Topic > Authority, Rebellion, and Subordination in Chaucer's The Nun's Priest's Tale and The Wakefield Second Shepherd's Play

The plight of the oppressed in medieval England was central to the emergence of iconic works of fiction. The future understanding of feudal society in turn depends on these works. To rely on monastic chroniclers alone to understand the state of their world would be to absorb works that were largely created under the authority of the magistrate (Prescott, 1998). The multidimensional nature of the works of artists such as Geoffrey Chaucer and the Wakefield Master precede the mechanical consensus of courtly writings. Chaucer lived between two systems, that of aristocracy and that of urban life. It would be an understatement to say that he was culturally aware of both his position in society and that of those whose social rankings were above and below him (Strohm, 1994). The Canterbury Tale's, printed in 1483, was written at a time of economic and political adversity in England's history. The Nun's Priest's Tale, fragment VII of the Tale, follows the familiar game of the veined cock and the cunning fox and fragments of reality find their way through his theatrical compounds; such as the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Although the second shepherd's play was written almost a century after the Canterbury one, in the late 1400s, it casts a familiar reflection on the misfortunes of peasant life. The work was written by a man known simply as the Master of Wakefield who, like Chaucer, had a commitment to recognizing the forgotten and oppressed man. The show examines the financial shortcomings of three shepherds as they deal with the theft of their sheep, against the climatic backdrop of the Nativity. The work touches on the question of the fence; that it was the transformation of a grain-based economy into a sheep-based economy in the late 15th century that triggered social and financial uncertainties (Kiser, 2009). The two stories show the social constraints and economic conflicts of their time through a series of dramatic illusions. Chaucer and the Master of Wakefield patrol the boundaries of reality and fantasy using vernacular language and crude, forceful humor to depict social order and revolution. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The ideal of social order and how to control it was an ongoing concern for medieval England. The Second Work of the Wakefield Master's Shepherd serves as an observation on social conventionality. However, the standards of the game cycle it contained traditionally supported an overwhelming sense of conformity (James, 1983). The Wakefield cycle consisted of thirty-two carefully ordered plays from the creation of the world to the day of judgment; respecting the chronological order of the Bible. This need for literary structure was typical of the social hierarchy of the Middle Ages. The show functioned to inhibit social pressures through religious indoctrination, upholding the common ideal of the social body. The social body symbolized the society structured under the figurative head of the judiciary; and was often combined with religion to complete the body of Christ (James, 1983). It worked under the assumption that community subordination meant physical survival and that the structure required constant reaffirmation; such as the transubstantiation of Christ in the Eucharist (Sinanoglou, 1973). The actual progression of the works can be reflected in its content, people are sorted into angels, men, then women, then animals. The structure of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales also shows a predictable chain of commandmedieval; of course, The Knights Tale is the first to be told in the sequence. Furthermore, The Nun's Priest's Tale devotes little of its content to the life of the poor widow before the story is directed towards the luxurious life of Chanticleer, the rooster. Chanticleer is elaborately described; «Perhaps it was his legs and his cartoons/...And perhaps the burnt gold was his color» (1863-2864) (Chaucer, 1915). The blasphemous virgin birth and vulgar comedy of The Second Shepherd's Play marked a turning point in the cycles towards popular culture in the early 16th century. The plays became satirical outlets for political and social observation, veiled in an orthodox tone. The traditional reaffirmation of the social body became a threat to authority, and Chaucer and the Wakefield master parodied it through the reconstruction of the social order. Both The Nun's Priests Tale and The Second Shepherd's Play, although printed at different times in English history, produce an unbounded awareness of social revolution. The slapstick element of The Second Shepherd's Play affirms ideas of utopian change. The physical progression of the game loop is reflected in its hierarchical content and serves as a reflection of the oppressive class structure. The three shepherds always speak in chronological sequence, first second and third, distorting the idea of ​​the three model states of the clergy, nobility and common people of the 14th century (Strohm, 1994). Like the social body, the revolution needs constant renewal and almost religious reincarnation. Mak is representative of misplaced rebellion; he tempers the sheep of his companions in misfortune. He does this instead of directing his anger towards the real causes of his unhappiness; pastoral enclosure and its social superiors. His theft is presented as basic human nature and acts as a desire for utopian change in a meaningless world; in which lordly lords took small peasant properties and turned them into larger units for grazing. Chanticleer in the Nun's Priest's Tale, a counterrevolutionary member of the aristocracy, also misplaces his guilt, directing attention to himself rather than the rebel; Daun Russell the fox. In the Wakefield Play, the Shepherds tirelessly lament the economic and domestic oppression of their lives, but Mak did what they did not; he acted while they remained docile like the flocks of sheep they govern. The Peasants' Revolt of 1381 played a huge role in the political and financial tribulations of Chaucer's England. In 1381 the Kentish rebels led by Wat Tyler, often described in literary accounts under the pseudonym Jack Straw, advanced towards London, rioting and killing supporters of the economic and judicial power (Prescott, 1998). This was caused in part by the collection of obscene taxes and difficult labor. Although its reference in The Nun's Priest's Tale is fleeting, its resonance overrides the social reception of the entire tale. Verbatim accounts of the uprising were plagued by dissonance and complexity, and chroniclers distorted accounts for social gain. Many texts describe the rebels in Latin, a criticism of their unworthiness, but Chaucer uses the vernacular language of the peasants, decreasing social distance. A notable writer on the rebellion was John Gower, and critics have noted that Chaucer parodies his accounts of the rebellion in The Nun's Priest's Tale (Justice, 1994). Gower's work on the revolt represents his typical fictional account and this may have prompted Chaucer to use it as an easily parodied example. Like many accounts of the revolt, Gower describes the rebels as "savage" and "imperceptible" and that "their throats were filled with all sorts of bovine bellowings...with the devilish voice of thepeacocks" (Gower, 1992). only "mooing" in the "evil voice" of birds, such as the presumptuous animals of Chaucer's widow's farm. Justice (1994) describes this technique as making inaudible anything the rebels might have said .The Second Shepherd's Play, set in a progressively advanced England, also presents similar accounts of the excessive taxation of the peasantry; the inevitable repetition of class struggle in a feudal society. The idea of ​​the “crowd” as a socio-political construct is abundant in writings on revolution (Prescott, 1998). was avoided in medieval England. Gower (1899) quantifies that “There are three things such as will produce ruthless destruction when they gain the upper hand… the third is the inferior people, the common multitude for they will not be stopped either by reason or discipline” . It was not only the peasants who formed the crowd of the 1381 revolt; however it was less controversial for writers to describe them that way, to place as many social rankings as possible between them and the insurgents. This insists that rioters are not capable of independent action, but are instead controlled by individual extremists (Prescott, 1998). They are the flock of a shepherd who has wandered away from his masters to end up in the hands of a false prophet; as Mak in The Shepherd's Second Comedy. The concept of the crowd presupposes the idea that high society is composed of educated individuals, as opposed to the barbarism of the poor masses. Medieval England was a time of understanding human nature, rather than “the cult of the individual” seen in the Renaissance (Roney, 1983). Ferenbacher (1994) describes Chaucer's Chanticleer as a “Western man trying to maintain his dignity in the face of basic human nature.” These tales parody the epochal conception of peasants as tragically human and rebels as exclusively lower class, which is funny when you consider the authorities born out of successful historical rebellions. The medieval concept of man's evil is visualized as tragically human and is manipulated through moralistic illusions. The second shepherd's play uses evil as a binary from which good arises. Starting with Augustine, a Western concept of evil was “the absence or distortion of good” (Evans, 1990). Augustine's account of stealing a pear from his neighbor's orchard can be compared to Mak's theft. Augustine's view was that “everyone knows that stealing is wrong; even a thief will not allow others to rob him without protest” (Evans, 1990). It is insinuated that the pleasure derives from the theft itself; the social construct of “evil in everything” is embodied in Mak's conscious choice. Mak's malevolence is felt in the harshness of the shepherd's proverb upon discovering the stolen sheep; “Ill spon weft, Iwys / ay commys foull owte” (587). Chaucer's pleasant courtyard, "But such joy was to hear them sing, / When the bright sun began to spring," (2878-2879), is very different from the apocalyptic mood of Wakefield's work; “the weders are full. / And the frosts so hydus / thay water myn eeyne.” The shepherd's world is old and cruel. However, the introduction of the riot in The Nun's Priest's Tale suggests that the tranquility of the barnyard is not all it seems. Peasants were often described as “inhabitants of hell” or “tools of the devil” (Prescott, 1998), and the nuns' priest states that “yolleden as feendes doon in helle”; (3389). The angel in the Shepherd's Second Work also announces "This will take from the feyd / Which Adam had loved:" (638). Chaucer's "feendes" and the "feyd" ofWakfield uses diabolical imagery to construct a polar pretense of morality. Both accounts indicate that Adam and Eve, or humanity, fall from grace. Similarly, Daun Russel in The Nun's Priest's Tale may represent the devil's flattering tongue. Wakefield’s play mirrors the Corinthians: “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, because Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light” (Cor 2,13-14). The sheep represents the birth of the devil, a false prophet. It is the 'fence' of the pastoral economy which has proven to be prosperous for some and devastating for others, disguised "as an angel of light". Mak, however, is something worse than a false representative of Christ; it is truly satanic as a false representative of the are, “what! I will be a yoman / I tell you, of the king;” (201). These religious overtones are not only culturally necessary, but a commentary on the "evil" of those who defy God's will and the will of the king. The literary parody of religious indoctrination suggests that medieval subjects were not so easily influenced by guilt. of moral teachings as the Church might have believed. The nun's priest hides behind theology rather than glorifying it, the mechanical prayer that concludes the story seems forced and unnecessary; “And bring us to his happiness! Amen." (3446). The Night's Tale of the Canterbury Tale condemns the elaborate morality of the aristocracy, and The Miller's Tale comments on the absurdity of the poor rabble. The nun's priest, however, offers a solution as to where one fits in medieval society The widow's life is humble, quiet and retains a kind of rustic simplicity; far from the quarrels of the nobles and the wicked of the threshing floor. In the original source of the Tale of the Priest of the Nuns, the Roman de Renard, the owners of the Chanticleers were rich. This intentional change made by Chaucer could be an attempt to highlight the difficult situation of living a normal, simple and Christian life, in the chaos of medieval realities. In contrast, in the Second Shepherd's Comedy the years turned out to be useless for the modest man rural and religion is used to echo their poverty. Mak's language is blasphemous, "God save you all!", and unlike the cycles of time, the Nativity is not at the linear center. The displacement of Christ in medieval England is personified, and Wakefield's master alludes to the impotence of faith in the face of economic devastation. However, the final birth of Christ could also mark a return to the fruitfulness of spiritual minimalism. Post-enclosure has proven to be quite effective in the long term of the pastoral enterprise and the birth foreshadows this (Allen, 2000). Both Chaucer and Wakefield's master mock the necessity of morality in literary expression. Class struggles and periodic horrors are often safely conveyed through the medium of animal fables. Aesop's fables served as quick moral lessons, often told by Greco-Roman peasants to convey an unbalanced distribution of power (Rothwell Jr, 1995). Aesop tells a similar story to the nun's priest; that of the Eagle and the Fox. The eagle eats the fox cubs, before accidentally setting fire to its own nest; the fox then eats its nestlings as they fall to the ground. Aesop's eagle, like Canticleer, is a symbol of status and authority and is equally self-destructive; both birds burn their kingdoms and allow those beneath them to gain power through the self-immolation of the aristocracy. The fairy tale not only has meaning but is understood through a return to reality. Animal images were also used abundantly in accounts of the revolt of thefarmers; farmers were often compared to wild beasts. Chaucer parodies this common misconception; "Ran cow and calf, and eek the verray hogged" (3385), being almost identical to Gower's verse; “some sound the lowing of cattle, others utter the horrible grunting of pigs” (Gower, 1899). Chaucer's animals live a lavish lifestyle, in contrast to the widow's “ful symple lyf,” and the structure of these two pastoral tales is characterized by separation. The world of Wakefield's shepherd and Chaucer's farm animals is cut off from the rest of medieval society. The kingdom of Chanticleer is in a "Yeerd....enclosed al aboute" (2847) and although their fields were physically large, the concept of "enclosure" in the Second Shepherd's Play is equally restrictive. The solitary use of the pastor laments showing their isolation, directly addressing the root causes of their economic uncertainties; “ffor the tylthe of oure landys/lyys follow as floore.” The harsh local language shows the discomfort of seclusion, using words such as “land-lepars” (Happ?, 2007). Mak is repressed, longing for his absent flock, and this can be seen as his ability to father many children as an insufficient substitute. The shepherds of The Second Shepherd's Play were domesticated, like Chaucer's farmers, before their transformation into animals. As in The Nun Priest's Tale, humans become animals, Mak refers to the baby sheep as his "heir". The two accounts start from the assumption that if animals can behave like humans, then humans can behave like animals (Knight, 1986). The animal fable not only reiterates the social prejudices of the medieval upper class, but also the animalistic nature of the typical medieval man. The solipsism of medieval life, particularly in the rural economy, is embodied in the dream vision. A medieval account of solitude, of being alone in one's own mind, is seen in the isolated soliloquies of the Second Shepherd's Comedy 'as the shepherd's “walking/so close to me” (41) who personifies the solitude of seclusion. The first account of dream vision was Cicero's Somnium Scipionic, around the 4th century. Cicero's dream experience focused on the individual's psyche in turmoil and anguish. This was seen as representing the rational nature of authority versus people's realistic psychological needs (Russell, 1988). Pertelote in The Nun's Priest's Tale uses Cicero's tale to aid a clinical diagnosis of Chanticleer's anguish. Chaucer's characters are always present in their dreams; the fact that he used this technique in his time heralds the future development, in human psychology, of the interpretation of dreams as "clinical". Biblical dreams were simply the word of God. In the Middle Ages the question was whether God was actually speaking or not. Chanticleer's dream is a pole of free will, God has mapped out his path but, like humans, he must determine how to get there. Medieval England was a time of archetypal determinism, and Chanticleer's vanity largely determines what he does. Both stories are fictional means that “man uses to ennoble his existence in the world” (Finlayson, 2005). It suggests a lack of control over anything substantial in medieval life. A medieval account of character differs from modern literature and might involve astrology and the theory of humors such as melancholy, phlegm, etc.; and these things were all predetermined by focusing on the modern idea that temperament derives from biological composition. Dream images are used to communicate the ultimate realities of medieval life that could not be understood.