Canterbury Tales Research Paper

When Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales, the social structure of his world was changing rapidly.  Chaucer himself was a prime example of new social mobility being granted to members of the emerging middle class.  He had opportunities to come into contact not only with earthy characters from varied ports of call, but with the wealthy nobility.  He was also married to a knight's  daughter, someone of higher birth than himself, a clear demonstration of a more lenient class structure (pp. 76 - 77*).  As a member of this changing society, Chaucer had a keen perception of the attitudes and philosophies which were emerging and shaping the roles specific to people's lives.

Written in the 1380’s, The Canterbury Tales is considered one of the greatest works of English literature. Chaucer joins a group of 29 pilgrims on a journey to the Cathedral in Canterbury, England. Along the way, readers learn the life of each pilgrim along with interesting stories. The story begins with the General Prologue and continues with the tales told by each pilgrim on the pilgrimage. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is an intriguing story that displays a uniqueness in the way that it is written, the audience it is written to, and the theme that the story focuses on.

The Canterbury Tales is a story that incorporates a multitude of stories told by a multitude of characters. Written by Geoffrey Chaucer, he devises a novel in which each character has to narrate a total of four stories as part of a competition; on their way to visit Saint Thomas Becket, the characters would tell two stories going and two stories returning from the journey. The perspective changes through each story, and each story is introduced by a general, opening, third person prologue. Though many of the characters got to share some ideas, Chaucer unfortunately passed away before his story’s entirety. As a result, a winner was never officially clarified. Needless to say, it is evident that the clear winner would be the Miller’s Tale.

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English author from the medieval era. In Chaucer's best-known work, The Canterbury Tales – a collection of twenty-four short stories as told by a group of pilgrims travelling to Canterbury – we gain access to the complex cultural landscape of his time. Chaucer's cast of characters, taken together, form a broad portrait of the social world he was a part of. This essay will argue that The Canterbury Tales' wide array of protagonists offers us an insight into the social divisions of medieval England, the high and low, old and young, learned and ignorant, rogue and righteous.

By analyzing “The Canterbury Tales”, one can conclude that Chaucer did see the merits of the church, but by no means regarded it in a wholly positive light. Whereas some of the clergy are viewed as devout and God-fearing, others are viewed as con- men and charlatans. One can even venture to say that Chaucer was using this story as somewhat of a criticism of the church, showing the flaws of its leaders and the greed that permeated it at the time.

Literature is the light that guides us into the insight of a person's secrecy and deepest thoughts. In a world that is always evolving, it is important to reflect upon the literature to create a better idea of the culture. During the time period of 1340-1400, a man named Chaucer created the Canterbury Tales. These tales encompassed the life and perspectives of the everyday people up to the king. Moreover, it can be argued that in the specific Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Tale, Chaucer is able to depict the British society during these difficult time giving the reader insight into the negatives and positive attributes given by characters.

The Canterbury Tales is strongly considered one of the greatest works in medieval literature. An admirer of Chaucer, and the author of Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century, H.S. Bennett describes Chaucer’s unique style as, “No detail was too small for him to observe, and from it he could frequently draw, or suggest, conclusions which would have escaped many.” While The Canterbury Tales was originally intended to be an epic poem consisting of over 120 short stories, Chaucer’s death came much sooner and he was only able to finish 24. Even with a small fraction of his original goal completed, Chaucer’s unique sense of language and ability to identify and establish common stereotypes was second to none. The three characters I choose, The Knight, The Pardoner and The Parson all exemplify Bennett’s quote and demonstrate Chaucer’s incredible ability to express every detail, while adding humor and irony.

       The characters introduced in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales each represent a stereotype of a kind of person that Chaucer would have been familiar with in 14th Century England. Each character is unique, yet embodies many physical and behavioral traits that would have been common for someone in their profession. In preparing the reader for the tales, Chaucer first sets the mood by providing an overall idea of the type of character who is telling the tale, then allows that character to introduce themselves through a personal prologue and finally, the pilgrim tells their tale. Through providing the reader with insight about the physical and personal traits of

     Chaucer lived in a time dictated by religion and religious ideas in which he uses The Canterbury Tales to show some of his views. Religion played a significant role in fourteenth-century England and also in Chaucer’s writing. His ideas of the Church are first seen in “The Prologue,'; and he uses seven religious persons to show the influence of the religion in his writing. Although many of his characters appear to portray part of the corruption in the Church, he does give a small example in which one can conclude that he is speaking in praise.

Fables and myths constitute the foundation of nearly every culture, and are passed down through generations, never losing their meaning and allure. Many factors make a story special, including its plot, essence, and characters, but only the storyteller holds within themselves the potential to deliver a narration that will inspire their audience and leave a lasting mark. In a quaint example of metafiction, many novels have been published with a central theme of storytelling. Two such examples following this concept is The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1478, and Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley 1818. Three characters in The

The Canterbury Tales provides a unique take on medieval culture that is unmatched by any other literary work. Geoffrey Chaucer creates a world filled with astounding characters which range from the vilest creatures to the most respectful individuals in the land. His unique stories keep the reader intrigued to find out exactly what will happen next. These exhilarating tales convey messages and examples were often made out of the characters that Chaucer deemed evil or disgraceful to mankind. In The Canterbury Tales, it is apparent that Geoffrey Chaucer is appalled by many people in the merchant and religious class, admires the Knight, Oxford Cleric, Wife of Bath, and Parson, and has a negative outlook on mankind as a whole.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a number of stories put together. The narrator is the author himself. The stories are told by pilgrims who are headed to Canterbury to visit the remains of Thomas a’ Becket. The character the Host insists that everyone tells two stories. One on the way there and one on the way back to make the trip less tiresome. There are some important details to understand when reading the poem. The first one is the values of the people in the middle ages. The people’s values consist of chivalry, feudalism, Thomas Becket and religion. Next is the influence and expansion of Christianity throughout. The author uses the characters to portray different messages. And lastly the author’s characterization plays a major

The Canterbury Tales, the most famous and revolutionary work of Geoffrey Chaucer, is a collection of twenty-four tales presented in the form of a story-telling contest by pilgrims who are traveling from London to Canterbury. In my viewpoint, The Canterbury Tales can be understood as a representation of the English society at Chaucer's time as it documents several of the social tensions of life in the late Middle Age. The choice of setting the tales as part of a pilgrimage allowed the author to cover a wide range of social roles with varying hierarchical positions and occupations. Therefore, the tales depict a number of the evolving themes by that time in many segments of the society, such as the ones presented in The Wife of Bath tale: the

Understanding the sources for a particular work is an important task for literary critics, because it ultimately leads to a better understanding and appreciation of the work itself. Sometimes similarities are so weak as to strain the credulity of theories propounding influence. At other times, the ties are so strong that influence is near certain. However, regardless of the strength of such ties, the alterations made to an original source are very potent cues as to authorial intention. In composing The Canterbury Tales, there is a broad diversity of tales told by a wide range of narrators. This indicates that Chaucer likely used a wide variety of sources. The alterations made by Chaucer to the source material for the Clerk’s Tale, including Boccaccio’s Decameron X, or “The Story of Griselda,” indicate Chaucer’s motive to examine issues such as marriage as was found in Renaissance Italy, and to explore the state of mind of the Marquis, as well as Griselda. Chaucer not only layers psychological depth to Boccaccio’s tale, but also adds to its traditional veneration of the obedient and tractable wife a genuine admiration for women in general.

The Canterbury Tales, penned by Geoffrey Chaucer gives its audiences insight on the corruption that exists to this day in humanity. As you read through the chapters Chaucer reveals the dark sides to supposedly respectable people such as the Summoner, along with people he favors like the Knight, the Wife of Bath, and women in general. His comical descriptions and stories that coincide with each character express his thoughts on real people in his society.