NUN'S PRIEST TALE - A mock epic

According to Aristotle: 

“An epic is the tragedy of a conspicuous man, who is involved in adventures events and meets a tragic fall on account of some error of judgment i.e. Hamartia which throws him from prosperity into adversity; his death is not essential.”

So, the subject matter of an epic is grand and that’s why it is written in bombastic language in heroic couplets. Its style, too, is grand. On the contrary, a mock-epic is a satire of an epic. It shows us that even a trivial event can also be treated on epical scope.

A mock-epic is a literary parody of heroic style. It imitates serious characters and grave events in a comic manner. The subject matter is trivial and unfit for an epic but the subject is clothed in the conventional epic style. For example, in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” the ordinary event of taking away of a cock is compared and contrasted with famous and grave historical events of the past.

Nun’s Priest’s Tale is a mock-epic. The tale is ordinary and common. There is a widow, having two daughters. She has cattle and sheep as is usual with the villagers. She has a cock and many hens. Once, a cock is carried away by a fox but later escapes. Though the subject is trivial, yet this trivial subject has been exalted because fowls have been invested with the qualities of learned human begins. The cock and the hen behave, talk, argue and conduct like extraordinary human beings. We find the cock and the hen having learned and philosophical discussion on dreams which later includes some vital issues of human life. This is not at all a fanciful discussion; it is substantially learned. They also make historical references and illustrations to substantiate their respective points of view. We hardly believe that they are fowls. We are always reminded of two philosophers. Both stick to their own points of view on the reality of dreams and the discussion ends in no conclusion. So an animal fable has been elevated to the level of a philosophical poem, having deep thoughts and ideas. The cock is raised to the status of a hero and, thus the tale becomes a mock-epic.

Chaucer’s style in the poem is grand. He employs bombastic words for a trivial subject. For example, Chanticleer is called a gentle cock and his crowing is sweeter than that of any other cock. Pertelote, likewise, has the best colouring on her throat and she is called “a fair damsel”. She is courteous, discreet, gracious and companionable. So the description of the cock and the hen is sufficiently comic.

Humour is one of the essential prerequisite of a mock-epic and this tale is full of humour. Most of the comedy is introduced through the incongruity and disproportion between grand style and trivial subject. The trivial events have been enlarged to look lofty and grand. For example, the fox has been called “The False Murderer” and the false dissembler and has been compared to various notorious rascals of the past – Judas, Iscariot, Simon, Gauclon, etc. Likewise, the ordinary event of the taking away of the cock has been equated with well-known, historical events of the past e.g. the capture of Troy, the murder of King Priam etc. The outcry and lamentation raised by Pertelote at the event is louder than the hue and cry raised by Hasdrubal’s wife at his painful death. The sorrowful cries of the hens have been identified with the woeful lamentation, uttered by the senators’ wives when their husbands were burnt alive by Nero. On the taking away of the cock whole village – human beings as well animals – madly run after the fox and there is a stale of chaos as if it is the day of judgment whereas the carrying away of the cock by the fox is not a grave event. The awful noise produced at that time has been compared with the uproar created by the members of the Peasant’s Revolt. The chase of the fox is described in an inflated tone.

As essential prerequisites of an epic as well as mock-epic is the moral. There can be no mock-epic without moral. In “Nuns Priest’s Tale” moral is explicit as well as implicit. Though this story, Chaucer wanted to discuss important and vital issues of life, such as flattery predestination, the qualities of a good man and a good woman, the nature of dreams and irony of fate etc.

In short, we can say that “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is a parody of an epic in which all the leading epic features and conventions are brought in connection with a very trifling theme.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLASSICISM,NEO- CLASSICISM AND ROMANTICISM

Classicism: 
Classicism is aesthetic attitudes and principles based on culture, art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, and characterized by emphasis on form, simplicity, proportion, and restrained emotion.

Characteristics of Classicism are belief in reason, civilized, modern, sophisticated, interest in urban society, human nature, love, satire, expression of acceptance, moral truth, realism, beleif in good and evil, religion, philosophy, generic obstruction, impersonal objectivity, public themes, formal correctness, idea of order.

Neo-classicism:
Neo-classicism was the trend prevailing during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, characterized by the introduction and widespread use of Greek orders and decorative motifs, the subordination of detail to simple, strongly geometric overall compositions, the presence of light colors or shades, frequent shallowness of relief in ornamental treatment of facades, and the absence of textural effects. The period of Neo-Classicism relies heavily on mimicking Greek art. During the time period, the concept of naturalism was a main concern. Artists especially made great efforts to model the ways in which the ancients portrayed bodies and emotions in their works of art.

Romanticism:
Romanticism emerged as a reaction against Neoclassicism. The Neoclassical age emphasized on reason and logic. The Romantic period wanted to break away from the traditions and conventions that were dear to the Neoclassical age and make way for individuality and experimentation. One of the fundamentals of Romanticism is the belief in the natural goodness of man, the idea that man in a state of nature would behave well but is hindered by civilization.

Characteristics of Romanticism are belief in feelings, imagination, Intuition, Primitive, Medieval, natural modes, rural solitude, aesthetic, spiritual, value of external nature, love for vision, mysteriousness, idea, infinite, myth-making, beauty, truth, faith in progress, belief in man and goodness, individual speculation, revelation, concrete particulars, subjectivity, private themes, individual expressiveness, intensity, curiosity, images, symbols, common language, self-consciousness, romantic Hellenism.

Difference between Classicism and Romanticism

Romanticism emerged as a response to Classicism. 

Classicism stressed on reason. Romanticism on imagination.

Classicism follow the three unities of time , place and action. Romanticism only follows the unity of action, but does not follow the unities of time, place. 

Romanticism uses simple diction of common men from their everyday life. Classicism uses strict, rigid and logical diction and theme.

Classicists thought of the world as having a rigid and stern structure, the romanticists thought of the world as a place to express their ideas and believes. 

Classicism was based on the idea that nature and human nature could be understood by reason and thought. Classicist believed that nature was, a self-contained machine, like a watch, whose laws of operation could be rationally understood. Romanticists viewed nature as mysterious and ever changing. Romantic writes believed that nature is an ever changing living organism, whose laws we will never fully understand. 

Classicists thought that it was literature's function to show the everyday values of humanity and the laws of human existence. Their idea was that classicism upheld tradition, often to the point of resisting change, because tradition seemed a reliable testing ground for those laws. As for the Romantics, they wrote about how man has no boundaries and endless possibilities. The Romantics stressed the human potential for social progress and spiritual growth

Caroline and Cromwellian Literature

Caroline and Cromwellian Literature

The turbulent years of the mid-17th century, during the reign of Charles I and the 

subsequent Commonwealth and Protectorate, saw a flourishing of political literature 

in English. Pamphlets written by sympathisers of every faction in the English civil 

war ran from vicious personal attacks and polemics, through many forms of 

propaganda, to high-minded schemes to reform the nation. Of the latter type, 

Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes would prove to be one of the most important works of 

British political philosophy. Hobbes's writings are some of the few political works 

from the era which are still regularly published while John Bramhall, who was 

Hobbes's chief critic, is largely forgotten. The period also saw a flourishing of news 

books, the precursors to the British newspaper, with journalists such as Henry 

Muddiman, Marchamont Needham, and John Birkenhead representing the views 

and activities of the contending parties. The frequent arrests of authors and the 

suppression of their works, with the consequence of foreign or underground printing, 

led to the proposal of a licensing system. The Areopagitica, a political pamphlet by 

John Milton, was written in opposition to licensing and is regarded as one of the 

most eloquent defenses of press freedom ever written.

Specifically in the reign of Charles I (1625 – 42), English Renaissance theatre

experienced its concluding efflorescence. The last works of Ben Jonson appeared on 

stage and in print, along with the final generation of major voices in the drama of the 

age: John Ford, Philip Massinger, James Shirley, and Richard Brome. With the 

closure of the theatres at the start of the English Civil War in 1642, drama was 

suppressed for a generation, to resume only in the altered society of the English 

Restoration in 1660.

Other forms of literature written during this period are usually ascribed political 

subtexts, or their authors are grouped along political lines. The cavalier poets, active 

mainly before the civil war, owed much to the earlier school of metaphysical poets. 

The forced retirement of royalist officials after the execution of Charles I was a good 

thing in the case of Izaak Walton, as it gave him time to work on his book The 

Compleat Angler. Published in 1653, the book, ostensibly a guide to fishing, is much 

more: a meditation on life, leisure, and contentment. The two most important poets 

of Oliver Cromwell's England were Andrew Marvell and John Milton, with both producing works praising the new government; such as Marvell's An Horatian Ode 

upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland. Despite their republican beliefs they escaped 

punishment upon the Restoration of Charles II, after which Milton wrote some of his 

greatest poetical works (with any possible political message hidden under allegory). 

Thomas Browne was another writer of the period; a learned man with an extensive 

library, he wrote prolifically on science, religion, medicine and the esoteric

JACOBEAN LITERATURE

Jacobean Literature
After Shakespeare's death, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson was the leading 
literary figure of the Jacobean era (The reign of James I). However, Jonson's 
aesthetics hark back to the Middle Ages rather than to the Tudor Era: his characters 
embody the theory of humours. According to this contemporary medical theory, 
behavioral differences result from a prevalence of one of the body's four "humours" 
(blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) over the other three; these humours
correspond with the four elements of the universe: air, water, fire, and earth. This 
leads Jonson to exemplify such differences to the point of creating types, or clichés.
Jonson is a master of style, and a brilliant satirist. His Volpone shows how a group of 
scammers are fooled by a top con-artist, vice being punished by vice, virtue meting 
out its reward.
Others who followed Jonson's style include Beaumont and Fletcher, who wrote the 
brilliant comedy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, a mockery of the rising middle 
class and especially of those nouveaux riches who pretend to dictate literary taste 
without knowing much literature at all. In the story, a couple of grocers wrangle with 
professional actors to have their illiterate son play a leading role in a drama. He 
becomes a knight-errant wearing, appropriately, a burning pestle on his shield. 
Seeking to win a princess' heart, the young man is ridiculed much in the way Don 
Quixote was. One of Beaumont and Fletcher's chief merits was that of realising how 
feudalism and chivalry had turned into snobbery and make-believe and that new 
social classes were on the rise.
Another popular style of theatre during Jacobean times was the revenge play, 
popularized by John Webster and Thomas Kyd. George Chapman wrote a couple of 
subtle revenge tragedies, but must be remembered chiefly on account of his famous translation of Homer, one that had a profound influence on all future English 
literature, even inspiring John Keats to write one of his best sonnets.
The King James Bible, one of the most massive translation projects in the history of 
English up to this time, was started in 1604 and completed in 1611. It represents the 
culmination of a tradition of Bible translation into English that began with the work 
of William Tyndale. It became the standard Bible of the Church of England, and 
some consider it one of the greatest literary works of all time. This project was 
headed by James I himself, who supervised the work of forty-seven scholars. 
Although many other translations into English have been made, some of which are 
widely considered more accurate, many aesthetically prefer the King James Bible, 
whose meter is made to mimic the original Hebrew verse.
Besides Shakespeare, whose figure towers over the early 1600s, the major poets of 
the early 17th century included John Donne and the other Metaphysical poets. 
Influenced by continental Baroque, and taking as his subject matter both Christian 
mysticism and eroticism, metaphysical poetry uses unconventional or "unpoetic" 
figures, such as a compass or a mosquito, to reach surprise effects. For example, in 
"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", one of Donne's Songs and Sonnets, the points 
of a compass represent two lovers, the woman who is home, waiting, being the 
centre, the farther point being her lover sailing away from her. But the larger the 
distance, the more the hands of the compass lean to each other: separation makes 
love grow fonder. The paradox or the oxymoron is a constant in this poetry whose 
fears and anxieties also speak of a world of spiritual certainties shaken by the modern 
discoveries of geography and science, one that is no longer the centre of the universe. 
Apart from the metaphysical poetry of Donne, the 17th century is also celebrated for 
its Baroque poetry. Baroque poetry served the same ends as the art of the period; the 
Baroque style is lofty, sweeping, epic, and religious. Many of these poets have an 
overtly Catholic sensibility (namely Richard Crashaw) and wrote poetry for the 
Catholic counter-Reformation in order to establish a feeling of supremacy and 
mysticism that would ideally persuade newly emerging Protestant groups back 
toward Catholicism.

RENAISSANCE LITERATURE

The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating 
from the early 16th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-
European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern 
Italy in the fourteenth century. This era in English cultural history is sometimes 
referred to as "the age of Shakespeare" or "the Elizabethan era."
Poets such as Edmund Spenser and John Milton produced works that demonstrated 
an increased interest in understanding English Christian beliefs, such as the 
allegorical representation of the Tudor Dynasty in The Faerie Queen and the retelling 
of mankind’s fall from paradise in Paradise Lost; playwrights, such as Christopher 
Marlowe and William Shakespeare, composed theatrical representations of the 
English take on life, death, and history. Nearing the end of the Tudor Dynasty, 
philosophers like Sir Thomas More and Sir Francis Bacon published their own ideas 
about humanity and the aspects of a perfect society, pushing the limits of 
metacognition at that time. England came closer to reaching modern science with the 
Baconian Method, a forerunner of the Scientific Method.
The steadfast English mind clung to the old order of things, and relinquished with 
reluctance the last relics of a style that had been for centuries a part of its life. If it 
must have the egg and dart, it would keep the Tudor flower too. Thus all the 
Renaissance that came into England, after the bloody Wars of the Roses made it 
possible to think of art and luxury, paid toll to the Gothic on the way, and the result 
was a singular miscellany, for its Gothic had now forgotten, and its Renaissance had 
never known why it had existed. It is rather the talent with which the medley of 
material was handled, the broad masses, yet curious elaboration, and the scale of 
magnificence, that give the style its charm rather than anything in its original and 
bastard composition.
Something of this same charm is to be found in most of the literature of the era, in 
accordance with that subtle relationship existing between the literature and the art of 
any period. It is in the lawless mixture of Gothic and Grecian characterizing the 
Elizabethan that Shakespeare peoples his A Midsummer Night's Dream with Gothic fairies reveling in the Athenian forest, and poet Edmund Spenser fills his pages with 
a pageantry of medieval monsters and classic masks. Shakespeare is a peculiar 
product of the Renaissance. The machinery of The Tempest and the setting of The 
Merchant of Venice are direct results of its spirit.