A Guest Post from Carol Eshleman!

The Canterbury Alchemist: A Pilgrim’s Allegory

A canon and his yeoman race up to Geoffrey Chaucer’s pilgrims, begging to be allowed into their party. What follows is a tale of failed transformation and the subject of scholarly speculation spanning centuries. Analysts have argued about purposes of the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale along extremes from Chaucer merely imitating the alchemical literature of his time to Chaucer himself being an alchemist. What is more intriguing is why an author would have an outsider intrude upon a set cast of characters after taking such pains to describe them in detail. Mark J. Bruhn points out Chaucer’s self-reflectiveness in this scene: “Chaucer-the-narrator poses from within the dramatic moment the inevitable and crucial question it provokes: who are these unexpected interlopers?” (289). Because the premise of Canterbury Tales is that a group of people on a pilgrimage to Canterbury each tell story, the solution to Chaucer’s purpose must lie within the tale this intruding character tells. The Canon’s Yeoman’s tale of alchemy thrust upon the greater cast of pilgrims points to a larger alchemical allegory that Chaucer wishes to impart upon his readers.

An argument can be made for Chaucer’s use of alchemy as an imitation of other literature during his time period. Indeed, the general format of Canterbury Tales is an amalgamation of medieval literary genres, which fits with alchemical symbolism in general since alchemy “was not confined within the boundaries of few genres” (Linden 4). Because there were a plentitude of writings concerning the processes of alchemy, it’s highly possible that the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale was merely representative of this content as its own category of literature. The accuracy with which Chaucer portrays the alchemical process, however, is an extensive subject for debate. [Read more…]