The Parson's Prologue and Tale
- The Parson's Prologue and Tale
"The Parson's Prologue and Tale" make up the final section of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales".
The longest of all the tales, the Parson's Prologue and Tale is a sermon on virtuous living. The Parson is considered by some to be the only good member of the Clergy in Canterbury Tales. Harry Bailly, the host, first asks the Parson for a fable but the Parson refuses and says he will tell an improving tale in prose, as he cannot rhyme. The subject of the sermon is penitence and he describes it split into three parts: contrition of the heart, confession of the mouth, and satisfaction. The second part about confession is illustrated by referring to the Seven Deadly Sins and offering remedies against them. The Seven Deadly Sins are pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust; they are "healed" by the virtues of humility, contentment, patience, fortitude, mercy, moderation, and chastity.
The tale seems, for the most part, to be a combination of the texts of two works on penitence popular at this time: the "Summa casuum poenitentiae" of Raymond of Peñafort, and the "Summa vitiorum" of William Perault; these mingle with fragments from other texts. It is not known whether Chaucer was the first to combine these particular sources, or whether he translated an existing combined edition, possibly from French; in the latter case, any direct source has been lost.
None of the explicit criticism of clergy that marks many of the other tales and character sketches is obvious here. The Parson is throughout depicted as a sensible and intelligent person. However, he is not uncritical of the clergy; for example, he describes flatterers – those who continuously sing placebo – as "develes chapelleyns."
Although the Canterbury Tales appears to be unfinished, with some pilgrims not telling any tales and never reaching the total of four tales each (described in the General Prologue), far from complete, the Parson's tale seems to be designed to round up the work. There are many references to the end in the Parson's prologue and the tale itself contains many subtle criticisms of the behavior and character of many of the other pilgrims. Chaucer himself seems swayed by the plea for penitence in the final part of the Tales, Chaucer's Retraction, where he asks forgiveness for any offense he might have caused.
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