The Aesthetics of Marriage in The Canterbury Tales开题报告

 2022-07-13 15:25:06

1. 研究目的与意义

Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered one of the greatest English poets of the Middle Ages.He is best known today for The Canterbury Tales. It is a collection of stories told by fictional pilgrims on the road to the cathedral at Canterbury; those tales help to shape English literature. The Canterbury Tales contrasts with other literature of the period in the naturalism of its narrative, the variety of stories the pilgrims tell and the varied characters who are engaged in the pilgrimage.He uses the tales and the descriptions of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, and particularly of the Church. Chaucer''s use of such a wide range of classes and types of people was without precedent in English. Although the characters are fictional, they still offer a variety of insights into the customs and practices of the time. Often, such insight leads to a variety of discussions and disagreements to people in the 14th century. For example, although a variety of social classes are represented in these stories and all pilgrims on a spiritual quest, it is apparent that they are more concerned with worldly things than spiritual. In those stories, there are more than 15 stories are about marriage. These stories reflect the real marriage situation in the late middle ages, and they also show the poet#8217;s thoughts concerning love, marriage and equality between male and female. At that time, the feudal hierarchy in Britain began to collapse, the capitalist class began to develop, and humanism appeared. Thus, different and ample thoughts existed. Influenced by the humanism, Chaucer stood against the asceticism that was once proposed by church. He also against the unnatural, unreasonable marriage. Although he cannot completely get rid of the influence of these thoughts, he reflects the common trend of humanism in the term of marriage, like many other authors. Although perhaps incomplete, The Canterbury Tales is revered as one of the most important works in English literature. Not only do readers from all time frames find it entertaining, but also it is a work that is open to a range of interpretations. The thoughts that Geoffrey Chaucer showed in the stories has many practical significance in today.

2. 研究内容和预期目标

This thesis aims to interpret the elements of beauty and art in the marriages portrayed in Geoffrey Chaucer Canterbury Tales by means of theory of beauty and that of art. St. Thomas asserts that beauty consists of three elements: proportion, clarity and integrity, and that art imitates and denotes production. I take beauty and art as the crucial concepts and use analogy as the inquiring tool to examine the imaginary domain between beauty and art as applied to marriage, meanwhile investigating the implied language of intercommunication between aesthetics and marriage. Marriage is taken as a representation of beauty; its different forms and contents portrayed in Chaucervarious tales will be analyzed so as to see to what extent they reflect and diverge from medieval aesthetic sensitivity and how aesthetic theory can be adopted to interpret medieval marriage.

3. 国内外研究现状

Although Geoffrey Chaucer is a great figure in English literature, the study about him or his work is not so ample, especially in China. In western country, the study about Geoffrey Chaucer or his work began at 15 century. The most authority and can be seen as a representative one is the research on Geoffrey Chaucer. But in China, to many Chinese readers, they only know little about Geoffrey Chaucer, and may only know his represent work-The Canterbury Tales. In 1979, Mr. Fangchong translated the Chinese version called 《乔叟文集》. In 1990, Hangzhou university press published the 《乔叟诗篇研究》written by BaoLvping. In 1999, Mr.Huang published the first poem version of The Canterbury Tales. The study of Geoffrey Chaucer in China can be divided into three parts. Firstly, the study on the language. At that time, the official language was Latin and French. And English was regarded as a vulgar language. But the appearance of Geoffrey Chaucer#8217;s work had broken the situation. His use of English was precedent. He made the English became the main language in Britain society. Secondly, it is the study social irony in Geoffrey Chaucer#8217;s work. There are many big events happened in that era. Like the Hundred Year#8217;s War, the plague. These events made the whole society sank into great difficulties. And Geoffrey Chaucer#8217;s work showed his critics on the church and the so-called gentleman. Thirdly, the study focuses on the topic of love and female. Geoffrey showed his empathy on female. this kind of research studies the lave and the statue of female from two aspects: language and rhetoric. All in all, the study about Geoffrey Chaucer and his work is still at a starter stage and is not mature. We should put more importance on it, so as to learn its realistic significance in nowadays.

4. 计划与进度安排

Before I start to write this thesis, I will firstly to read the stories, both the original edition and interpret edition. So I can have thoughts of m y own. Then, I will look into others research concerning Geoffrey Chaucer and his work. In addition, I also need to investigate his personal life background and social background. So I can have a clear understanding how far the research relating to Geoffrey Chaucer and his work has gone. And what I can learn from these researches. In this way, it can not only save my time but also help me to make my study more comprehensive, specific and deeper. In Chapter One, the theory of proportion is applied to the various forms of marriage depicted in the Tales to explore how the marriage of the nobility and that of the commoners will correspond to this element of beauty, as portrayed in The Clerk Tale, The Man of Law Tale, The Second Nun Tale, The Franklin Tale, The Merchant Tale, The Miller Tale, The Wife of Bath Prologue and her tale. Chapter Two examines the roles the variants of clarity, which is, physical and spiritual beauty, play in marriage, and a debate on the coexistence and non-coexistence of physical and spiritual beauty of a wife among the pilgrim-tellers will be demonstrated. Furthermore, in Chapter Three I shall extend the medieval concept of art to that of the procreative art in marriage, and explore the relationship between the procreative art and the integrity of marriage in the aforementioned tales. The conclusion discusses Chaucer#8217;s positions on the aesthetics of marriage of the nobility and that of the commoners portrayed in the tales.

5. 参考文献

The Canterbury Tales 作者：Geoffrey Chaucer《坎特伯雷故事集》作者：Geoffrey Chaucer译者：陈赞 王晓华 A first sketch of English literature 作者：Morley, Henry The Cambridge Chaucer companion 作者：Boitani.Pmann.J In a different voice作者：Gilligan, Carol《乔叟文集》作者：Geoffrey Chaucer 译者：方重《英语文学之父-杰弗里乔叟》 作者：肖明翰 Chaucer: Life-Records Martin M. Crow and Clair C. OlsenChaucer''s Canterbury Tales (Selected): An Interlinear Translation Hopper, Vincent FosterThe Complete Works of Geoffrey ChaucerSkeat, W.W.Chaucer the MakerSpeirs, JohnThe Riverside Chaucer Houghton-MifflinChaucer and the Late Medieval World Bisson, LillianThe Canterbury TalesPearsall, DerekScattered Among the Nations: Documents Affecting Jewish HistoryRubin, Alexis P

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