Summary and Analysis of The Clerks Tale Essays -- Canterbury Tales Th

Summary and Analysis of The shop clerks Tale (The Canterbury Tales)Prologue to the shop clerks TaleThe legions remarks that the Clerk of Oxford sits quietly, and tells him to be more cheerful. The Host asks the Clerk to tell a merry description of adventure and non a moralistic sermon. The Clerk agrees to tell a story that he learned from a clerk at Padua, Francis Petrarch. He then praises the renowned Petrarch for his sweet rhetoric and poetry. The Clerk does warn that Petrarch, before his tale, wrote a poem in a juicy style exalting the Italian landscape. AnalysisIn the Prologue to the Clerks Tale, Chaucer indulges yet once more in a mild critique of his contemporaries. Here he analyzes Petrarchs stories and finds misunderstanding with his overindulgent descriptions of the Italian landscape, yet nevertheless he finds Petrarchs story good replete to adapt for his own Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer did adapt most of these tales from outside sources, modifying them as he sa w fit and often making significant changes in noise and plot points. Nevertheless, many of the stories in the Canterbury Tales did not originate with Chaucer himself. The Clerks TaleThe tale begins with the description of Saluzzo, a region at the base of Mount Viso in Italy. There was once a marquis of this region named Walter. He was wise, dreadful and honorable, but had one major flaw. He refused to marry, choosing careless pursuits instead. His refusal was so rigid that the people of his realm confronted him about this, pleading with him to take a wife. They call to choose for him the most noble woman in the realm for him to marry. He agrees to marry, but makes this one condition he will marry w mobver he chooses, regardless of birth, and his wife shall be tr... ...tes Griseldes fortitude is callous and inappropriate to the purpose. The future(a) tests that Walter inflicts on his wife appear to serve a different purpose. Walters pauperization seems to shift from demonstrat ing his wifes capacities to breaking down his wife. This may be due to enviousness for Griselde, a woman universally beloved by his people, who at the set-back of the story consider Walter irresponsible and immature. By the time Walter sends Griselde naked from his home he has become wholeheartedly sadistic. The reconciliation that concludes the Clerks Tale is therefore unsatisfying, for it restores to Walter what he does not deserve. The reconstruction of the family that occurs when Griselde and her children return to Walters estate is at best tenuous, pitch together a wife and a husband who tortured her, and children and the parents who did not raise them.