Drew Cunningham

Dr. William Pollard

ENG- 2294
5/20/13

Earnest and Game in Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales there is an assortment of
characters who all share different tales as they make their pilgrimage to
Canterbury. The stories shared by the various people such as the Wife of
Bath and the Miller all have different plots and tones, but all have one
unifying trait. This is earnest in game. Every characters story can be
viewed as a critique of English society during the Middle Ages and although
many are humorous in nature, there are definite times when seriousness can
be extracted from the tales.
One reason that Canterbury Tales have maintained popularity is the
way Chaucer was about to craft his tales to show societal norms of the times.
It perfectly captures the society as it was at the time he wrote the tales and
then readers are able to critique the society of the 14th century. Personally,
it was a little shocking to see how lewd and bawdy The Millers Tale was and

it showed the nature of the times well. The Wife of Baths Tale is able to
illustrate how antifeminism was prevalent in the 14th century and The Nuns
Priests Tale can be read in a way that is satirical to the religious conventions
that dominated England at the time. Obviously, earnest and game is used
by Chaucer throughout his work because it is an effective way to show the
short comings of society and it is highly entertaining.
The first tale in our anthology is The Millers Tale, which is clearly
meant to be a form of a game. As the editor of the anthology states, it was a
parody of The Knights Tale about romance and courtly love (358). The
Millers Tale is about a young wife, Alisoun, and her husband, who is much
older, and how he is cuckolded by the clerk living with them, Nicholas. This
story is extremely playful throughout and shows how sexual the people were
during the Middle Ages, and this is one of the cultural issues Chaucer
highlights in his writings. During this time period the church was central to
the lives of every person and adultery was a sin of the highest order . Many
people try to hide their sins however, and some pretend they are completely
holy and they do not commit any sins. The prevalence of lechery and
adultery may not have been high during the Middle Ages, but it did happen
and Chaucer used The Millers Tale to illustrate this point.

The second tale that is included in the anthology is that of the Wife of
Bath. She has been referred to as Chaucers favorite character because of
the depth in which he describes her and the length of the prologue to her
tale. The Wife of Bath has been married five times and seems to be
experienced in the ways of the world; or rather she would have everyone
believe that she is. Her tale is about a knight who rapes a young woman and
is sentenced to death if he is not able to discover what it is that women truly
want by Guinevere, Arthurs queen. He is eventually told by a hag that
women wish to have sovereignty in marriage and this gains him his life. He
then must wed the hag, but since he follows her advice of allowing women to
have sovereignty in marriage, she transforms into a beautiful woman who is
a faithful to the knight.
The Wife of Baths Tale is one of the best examples of how earnest in
game is at work in The Canterbury Tales. The Wife of Bath uses her tale to
illustrate several important issues in England during the 14th century. The
first issue is sexual violence towards women. Men were seen as far superior
to women, so rape would come with this thought. Many times rape is not
about the sex, but it is used to show power and dominance over some other
person. The rape in The Wife of Baths Tale is symbolic of the culture that
was present during the 14th century in which women had no power and were

left with little control over their lives. Also, the answer to Guineveres
question shows how repressed women were during the Middle Ages. They
had no control over anything that was important on a grand scale such as
government decisions. The fact that Guinevere is allowed to pass judgment
on the knight in the story is odd because heading a tribunal was the mans
job.
The Wife of Baths Tale plays against the tradition of antifeminism that
littered the literary landscape of medieval times. Women were the weaker
sex and this idea is constantly contained in the literature of the times. The
underhanded comments made by many of the characters in Canterbury
Tales about women were highly reflective of the time period. It is in this that
the earnest and game can be found again. Although Chaucer is not arguing
for the advancement of women in his work, he is critiquing society and so he
shows how antifeminism is not necessarily the correct way to view women
through the Wife of Bath. Even though she is not the best representation
females, (she has been married for five times!) she is an effective vehicle to
show that antifeminism was a commonly held belief and that it was part of
14th century society.
The next tale that was studied by the class was The Nuns Priests Tale.
This story is of a rooster, Chanticleer, who has the makings of a great knight

and his favorite hen, Pertelote. In this story the Nuns Priest is able to show
that great fun can be had when crafting a story (the whole story is a knightly
romance carried out by chickens) and still care with it a great meaning.
Earnest and game are at work through the entirety of this tale. The Nuns
Priests Tale can be taken as showing the importance of how your own
actions can influence the rest of your life and that you have the ability to
shape your life. If Chanticleer would not have tricked the fox he would have
certainly died and he did this all on his own. His actions saved his life and
shows that people must use their own devices to survive and thrive in the
world.
On a deeper level, this story can be taken as a renunciation of the
doctrine of predestination. Since this tale came from a member of the
religious community it may be a stretch of the imagination to see this, but it
can still be interpreted in this way. Chanticleers free will and his cunning
saved him, not his faith in the Lord, so it is satirical of the common held
belief that dominated thought at the time. Predestination is something that
is not up for debate in the Catholic Church, so since the symbolism of
Chaucers writing goes against the ruling institution of the time, this is highly
scandalous. It is a very serious issue but it is covered by the lovely, fun tale
of Chanticleer and Pertelote. This symbolic reading of The Nuns Priests Tale

adds to the way in which earnest and game is found throughout the
Chaucers work.
Earnest and game dominate Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales and
for good reason. It is an effective way to be entertaining and provide a social
commentary in a work of literature. The three tales of the Miller, the Wife of
Bath and the Nuns Priest all work in conjunction with the idea of earnest and
game and have help to sustain Chaucers permanence in the field of literary
study. Although there are cases in which other may argue against the
presence of earnest and game in certain tales of Chaucer, the points outlined
earlier argue for their existence and merit and it proves the effectiveness of
earnest and game since Canterbury Tales has survived through so many
centuries.