The Canterbury Tales is an unfinished work. The story has a beginning and an end, but chunks of the middle are missing, much like the image of an unfinished cathedral that takes generations to complete. Chaucer did this deliberately. Chaucer set for himself an enormous task to tell the tales of all 29 pilgrims in the story. They were to tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back then vote on the best tale. But the pilgrimage is a one-way pilgrimage. There is no return trip. To understand these tales, think of the pilgrimage to the cathedral of St. Thomas a Becket as an image of the final destination of all pilgrims; our pilgrimage to eternity. Chaucer included all walks of life among his pilgrims, from the lowest to the highest, including himself. The poet is also a pilgrim. There are two types of pilgrims on this trip: the true pilgrim who wishes to make the spiritual journey to the great shrine, and the palmer who rides along simply for the adventure. The first two tales tell of these two ways: The Knight’s Tale tells of God’ order, The Miller’s Tale tells the worldly way.
Hamlet is the most problematic of the many plays written by Shakespeare also, one of his most popular. Intense. The play was written at a time of profound religious tension, thus audiences easily related. It is a revenge play in the Roman tradition, a form the English were well versed: gaudy, bloody and highly rhetorical rather than poetic. Blood spilled all over the stage. Shakespeare uses this form sparingly and with some artistic care: the blinding of King Lear, for example. When he needs a moment like this, he will use it. It is believed that Shakespeare used a previous version of Hamlet, a story based on a historical event. Shakespeare was tapping into a popular story and writing his own version. It had all the earmarks of being a hit. The reason this play is the longest of his plays is he revised it season after season; adding new material, reshaping it. It is a four-hour play. Hamlet too is the first work of the modern world. Hamlet studied at the University of Wittenberg, where Martin Luther began his attack on the Church. Hamlet thus became a modern man, rejecting God and His Church, and began a life of doubt.
The pilgrims assembled come from all sections of medieval life: the knight class (fighters), the priest class (prayer) and the working class. Before the trip begins, the pilgrim (Chaucer) talks to all of the pilgrims as a prologue to their tale later in the story. He describes in detail about each of them: their clothing, their manner of speech, their table manners. These descriptions give us a good external view of them, but only the exterior. We must learn to look past the externals. In each of the tales that are included, the tale matches the teller. He begins with the member in the group with the highest social standing, the knight, and the first of the tales that will be told. And he concludes with the parson, who will tell the last story. It is his story that leads the pilgrims to Canterbury. Good literature has two purposes: to entertain and to teach. The Canterbury Tales is tales within a tale. We are amused, shocked, provoked to thought, and moved by the tales. We are entertained. We are also taught virtue, humility, and the dark side of man. We are educated; we extract a kernel of knowledge from each story.
Act One sets the story for Hamlet. There is construction to this play. Hamlet is the son of the dead king by the same name. Fortinbras, the prince of Norway, is the son of the king by the same name. Within the court of Claudius (Hamlet’s uncle, new king, married to his mother) is Polonius and his son Laertes. Three young men who are causing trouble for the adults. Generation conflict. This play is modern because for the first time the world witnesses adolescent rebellion. They have cause. But they do rebel. These intergenerational problems do not just stay in the home; they become political as well. Hamlet too is dealing with the grief for his dead father, and the rapid remarriage of his mother. He doubts everything but love. But now, due to this hasty marriage, he doubts love too. A young man lost. The whole Hamlet problem in a nutshell is why does he not act sooner? If the ghost tells him in Act One what to do, why does it take until Act Five before he does something? The problem of Hamlet is the problem of action. Why does he not do what he is told to do?
The Knight’s Tale is the first of the Canterbury Tales. His tale tells us about what is necessary to make the journey in life. The story is not just for his fellow travelers, but also especially for his son, the squire, who is traveling with him. After a great battle, his men find two young men from the vanquished army who are not dead. They are brought back to the knight’s kingdom restored to health and placed in prison. They lament their fate. They view a beautiful woman in the garden and both fall immediately in love. They quarrel, become bitter enemies. One cousin is pardoned from the prison and seeks to see the woman. The other cousin escapes, also to seek the woman. The cousins meet, battle to near death. The knight intercedes and sets a proper tournament to decide who will marry the woman. All three pray, the woman to remain a virgin, or if she must marry, to marry the man who truly loves her. One cousin prays to win the woman, the other to win the tournament. They all get what they ask for, but not what they expected. We are part of God’s great plan.
The ghost of the dead King Hamlet: is he of heaven or hell? Is he leading young Hamlet to good or evil? This problem will hover over the whole play. The ghost is tempting Hamlet to revenge King Hamlet’s murder by Claudius. This is the pattern in Shakespeare’s other tragedies: Brutus is tempted by Cassius to kill Caesar, he kills Caesar and Brutus falls. Othello is tempted by Iago to kill his wife Desdemona, he smothers her, and he falls. Macbeth is tempted by Lady Macbeth and the witches to kill Duncan, he kills him, and he falls too. The only tragedy that does not follow this pattern is King Lear. In Hamlet, the ghost is the tempter. However, that the issues are not clear says something about the problems that underline the play. The ghost further casts doubt on Hamlet’s high praise for his father by admitting dastardly deeds when alive. And finally, he shakes Hamlet’s esteem for his mother. Hamlet has nothing left to trust. The solution: kill Claudius. Hamlet has sworn to remember the ghost, to root the evil out of Denmark. His family is destroyed, the kingdom destroyed. “Why do I have to clean all this up?”
