The Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer consists of frame narratives were a group of pilgrims that are traveling from Southwark to the shire of St. Becker in the Canterbury Cathedral, tell each other to pass time until they arrive at their destination. During The Canterbury Tales the reader is exposed to many characters that represent all of the social classes of medieval England and the reader gets to know them from the general prologue to each individual tale. One of these characters is the Pardoner, when the Pardoners is introduced he is described as the stereotypical pardoner of the Fourteen Century. The pardoner is describe as a crafty and a corrupt individual that will do anything to sell his pardons and relics. Nevertheless one of the most important characteristics that the Pardoner exhibits is his frankness about his own hypocrisy and sins. The pardoner accuses himself of fraud, avarice, and gluttony (the very things that he preaches against). During the Pardoners prologue, but most noticeable during his tale, the pardoners preach about how “Greed is the root of all evil”, and how our sins can lead cause our dismay.

In The Canterbury Tales, the knight is a modern type of knight. Although the description of this character’s personality is vague, it is not hard for modern day people to visualize him. In the prologue, it mentions that the knight follows the five basic ideals that a good knight should possess: “chivalry, Truth, honour, generousness, and courtesy” (Chaucer 4). The knight fought in the Crusades, wars in which Europeans traveled by sea to non-Christian places and tried to convert people’s culture by brute force, which was considered noble and brave hearted. From his love of the five basics ideals previously mentioned to his impressive military career, the knight is a perfect example of how a knight should be represented. Indirectly, the tale is discussing both the knight and the idea of how a knight should be. The tale does not describe much about the knight as in physical appearances and characteristics of this knight but as the tale comes to an end, the book starts to unfold how this story connects with this character. The tale itself is not important yet it’s what the tale represents that is important, such as pursuing courtly love, risking death, and respecting women. All of the previously mentioned attributes are ones that knights should possess to achieve expected standards.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer can be understood as a text that criticizes glossing and those who gloss. In this case, glossing a text is the comments, explanations, and interpretations one infers from reading the piece of literature and the understanding that can be taken away from it; this is different for every individual who reads the written word. I believe Chaucer wrote some of these tales as a critique of certain figures in his society. The question one should ask when reading, or being read to, is what is the meaning behind the text and where does the meaning lie. When, directly, reading a text one can determine the meaning of the author through one’s own interpretation. When one is being read to, they are being given the information in a biased form; this prevents one from being able to interpret the text for oneself and leads to the audience being glossed, as well as the text, and Chaucer criticizes the crowd’s contentedness to be glossed at and to.

In The Canterbury Tales and in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, there were many thematic messages. The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer portrays greed and corruption through church figures, social ranks by having society split into five social groups, and gender relationships. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, honor, loyalty, promises, and morality were the thematic messages. Sir Gawain had a duty that would show his honor and loyalty and see if he can keep his promise to the Green Knight. For Canterbury Tales, greed and corruption will be discussed. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight honor is the main message so honor is the thematic message I'll discuss.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a story of a contest who can tell the best tale. The rules of the contest were as follows: Each pilgrim would tell four tales for the trip to Canterbury, two on the journey there and two on the way back.. The tales will be judged by the Host for it’s entertainment and moral lessons. The winner of the contest will enjoy a meal paid for by the remaining pilgrims at the Host's Inn. “The Miller’s Tale” had fulfilled the criteria to win the contest. It was a shorter story, but it was entertaining and had a few lessons that can be learned from hearing or reading it. This story is significant because it does a great job of pointing out of some of the problems in the church during that time as well as how the morals of some people were not strong as well.

In The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, each character, such as the Pardoner, Wife of Bath, and the Franklin, epitomizes their spirit and reputation through the tales they tell. The Pardoner uses his tale as a gimmick to make money, because he is a greedy man. The way his tale illustrates each sin, every listener can relate to the three brothers and feel their guilt. The Wife of Bath’s Tale expresses her own values in the way the Knight is given a second chance after raping the young virgin. This greatly undermines her idea of the value of women. Because the Wife of Bath is so sexual, and lacks respect for her self, the Knight’s actions and forgiveness represent her own attitude on men versus women. Lastly, The

During the Middle Ages, there were many revolutionary things happening. When people think of the Middle Ages, knights may come to mind. That’s because chivalry was probably one of the most important concepts of the time. There was also a plaque from 1348-1350, not to mention the church and states’ shaky relationship. Without some of the literature of this time period, there would be little understanding of the culture and lives of people during the Middle Ages. The Pardoner’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer tells how even hundreds of years ago, greed took a hold of people. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight shows how important chivalry was during this time period. The Wife of Bath depicts the importance of chivalry, too, while also telling about the struggles that women faced.

In the medieval period that is described by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, chivalry was perhaps the most recognized quality of a true Christian gentleman. This quality is explored in Chaucer's two characters of the warrior class, the Knight and the Squire. The Squire is in fact the son of the Knight; both ride gallantly and have the air of true gentleman warriors. However, the two are very dissimilar despite their appearances. The Knight possesses the true qualities of chivalry, devotion to service, constancy in humility, and honesty. The Squire possesses none of these qualities truly, instead his demeanor is a shell that encloses a less

Following the fall of the great Roman Empire a new age was born, the age of knights in shining amour and the great kings in stone castles. Yet, it was also a chaotic time, War and plague was a disease upon Europe. Countries fought for land, resources, and above all, the attention of God. The world was young and so was the English Language. Few writers wrote in English, the language of the commoners, as French and Latin was the Language of the powerful élite. Yet one writer dared to speak against the feudal society of which he was born into. Geoffrey Chaucer served most of his life in the employment of the crown, as both a soldier and a clerk. Yet through all of these titles, Chaucer would be forever immortalized as Geoffrey Chaucer the

In The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, the life of the nobility compared to that of the poor proves to be a much harder life to live because of the many obligations and responsibilities. Chaucer ironically portrays this notion in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, contrasting the easy life of the widow, who is poor, with Chanticleer, a rich rooster. The widow’s life is much easier because she does not have to worry about keeping up with the societal expectations of the rich. Whereas, Chanticleer, the rooster, role and responsibilities in life, which he is very proud of, make his life much more difficult. Because of the way the rich live their lives, Chaucer, in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, ironically implies that living the life of the poor is much easier than living the life of the rich, who have many obligations and responsibilities.

B.) I mused over whether I wanted macaroni and cheese or pizza for dinner, which was a tough decision.

In The Knight’s tale by: Geoffrey Chaucer, the characters in the story are Prince Palamon and Prince Arcite and Princess Emily and the two princes are in prison and Emily is in Athens and Athens and Thebes are enemies. The two princes fall in love with Emily and they became jealous of each other and then Arcite was freed from prison and Palamon was left there till he dies.

In The General Prologue, Geoffrey Chaucer introduces various characters representing different roles of society. These characters are vividly described and distinguished into three different classes: the military, nobles and knights, the church, priests, nuns, and monks, and the common people. Chaucer’s detailed descriptions built these complex characters who now carried his opinions of the different classes. Trough Chaucer’s contradicting description of the Prioresse, the reader questions the sincerity of church figures during this time, ultimately suggesting that the church was not genuine and full-filling but instead an institution too rigid to be capable of functioning.

The Canterbury Tales are told in the passage of a Pilgrimage to Canterbury. We see that these characters all interact with one another, they all have different points of view on several topics. “The portraits [of the pilgrims] which appear in the General Prologue have a decided togetherness, that the portraits exist as parts of a unity” (Hoffman 492), Their actions and their tales should be thought about in context, who tells the tale, what is their age, what is his or her profession and how he or she interacts with other characters. They each have their own maistrie, they all have mastery over something that influences their own distinct personalities. Thus, how these personalities and maistries mesh with each other is incredibly important to further understand the tales themselves and the reasons behind why each character tells them. The tales themselves are merely parts of a bigger tale, the Canterbury Tales.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales from the view of a pilgrim journeying with many other travelers who all had tales to tell. I believe that the stories told by the characters in Chaucer's book gives us insight into the individual spinning the tale as well as Chaucer as the inventor of these characters and author of their stories. There are three main characters whose stories I will be using as examples: The Knight's Tale, The Miller's Tale, and The Wife of Bath's Tale.