History of British Literature

Chaucer has created many characters in the Canterbury tales that he likes and many he dislikes. He is a very critical and detailed writer about these characters. With these characters, Chaucer has created real life issues with religious figures. Chaucer’s has showed how good religious figures can be and how corrupt they can be as well.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Canterbury Tales." Trans. Nevill Coghill. Glencoe Literature, The Reader's Choice, British Literature. Columbus: Glencoe/McGraw Hill, 2000. 118-119.

The Canterbury Tales is a poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1392. In this poem each character tells four stories, two on the way there and two on the way home, to provide entertainment for the people on the pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. One part of Chaucer’s tales that truly stands out is the character prologue where he introduces all of the characters on the pilgrimage and conveys the narrator’s opinions of them using satire and other literary devices. Of characters that Chaucer’s narrator describes, two are the Parson and the Friar. Both of the characters share similarities in their social status and job position however greatly contrast in morals and character. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses contrasting characteristics to convey an idea that teaches that power does not always lead to corruption.

The Canterbury Tales were written by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. This masterpiece is one of the greatest classics of English Literature, it was and continues to be still very popular. Many manuscripts survived and it was the first work to be printed by William Caxton. It is a story about pilgrims travelling together, who tell stories on their journey to Canterbury, to pay tribute to Saint Thomas Becket. As it is a collection of tales, it varies in genre (there is beast fables, romances, fabliaux, saints’ lives…), subject, mood, length (some tales are 80-page long whereas some are much shorter), form (in verse –several verse-form are also found- or in prose). For this

be seen to reflect the period and place that it was written as well as

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of more than 20 stories, written in Middle English around the 1380s, during the Hundred Years' War, by Geoffrey Chaucer. Within a narrative about a pilgrimage,(from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral) Chaucer sets a series of stories. These collection of stories are built around a frame narrative, which was an already established and common genre of the 14th century. (The tales are in verse, except The Parson's Tale and Chaucer's own story of Melibee which are in prose.) Chaucer's collection of tales differs from other story compilations, since most story collections are focused on a theme, usually on a religious one. In Boccaccio's Decameron (which contains more parallels

The 14th century was a time in the Middle Ages where a lot of things were changing. The plague caused a huge population deficit and climate played a major role in this as well. At this time, the government was poorly organized which led to dirty cities that could further the spread of the plague. Many people had malnutrition, which consequently furthered the spread of diseases, killing even more people and affecting the economy. With such a large number of people dead, the cost of labor increased and women were needed to work as there were not enough men for certain jobs to function. I am aware that other events during this time could have caused changes as well, but the most prominent and devastating were that of diseases and climate. When you put all of these factors into perspective, you can see that the climate and diseases in the 14th century played a major role in the social, political, and economic changes that occurred.

   Geoffrey Chaucer is considered by many critics as the father of English literature.  His literary masterpiece was "The Canterbury Tales."  In these tales, Chaucer writes about pilgrims who are on a journey to Canterbury.  Each pilgrim has a tale that they tell on this journey.  Chaucer expresses themes and messages through the characterization of each pilgrim.  Through the Parson, one of the pilgrims, Chaucer is able to portray the life of a true Christian through the general prologue, prologue to the Parson's tale, and the Parson's tale itself.

The Medieval Period in history brought along scores of fables about everything from knights engaging in courtly love to corruption in the Catholic Church. The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer expertly encapsulates many of the great motifs of the era. The Tales are a series of stories and descriptions of characters of all social classes that were composed in the late 1300’s. Chaucer utilizes a multitude of literary techniques to convey his personal views of people, and ultimately, what they represent in society. The author uses such devices when depicting two morally contrasting characters, the Parson and the Summoner, that are documented in the Prologue.

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

The Medieval period of The Canterbury Tales is held on April 11, 1387. The writing style of tales are literary skilled. “There is clear evidence in them that Chaucer was familiar with a considerable number of the great book of his time, and it is fairly well established that his writings show a steady increase in his literary skill” (Chaucer xxxvii). Chaucer is a writer of surprise. His stories not only come from plots of other writers but also from his lifetime. “There is of course no explaining where or how Chaucer acquired his ability as a great storyteller. However, the fact that he was a man of affairs as well as a man of books, a civil servant who dealt frequently with people from all walks of life, seem to have had great

The Canterbury Tales, has withstood the test of time mainly because of the well-known historical influence the work has had on the development of the English language. Today, many individuals continue to read the work and enjoy it for many of the same reasons the individuals of the middle ages enjoyed it. However, many readers of the work today do not realize the historical significance this work has had on the English language as a result of the works translation into modern English. This is why many publications of the work contain both the modern translation as well as the Middle English version. By comparing the two versions, one can see how

In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer gives a detailed description of what life was like in Medieval times . In the “Prologue”, the reader comes to better understand the people of the time period through the characters words and actions. Chaucer uses a variety of groups of society to give the reader a deeper insight into the fourteenth century Pilgrims customs and values. Through the Court, Common people and the Church, Gregory Chaucer gives a detailed description of ordinary life in the medieval times.

The Canterbury Tales, a collection of tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, was written in Middle English at the end of the 14th century (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2011). It is considered to be the best work of literature in English in the Middle Ages (Johnston, 1998). Chaucer uses literary devices as no one had ever done. In addition, he chose to use English instead of Latin. This masterpiece is structured in a similar way as Bocaccio's Decameron. The tales are organized within a frame narrative (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2011) explained in the General Prologue by the narrator: a group of pilgrims that are going to visit St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury's Cathedral. These pilgrims are from different estates of the medieval society: nobility, the

It was in Chaucer's final phase, which he gained his popularity, The Canterbury Tales (written mostly after 1387). The Canterbury Tales was an unfinished poem. Being his most successful, it consists of 17000 lines. It was one of the most unsullied works in all literature. (Info Please) The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle-English. As a group of pilgrims travels to the shrine of Saint Thomas they decide to tell stories to each other on the way. In a huge list of poems and stories, the Canterbury Tales is Chaucer's most important and visual, and a stacking achievement of western culture and Old English times. While writing the Canterbury tales he use the characters and their lifestyles to create irony and every day events. Describing what the old English church was really like. (Geoffrey Chaucer) The Canterbury Tales were written in Middle English, in the old days, the tone was equivalent to London type style. Although there was never an official copy of the Canterbury tales, Adam Pankhurst made sure that wasn’t true.