Short Summary: The Monk tells a series of brief tragedies, of which he has a hundred in his cell.
The Monk takes the joking well, then offers to tell some of the hundred … In Monk’s tale, we encounter series of tragedies preaching us to beware of the fragility of fortunes and to not fall for prosperity blindly. Analysis. The Monk's Tale Summary. I’m ashamed to admit that during the 26 years Uncle Bill was in France, I visited him only three times.
The Franklin’s Tale Summary - In Franklin's Tale Franklin tells us story of a knight, Arviragus, who wins the love of a young lady, Dorigen, by promising her his services forever. The Monk's Tale is really a collection of tales giving us the Monk's definition of tragedy. 'The Monk's Tale' in Chaucer's classic 'The Canterbury Tales' is a rather morose chronicle of the tragic fates of several well-known historical figures. The Monk’s Prologue and Tale. The metrical form of "The Monk's Tale" is the most complex of all the pilgrims', an eight-line stanza with rhyme scheme ABABBCBC. In fact, the … He tells of Lucifer, Adam, Samson, Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar, Balthazar, Zenobia, Peter of Spain, Peter of Cypres, Bernabo of Lombardy, Ugolino of Pisa, Nero, Holofernes, Antiochus, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Croesus -- at which point, the Knight can take no more and calls for a halt. Geoffrey Chaucer. Summary of “The Monk’s Tale” In Montastruc, my uncle settled into a different sort of monkish life, staying so close to home that he once managed to keep a fire burning in the hearth for 77 days straight. The Monk’s series of little tragedies report the gloomy news that all wealth and position in the world are pure illusion, and nothing can prevent the fall of the proud. Although the Host demands a merry tale from the Monk, the Monk instead gives a series of cameo tragedies, all of which deal with the role of fortune in a man's life. Summary and Analysis The Monk's Tale Summary. It may be that Chaucer arrived at this stanza form as an adaptation of the Italian ottava rima stanza (rhyming abababcc) used by Boccaccio for his Teseida and Filostrato. Usually, a strong, syntactical link exists between the fourth and fifth lines, which some literary theorists feel prevents the stanza from breaking in half. He asks that someone tell a tale that is the opposite of tragedy, one that narrates the extreme good fortune of someone previously brought low. The Monk catalogues the fickleness of Fortune through a series of abbreviated tales about such people as Lucifer, Adam, Hercules, Samson, Nero, and so on — all who were initially favored … Chaucer uses this ababbcbc form in his Monk’s Tale, as well as in his Marian lyric, the ABC, and hence it is often called a “Monk’s Tale stanza”.