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

Summary and Analysis of The shop shop clerks Tale (The Canterbury Tales)Prologue to the works TaleThe swarm remarks that the Clerk of Oxford sits quietly, and tells him to be more cheerful. The Host asks the Clerk to tell a merry rehearsal of adventure and not 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 uplifted style exalting the Italian landscape. AnalysisIn the Prologue to the Clerks Tale, Chaucer indulges yet again in a mild critique of his contemporaries. Here he analyzes Petrarchs stories and finds time out with his overindulgent descriptions of the Italian landscape, yet nevertheless he finds Petrarchs story good abundant to adapt for his own Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer did adapt most of these tales from outside sources, modifying them as he saw fit and oft en making significant changes in belief 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, terrific and honorable, but had one major flaw. He refused to marry, choosing careless pursuits instead. His refusal was so solid that the people of his realm confronted him about this, pleading with him to take a wife. They bye 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 fundamentver he chooses, regardless of birth, and his wife shall be tr... ...tes Griseldes fortitude is callous and inappropriate to the purpose. The chase tests that Walter inflicts on his wife appear to serve a different purpose. Walters demand seems to shift from demonstrating his wifes capa cities to breaking down his wife. This may be due to invidia for Griselde, a woman universally beloved by his people, who at the graduation 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, legal transfer together a wife and a husband who tortured her, and children and the parents who did not raise them.