10/23

BW

Combine the following sentences using a participial phrase.1a)The insects were shrouded in darkness. b)They nodded upon their perches. c)They crooned like old women.2a)The man stood in the rain. b)He drew his coat around him. c)He clutched his wet hat. d)He said nothing.

BW

1) Shrouded in darkness, the insects nodded on their perches and crooned like old women.2) Drawing his coat around him and clutching his wet hat, the man stood in the rain and said nothing.

Reminder

• Turn in Medieval Period Notes• Homework: Write a sentence for the

first 10 words on your new list. Make sure your sentences convey the words’ meaning.

The Monk’s Tale: General Comments

• “The Monk’s Tale” is a parable, a story of hardship that ends with a moral. Parables emphasize redemptive suffering.

• “The Monk’s Tale” is usually considered too long repetitive, and boring.

• The relationship between the way the Monk is described in the General Prologue and the tale he tells is also considered to be confusing and incoherent.

• Usually, the teller’s tale enhances his or her description from the General Prologue.

• However, the Monk breaks from that pattern. In the General Prologue, he is depicted as very worldly (“modern”). However, he ends up telling a “story” appropriate for his station in life.

The Monk’s Tale

• Literary Focus: Allusion • A reference to a person, place,

event, or literary work with which the writer thinks the audience would be familiar

• In the course of his argument, the Monk alludes to figures from the Bible, the Classics, and history

The Monk’s Tale: Allusion

• Fortuna• Fortuna was the Roman goddess of Fortune, which

means “luck” or “chance.” She was luck personified.

• In Roman mythology, Fortuna was often depicted with a wheel, signifying that sometimes people have good luck, and sometimes people have bad luck. Just because a person is having good luck at one moment, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he or she will have it the next.

• Fortune is therefore understood to be fickle and capricious.

The Monk’s Tale: Allusion

The Monk’s Tale: Allusion

In the modern day, Lady Justice is a derivative of Fortuna. Sometimes both are depicted as blind.

The Monk’s Tale: Allusion

• What are our culture’s pervading assumptions about the relationship between Luck/Chance and Justice?

• Given what you know about the 14th century, how do you imagine the Medieval people would have understood the relationship between these two concepts?

The Monk’s Tale: Allusion• Most of what the Monk has to say about Fortuna is derived

from a Roman philosopher Boethius, who wrote a text called The Consolation of Philosophy.

• This is significant partly because it shows the Monk’s learning, and partly because his “story,” (as does Boethius’s Consolation) helps us understand how the people of the time understood morality: The consequences of sin were not regarded as being limited to the individual; they affected society as a whole.

• As you read “The Monk’s Tale,” notice that the downfall of everyone the Monk cites as examples was overconfident, and in that context forgot not only the limits that God has placed on man, but also, in some cases, common decency.

• Therefore, “The Monk’s Tale” is about how overconfidence (pride) makes a person vulnerable to committing other kinds of sins.

The Monk’s Tale: Morality

Seven Deadly Sins• Pride• Envy• Greed• Anger• Sloth• Gluttony• Lust

Seven Virtues• Humility• Charity• “Largess”• Peace• Patience• Abstinence• Chastity

The Monk’s Tale, 1-8

In Tragic Manner I will now lamentThe griefs of those who stood in high degreeAnd fell at last with no expedientTo bring them out of their adversity.For sure it is, if Fortune wills to flee,No man may stay her course or keep his hold;Let no one trust blind prosperity.Be warned by these examples, true and old.