Classical and Pre-Renaissance Orientation

This is Unit Sixteen of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part two of two. Part one separated Pope from Homer and Hall from the Beowulf poet, and left Chaucer partly readable. This part parses him, and gives the band's traps. Part one's governing idea was that someone stands between the reader and the author in this band, so the translator's form must be kept apart from the original's matter. This part pays it off at the first trap, crediting the translator to the author, which obligation O-9 exists to prevent and for which alone it was written. First Chaucer's opening, one suspended sentence that resolves on a single word after eleven lines, with the editor's starred glosses marked as the editor's, what the exam would do with Middle English, and the Tales as a frame in which every tale is spoken by a pilgrim. Then allegory, fable and archetype from the glossary, with archetype's limit under decision D6. Then the five features that identify a passage from this band faster than any date, and its two likeliest question types. Then four traps. Last, the record at seventy omitted terms against a five-clause epic definition worth using as written, and where the translation question returns in unit twenty. By the end you will be able to parse Chaucer's opening and attribute a tale to its teller. To define allegory, fable and archetype. To identify the band on the page. To defeat four traps. And to state the record.

Six entries to start: the prologue's opening with its main clause pending, the then it resolves on, the starred glosses, what the exam does with Middle English, the frame of the Tales, and teller against tale.

The main clause has not arrived.

AIL 1522 "When That Aprilis, With His Showers Swoot"

The Canterbury Tales opens that when April with his sweet showers has pierced the drought of March to the root, and bathed every vein in such liquor that the flower is engendered by its power. One long sentence, and the main clause has not yet arrived; unit two's parse is required.

Eleven lines of when, then one then.

AIL 1523 "Then Longe Folk to Go on Pilgrimages"

After eleven lines of when, the sentence turns on then: then people long to go on pilgrimages. Spring is the condition and pilgrimage is the consequence. The whole opening is one suspended sentence, and it resolves only at that word; the sentence resolves on one word.

The glosses belong to the editor.

AIL 1524 The Starred Words

The text on disk marks words with asterisks and glosses them in the right margin: swoot as sweet, holt as grove or forest, croppes as twigs, corages as hearts or inclinations. Those glosses are the editor's apparatus and not Chaucer's text, apparatus again under amendment V-9.

Older language, same procedure.

AIL 1525 What the Exam Does With Middle English

A board printing Chaucer would supply a modernised text or gloss the hard words, as this edition does. The candidate's task is unchanged: parse the sentence, settle the shifted senses, and read what the words do. The language is older; the procedure is the same, and the board will supply the help.

Each tale has a teller.

AIL 1526 The Frame of the Tales

Pilgrims travelling to Canterbury agree to tell stories, so the work is a collection inside a frame. Unit ten defined frame narrative, the glossary having no headword. Each tale has a teller, and the teller is characterised by what they choose to tell, characterised by the tale.

The tale belongs to its pilgrim.

AIL 1527 Teller and Tale

Unit five's separation of speaker from author applies across a whole book here. A tale's crudeness or piety belongs to its pilgrim, not to Chaucer. An exam passage from the Tales is spoken by somebody, and identifying who changes what the passage means; unit five's rule, at book scale.

Three entries on the glossary's terms: allegory with its later examples, fable and archetype, and the limit that makes an archetypal reading a reading.

Meanings that extend beyond the work.

AIL 1528 Allegory, as the Anchor Defines It

The glossary gives allegory as a work whose characters, events or images extend beyond the work to reveal deeper meanings, usually moral or political, naming Spenser's Faerie Queene and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress as sustained examples. Both are later than this band and the mode begins in it.

A moral at the end, and stock figures.

AIL 1529 Fable and Archetype

The glossary defines a fable as a short traditional story with archetypal characters ending in a moral, and an archetype as a universal symbol, which may be a character, a theme, a symbol or a setting. Both terms belong to this band's material and both are examinable, and both are the glossary's own.

A school of criticism, not a fact.

AIL 1530 The Limits of Archetype

The glossary notes that many critics hold archetypes to shape a work's structure, which is a claim about a school of criticism rather than a fact about a text. Decision D6 applies: an archetypal reading is a reading, and it is attributed, per decision D6.

Two entries on the band on the page: five visible features that identify it faster than any date, and the two question types it is likeliest to carry.

Five features, all on the page.

AIL 1531 What a Passage From This Band Looks Like

Elevated diction, a narrative in verse, formulaic repetitions, gods or fate as active forces, and a hero whose fortune matters to a whole people. Those five features together identify the band faster than any date, and all five are visible on the page, faster than trying to date it.

The same seven types, as ever.

AIL 1532 What the Exam Would Ask

The same seven types. On this band the likeliest are word in context, because the diction is old, and device identification, because the conventions are strong. Neither requires knowing the work, which is the point the whole course rests on; word sense and device are likeliest.

Four entries on the traps: crediting the translator to the author, reading a gloss as text, assuming difficulty because a text is old, and accepting the epic label without checking its clauses.

Describe the version printed.

AIL 1533 Trap: Crediting the Translator to the Author

Pope's rhyme is not Homer's, and Hall's alliteration is a preserved feature rather than an invented one. An option describing a verse form should be read as describing the version printed. Obligation O-9 exists for this trap alone, and here the governing idea pays off; the form may be the translator's.

A gloss is a modern scholar's word.

AIL 1534 Trap: Reading the Glosses as Text

Chaucer's marginal glosses and Beowulf's braced summaries are editorial help. A candidate who quotes a gloss as the author's word has quoted a modern scholar. Amendment V-9 keeps typography out of teaching, and this is its practical form, V-9 in practice.

Read the plain sense first.

AIL 1535 Trap: Assuming Difficulty

Old material is expected to be obscure, so candidates over-read it, hunting for hidden meanings in plain statements. Chaucer's opening describes spring. Beowulf's opening asks for attention. Read what is there before looking for what is under it, because age is not the same as obscurity.

Check every clause of the definition.

AIL 1536 Trap: The Epic Label

The glossary's definition is demanding: long, serious, elevated, a hero embodying a people's values, and that people's fate at stake. A poem that is merely long and old is not an epic. Check the definition's clauses before accepting the option; long and old is not enough.

Four entries to close: seven more omissions for seventy in total, the five-clause epic credited, where the translation question returns, and the handoff to the Renaissance.

Seven more, seventy in total.

AIL 1537 What the Glossary Left Out Here

Epic hero as its own headword, in medias res, invocation, epithet, heroic couplet, kenning and alliterative verse. Seven more, bringing the running total across seven units to seventy standard terms this anchor does not define, and the running total is recorded for the owner.

A five-clause epic definition.

AIL 1538 What the Anchor Gave Here

A careful epic definition with five working clauses, and sound entries for allegory, fable and archetype. The epic entry in particular is more demanding than most, and the epic-label trap earlier in this lecture is defeated by using it as written; using it as written defeats a trap.

Unit twenty takes translation properly.

AIL 1539 Where the Translation Question Returns

Works in translation carry three to ten percent as a tradition band, separate from this period band. Unit twenty takes it properly, with Dante, Ibsen, Chekhov and Tagore. The principle established here, that a translator's form belongs to the translator, is what that unit builds on.

Next: the Renaissance, already met.

AIL 1540 What the Next Unit Does

The next unit takes the Renaissance and seventeenth century, worth twenty to thirty percent. Donne, Milton, Marlowe and Shakespeare have all been worked already, so that unit orients an age whose writers this course has been reading since unit two; twenty to thirty percent of the paper.

That is Chaucer parsed, the glossary's three terms, the band on the page, four traps and the record, with the governing idea paid off at the translator credited to the author. You can parse Chaucer's opening through eleven lines of when to the then it resolves on, leave swoot, holt, croppes and corages to the editor, expect the board to supply the help, and read every tale as spoken by its pilgrim under unit five's rule at book scale. You can define allegory as meaning extending beyond the work, fable as stock figures with a moral, archetype as a universal symbol, and attribute an archetypal reading to a school of criticism. You can identify the band by elevated diction, verse narrative, formulaic repetition, active gods and a hero carrying a people, and expect word sense and device questions. You can refuse to credit Pope's rhyme to Homer, refuse to quote a gloss as text, read the plain sense first, and check every clause before calling a poem an epic. And you can state seventy omissions against a five-clause epic worth using as written, and know unit twenty takes translation properly. Unit seventeen takes the Renaissance.