The End

It’s sad to say goodbye to such a great class. It has been a lot of fun. On the subject of endings, I am fascinated by Chaucer’s ending of the Canterbury Tales. The whole time I was thinking it would end much as it began, in the framing narrative with a declaration of the winner and some parting comments. Instead we get and ending that seems to flow directly from the Parson’s “tale,” focusing on Chaucer’s works and revoking a good number of them:

Wherefore I beseke yow mekely, for the mercy of God, that ye preye for me, that Crist have mercy on me and foryeve me my giltes; and namely of my translacions and enditinges of worldly vanitees, te whiche I revoke in my retracciouns: as is The Book of Troilus, The Book also of Fame, The Book of the xxv Ladies, The Book of the Duchesse, The Book of Seint Valentines day of the Parlement of Briddes, The Tales of Caunterbury, thlike that sownen into sinne…(1083-1085).

It is quite surprising to see him equivocate his “giltes” with a list of his work, or at least make them something he needs forgiveness for. It sounds very much like a confession to the reader, the person who understands the stories and what he could be forgiven for. While there were parts of the tales that I thought he might appropriately apologize for (Melibee perhaps), I was surprised to see the CTs in that list. I have heard of some of the other works in there but haven’t read them, so can’t say what is in them. All the same, these are works that people are still reading some six hundred years later and this list makes me wonder if we he would want us to. It’s a strange feeling. I read the notes for this section and they explain that there are many theories about why this is here, from deathbed recantations to mistaken inclusions to literary convention. They way this is written makes me want to say that this ending is the one that is meant to be here, perhaps because it comes so strongly on the heels of “The Parson’s Tale.” It is almost like Chaucer was moved by what he was writing while he was writing it, and by the end did not have the heart to return to the framing narrative.  It makes the whole question of who had the best story moot. Not the ending I was expecting at all.