Rationalism In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

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.

The Canterbury Tales were written and pieced together in the late 1380's, early 1390's.  The author of the book is Geoffrey Chaucer.  When considering the structure of the tales, one can deduce that they were put together using Framework Narrative, a very unique style of writing.  The opening prologue speaks of 29 pilgrims, including Chaucer, who are all on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. All of them are seeking a certain shrine for spiritual cleansing, and relief.  The journey was to be long, but in the end it would all be worth it.  Chaucer's social views and prejudices are revealed through his description of the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales.

Yes I do believe that Chaucer's intent was to capture life in all it's teeming glory. Chaucer's stories all describe times in the world when things were good. There was never a negative ending to any of the tales that he wrote. Inside his tales he makes it seem likes things are always going to end bad in some sort of way for reason, but chaucer usually makes every story have a happy ending for everyone.

In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer introduces a variety of characters with a multitude of personalities. From the despicable Summoner to the abrasive Miller, these characters are created with their own personalities and their own human failings. One common fault that characters share is hypocrisy. From pretending to be wealthy to cheating the poor out of money, hypocritical tendencies are abundant in the Canterbury Tales. Throughout the story, Chaucer ridicules the human criticizes the human failing of hypocrisy through the examples of the Pardoner, the Merchant, and the Friar.

Canterbury Tales is an exquisite literary work for numerous reasons among them being the satirical way that Chaucer is able to get his agenda across. However, as the times change, the areas where we need to provide more discretion change as well. There are a lot of characters in Canterbury Tales that while they were great for their time period are either nonexistent or not relevant anymore. The occupations alone have changed dramatically simply based on the demands that we now have socially or in the work force. In addition, while it is still a mainstay in millions of households, the church and religion don’t hold as big a sway over the current factions you would find in the world. While Chaucer, the father of the English language, does a masterful job when he intricately describes his characters in the general prologue, if the tales were adapted for modern times he would need to add a celebrity, an athlete, and a news anchor.

Greed and religion are two things you would not expect to intermingle, and yet Chaucer is able to develop a greedy religious character known as the Pardoner. There are many religious characters in The Canterbury Tales besides the Pardoner including the Prioress, the Monk, the Friar, and the Parson. Each character carries their own good and bad characteristics, but the Pardoner is obviously greedy. This character brings into question the greediness of the Church and Chaucer’s views. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer explores the theme of greed in relation to religion through The Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale. Despite his religious position, the Pardoner will demonstrate his greed by outlining the tricks he often plays on his listeners through his prologue and tale.

Kevin Shannon Due: 1-16-2015 H Brit Lit A Block Canterbury Tales Rough Draft By the times of the Canterbury Tales, the Catholic Church, which governed nearly the entire continent of Europe, was excessively wealthy. Incredibly expensive cathedrals were built around the shrines of saints, and the amount of gold and reliquaries that went into building the cathedrals exceeded the budget of any other organization.

In the 1300’s, Chaucer wrote a controversial story critiquing the things around him. Chaucer has a clean agenda, and he knows he’s going to upset many people. One way for chaucer to get around being held responsible for the ideas in his writing, is by creating characters address the issues. By holding his characters responsible for horrendous actions, he is able to place a sense of skepticism in the minds of his readers. In the world, we see many examples of this; people can get away with saying anything, because they claim to be reporting from another source. If chaucer were to add to his writing today, he may add a few different characters; such as, a teacher, an actor, and an olympian.

Despite the fact that the clergy is supposedly to be the holiest of all other factions of the social class system during the Middle Ages period, every one of the clergy members attending this pilgrimage are corrupted in some way except one. In the Canterbury Tales, the first tale told is by a pardoner, who at that time would sell pardons to sinners, give (some of if not none of) the money collected to the church, and keep the remaining money for himself. The pardoner Chaucer makes attendance with is as corrupt as any other pardoner, keeping much of the money he collects for himself and lavishing in it quite publicly. Before the pardoner tells his tale, he speaks about himself and his tale beforehand in his own short prologue. In his prologue he confesses to bilking many people out of money for his own personal gain and proclaims that he will never do any honest day of work.

There is no question that contradictory values make up a major component of The Canterbury Tales. Fate vs. Fortuna, knowledge vs. experience and love vs. hate all embody Chaucer's famous work. These contrasting themes are an integral part of the complexity and sophistication of the book, as they provide for an ironic dichotomy to the creative plot development and undermine the superficial assumptions that might be made. The combination of completely contradictory motifs leads to the unusual stories and outcomes that come to play out in the tales. And these outcomes draw focus on the larger universal issues that in many cases transcend the boundaries of vernacular periods to all of

The Middle Ages is filled with a variety of different authors. Whether it be poets, novelists, or short story writers, these authors focused on certain topics in their works. The theme of religion is very prominent in the stories of Middle Age writers. One Middle Age writer, Chaucer, creates stories that have a heavy influence of religion and are like the parables of Jesus. A collection of some of Chaucer’s works are called The Canterbury Tales.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer are able to effectively represent the specific era and what was happening when it was written. Religion, particularly the Catholicism played a major role in many things including the works of authors during this time. During the life of Geoffrey Chaucer, there was much corruption that was taking place, particularly in the church. The different aspects of this corrupted society and the people that composed it during the medieval period are elaborated on by Chaucer. Chaucer is also able to highlight certain catastrophic events that took place, as well as major social changes.

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the prioress’s behavior can be interpreted as being part of the change occurring within religious institutions, which were changing to allow for freedom of thought and individual choice, as the nun does when she takes the liberty of customizing her fine garb by wearing it with beads and a gold brooch. The nun is one of the first characters to be given a name and as such is identified as being an individual, and not just seen as being a nun. The nun’s deviation from expected behavior and norms can thus be seen as a positive trait which Chaucer praises as women became more independent and redefined their own roles in society. Excessive understatement, negative imagery, and refined diction, however

In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer comments on moral corruption within the Roman Catholic Church. He criticizes many high-ranking members of the Church and describes a lack of morality in medieval society; yet in the “Retraction,” Chaucer recants much of his work and pledges to be true to Christianity. Seemingly opposite views exist within the “Retraction” and The Canterbury Tales. However, this contradiction does not weaken Chaucer’s social commentary. Rather, the “Retraction” emphasizes Chaucer’s criticism of the Church and society in The Canterbury Tales by reinforcing the risk inherent in doing so.

Geoffrey Chaucer, in his novel Canterbury Tales, characterizes twenty four pilgrims on their journey to Canterbury. Ranging from knights to aristocrats to the trade class , the descriptive passages depict his opinions on each traveller. These characters in turn reflect Chaucer’s criticism and attitude towards medieval society, an example of social commentary. One character specifically used to reflect Chaucer's views on Scottish culture, the lower class, and corrupt businessmen is the Miler. In the general prologue, Chaucer reveals an overall negative opinion towards the Miller’s appearance and actions, reflecting his disappoint with aspects of the Middle Ages.