Use Of Satire In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

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.

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.

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

Chaucer began his works with descriptions of the pilgrims in “The General Prologue”, and he used satire in these to reach the common man of the time. The common man would not relate to a knight, to a pastor, or to a man of the law, but they would relate to a carpenter, a weaver, or a cook much more easily. Men of the church receive a great amount of satire, but “the rest . . . are treated with varying degrees of satire.” (Brewer) Some characters received a great amount of praise from Chaucer, making them seem almost unreal. One of these was the outstanding cook. He made great food for the entire troop, and nobody would ever complain, except for the fact that he had a disturbing ulcer on his “shin”. It was the only impediment to the character. “It seemed a shame, and caused me some chagrin,/To see he had an ulcer on his shin.” (GP lines 385-386) Common men would relate to the grossness of the character and they would have continued to read because of descriptions like this of other common, anonymous, figures.

Therefore, any implication of anti-semitism is considered to not have any validity in terms of constructing an argument against Chaucer as the faultiness and satire in The Prioress’s Tale overall distances away any actual anti-semitism based upon the contextual interpretations. Undoubtedly, the parallelism created from Chaucer satire within The Prioress’s Tale and the societal anti-semitism of English society strengthens Chaucer’s satirization on Christian

In the debate, a number of different options have emerged. Some, like medieval author Paul Ruggiers, argue that it is impossible to determine the Prioress?s attitude and that, ?we must be satisfied with ambiguity.? Others like writer Victoria Wickham argue the most popular belief, that the Prioress?s bigotry is without question and readers should be more concerned about the degree rather than the fact itself. But there is another possibility. Edwards and Spector, two prominent medieval scholars, put aside the issue of racism temporarily and instead offer an alternative interpretation on the very nature of Chaucer?s love-hate contradiction in the Prioress?s tale. They argue that the love vs. hate contradiction is not dependent on outside forces, but is actually an internal conflict within the Prioress herself. Consequently, the individuals and subsequent groups in her tale are not specific characters but culturally influenced manifestations representing separate issues. In this way her personality becomes the allegory of her tale, making specific references within her story irrelevant to her true attitude.

“Sadism and Sentimentality; Absorbing anti-Semitism in Chaucer’s Prioress.” Chaucer Review, vol. 43, no. 2, Oct. 2008 Pg. 201)

It is up to the reader to see these themes and take them to heart as they read on in the tales, since Chaucer isn't afraid of using his satire of the times and people in order to tell a real tale on the realities of how society functioned during the medieval times. While this is fiction, Chaucer intended to put in as many subtle or or obvious views and ideals as possible with as little censoring as he could. Thankfully, he succeeded in such a controversial book, but while still being amusing and deep for fiction of the time.

It is certainly evident that anti-Semitism exists in Chaucer’s work, but it realistically was not used to hurt Jews or to move towards indoctrination of wanting others to have this

Farce is the most obvious form of humour in the Miller's Tale, but I think irony is the most important. Chaucer plays off text against text to great ironic effect, both inter and extra-textually. In fact, the carpenter is a perfect ironic antidote to the Miller's advice of the Prologue. We read there that the best way for husbands to escape the humiliation of being cuckolded is that:

Geoffrey Chaucer used sarcasm to describe his characters in "The Canterbury Tales." It will point out details that are seen in the book that help explain how he used this sarcasm to prove a point and to teach life lessons sometimes. I will also point out how this sarcasm was aimed at telling the reader his point of view about how corrupt the Catholic Church was. Chaucer uses an abundance of sarcasm, as opposed to seriousness, to describe his characters in "The Canterbury Tales."

Chaucer’s most brutal attack was on the high ranking class and nobility, his use of satire allowed for him to make accusations of their lack of accountability for their actions. This concept was outlined in the Wife of Bath’s Tale, where a young knight physically assaulted a maiden the instance was brought to a court of the king and the knight was then sentenced to execution. The queen, however, chose to spare the knight’s life if he was able to find what women desired most within one year. He returned to the court a year later and revealed that women wanted freedom more than anything, and in return he was forced to marry an old lady that revealed the secret to him. This was what taught him the ultimate lesson. The old lady made a deal with the knight, he could have her old and ugly, but loyal or he could have a young and beautiful wife that he could not trust; when presented with the choice the knight chose to let the woman decide. “The knight thought long, and with a piteous groan at last he said, with the care in life, “My lady and my love, my dearest wife, I leave the matter to your wise decision. You make the choice yourself, for the provision of what may be agreeable and right in honor to us both, I don't care which; whatever pleases you suffices me.” (lines 374-381) The knight has learned that he cannot control his wife and have her love him, as a result of this revelation the lady changes herself into a loyal and beautiful wife. This lesson

I believe that Chaucer didn’t like the society he was living in and was hoping it would change. He went through and gave his two cents on each of the characters and most of the time, they had something negative going for them. Even among the clergy, most of the people did very bad things. Chaucer pointed these things out in hopes to make people realize the way that they, as a society, were headed. There were a few good people among those traveling but the good didn’t weigh out all the bad apples in the bunch. Looking at the worksheet we had in class about the good, the bad, and the ugly, there are far more bad and uglies than there are good people.

To begin, back in the days on Geoffrey Chaucer, religion was ruled by one and only one church, the Roman Catholic Church. He never really agreed with the ways of the church so he wrote a series of tales making fun of the people of England and the ways of the church. Even though he was purposely making fun of the church, he had to be careful of the way he said some things. With some of the characters he creates, Chaucer finds himself apologizing in advance for what he is about to say; or what the characters were about to say. By doing this Chaucer is using satire. Satire is when you say something but mean another or the opposite of the thing you say. Most of Chaucer’s tales are not appropriate for high schools, but of

Irony is an element which is found all throughout the best and worst pieces of literature. This is an element of literature which gives the reader an understanding of the story. In Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales”, he uses three distinct forms of irony which add to the story. Irony is basically the expression of one’s meaning by using language to signify the opposite. In this story, Chaucer uses dramatic, situational and verbal irony all throughout his story. By incorporating these kinds of ironies, Chaucer is able to paint a picture through his story. This in turn adds to the overall theme of the story.