The Purpose of this blog

Your task on this blog is to write a brief summary of what we learned in class today. Include enough detail so that someone who was ill or missed the class can catch up with what they missed. Over the course of the term, these 'class scribe' posts will grow to be a guide for the course, written by students for students.

With each post ask yourself the following questions:
1) Is this good enough for our guide?
2) Will your post enable someone who wasnt here to catch up?
3) Would a graphic/video/link help to illustrate what we have learned?


Tuesday 5 October 2010

Miss Knights lesson- 5th October

In this class, we reflected on the prologue of the pardoner. We were able to analyse chaucers language and evaluate the perception which Chaucer was reflecting about the pardoner’s and the church through his imagery and ironic language.
At first we identified the chronology of the prologue:

At first the pardoner talks of how he has returned from Rome. He also tales small anecdotes about the relics he has “juped” people about. From this he makes it clear that he has a target audeience thus revealing his conniving nature. Furthermore he plays on the fears of society- such as being a cuckhold thus further revealing his scheming character. He after talks of the theme of all his preachings- “Rodix malorum est cupiditas”

Secondly we began to look his oxymoronic potrayal of himself as a serpeant and a dove. The serpeant being a representation of the devil, and the dove being symbolic of the holy spirit are radical contradictory images and underlying the ironic insignia in which the pardoner represents. In class it was also discussed about how the pardoner presents the image in which he wants to be however inadvertly reveals his true motives. This was clear in the abrupt switch in tone and manner in line 166. He talks of having a “joly wenche” but then quickly refers to his fellow pilgrims as “lordings”.

After this he returns to his original point- “Rodix malorum est cupiditas”, however quickly diverts into another mini achacdote. He almost questions his audience why he should be poor when he has the skill and capabillity of speech to be rich.
After this sumeraising activity we looked at different parts of the text and looked at the imergery and irony used. Through this we were able to see the depraved nature of the pardoner. We saw how he played a paradoxical role to the role he was meant to see – e.g him spicing up preachings. – (pick up sheet from Miss Knight).
After this Miss set us homework –
How does Chaucer present the pardoner in the prologue?-You can go to the W drive and type in W:\Miss Knight\Year 13
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