The Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer

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.

Throughout the Canterbury Tales, various characters are introduced and tell a tale, each of which tells a different story. All of the tales are unique and address different issues. “The Miller’s Tale” is the second of the many stories and varies from all of the rest. As seen from the “General Prologue,” Chaucer clearly depicts the Miller as a crude, slobbish man who will say anything. This reputation is held true as the Miller drunkenly tells a story full of adultery and bickering. Despite the scandalous nature of “The Miller’s Tale,” the story also displays some of Chaucer’s prominent beliefs. As “The Miller’s Prologue” and “The Miller’s Tale” are told, it becomes evident that Chaucer is challenging the common roles and behaviors of women, and he is also questioning the effectiveness of social class.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are some of the most widely read and anthologized pieces of medieval poetry. These tales are generally celebrated and enjoyed because of the author’s use of wit and satire, as Chaucer often uses word play and characterization to deliver hard-hitting, yet entertaining truths about his time period. This is the case in “The Miller’s Tale,” which portrays the story of a carpenter with an adulterous wife and the shenanigans that take place during and after one of her affairs. After closely examining “Absalom’s Revenge,” the last section of this tale, it is clear to see that Chaucer uses language, puns, and other writing techniques to provide a commentary on the lewdness of some who lived during the Middle Ages.

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.

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.

“The Miller’s Tale,” part of Geoffrey Chaucer’s larger work, “The Canterbury Tales,” is a bawdy and irreverent story about lust, deception, and consequences. Chaucer’s work centers around four main characters: John is a dimwitted carpenter, Alison is John’s young and wife, Nicholas is a scholar who resides in John’s household, and Absolon is a priest’s assistant with a romantic fixation on Alison. Throughout the tale, deceptive plots and questionable decisions abound, and no one is completely innocent of wrongdoing. Of course, like with most any other story involving lies and selfish pursuits, every character gets an informal education on natural consequences. It is worth noting that Nicholas is the only character in the story with any

Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales offers the reader an insight into our past, providing vivid glimpses into the 14th century's social structure, and into the personalities, lives, and ethics of twenty-eight members of that society drawn together to travel on a pilgrimage. The General Prologue to the Tales deals primarily with introducing these people to us, providing physical descriptions and character outlines of virtually each pilgrim; it is a tribute to Chaucer's skill that his descriptions (as filtered through the neurotically happy narrator) succeeds in creating such lively characters out of what are, essential, two-dimensional stereotypes from his era.

The Canterbury Tales” is a collection of twenty four original stories written by the one and only Geoffrey Chaucer published in seventeen forty eight. Mr. Chaucer’s frame story consists of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to England, also known as the wonderful Canterbury. As you can imagine, the journey to Canterbury is lengthy. The characters decide to kill time by unfolding tales stringing from different layers of society. Within every story holds its’ own wistful meaning. There are lessons embedded in every two stories to and from Canterbury. Especially “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and “The Pardoner’s Tale”. Told by an evil preacher and a very lustful, beyond used up wife. Now usually preachers have a great reputation. Thought to be all

“The Miller’s Tale” is a Fabliau. Chaucer illustrates how a fabliau can be a parody of romance. This kind of medieval literature usually involves someone getting cheated on. Sex in association with women is a major component in Chaucer’s Humorous tale. “The Miller’s Tale” main character Alisoun is the divine, she is the center of courtly love. Joseph D. Parry analyzes “The Miller’s tale” in his article “Interpreting female agency and responsibility in the Miller's Tale and the Merchant's Tale”. Parry’s explications of Alisoun being solely responsible for John, Nicholas and Absolom’s misfortunes are solid but not completely accurate.

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.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales in the late 1400s. Chaucer cleverly exposes a specific social condition of England during this time. In this period, the rank, function and outlook towards women were distinctly different from that of today. Two tales in Chaucer’s collection specifically address this subject: the Miller’s Tale and the Reeve’s Tale. The interaction between the tales and characters further raises the similarities these stories have towards women.

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 by Geoffrey Chaucer, provides the modern reader a great understanding towards the language in the fourteenth century and the content which talks about the medieval social life of all the classes from beggars to knight. The interpretation of the Canterbury Tales shows the life of English society in the 14th century which is pointedly true as the society in the 14th century were devoted to the beliefs and church. However, the act of the characters in The Canterbury Tales expresses how they actually were a people of the Church. The Tales begins with an introductions which explains a vivid understanding of the society as in many aspects such as, Christianity, morality, professions, the rich and the poor as well as their attire.

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.

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.