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.

Geoffrey Chaucer became a famous writer in his twenties. He wrote The Book of the Duchess which was completed in early 1369. Chaucer wrote Canterbury Tales in his later years, and no one knows for sure why he changed his style of writing so drastically. There are various types of writing that he uses in the Canterbury Tales such as romance, comedy, rhyme, prose, crude humor, and even religious mysteries. There were only twenty four out of one hundred and twenty pieces that were completed before Chaucer died. In Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses satire to question the church and the relationship between men and women.

Chaucer wrote about many people, who he might not have known at all. Chaucer’s ideas for his characters could have stemmed from people he saw when he worked as the controller of customs or some of his other jobs when he traveled around medieval Europe. Chaucer’s diversity in his story is what made “The Canterbury Tales” so good in my opinion as it seemed to have different perspectives of different people even though Chaucer wrote the whole thing. His characters showed such a diversity that made it sound like these people actually wrote it themselves or told Chaucer what to write. If Chaucer was alive today he could write about anyone as if he knew about them from the moment he saw them.

I agree with what Condren’s view on Chaucer. Chaucer shows in the story Chaucer talks about how dynamic life is and how different the people are. Life is a crazy thing but Chaucer makes it really different. He makes everything “fascinating” with everything he talks about has to have a story behind it and the people have stories behind them. He makes the people “fascinating” he talks about how they have rashes and have nasty eyebrows and the way they dress. Nothing is boring with them.

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 first addition Chaucer would need to make immediately is a person who is regarded as a celebrity, preferably one of the inexplicable ones who seem famous only because they are famous. These are the people in society who raise themselves up on a pedestal and view anyone not on their level financially or otherwise as inferior. If Chaucer added one of these characters they would be in whatever attire they desired and use whatever speech they made up. Celebrities are like a modern version

In his novel The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer presents the corruption of the Catholic Church through several of his characters. Chaucer lived in a time of controversial indulgences, a way to pay off sins. Chaucer’s tales show his opposition to these sinful behaviors that he believed were common among the clergy. In order to protest against sinful behavior and religious corruption, Chaucer uses characters such as the pardoner, the friar, the summoner, and the prioress to show the lack of morality and faith among the clergy, and presents the parson as an example of how to correct corruption of the Catholic Church.

Chaucer did not begin working on "The Canterbury Tales" until he was in his early 40s. Chaucer took his narrative inspiration for his works from several sources but still remained an entirely

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, using his characters as the mouthpiece for his iconoclastic views. Chaucer had serious issues with the hypocrisy of the church as well as, many other sacred institutions. The only reason that Chaucer was not exiled or even imprisoned for his views is the way in which he exposed them. Through the allegorical meanings of this text and Chaucer’s claim that he is simply retelling the events of his pilgrimage to Canterbury as it occurred, Chaucer is saved from extreme persecution. From the beginning of time there has always been issues with challenging the higher order; allowing people to make their own decisions and separate themselves from the way of the church often lead to death. In 1350 the

According to the video The Study of English, Chaucer was the first writer to consciously use English to write his poems, even though he knew Latin and French, which were considered superior to English (Macneil, MacCrum, and Cran). He was an inspector in the London wool wharf, a busy job that only allowed him to write at night (Strohm). Chaucer decided to exile himself after being punished for letting corrupt collectors do as they pleased (Strohm). Chaucer’s exile prompted him to create what is The Canterbury Tales; the creation of an audience that replaced his “small [,] responsive and [personally selected group]” back home (Strohm). Chaucer creates an audience of various people of different social class and functions. Even though Chaucer describes different Characters, which are important to understand the medieval world, I will mainly focus on the Knight.

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

Chaucer’s life and writings have made a huge impact on the writings of today’s time. He is often hailed as the father of English poetry. Many writers were influenced by Chaucer, including Shakespeare. “He had an abundance of natural buoyancy which he communicates…On the other hand, he had no gift for tragedy…”1 Chaucer invested most all of his characters with all varieties of human nature . “There are some critics who are not satisfied with {Chaucer’s} poetry unless it exhibits moral values.”2 The Canterbury Tales are incomplete because he probably “…came to realize that the whole scheme was too ambitious.”3 He most likely died before he could finish

Geoffrey Chaucer was a poet, a writer, and of course a diplomat. Geoffrey Chaucer was born in the early hours of 1340s to John Chaucer, a vintner and assistant to the king's butler. As a boy, he was a leaf to the Countess of Ulster. (Lombardi) Chaucer was the most famous for writing his unfinished Canterbury tales. (Geoffrey Chaucer) He was born in London, only problem is, the exact date and place are unknown. From his writings Chaucer emerges as poet of love, both worldly and heavenly. No information exists about his early education, although without a doubt he would have been as good in French as in the Middle English of his time. (Bio.True Story) Chaucer pops up in the record books in 1357 he was working for the queen.

This is a story about an author with an unfinished story that survived the passage of time. I will be discussing the life, the works, and the impact of Geoffrey Chaucer. Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1340, London, England. He is the son of John and Agnes de Copton Chaucer. Chaucer's family were wine merchants. Chaucer’s first job was as a page for Elizabeth, the countess of Ulster. Elizabeth was the wife of Prince Lionel, the third son of Edward III.