The Hidden Meaning of The Nun's Priest's Tale Essay

The prologues that link the various Canterbury Tales shift effortlessly from ponderous drama to light comedy. The lamentable tale of Griselde gives way to the Host's complaint about his shrewish wife. This prologue

Canterbury Tales Compared to Dante's Inferno This study will explore the themes of innocence and guilt in the "Hell" section from Dante's Divine Comedy and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The study will focus on the uses each author makes of urban and more natural settings to convey messages about innocence and guilt. While both Dante and Chaucer make use of this motif in making their thematic points, a great difference exists between them. Chaucer's primary purpose is to present a humorous and compassionate portrayal of human existence including innocence and guilt, or goodness and evil while Dante's essential purpose is moral and instructional.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales became one of the first ever works that began to approach the standards of modern literature. It was probably one of the first books to offer the readers entertainment, and not just another set of boring morals. However, the morals, cleverly disguised, are present in almost every story. Besides, the book offers the descriptions of the most common aspects of the human nature. The books points out both the good and the bad qualities of the people, however, the most obvious descriptions are those of the sinful flaws of humans, such as greed and lust.

The Nun is not viewed in the same light, and as a result she wishes to gain the respect of others. The Nun is described as “a counterfeit of a courtly kind of grace” (Chaucer 148.143). The author views her as a fraud of courtliness because although she possesses a low position in society as a nun, she tries to act in a worldly fashion. Chaucer uses both of these pilgrims to contribute to the overall theme of one’s need to be liked by others by showing how the Nun goes out of her way to look sophisticated to gain others’ respect and fondness of her.

By analyzing “The Canterbury Tales”, one can conclude that Chaucer did see the merits of the church, but by no means regarded it in a wholly positive light. Whereas some of the clergy are viewed as devout and God-fearing, others are viewed as con- men and charlatans. One can even venture to say that Chaucer was using this story as somewhat of a criticism of the church, showing the flaws of its leaders and the greed that permeated it at the time.

In terms of literary quality, Chaucer went great lengths to give all elements a bit of attention. The work is primarily about a knight who is pardoned from a rape on the condition that he acquires the answer to one of life’s

In the “General Prologue”, the Nun exposes the hypocrisy and manipulation of the Church through her actions. Nuns are supposed to devote their lives to Christianity while portraying a positive Christian figure. Chaucer describes the Nun’s actions toward being well mannered.

Chaucer's "The Nun's Priest's Tale" is at once a fable, a tale of courtly love, and a satire mocking fables and courtly love traditions. To this end, Chaucer makes use of several stylistic techniques involving both framing and content. The tale begins and ends with "a poor widwe somdeel stape in age" (line 1), but the majority of the content involves not the widow but the animals on her farm, in particular an arrogant rooster name Chauntecleer. The first mention of the main character does not come until the twenty-ninth line, after twenty-eight lines of minute description of the widow and the farm. The donation of large amounts of time to detail slows down the plot of the story; this plot is even further drawn out by the Nun's Priest's

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

Three of Chaucer’s tales are written with a central Christian theme, the Prioress’s Tale, the Second Nun’s Tale, and the Parson’s Tale. The Prioress’s Tale is said to be about a miracle of the Virgin Mary, the Second Nun’s Tale is a biography of Saint Cecilia, and the Parson’s Tale is considered a sermon. Just as The Canterbury Tales shows a theme of Christianity, it also shows a theme of religious corruption. In the tales of the Friar, Prioress, Pardoner, and Monk, corruption of the church is shown and influences each character in a different way. In the Friar, the focus is on money, horses, and the responsibility of his monastery. But, the Friar also seduces women and provide them with a spouse to stay out of trouble. In the tale of Prioress, Chaucer describes her as too busy being a court lady to take care of her nunnery. In the Pardoner, he takes advantage of others by taking money for giving pardons for the sins of others, even going as far as selling relics. The Monk takes money for forgiveness, refuses to help the poor, and pays other beggars to leave so he can attain all of the money from that area. He does all of this while he is supposed to be pledging his life to poverty and those less fortunate. Chaucer shows a theme of Christianity just as he shows a theme of religious corruption. As

In the years of the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church reigned. It not only influenced people 's lives, but in some ways led them. From what they believed, how they treated women, how they worked, and how they prayed, the Roman Catholic Church obviously had a large influence. We know this today by simply reading the reading the literature from that period, whether it is simple poems like Beowulf or Dream of the Rood, or bigger stories such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. These stories are riddled with Catholic teachings and mentions, whether they 're brought up in a good light, or a negative one. Oddly enough, we rarely see the latter. One of the few stories that do show Roman Catholic

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.

Chaucer does not only the tale to show off his writing abilities -- it is not simply a display of his incredible versatility as an author.  Chaucer uses this tale to contrast his anti-church sentiments within the Canterbury Tales; it shows his great respect for spiritual beliefs and benefits him in making his argument against the Church.  In essence, Chaucer is clearly defending his anti-secular position by showing his reverence and devotion to spirituality; his problems lie with the Church, not the faith. While very well known for his sardonic criticism of the Church, he is less often acknowledged for his appreciation and respect for the religion itself.

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.

In a society in which hierarchical structures determined the types of interactions between individuals of different classes, there would be limited opportunity for oppositional values and attitudes to directly engage. One of the distinct features of Geoffrey Chaucer’s work The Canterbury Tales is that the author creates a situation in which vastly different types of individuals can engage with one another. This illuminates their most polarizing differences and allows for their contradictory attitudes to engage. Under this pretense, Chaucer allows for the spirit of the carnivalesque to be contrasted with the religious and social structures to which it responds. This can be seen in the characters of the Wife of Bath and the Miller, and their respective stories, both displaying different incarnations of the carnivalesque, and their contraposition to the ideologies associated with Christianity. Amongst the hierarchical structures of their society, the carnivalesque attitudes of the Wife of Bath and the Miller allow for them to seize a freedom which might be denied to them by those in higher positions. This is