Springtime (Motif)
Both The Canterbury Tales and The Legend of Good Women begin in springtime, when the pleasant weather lures people out of their homes. Springtime was the conventional setting of medieval dream-vision poetry. Chaucer adapts this by self-consciously referencing the trope’s popularity in literature (The Legend of Good Women) or by providing an especially materially grounded account of the season, without the flowery adornments more typical of the genre (The Cantebury Tales).
Ekphrasis (Motif)
“Ekphrasis” is a literary term referring to when a poet gives a detailed description of a work of a visual author. Chaucer employs the device frequently, especially in his dream-vision poetry. In The House of Fame, the narrator encounters a temple painted with murals depicting the story of the Aeneid. By describing the murals, Chaucer both recounts the story in his own words, and obliquely provides his take on how we interpret stories as audience members. The device similarly features in The Book of the Duchess, where Chaucer describes a painting of the events of the French poem the Roman de la Rose.
The Tower (Symbol)
In "The Knight’s Tale," two prisoners fall in love with the same woman, who they can see from the tower where they are imprisoned. One man is let free, but exiled from the kingdom forever. The other remains in the tower. Both envy the other: the prisoner believes his rival’s freedom will enable him to pursue his desire, while the exile envies the prisoner his ability to see his beloved. The tower thus works as a symbol of imprisonment, as well as a physical place of incarceration. Both men are unfree, not only because they are trapped by a political power, but because they are psychologically confined by love.
Greek Myth (Motif)
Chaucer frequently refers to Greek myth. The House of Fame and The Legend of Good Women both feature characters from classical mythology. So does "The Knight’s Tale," where two rivals turn to the gods of war and love for help. The presence of Greek gods in medieval poetry might be surprising to us—after all, it’s against the prescriptions of Christian orthodoxy. Yet medieval writers were actually quite knowledgeable about classical writing, and even Christian theologians often drew on pagan philosophy to make their arguments. People also understood that poetry had space for fiction, and wasn’t always moralizing: Chaucer certainly didn’t believe in the Roman gods, but he had fun incorporating them into his stories.
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale (Allegory)
Allegory was a common device in medieval poetry, but Chaucer, who tended towards a more realistic approach, rarely writes allegorically. One exception is the "Nun’s Priest’s Tale." Her story describes a rooster, Chanticleer, who is very popular among the barnyard hens. One night he dreams that a fox is coming to kill him, but a hen convinces him that the dream doesn’t say anything real. However, one night the fox does find him and carry him away by the neck to kill him. Chanticleer escapes by complimenting the fox, who opens his mouth to respond, letting the rooster escape. The characters in the tale represent real people, who are advised not to let themselves be taken in by flattery.
