The Canterbury Tales were Chaucer’s way of showing what he saw during his lifetime. The middle ages were a terrifying time in history and the tales show a bit of an understanding of the times. Hypocrisy is a common theme in the Canterbury tales and...
Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem “The Book of the Duchess” was written between the years 1369-1372. The poem is a product of Chaucer’s French period. This work was written for Chaucer’s principal patron, John of Gaunt, after the death of his first wife, Blanche. Initially the poem...
Alison in “The Miller’s Tale” is described as young and wild, like an animal: “Thereto she koude skippe and make game/ As any kyde or calf folwynge his dame”, and we know that she would be willing to follow any idea as long as it...
The Wife of Bath, a pilgrim in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, holds strong views on many topics, such as sex, marriage, men, and the Bible. She speaks her mind clearly and at length, but she is also a manipulative, subtle, and untrustworthy narrator, who strives...
In the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which gives them greater powers of perception but also causes their expulsion from Paradise. The story creates a link between clear vision and the ability to perceive...
During the time Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales, men viewed women as the lesser of the two sexes. In writing about the wife of Bath, Chaucer draws upon much of the antifeminist sentiment of the time to satirize the idea that women are less than...
The Pardoner’s Tale: Evil, Greed, Death Author of The Pardoner’s Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer, uses the symbol greed to portray his lesson, “Money is the root of all evil.” The parable introduces 3 men at a pub who are enraged upon learning a mutual friend was...
Both within ‘The Merchant’s Tale’ by Chaucer and ‘An Ideal Husband’ by Oscar Wilde, the theme of power is explored, with various characters attempting to increase their power often by corrupt or deceitful means. Although corruption is explored through a variety of characters, the male...
In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales there is one pilgrim whose overriding character trait seems to be hypocrisy itself: the Pardoner, basking in sin and, at the same time, preaching violently to the masses against precisely his immoral behavior. Indeed, the difficult task of understanding the Pardoner’s...
One of the finest examples of medieval humor is deployed in “The Reeve’s Tale,” part of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. “The Reeve’s Tale” excellently displays the bawdy sexual humor that was popular in medieval culture and featured in other works of the period,...
“The Miller’s Tale”, a ribald and bawdy fabliaux about the generation gap, youthful lust, aged foolishness, and the selfishness and cruelty of people towards each other, contains a wealth of color terms which add to and expand the meaning of this rustic tale. The teller,...
During the Middle Ages in England, a tripartite society existed, consisting of three estates: the nobility, the clergy, and the workmen. This tripartite system is often referred to as “those who fight, those who pray, and those who work” because of the duties of each...
Canterbury Tales: The Power of Lust Made-to-order essay as fast as you need it Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences + experts online Get my essay Seven deadly sins. Eight tales. In Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer offers insight into human characteristics...
Carpenters are traditionally regarded as hard-working, rugged men with calluses on their hands and dirt beneath their fingernails. They are strong and silent; they take pride in their work and are generally self-assured. One of the main characters in “The Miller’s Tale” from Geoffrey Chaucer’s...
In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer portrays multiple unique personalities including a conniving, rebellious Monk who selfishly dismisses the church’s rule and lives greedily in his own world. Throughout the Monk’s tale, proof of his irreverence for the church is documented in both obvious and...
Values are defined as things that you believe are important in the way you live and work. However, values of those in the middle ages differ from values today. Values such as religion, loyalty, forgiveness, and humility were present during this time period. Literature such...
Chaucer is renowned for his psychologically intricate character portrayals. The Pardoner, an irreverent character in Chaucer’s framework narrative The Canterbury Tales, is an excellent example of just such a complex character. Although alcohol may have been partially responsible for the Pardoner affording his companions such...
Long before enlightened women of the 1960’s enthusiastically shed their bras, in an age when anti-feminist and misogynistic attitudes prevailed, lived Geoffrey Chaucer. Whether Chaucer was indeed a feminist living long before his time, or whether he simply conveyed an alternate and unpopular point of...
In today’s day and age, topics such as rape, revenge, and the Church critique are viewed scandalously and shockingly. As for Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales these matters are apparent and acknowledged. In the novel, some tales address and illustrate these vulgar subjects and how...
In Love Visions, Chaucer uses the medieval tradition of dream exposition to comment on the societal draw toward the love idealized in a subset of medieval literature. Throughout the first three poems, Chaucer deftly parodies societal norms: his exaggerated descriptions and overly dramatic characters provide...
In 1381, John Wycliffe led a group of people disenchanted with the Catholic Church called the Lollards in an early Protestant movement. In this movement, he attacked the sale of indulgences, pilgrimages, the excessive class hierarchy in the Church, and the low moral and intellectual...
In Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, each tale’s genre is an integral component of its respective meaning. The task of interpreting the meaning of a tale from its genre, however, is complicated by Chaucer’s frequent deviation from a genre’s conventions. In some cases, Chaucer even uses...
In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer portrays the actual practice of alchemy to be a ruse. In the Canon Yeoman’s Tale and the Franklin’s Tale, transformation is merely an illusion when one attempts to go against the forces of nature. In the Wife of Bath’s...
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” deconstructs misogynist rhetoric proposed in texts such as Valerie, Theofraste, and Against Jovinian (Chaucer 673-83). Respectively, Valerie and Theofraste instruct husbands on how to curtail their wives’ duplicity, and Against Jovinian addresses the issue...
Introduction While there are places where the opinions of the medieval listener and the contemporary listener coincide, generally the vastly different contexts in which we assess the Wife of Bath divide our responses. Set in a strict world of Catholicism, aspects of religious blasphemy such...
Perhaps no medieval work of literature is as rich in the concept of games and play as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The tales are framed by the very idea of a game, i.e. the game of telling stories while on a pilgrimage. However, the real games...
The Pardoner of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is representative of the darker side of the corrupt church of the Middle Ages. A pardoner was a church official who had the authority to forgive those who had sinned by selling pardons and indulgences to them. Although the...
Avarice is the ultimate mechanism for diluting a compassionate man’s generosity, driving him into corrupt practices. These effects of greed are developed through Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, in which he implements various forms of mockery to reveal loss of ethics. Chaucer satirizes human life,...
In both Chaucer’s ‘The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale’ and Sheridan’s ‘The Rivals’, the question of morality is not a straightforward one, as there is tension surrounding the purpose of marriage and traditional social expectations. However, Chaucer’s exploration of passion and whether lust and...
Chaucer’s Pardoner is hypocritical, selfish and unreliable despite his tacit desire to preach and encourage others to pursue a life free of blasphemy, gluttony and materialism. The Pardoner appears to be highly familiar with the Bible and the authorities of the Church, and generally delivers...
Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet, author, and civil servant. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe.
Works
The Canterbury Tales, The Book of the Duchess, Anelida and Arcite, The House of Fame, Parlement of Foules, The Legend of Good Women, Troilus and Criseyde, A Treatise on the Astrolabe, etc.
Quotes
“Patience is a conquering virtue.”
“What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.”
“Forbid us something and that thing we desire”
“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Expierience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
