountered in some of the stories, Chaucer the pilgrim says:

I moot reherce

Ніг tales alle, be they bettre or

Or elles falsen son of my mateere.

I have to pass

All their stories, be they good or

Or fake a part of mine

works ".

The poet seeks to reproduce these stories in a form as close as possible to the way in which they were allegedly told during the pilgrimage. In "The Canterbury Tales" is manifested, albeit in a rudimentary form, a creative attitude towards a realistic reproduction of life.

Russian literary critics, regardless of whether they recognize realism in the literature that preceded the 19th century, believe that identifying features of realism in works of different eras contributes to the correct understanding of continuity in the development of artistic creativity. Thus, R. M. Samarin, discussing the realism of the Renaissance, notes its close connection with the fruitful traditions of medieval art.

Chaucer's work belongs to a difficult and transitional historical period, uniting contradictory trends: the originality of the "Canterbury Tales" largely stems from the fact that the writer continues medieval traditions, interpreting them in a new way. This is manifested, for example, in the ways of characterizing heroes. The artistic method of realism involves depicting typical heroes in typical circumstances. The French researcher J. Bedier, analyzing fablio, one of the main genres of medieval literature, noted that typification was still weak in it. He probably meant typing, as it was understood in the 19th century.

The character of the hero of that time was determined by his position on the hierarchical ladder, but since antiquity, ideas about the influence of external circumstances on a person's character have existed in scientific treatises and their popular adaptations. Of course, circumstances were often understood in a metaphysical, if not in an astrological spirit. In the era of Chaucer, fiction begins to look for the causes of certain features of the human personality, not just in the position of a person within the feudal hierarchy, but in himself and in external circumstances. The attempts of the writers of the late Middle Ages to penetrate the secrets of human psychology were based on the doctrine of temperaments dating back to Hippocrates, according to which all people were divided into choleric, melancholic, sanguine and phlegmatic. Each type of temperament corresponded to certain character traits. Chaucer was probably familiar with this teaching, as its influence is felt, for example, in the portrait of the major domo. The hero's words and deeds confirm this characteristic.

Astrology was considered one of the most important factors that shape a person's character during the time of Chaucer. According to astrological concepts, the star under which a person was born affects his character. So, the weaver from Bath claims that her love of love was predetermined by Venus, and her warlike spirit was predetermined by Mars. Both of these planets were in the sky at the hour of her birth.

In some cases, Chaucer shows the influence of social circumstances on the character of his hero. In this respect, the image of the miller Simkin from "The Story of the Majordomo" is very curious. The dishonesty of the millers was a generally recognized fact, so it is no coincidence that in the days of Chaucer there was a riddle: "Who is the bravest in the world?" Portraying his hero as a thief, the writer follows the medieval ideas about the people of his profession. However, Chaucer is not limited only to class and professional characteristics. Simkin is a representative of the wealthy strata of the third estate, therefore, in his image there are many features due precisely to this circumstance. He is a man with a pronounced sense of his own dignity, comically turning into arrogance. But he has no traditional reasons for pride: he was not of noble origin, he did not perform great knightly deeds. The basis of the miller's independence is his wealth, which he himself has created through deception and theft. In the person of Simkin in "The Canterbury Tales" an attempt is made to show a socially conditioned character.

One of the main features of realistic art is the ability to reveal the typical in the individual and through the individual. Since such a technique was unknown in medieval literature, writers of that time usually limited themselves to a brief typical description, for example, in a fable. In contrast, Chaucer gives his characters individualized traits. The individualization of images in the "Canterbury Tales" is due to certain processes taking place in society and ideology of the XIV century. The early Middle Ages, according to DS Likhachev, “does not know someone else’s consciousness, someone else’s psychology, someone else’s ideas as the subject of an objective image,” because at that time the person had not yet separated from the collective (class, caste, corporation, workshop). However, during the time of Chaucer, in connection with the growth of entrepreneurship and private initiative, the role of the individual in the life of society increases, which serves as the basis for the emergence of individualistic ideas and trends in the field of ideology.

“In the XIV century. the problem of the individual sounds in literature, art, philosophy, religion. P. Mrozhkowski connects the tendency towards individualization with the ideas of scotism, which "emphasized the beauty of each given individual object." The founder of this philosophical and theological trend was Dune Scott (1266-1308). In a famous controversy between medieval realists and nominalists, he held the position of a moderate nominalist. According to J. Morse, in the teachings of Okota, two points are of the greatest value: the idea of ​​the primacy of will over reason and the idea of ​​the uniqueness of the individual. " For us, the second position is more important, which is associated with a dispute about the reality of abstract concepts. According to Duns Scotus, the phenomena designated by these concepts really exist: after all, humanity consists of individuals. The possibility of combining them into one is due to the fact that the difference between individuals is not generic, but formal. All human souls belong to the same genus, they have a common nature, therefore, in the aggregate, they can be called humanity. But each soul has an individual form. “The very existence of a separate soul,” writes J. Morse, analyzing the views of Duns Scotus, “consists in its uniqueness. The soul has not only quidditas ("whatness", spirituality), but also haecceitas ("thisness", ... individuality) ... It is not only "soul", but "this soul"; likewise, the body has not only corporeality, but also individuality. Man is not just a human being, he is a human being, and this quality determines his belonging to humanity. "

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses various means of individualization. It emphasizes the features of the appearance and behavior of the participants in the pilgrimage: a wart on the nose of a miller, a forked beard of a merchant, a motto on the brooch of the abbess. Often a writer resorts to characterization by deed. In this respect, the image of the carpenter John is indicative. In "The Miller's Tale" there is no author's description of this hero, all the traits of his character appear as the action develops. The carpenter's kindness is revealed by Chaucer in the next episode: he himself goes to visit Nicholas when he feigns despair over the supposedly expected flood. Chaucer makes John gullible and not very smart. The reader understands this when the carpenter takes Nicholas' prediction at face value. Chaucer's hero is not selfish, he is able to take care of others. When he finds out about the impending disaster, he is not worried about himself, but about his young wife:

"How? Well, what about your wife?

Is Alison really supposed to die? "

For almost the first time in the history of English literature, Chaucer individualizes the speech of his characters. He uses this technique to characterize the students Alan and John in The Major Domo's Tale; In the speech of these scholars, the northern dialect is noticeable. According to some Western literary scholars, during the time of Chaucer, the northerners were considered rude and uncouth people. This fact aggravates the offense that Alan and John inflict on their master. They seduce his wife and daughter, of whom the miller is very proud of the "nobility of origin".

The above considerations allow us to speak about the realism of the "Canterbury Tales", although "its features are still of an initial, rudimentary character, different from the character of later and mature realism. These features are due to the close connection between the literature of the early Renaissance and medieval culture. "

J. Chaucer's realism contributed to the rethinking and reevaluation of genre canons. The writer did not remain within the canons of realistic elements of the inner and outer world. Chaucer's realism became a prerequisite for a genre synthesis, which was talked about more than once throughout the work.

In this course work, we examined the artwork of J. Chaucer "The Canterbury Tales". To a certain extent, they studied the phenomenon of the genre originality of the work.

For Chaucer, the various original genres with which he operates not only coexist within the framework of one collection (this was the case in medieval "examples" as well), but interact with each other, undergo partial synthesis, in which Chaucer already partly echoes Boccaccio. Chaucer, as well as Boccaccio, does not have a sharp opposition of "low" and "high" plots.

"The Canterbury Tales" are a completely Renaissance (in type) encyclopedia of English life of the XIV century, and at the same time - an encyclopedia of poetic genres of the time: here there is a courtly tale, and a household story, and le, and fablio, and a folk ballad, and a parody on knightly adventurous poetry, and didactic narration in verse.

In contrast to the highly schematic depictions of representatives of various social and professional groups in medieval narrative literature, Chaucer creates very vivid, due to the vivid description and apt details of behavior and conversation, portraits of social types of English medieval society (namely, social types, and not "characters" as sometimes literary scholars define Chaucer's characters). This outlining of social types is given not only within the framework of individual specific novellas, but no less in the depiction of storytellers. The social typology of the pilgrim-storytellers is clearly and amusingly manifested in their speeches and disputes, in their auto-characteristics, in the choice of subjects for the story. And this class-professional typology constitutes the most important specificity and peculiar charm in the "Canterbury Tales". She distinguishes Chaucer not only from medieval predecessors, but also from most novelists of the Renaissance, whose common human ancestral origin, on the one hand, and purely individual behavior, on the other, in principle dominate class traits.

The Canterbury Tales represent one of the remarkable syntheses of medieval culture, remotely comparable in this capacity even to Dante's Divine Comedy. Chaucer also has, albeit to a lesser extent, elements of medieval allegorism, alien to the novel as a genre. In the synthesis of The Canterbury Tales, the novels occupy a leading place, but the synthesis itself is much broader and much more important for Chaucer. In addition, Chaucer's synthesis of genres is not complete, there is no complete "novelization" of the legend, fable, fairy tale, elements of chivalrous narration, sermons, etc. Even short stories, especially in the introductory parts, contain verbose rhetorical reasoning about various subjects with examples from Holy Scripture and ancient history and literature, and these examples are not narratively expanded. The autocharacteristics of storytellers and their disputes go far beyond the novella as a genre, or even a collection of short stories, as a special genre formation.