Scholars of Geoffrey Chaucer are so familiar with the opening lines of the Canterbury Tales, ‘Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote/The droghte of March hath perced to the roote...’ that we hardly think about them. We have known from our first undergraduate medieval class that Chaucer is using the traditional ‘springtime’ morning of romances and dream visions, replete with new life, green leaves, flowers, singing birds, and, of course, love (Wetherbee). But Chaucer is, as always, playing with the conventions here. Most of the closest analogs to the opening lines of the General Prologue, in dream visions and romance, are set on a May morning. May is ‘the traditional time for love in medieval poetry,’ (Phillips) and the love poem par excellence in later medieval culture was the Romaunt de la Rose, which established the conventions of the May morning for the following two hundred years: set in May, flowers are blooming, birds are singing, new leaves are emerging, and it is a time of joy and love. The opening lines of the Canterbury Tales contain every one of these conventions. Two of Chaucer’s own dream visions, The Book of the Duchess and The Legend of Good Women are set in May; and his high romances are also usually set in May. Book II of Troilus and Criseyde, the book in which Criseyde finds out about Troilus’s love for her and sees him from the window, begins on the third of May; the Knight’s Tale starts as an epic, but switches to romance discourse with the introduction of Emily on a May morning, and delightfully mingles the description of May with the conventional effictio description of the heroine. In the Franklin’s Tale, a Breton lay, when the romance-plot action – the rather problematic falling in love of the young man – starts, it is ‘on the sixte morwe of May/Which May had peynted with his softe shoures/This gardyn ful of leves and of floures’ (CT V.906-908). Chaucer clearly associated the genres of dream vision and romance with May. Many, many other medieval romances and dream visions are likewise set in May. The French writers that Chaucer draws on firmly cemented the May morning convention begun in the Romance of the Rose. Jean Froissart sets his ‘Paradys d’Amour’ in May, and

中文翻译：

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那五月呢？乔叟在坎特伯雷故事集的开场白中打破常规

杰弗里·乔叟的学者们对坎特伯雷故事集的开场白如此熟悉，“Whan that Aprill with his shoues soote/The droghte has been perceed to the root...”我们几乎不去想它们。我们从我们的第一个中世纪本科班级就知道乔叟正在使用浪漫和梦想愿景的传统“春天”早晨，充满新生命、绿叶、鲜花、歌唱的鸟，当然还有爱（Wetherbee）。但是乔叟一如既往地在这里玩弄惯例。大多数最接近总序幕开场白的比喻，在梦境和浪漫中，都发生在五月的早晨。五月是“中世纪诗歌中爱情的传统时期”（菲利普斯），中世纪晚期文化中最杰出的爱情诗是 Romaunt de la Rose，奠定了以后两百年的五月晨风：五月立，花开，鸟鸣，新叶出，是喜乐相爱的时节。坎特伯雷故事集的开场白包含了这些约定中的每一个。乔叟自己的两个梦想，《公爵夫人之书》和《好女人传奇》定于五月；而他的高潮也通常定在五月。特洛伊罗斯和克瑞塞德的第二本书，克瑞塞德发现特洛伊罗斯对她的爱并从窗户看到他的书，从五月三日开始。《骑士的故事》一开始是一部史诗，但随着艾米丽在五月的一个早晨的介绍，转向浪漫话语，并将对五月的描述与对女主人公的传统效果描述愉快地混合在一起。在富兰克林的故事中，一个布列塔尼的人，当浪漫情节行动——这个年轻人的爱情相当困难——开始时，是在五月的六点钟/五月用他软软的shoues peynted/这个花园充满了堤防和面粉'（CT V.906-908）。乔叟清楚地将梦境和浪漫与梅联系在一起。许多其他中世纪的浪漫故事和梦想也同样发生在五月。乔叟借鉴的法国作家坚定地巩固了始于《玫瑰罗曼史》的五月晨会。Jean Froissart 在 5 月设置了他的“Paradys d'Amour”，并且 乔叟清楚地将梦境和浪漫与梅联系在一起。许多其他中世纪的浪漫故事和梦想也同样发生在五月。乔叟借鉴的法国作家坚定地巩固了始于《玫瑰罗曼史》的五月晨会。Jean Froissart 在 5 月设置了他的“Paradys d'Amour”，并且 乔叟清楚地将梦境和浪漫与梅联系在一起。许多其他中世纪的浪漫故事和梦想也同样发生在五月。乔叟借鉴的法国作家坚定地巩固了始于《玫瑰罗曼史》的五月晨会。Jean Froissart 在 5 月设置了他的“Paradys d'Amour”，并且